Budgets/Taxes/Economics

The Chronicle reviews a journalistic treatment of the Mara Salvatrucha gang and an anthropological treatment of a group of homeless middle-aged heroin addicts. We found one much more satisfying than the other.

Talk of marijuana legalization is definitely in the air in California, but none of the announced major party gubernatorial candidates want to add to it. Yet.

Oregon has become the latest state to pass legislation enabling the farming of industrial hemp and, like North Dakota, they don't need no stinking federal licenses. But the DEA tends to disagree about that.

California's Proposition 36 "treatment not jail" law is likely to lead to neither treatment nor jail as its funding gets slashed by 83% because of the state's budget crisis.

As Congress approaches its August recess, it's time to take a look at the fate of drug reform legislation under the Democrats. No bills have reached the president's desk just yet, but the prospects are impressive on a number of key fronts.

Oakland's medical marijuana dispensaries asked the voters to tax them, and the voters said "Okay." A measure creating a first-of-its-kind special business tax on medical marijuana sellers passed by a lopsided margin in pot-friendly Oakland.

A report from the California Board of Equalization estimating that the state could take in $1.4 billion a year by legalizing and taxing marijuana is only adding to the mounting pressure for legalization in the Golden State, which is saddled with a $26 billion budget deficit.

The Marijuana Policy Project has a TV ad campaign supporting the taxation and regulation of marijuana running in California. But don't be surprised if you haven't seen it -- several major TV stations don't want you to.

It's not just teachers, health care, and parks that are facing the budget axe in California. Some state narcs could be out of a job, too.

Voters in Oakland will decide whether to impose a whopping 1500% tax increase on dispensaries, and it's not an attack on them. In fact, it was the dispensaries' own idea. Talk about your good citizens.