Posts Tagged ‘California Proposition 19 (2010)’

“Show Me the Marijuana!”

Californians recently decided against legalizing marijuana for recreational use. Indeed, proposition 19 was on its financial deathbed until billionaire investor/philanthropist George Solos revived the proponents’ efforts with his $1,000,000 gift shortly before the election. In the meantime, opportunists snatched up domain names and bought up cannabis-related stocks. Since last spring, local unions had been organizing marijuana “bud tenders,” greenhouse workers, packagers and laboratory technicians just in case.

It was interesting to note how various constituencies lined up on California’s largest cash crop. The teacher’s union supported the recreational use of marijuana anticipating the ensuing taxes pouring into public schools. Beer distillers and small pot growers were worrisome over the ‘Wal-Marting of weed,’ and sought to wipe out the prospective competition. Law enforcement was mixed: some officers backed the initiative as they desired to diminish the cartel influence and decrease the prison population to focus on more violent offenders. Some were primarily opposed to the recreational use of marijuana on moral grounds. Still other departments were against the proposition because of the prospective loss of a profitable source of income (sales from the seized pot derived from their raids represent a substantial source of the budget particularly in difficult economic times).

The limits of government constraint on individual autonomy (cf. John Stuart Mill) may actually comprise the core issue in Proposition 19. However, there was relatively little evidence of this concern in current political discourse while following the greenbacks. Yet the business ethics question does not rest in simply dividing self-interest from ethics (pace Adam Smith) but in considering the economic benefits as part of a nuanced, principled plan to control a trade in need of regulation. One thing is for certain in that like war and politics−especially in this economic climate−weed makes for strange bedfellows.