first, rich hit the nail right on the head. let the idiots sort it out for themselves, if this will cause a migration of stoners to CA (read: away from me) then I'm all for it. I'm no bible-toting conservative and I've tried a lot of things before but the people that smoke weed consistently are just morons. I don't know why everyone argues that it's not bad for you; the evidence is right there! you know that burning you feel in your chest when you inhale the smoke? the coughing it causes you to do? no, you're right, it's not bad for your lungs... give me a friggin break. and everyone I know who smokes consistently slows down and loses a lot of mental sharpness and coherence. I've had bosses, friends, peers, and just about every sort of acquaintance you can imagine who were users (many of them only former users), and they all showed definite signs. christ look at that idiot's face on the fox news program the original poster linked here. nothing says "i smoked myself retarded" quite like that blank stare they develop.
whitney, i live in ny, and frankly papa johns and dominos are way better than the crap you get in a "real pizzeria" in brooklyn or manhattan. sorry, but its true!
so, from a practical standpoint, while i don't encourage this, i think you would get a better product because without having to hide their equipment, growers could really push the envelope with hydroponics and such. space is a big problem when they are trying to hide sodium lights and ebb flow systems in their basements. ever been to epcot in disneyworld? you know the ride where they show you the work they are doing with alternative growing methods and hydroponics? well, imagine that for pot. trust big companies would come up with some phenomenal product. it would blow away the crap that gets smuggled in from mexico and canada, and the stuff that a bunch of idiots with no real qualifications or knowledge of botany are churning out of their grow houses.
check this out for example:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/03/27/2009-03-27_firefighter_sanitation_worker_arraigned_.html
do you really think either of those idiot firefighters should be generating a product that people are going to essentially consume? god knows what kind of garbage they are misguidedly or intentionally putting in as fertilizer...
and, the tax would be heavily outweighed by the increased production and cutting out middlemen (dealers mostly) since the farmers could just sell it themselves directly now that there is no legal risk.
one benefit i can possibly see is that some of the lowlifes that come into this country because they are involved in the drug trade, would perhaps not come if they could not longer make money by smuggling pot here. of course the cocaine and heroin would still flow but a lot of times there is a distinction; people who smuggle/sell pot often don't do other things as well.
