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3 commentsHigh times and misdemeanors
Ending marijuana prohibition is becoming a bigger issue in California lately. NYT:
Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, a freshman from San Francisco, made a proposal intended to increase revenue, and, no doubt, appetite: legalizing and taxing marijuana, a major — if technically illegal — crop in the state.
While I don’t think that the budget reason alone should be sufficient, it sure is a lot of money to leave on the table. I really don’t understand the other side of the debate, so I watched this video clip of Glenn Beck, hoping that he’d have an opposing opinion, but I just got more confused:
(the video is 6 minutes, but borderline watchable)
I’m really not sure what Beck’s opinion on the issue is. My favorite part of the conversation is:
“Do you smoke marijuana?”
“Occasionally.”
(condescendingly)”It’s against the law you know..”
“So is speeding, and lots of people do that.”
“… Wow”
The heath care issue is irrelevant. By Beck’s logic, we would need to ban cigarettes, alcohol, junk food, firearms, and cars if we wanted to have health care. The health care bills caused by those things dwarf those caused by marijuana (ok, that sentence is completely conjecture, but I’m confident of it).
Beck’s anecdotal evidence about the cost of marijuana enforcement is clearly ridiculous and are thankfully immediately responded to with actual facts.
It seems like the burden of proof is in the wrong place here. I think that the burden of proof should be on people trying to make/keep something illegal, not those trying to prevent the government from banning something. For a self-proclaimed libertarian, this is doubly true. The default case for the government should not be to make something illegal.
The one aspect I’m concerned about is drug tourism, though. Places like Amsterdam have a reputation tied to drugs, and that reputation brings tourists, but often not the best mix of tourists. I don’t really want San Francisco to become that.
3 comments
Hmm… Matt, you are very good at giving a rather balanced view to a rather crazy clip. This is my first time ever watching the Glenn Beck show, and I am shocked that anyone watches this guy. Whereas Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity are sad but articulate… this Glenn Beck guy is all over the place and almost incoherent. Frankly, in my opinion, his guest trounces him in this debate. Maybe this is just Mr. Beck on an off-day, but he sounds like a guy who is against marijuana because his viewers are, but hasn’t really developed any reasons for his position.
On this issue, a good parallel might be Connecticut. In FY 08-09, Connecticut got 2.5% of its revenue from its two casinoes, amounting to about 449 million dollars. Of course, these casinoes also cause greater healthcare costs to the state because of gambling addiction and related problems. :-/ Another good parallel would be, as you mentioned, tobacco and alcohol, which are also highly taxed and also lead to greater healthcare costs to a state.
The primary difference though, obviously, is that casinoes, tobacco, and alcohol all have obvious negatives. Casinoes are essentially a scam (and lead to addiction), tobacco (with nicotine) is addictive and causes cancer, and alcohol contributes to drunk driving, alcohol poisoning, and alcoholism. In comparison, pot isn’t really proven to be “bad” for anyone, and its debatable whether it would cause any healthcare costs to a state. Yes, there are perhaps some vices, but they are obviously dwarfed by the big three mentioned above. So, overall, does it make sense for California to legalize it, tax it heavily, and save thousands of teachers’ jobs??? …obviously.
-P
Yeah, good point.
Re: Glenn Beck, I guess I assumed everyone already knew about him. Here’s another example of his stuff:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgbg604XqPY
So, that’s outrageous, I just mean to say that the clip wasn’t really offensive like that one. He’s incoherent in the marijuana clip, as you say, but judging by the sadly coherent clip above, maybe that’s a good thing.
wow… watched your second clip… at least he honestly portrays the thoughts of millions of Americans
it deeply saddens me that these guys (including people like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Sarah Palin) are becoming more and more the “base” of “conservatism”. I think there’s a definite need for small government advocates, but these are the types of people I cannot support. I watched Rush Limbaugh’s speech at the CPAC (at the request of my parents)… and it’s just not what our country needs… i know you agree with me on this— but it’s just very tragic to me 
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