Schwarzenegger's Marijuana Bid

"Fire it Up!"
-California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger-

California Governator Loves/Hates da Weed!

Smoking News

Los Angeles, CA – He’s baak!...Recently California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger told CBS News “I Don’t Believe in Legalizing Pot” but the State’s current and would-be stoners are as excited about the “call” for a dialogue over the controversial subject as are the lit up fear mongers over whether to turn on the whole state by legalizing pot to boost tax revenues:

“State legislator Tom Ammiano, a San Francisco Democrat, introduced a bill in February to legalize recreational marijuana. Bill AB 390 would license "commercial cultivators of marijuana" and establish a complicated web of regulations and tax rules they and retailers must follow.

It could raise over $1.2 billion a year in new tax revenues, assuming a $50-an-ounce tax, according to an analysis by California NORML.”

But today’s puff piece entitled Schwarzenegger’s Call to Consider Marijuana Legalization to Boost Taxes Is “Irresponsible,” Says Chairman of DARE Board is loaded – I mean LOADED -- with all kinds of horribly scary, fear mongering smears against the Governator’s most excellent proposal/call for dialogue to roll off his desk since his sober budget tax propositions that the state’s morons (oops voters) killed a couple of weeks ago.

So what does the opposition group’s acronym even stand for? We think D.A.R.E. stands for Drugs Are Really Exhilarating but we’ll have to check. (One anonymous junior legislator close to the action reminded LWOH So. Cal operative “Warren” that discussions about drugs, particularly “even over the phone” almost “always occur in code, anyway.” )

Despite Schwarzenegger’s bold idea to lift the veil of secrecy shrouded in illicit weed dealing, The D.A.R.E. people are armed with arguably horribly fearful, irresponsible propaganda and they really, really blew a stick:

“Dr. Sheila Kar, clinical chief of cardiology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, a member of the D.A.R.E board of directors and the liaison with D.A.R.E.’s scientific advisory board. “It has been shown to cause an immediate rise in the heart beat by 20-30 beats per minute along with an increase in blood pressure, thus increasing the workload of the heart. Marijuana is an irritant to the lungs and contains proportionally more carcinogens than tobacco smoke. It is associated with increased incidence of cancer of the head and neck area and lungs. It works on the brain, causing short- and long-term memory loss and impairing judgment, and it affects the sensations of taste and smell. One of its more pernicious effects is that it reduces inhibitions and can lead a person under the influence of marijuana to try even more harmful substances.”

OK. Now carefully, try re-reading the above mind-boggling paragraph and substitute your boss and your job for the words “marijuana” and “it” and THEN tell me that your professional life doesn’t proportionately elicit similar stressful, pernicious, harmful and irritating effects on your life, your body, and could even lead to more harmful substances, like the new office full of toxic Chinese drywall emitting poisonous gas?

So let’s clear the air take a practical look at what marijuana legalization really means to California’s economy and its people, which, among many of its other benefits, would certainly boost tourism in a very major way … It’s not like the Governor is proposing a No Child Left Behind Without Ditchweed in their Lunch Boxes here. It’s time to ask a few questions, like: Why is work legal but pot is not? Why not just declare life as “hazardous to your health” and criminalize everything, like riding around on the bus in Harlem on Saturday night or shutting down all the sushi "we give good mercury" bars? Sheesh.

For those of us who don’t inhale, no matter. The question over the legalization of marijuana in the State of California has the potential to ignite the discussion and get everyone to hit the hay to research this potentially smart proposal.

-2Truthy