Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps has made marijuana a popular topic. He was photographed smoking from a bong, lost corporate sponsorships, and was suspended from the sport as a result. But celebrities aren’t the only ones thinking about dope.

Some legislators in California have pot on their minds, too. That’s because the government of the biggest economy in the United States is facing a massive budget deficit whose pain would be alleviated by decriminalizing marijuana.

California’s current deficit stands at a whopping $15 billion and is expected to reach $42 billion next year. And the state run by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has virtually run out of cash. It recently delayed $3.5 billion of payments to taxpayers and counties.

While nearly all U.S. states currently face budget shortfalls, California’s deficit is more than one-third of its general fund. That’s largely due to its dependence on income taxes, which slide during a recession. And the state can’t easily borrow due to the government bond-market freeze. Moody’s even warned it may downgrade the state’s rating.

There’s no easy fix to the problem, as any solution likely requires cutting benefits and social services—tough political choices for Schwarzenegger. But the state does have an abundant natural resource it may be able to draw on for help.

Marijuana is California’s largest cash crop. It’s valued at $14 billion annually, or nearly twice the value of the state’s grape and vegetable crops combined, according to government statistics. Indeed, a recent report pegged marijuana as two-thirds of the economy of Mendocino County, a ganja hotbed north of San Francisco. That’s not surprising—it costs $400 to grow a pound of pot that can sell for $6,000 on the street.

But the state doesn’t receive any revenue from its cash cow. Instead, it spends billions of dollars enforcing laws pegged at shutting down the industry and inhibiting marijuana’s adherents. Of course, there’s a reason for that. Marijuana’s social costs may include addiction and rehabilitation treatment and lost productivity. Yet these are minute compared with the extensive social costs of alcohol or tobacco.

Of course, just legalizing pot wouldn’t automatically harvest revenues for the state. An organized system of regulating sales and collecting taxes would need implementing. And it’s possible that general drug use could rise, though the debate that pot is a gateway drug to harder substances is inconclusive.

There’s also the question of whether or not taxing marijuana would simply create a black market that would again skimp the state on taxes. The best corollaries here are cigarettes and alcohol. Rises in “sin taxes” on them have decreased consumption—a positive—but don’t seem to have destabilized the legal market. Decriminalization could lead to some job losses in law enforcement, though the countervailing argument would see these forces put to work stopping harder crime.

So what are the numbers? A national legalization effort would save nearly $13 billion annually in enforcement costs and bring in $7 billion in yearly tax revenues, according to a study by Harvard University economist Jeffrey Miron. Since California represents 13 percent of the U.S. economy, those numbers suggest the state could save $1.7 billion in enforcement costs and nab up to $1 billion in revenues. That doesn’t include any indirect revenues as, for example, rural farming communities grow or marijuana tourism, which has been lucrative for the Netherlands, takes off.

Put it all together, and California could potentially wipe some $3 billion off its budget deficit by letting its people puff and pay. That still leaves it with a gaping $39 billion hole to fill, so the state’s problems go far beyond what a new cash crop can fix. But anything to help soothe the state’s chronic fiscal pain—even if unpalatable to some—is worth considering.

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Originally posted 2009-02-15 19:00:09.

Popularity: 1% [?]

A district attorney’s spokeswoman says Los Angeles police have presented a case regarding singer Chris Brown, but county prosecutors have asked for further investigation.

Spokeswoman Jane Robison did not release information on the nature of the case police presented to prosecutors Tuesday, and she says the district attorney’s office will have no further comment pending the investigation.

Police booked Brown on Sunday for investigation of making a criminal threat after a woman accused him of assaulting her the night before the Grammy Awards.

The Los Angeles Times, citing unidentified law enforcement sources, has reported that the woman is pop superstar Rihanna, his longtime girlfriend.

Brown is free on $50,000 bail.

Source: http://music.yahoo.com/read/news/58851675

Originally posted 2009-02-10 17:00:05.

Popularity: 100% [?]

A new research study conducted by Thomas J. Espenshade, a professor of sociology, and Chang Young Chung, a statistical programmer, both from Princeton University, finds that dropping standardized test scores as an admissions requirement will lead to increased percentages of minority and socioeconomically disadvantaged students admitted to college.

The research will be formally presented next month at a conference at Wake Forest University regarding college admission.

The study is based on a variety of models, all using actual admissions data the from institutions studied, and patterns in applications once institutions switch to SAT-optional.

In the modeling, the researchers assumed that at the SAT-optional colleges, those with high SAT scores would continue to submit them and be helped by them.

The researchers also noted that there would be no advantage for having high SAT scores only at institutions with “don’t ask, don’t tell” policies.

The models showed that at the private colleges studied with a mean SAT score of 1405, the percentage of admitted applicants who are black would increase from 8 percent to 11 percent in the scenario in which more minority students apply and the SAT becomes optional. In this scenario, if the SAT is not considered at all, the percentage of admitted applicants who are black would go up to 13.8 percent.

For Latino students, the percentage would go from roughly 8 percent to 10.6 percent in an SAT-optional system and to 12 percent when the SAT is not considered.

Espenshade noted some caveats to the study, finding in particular that if the application pools do not increase, there is some danger, he said, that colleges might not have as many academically talented but test-averse applicants.

Joanna Dickert, coordinator of Student Affairs and teaching professor of the university-wide studies course Privilege, Responsibility and Community, said, “It is important to consider the type of preparedness that such tests actually measure. I think it also depends on how first-year student success is defined.

“To create a community that not only embraces diversity but facilitates the personal and professional success of its members, it is important that colleges and universities ensure that there are resources in place to support students throughout their campus experience. In order to be a community, they must be engaging one another intellectually and cultivating relationships in meaningful ways that allow all individuals to think critically about the cultural lens through which they experience the world,” she said.

“There should be some correlation between the test and performance,” said Gordon Weinber, a statistics professor at Carnegie Mellon. “The correlation is not perfect, but certainly not zero. As we have seen with the recent election, when intelligence and reason are applied, what has been previously called affirmative action could be a good thing.”

“Someone underqualified should not take the place of someone more qualified [at a university],” said Sean Lawley, a senior mathematics major and teaching assistant. “Race should not affect admissions at all; the finite resources for research and learning should be put forth to the best students in those schools. They should consider the best means to evaluate talent and use that.”

There is no word yet on which universities are considering making the SAT score optional on undergraduate applications.

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Originally posted 2009-04-07 10:06:31.

Popularity: 1% [?]