The figures are in. If California does decide to legalize pot, Santa Cruz County could benefit to the tune of $7 million dollars. This is what the Santa Cruz Grand Jury determined in a report entitled, “Getting the Dope on Dope: The Grand Jury Attempts to Clear the Smoke in the Joint from the Numbers” (one can only wonder if they were toking up when they came up with the name). After suggesting that readers partake of their “favorite beverage, powder, pill or smoke,” before struggling through the dry (as a martini) report, the Grand Jury determined that legalization, along with a $50 per ounce excise tax would bring in $7,549,200 (based on $129,200 in sales taxes and $6.46 million from its pot tax). This, it argued, far outweighs the $1.36 million spent by the county enforcing existing marijuana laws.
What the Grand Jury failed to mention in its report is that legalization could also resolve many of the unemployment problems faced by the county. To quote from Bill Maher, “You legalize marijuana …. Really, who’s gonna wanna work?”
Inevitably, police questioned the accuracy of the report, though they declined to comment till they had studied it thoroughly. One point that the police did point out was that the report claims that there were 724 arrests and citations for marijuana in 2008, whereas police records say that there were only 315. Patrick Henderson, who chaired the committee that wrote the report, responded that “If the data’s wrong, it’s because they gave us the wrong data.”
