[TunaHead]

A couple of comments from the left coast. Actually, from the part of northern California formerly known as the "Emerald Triangle" for all of the marijuana grown outdoors in the old days. My sister-in-law retired as the branch manager of a rural Bank of America in this area. In the old days when people grew outdoors there was a true "harvest season" in Humboldt county. In her little po-dunk B of A branch she would have so much cash deposited that she would have two armored trucks per day arrive to take cash OUT of the bank because it made them a target for a bank heist otherwise.

Today the pot grows are indoors and they are very common . California passed proposition 215 a few years ago legalizing marijuana for "medicinal" purposes. Honestly, there are some uses for MJ that are medically beneficial (reducing occular pressure in glacoma). In general though the application of the law has been a crock of horse pucky. One doctor was in the paper a while ago after he opened a clinic to provide prescriptions ("215 cards") for medical marijuana locally. The thing is, he has clinics all over the state. He flys to them via his own plane and basicly provides the Rx for anyone, for any reason, as long as they cough up the $150 fee for the group sessions he offers. No one is turned down. The card alows the holder to buy pot, smoke it legally and to grow a number of plants for "personal use". My F'n county set the number of plants around 90 which is near the limit at which it becomes a federal crime. The upshot is that indoor pot grows are everywhere. There are 3 dwellings within 150 yards of my house that I know are marijuana grows. It has become a problem because the growers often rent and run their heavy duty lighting setups on inadequate systems. There have been a rash of house fires over the past few years started this way. The growers end up walking away and the home owner gets to hassle with the insurance, rebuild and loss of rental income.

One unanticipated side effect of all of this is that the price has dropped out of the illegal marijuana market. In alot of the rural towns around here, many kids with no vivible means of income drive around in shiny new tricked out 4x4 trucks. You still see the trucks around but now there is a 1/2 cord of firewood in the back with a "For Sale" sign on it.

My two cents on the "drug war": This has been a total failure. What we are doing now isn't working. What will work is ine of two following options...
1) Make the penalty for possession/sales of drugs so F'n harsh that no one will consider doing it. For example, 5 years + for posession of meth. 25 to life for meth sales.

2) Legalize all drugs and tax em. Personally this rubs against the grain but the other side of the issue is that I am tired of paying to incarcerate these folks. Swarzenegger is considering the following as a small part of addressing the 17 billion state budget shortfall this year. (Cut and pasted from a Sacramento newspaper)

"The governor’s proposal would cut the prison population by 22,159 inmates and save the state $256 million in the fiscal year that begins July 1. Savings are estimated at $780 million by 2010. Moreover, the proposal cuts more than 4,000 prison jobs, most of them belonging to guards."

One last note: All that aside I'll probably be joining Chuck after I get my gold watch. The problem is that with social scurity in question, will I ever really get to retire?