Cannabis capitalism

By Libby

The professional prohibitionists and other naysayers have successfully avoided the scientific evidence and discounted the medical efficiacy of marijuana, but there is no way to deny the revenue generating capacity of the cannabis industry.

JANE WELLS of CNBC keeps a blog called Funny Business, but her recent reports on California�s medical marijuana industry are about a business that is increasingly being taken seriously. They amount to a short primer on how the business works and how the operators of the state�s estimated 500 dispensaries deal with the high risks and high costs of working in a legal gray area.

Medical marijuana is legal in California, but federal law still bans sales. Amid the uncertainty that this creates � including the occasional raid by federal agents � a full-fledged industry has blossomed, taking in about $2 billion a year and generating $100 million in state sales taxes, CNBC reported.

That's a lot of pot. Medical marijuana has been legal in California for many years now. Those numbers suggest a whole lot of people are smoking it regularly and nothing bad has happened. No mass psychosis. No marijuana fueled mayhem. No huge drain on the medical system from massive influxes of marijuana addicts. In fact, it's far more likely that taxpayers paid less collective costs because subsidized, terminally ill medical marijuana patients were able to obtain pallative relief with an relatively inexpensive, natural herb as opposed to prohibitively expensive pharmaceutical poisons.

Add that to the postive revenue flow created by the current Cali entrepreneurs, and I don't think those numbers even include the ancillary businesses. Multiply that by 50 states and I can't think of a better argument for national legalization. Perhaps the current economic meltdown might finally accomplish what 40 years of activism couldn't, that being bringing some common sense to cannabis policy.

A legal cannabis industry could create millions of jobs in every field from the farms to the cafes and as a added benefit, the industrial hemp industry could be reestablished at the same time, as should have been done lone ago. Hemp is one of the most environmentally friendly crops to grow and has hundreds of uses already. I'd be willing to bet if they allowed the research to be conducted, a far superior biofuel than ethanol could be made from it.

Cannabis capitalism. Think about it. It could not only save our economy, it could save the planet.