change you can believe in

Why, just look at that dog! He looks like he's losin' his mind!

--Cab Calloway
"Have You Ever Met that Funny Reefer Man?"

The good news from the Ovular Office last week was that President Obama has directed the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) to stop persecuting state-recognized cannabis patients and state-licensed marijuana distributors in those states where medical dealers and users are protected by state laws. Up until now, of course, they've still been violating Federal law, which has never recognized the legitimacy of any medical applications for the drug.

This is actually great news for reefer smokers all over the country, not just cannabis patients, because it's a way station, a brief stop on the road to full legalization. And it's also great news for revenue-starved American governments at every level, because they're going to ride a wave of dollars flowing from the changes in the law they are planning even now. This sudden infusion of money will do much to restore them to solvency, especially if the Feds can combine reforms of their prodigal spending habits with new sources of income.

So in addition to ending a pointless and un-winnable war on pot smokers at home, they might want to seriously consider ending a pointless and un-winnable war on fundamentalist Muslim hillbillies in Afghanistan, halfway around the world.

We can expect a struggle between the Fed and the states over who will get the lion's share of this money. Since the states have taken the initiative in the push for legalization, my sympathies are with them. In return, the national government could benefit by not having to send as much of the money it collects in Federal income taxes back to states and localities.

Marijuana is already the number one cash crop in California, which is otherwise an agricultural powerhouse. Debt-strapped governments everywhere are very much aware of this.

The fee for becoming a licensed grower or distributor, and the state and Federal taxes on the final product have yet to be negotiated of course, but any combination of taxes exceeding $10 an ounce for packaged marijuana would be excessive. And if governments get too greedy, we can always go back to growing it and smoking it illegally. We already know how to do that.

It looks to me like Cab Calloway will turn out to have been a strange American prophet, one who appeared to us swaddled in a Zoot suit and asking that cryptic musical question, "Have You Ever Met that Funny Reefer Man?"