Marijuana's Journey To Become Legal and Oakland's Future
Courtesy of Flickr.com, http://www.flickr.com/photos/dey/86298632/ via Creative Commons
California has long been consider the most “liberal” , of our 50 states. Which in my opinion isn’t a bad thing. Voters here make that ever so apparent with their support of legalizing of marijuana. Certainly a hot-bottle issue, there’s at least one pot-related story a night on mainstream news reports. There are marijuana dispensaries potting up everywhere. Bringing attention to very ethical questions like should there be pot clubs need schools.
49 percent of Californians support the legalization of marijuana, that’s according to a survey done by USC. 41 percent oppose legalization, and 10 percent are undecided. In April an Associated Press-CSNBC poll showed that 55 percent of Americans oppose legalization.
Oakland has made moves to show it’s support for the green. They decided to tax marijuana clubs in Oakland. The city which is facing a $42 million deficit, believes the move could bring in a million dollars in profit. Oakland was the first city to impose a special tax on medical marijuana dispensaries.
There is even a medical marijuana union created. Workers in Oakland’s industry have decided to be represented by a organized union to increase public support for legalization. This union will represent and shine the light on several Oakland based organizations like, Oaksterdam University and their gift shop, as well as the Blue Sky Coffee Shop and the Patient ID Center.
- Stephen Allen's blog
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Stephen,
For sure the mj biz will make some businesspeople a lot of money.
My concern is that it will be just another dot com, real estate bubble for Oakland, distracting our city's meager economic development resources from decent paying blue collar jobs that won't get wiped out as soon as a few more states with cheaper labor, cheaper electricity, cheaper water, cheaper land etc. legalize growing.
I'm not an expert on substance abuse so I can't comment on that except to say the facts are not all in about the wisdom of completely legalizing it vs requiring basic medical need certification.
Not only Cannabis plant possesses remarkable medicinal properties, not only it can be a much safer alternative to alcohol and hard drugs, but according to latest reasearch, marijuana can be an "exit" substance for former alcohol/hard drug/prescription drug abusers, which would make it a valuable aid in addiction treatment, especially the treatment of alcoholism.
If one believes that access to mj should be widened, why tax the heck out of it in Oakland.
If you believe that mj is going to bring millions of bucks of tax revenue, it makes little sense for Oakland to raise business and sales tax on cultivation to levels higher than neighboring areas, and possibly much higher than cheaper growing areas in CA. Buyers will go to towns with lower sales tax on mj, growers will grow in cheaper areas. But no, our city council applied the same logic they applied well to marking meters and fines to mj.
Marijuana will never be legal, I cannot understand why alcohol is but marijuana is not but what ever. There are some legal alternatives in so called but I bet they will soon be made illegal also.