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loco tax .....
It has been touted as a successful treatment for everything from insomnia and depression to Parkinson's disease and multiple sclerosis. Now supporters of legalised marijuana are making perhaps their most extravagant claim yet: that the drug can solve California's spiralling financial crisis.
A series of television ads was launched yesterday supporting a bill by Democratic assemblyman Tom Ammiano that would regulate and tax the sale of marijuana in the Golden State, where Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration is in a $26bn (£15.9bn) black hole.
The 30-second film features an "actual marijuana user". She is a retired, 58-year-old civil servant called Nadine Herndon, shown in front of her family portraits at home in Sacramento County, where she began using the drug after suffering a series of strokes three years ago.
- By Gus Leonisky at 11 Jul 2009 - 12:27am
- Gus Leonisky's blog
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lawful joints...
Marijuana
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That perspective, along with the fact that the California state authorities estimate that marijuana could bring in nearly $1.5bn a year in much needed tax revenue if it were legalised, has led to an increased support among the state's voters for the full legalisation of the drug.
And, politicians like Tom Ammiano, who represents one of the most liberal districts of San Francisco in the California state assembly, have been paying close attention.
Mr Ammiano came into politics as a trailblazing gay rights activist in the 1970s and has long advocated greater tolerance for cannabis use.
Earlier this year, he took that approach one step further and introduced a bill in the California state assembly, which, if approved, would grant cannabis the same legal status in the state as alcohol and tobacco.
saved by the bong...
Drugs money worth billions of dollars kept the financial system afloat at the height of the global crisis, the United Nations' drugs and crime tsar has told the Observer.
Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said he has seen evidence that the proceeds of organised crime were "the only liquid investment capital" available to some banks on the brink of collapse last year. He said that a majority of the $352bn (£216bn) of drugs profits was absorbed into the economic system as a result.
This will raise questions about crime's influence on the economic system at times of crisis. It will also prompt further examination of the banking sector as world leaders, including Barack Obama and Gordon Brown, call for new International Monetary Fund regulations. Speaking from his office in Vienna, Costa said evidence that illegal money was being absorbed into the financial system was first drawn to his attention by intelligence agencies and prosecutors around 18 months ago. "In many instances, the money from drugs was the only liquid investment capital. In the second half of 2008, liquidity was the banking system's main problem and hence liquid capital became an important factor," he said.
Some of the evidence put before his office indicated that gang money was used to save some banks from collapse when lending seized up, he said.
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Yes, we even mentioned, a few blogs away, the ligit businesses who went to the mafia in Italy to get investment moneys when the "banks" had dried up... see toon at top.