Hasish – The Miracle Drug

The emergency must be really huge: California’s Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is looking for a way out of the financial crisis – and is even considering legalizing and taxing marijuana.

Potheads aren’t considered particularly useful. They lack motivation and usually aren’t very reliable, so California’s tokers must now feel especially flattered: their Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, sees them as the last best hope to avoid a recession. A Schwarzenegger-ordered study is about to be undertaken to determine whether legalizing and taxing marijuana might ease his state’s financial misery. “It’s time for that debate,” he says.

The emergency must really be serious if hash is supposed to help America. And the emergency is indeed serious, especially in California. The financial crisis has struck the Golden State with a vengeance. Real estate prices are falling more steeply and unemployment is rising more rapidly than anywhere else in the nation.

The jobless rate is currently at eleven percent. More worrying than that is the government’s inability to do anything about the crisis. California’s budget has a $21.3 billion shortfall and all attempts to rectify that have failed. That’s partly due to California’s system of direct democracy, a point of state pride back in better times.

Last week, voters rejected their government’s suggestions to keep the state solvent until at least the end of the year. Sixty percent of them said “no” to increasing taxes, decreasing spending and going further into debt. Only one of the five measures on the ballot passed: it prevents some state officials from receiving pay raises when California has a budget deficit. That measure had been added by the legislature as a “sweetener” to gain voter support.

Schwarzenegger had apparently expected the rejection. On election day, he was far away in the White House Rose Garden in Washington, standing next to President Obama. Both wore their best smiles as they announced stronger mileage standards for automobiles, a measure for which California had long fought. But Schwarzenegger’s radiance seemed strangely out of place.

His victory grin has turned into a grimace. Until a couple of years ago, everything the former action-hero did was met with success. He was popular even among Democrats and was treated like a presidential candidate even though he is barred from holding that office because he is foreign-born. But the Austrian muscleman was so successful and popular it seemed that perhaps even the U.S. Constitution couldn’t stand in his way. Then came the crisis and his glittering image was gone.

The name Schwarzenegger could soon stand for social deforestation. According to all projections, he will not be able to avoid making deep cuts in spending. 225,000 children are threatened with loss of their health insurance. Could a marijuana tax help avoid that? Surely not, but legalization would at least be popular. According to a recent survey, 56 percent of voters approve of such an unconventional budgetary approach. And as Schwarzenegger himself said about marijuana, “That isn’t a drug. It’s a leaf.”