How about it, Americans? After flooding the world with worthless derivatives, clusterbombs and crappy movies Washington could try and legalize (US) weed worldwide, demand all weed transactions globally to be settled in US dollars and have the likes of JP Morgan en Goldman Sachs changed not into banks but into giant weed farm clearhouses. Wat kind of revenue would this generate and could it work? Not trying to start an ideologic discussion. Only econ.
Weed is legal in California and look at the sh*t storm happening here. CA had a 15 billion dollar deficit this year, Home prices are crashing faster and deeper than the rest of the country and homosexual's are practically rioting in San Francisco over fag marriage (a place where weed is most readily available so you would think they would chill out!) So maybe its better to hold off on legalizing it in the rest of the country.
You will see a fat tax with national healthcare (why pay for others' lack of discipline). But you are not immune.....your flaws will be exposed as well.
In Rhode Island, the act of sex for money is not illegal, but street solicitation, and operation of a brothel, are. <a href="http://s453.photobucket.com/albums/qq256/splash6869pink/?action=view¤t=d.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i453.photobucket.com/albums/qq256/splash6869pink/d.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>
If I were a hedonist, I would propose legalization of drugs and prostitution, all with 25% tax added regardless of quantity. Why not 50%? Because too much tax simply creates another black market to go around the tax, which helps nobody in line for those tax funds. Cigarettes are taxed up the ass, and very little black market exists for them. Well, except for the Indian reservations. I would also require licensure for those who sell sex and drugs. There's already enough tax on rock n roll. Why licensure? Because both sex and drugs lead to irresponsible behavior. Argue it with yourself if you want, but thsoe are the stats. So, with car accidents from drugs, and infections from sex, there has to be someone responsible when the time comes to pay for the increased social ills due to their legality. I am not a hedonist, fortunately, and would not ascribe to the above.
Only Medicinal Weed is legal in CA. They just recently decriminalized having small amounts of weed on you in this last election. Even though medicinal marijuana is legal in CA, since it is not legal at the federal level, shit like this happens: http://www.reason.com/blog/show/127940.html And here goes a paper by someone who actually did the math on how much legalized weed could bring in: http://laist.com/2008/06/30/california_to_legalize_weed_for_eve_1.php