LOS ANGELES — Some financial experts in California are toying with the idea of legalizing both prostitution and marijuana as a way to raise revenue and shrink the state’s current $41 billion deficit.
Both pot smoking and prostitution are very popular “sins” that, if legalized and taxed, could generate millions or even billions in extra revenue for the state, said David Lazarus, financial columnist for the Los Angeles Times.
The unconventional ideas to tax prostitutes and pot have become increasingly plausible as the financial crisis looks more and more like the Great Depression, Lazarus said.
Many of Lazarus’s financial industry colleagues have praised the proposals, though there is more support for the marijuana side than the prostitution side.
The only way these ideas could ever come up for decision before voters is as ballot measures. The idea as it applies to marijuana might pass by a slim margin, Lazarus predicted, but the prostitution tax would likely be thrown out.
via Financial Experts to CA: Legalize Prositution, Pot to Raise Money.
The move to legalize prostitution is also being discussed in Las Vegas (contrary to popular notion, prostitution is not legal everywhere in Nevada, including the counties containing Las Vegas, Reno, Carson City, and Lake Tahoe.) I’m a bit mixed on the issue. I never believe that prohibition works, and as George Carlin once observed, “selling is OK, sex is OK, so why isn’t selling sex OK?” But then I read about some of the horrible abuses in human trafficking that take place even where prostitution is legalized like Germany or The Netherlands and it gives me pause.
But if we keep talking about legalization of pot and prostitution, maybe people will feel forced to choose one in order to maintain prohibition of the other.
Topics: California, Germany, Los Angeles Times, prostitution, The Netherlands
out of my nose 3 [...]
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