International Digital Times: Tommy Chong Cancer Goes Up In Smoke; Veteran Funnyman Says Weed Saved His Life And Could Save America, Too
media mentionNow that Tommy Chong’s cancer has been cured, the Grammy Award-winning comedian is setting his sights on another challenge: saving America. In a recent interview with CBS News, Chong talked about how legalizing marijuana could solve the country’s fiscal problems.
“Look at the situation we’re in now. Sequesters. Cuts. Everything cut across the board. Now, the government is tapped into the biggest cash crop in the world,” Chong said. “There’s little manufacturing cost. You don’t have to do anything except watch it grow and get a couple of hippies to cut it and then put it in a bag.”
Tommy Chong isn’t just blowing smoke when it comes to legalized marijunana as a solution for America’s budget problems. Carl Davis, senior analyst at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy recently told The Huffington Post that legalization may affect supply and demand in unknown ways, but increased revenue for the government is virtually guaranteed.
“We don’t know the size of the marijuana market right now, and we certainly don’t know what would happen to the price and the demand for marijuana under different levels of legalization,” Davis said. “But we do know that legalization would lead to a positive revenue impact on the income and sales tax side.”
According to a 2010 study from Cato, legalizing marijuana would generate $8.7 billion in federal and state tax revenue annually. Those estimates are based on tax rates similar to those levied on alcohol and tobacco, as well as the income taxes that would become available to government coffers if the nation’s marijuana growers suddenly appeared on the books.
Tommy Chong is likely pleased with the legalizations movements in Colorado and Washington. Both of those states have completely legalized the drug, unlike the other 16 states that legalized it for medical use. Colorado and Washington are now serving as de facto guinea pigs for legalized marijuana, and its estimated that the regulated sale of legal marijuana could bring in as much as $1.9 billion in additional revenue over the next five years in Washington alone.
A recent Pew Research Center poll indicates that a majority of Americans agree with Tommy Chong. For the first time in more than four decades of polling on the issue, the Pew Research Center found that Americans support legalized marijuana 52 percent to 45 percent.