Remember when pot was a gateway drug and the devil? Remember the D.A.R.E. commercials where kids got high and people DIED because of it? Yeah, neither do we. And apparently neither does Tom Ammiano, a California assemblyman who proposed to put a tax on California's biggest "cash crop".

No doubt this will get people up in arms - and ironically it will be two groups of people for very different reasons. First I'm imagining the anti-drug crusaders who had a vein burst when they heard about Ammiano's proposed plan (I can't prove this but somehow I feel that this whole contingency is responsible for the economic mess that is making this a legitimate proposition in the first place). And then those who in the end will probably be the most effected by this tax (i.e. the pot smokers). Let's just hope they can afford it.

Jamison, from Calabasas, CA.   Status: Feelin the Pinch.
February 27, 2009 12:58 AM

As a Californian who buys their pot in a store - like any civilized person should - I feel it my duty to chime in here.
The market is what the dispensaries make it. They can incorporate a tax into my Super Sour Diesel/Blueberry Cross without raising the price.
That being said, let's just expand this program to the entire country. Come on, kid, you know you want to. Tax it like cigarettes, make it easy to get. All the competition, and let's face it increase in demand, will drive the price down making the tax unnoticeable. Not to mention, I think any of us would pay a little more for our 1/8th without having to deal with flaky pot dealers... sorry White Mike.
Actually, now that I think about how about making prostitution legal? I'm getting carried away.