Looking to Marijuana to solve Hawaii's Financial Troubles

[unokitty]

Cabanilla said she hopes to legalize cultivation, manufacturing and exporting of marijuana and marijuana food products in Hawaii to pay off the state’s billions of dollars in unfunded liabilities as well as make infrastructure repairs and fund public education and human services programs.

“This state would turn into a manufacturing state. Can you imagine factories that would be making ‘Maui Wowie’ cookies and making marijuana macadamia nut candy for export? I think that would be wonderful,” said Cabanilla, who represents Ewa Villages, Ewa Beach, Ewa Gentry, Ocean Pointe and West Loch.

...

Billions of dollars is Cabanilla’s estimate a legal marijuana manufacturing industry could mean billions of dollars to Hawaii.

“The state of Colorado made $1.6 billion in two weeks just by selling it. How much do you think we’re going to make for producing it and selling it? When we are the best, we are the best. We have the best marijuana in the world. I haven’t tried it, but the people that have tried it say, ‘Wow!’” Cabanilla said.

“Whatever tax we can get, it will be enormous. Whatever tax we can come up with, it will be there. And people in Hawaii will be so happy, because this may be the state that they don’t have to pay property tax,” Cabanilla said. “This is going to be an economic engine unparalleled by anything else...

Sniff, sniff. Sniff, sniff.

What's that smell? What could it be?

Politicians smelling money in marijuana legalization?

What's your opinion?

Political positions changing?

Or just media sensationalizing?

Uno

 

[Londo_Jowo]

Things that make you go Hmmmmmmm

Under her plan, the marijuana Cabanilla hopes will be grown in the islands won’t be available to local people or other Americans quite yet. It only would be available to foreign markets.

“I don’t agree that our people should be using it. But I mean, if those countries that have accepted it for their people and they have laws in place for it, who am I to judge?” Cabanilla said with a shrug and a smile.

 

[Vic]

There's big money in cannabis. Legalization proponents have been saying this for years.
What's happening right now is that the general public is finally on board with legalization ( http://www.gallup.com/poll/165539/first-time-americans-favor-legalizing-marijuana.aspx ) and businesses and governments that want to cash in are moving quickly.

 

[Matt1970]

Hawaii does have some of the best weed around, at least 25 years ago when I smoked it all the time. However I don't think Hawaii has the real estate to support a massive grow operation, and if the did they would just find some other way to blow all the money. Hawaii already brings in $11.4 billion in tourism dollars per year and only has a population 1.3 million.

 

[boomerang]

With the explosion in real estate prices over the past decade and tons of building going on in the islands they should be tripping over the piles of money trying to figure out how to spend it. But, as a progressive paradise, they've spent it on the typical progressive shit and now need more. This is the lesson, it's never enough.

 

[Jmman]

Colorado made 1.6 billion in two weeks? Ha, she sure pulled that number out of her bunghole. I don't think we made anywhere close to that. She must have just got done lighting up herself.

 

[unokitty]

Colorado made 1.6 billion in two weeks? Ha, she sure pulled that number out of her bunghole. I don't think we made anywhere close to that. She must have just got done lighting up herself.

According to Bloomberg

Colorado projects $578.1 million a year in combined wholesale and retail marijuana sales to yield $67 million in tax revenue, according to the Legislative Council of the Colorado General Assembly.

But you know how a politician's eyes bug out when they think about raising more tax money...

Uno

 

[WhipperSnapper]

The sooner states legalize and tax marijuana (and empty their prisons of non-criminals who committed "consensual crimes") the better off they will be. If opponents of drug legalization are being forced to confront the economic damage caused by their policies, then that's great.

 

[Pray To Jesus]

$ is better than -$

 

[marincounty]

Sorry Hawaii,that ship has sailed. Nevada had a chance to legalize weed a few years ago, but they let the reactionaries sway the election and it failed. It would have invigorated Nevada's dead economy.
Most all quality weed is grown indoors nowadays, Hawaii has no shot.
From what I understand most weed sold in Hawaii is from California.

The campaign against weed in Hawaii was so effective they basically wiped out the business.
So a lot of the locals turned to what was available, ice, and now Hawaii has a much bigger problem than weed. Thanks authoritarians.

 

[unokitty]

N.J. senator says it's 'high time' to legalize marijuana

“It’s high time we address this issue head-on,” Scutari said. “I think it’s the right thing to do.”
...
But Nicholas DeMauro, chief executive officer of DARE New Jersey, the state’s largest drug prevention organization, called marijuana “a very dangerous and illegal drug” and said legalizing it would “send our kids the wrong message.”

“I don’t believe the war on drugs in New Jersey has been a failure and, in fact, we are very proud of the efforts of our organization over the past 25 years,” DeMauro said.

When marijuana is legalized, there will be winners and losers. Losers include:

Lots of lawyers making lots of money defending people charged with possession.
Lots of Law Enforcement pumping up their arrest numbers with possession arrests.
Lots of prisons and prison guards making lots of money.
Lots of small town police forces confiscating lots of money from 'suspected' drug users.
Lots of SWAT teams serving lots of no-knock warrants.

According to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting data, there were a 1.5 million drug arrests made nationwide in 2011. Out of those arrests, about 750,000 were for marijuana (just under half, 49.5 percent).

One marijuana arrest every 42 seconds and one drug arrest every 21 seconds.

It would be a mistake to think that those involved with the drug war aren't giving money, err making campaign contributions, to the politicians.

Then again, my experience is that the politicians will usually side with whomever has the most money. And right now, it seems that they are smelling lots of tax money...

Uno