May 27, 2009
Over the last several days, the popular Web site Digg has been allowing users to submit and vote up or down various questions to be posed during today's "Digg Dialogue" and CNN interview with Calif. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R).
When Schwarzenegger was asked about taxing and regulating marijuana as a result, he replied that he doesn't support changing the current marijuana laws because believes -- perhaps alone among citizens -- that the current laws have "worked very well for California."
You've got to wonder by what measure he's gauging marijuana prohibition's success. When California first banned marijuana in 1913, the plant was virtually unknown. Now nearly one in ten Californians admit to having used it within any given year - despite the more than 74,000 marijuana arrests made in the state last year alone. More California teens report using marijuana than tobacco, and the drug can be found in nearly every high school in the state. This is a successful law?
Once again, the public is way ahead of politicians on marijuana policy. Taxing and regulating marijuana enjoys majority support in California - at least according to one of the state's most respected pollsters. Arnold's job performance ratings, on the other hand, are a whole other story.