Marijuana
Bill Maher | March 13 2009 | Opening Monologue
AIG, Ben Bernanke, Breitbart, Citi, Drudge, Federal Reserve, GOP, Hank Paulson, Jim Cramer, Politics, Rush Limbaugh, Tim Geithner, TullycastMARCH 12 2010
San Francisco is Flat Broke; If Only There Was Something They Could Tax…
Budget Cuts, California, Marijuana, San FranciscoS.F. faces $575.6 million budget deficit
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
(12-08) 20:43 PST — San Francisco’s budget deficit for next year has grown to $575.6 million – equal to nearly half the city’s discretionary spending account. It’s a financial crisis Mayor Gavin Newsom called one of the worst the city has experienced since the 1930s.
Newsom will announce his plan for cutting up to $125 million from this year’s $6.6 billion budget today, but gave few details about what it will include.
“This is nothing we’ve seen before,” he told The Chronicle. “As difficult as these cuts will be, the real challenge is in the next three, four, six months.”
Today’s announcement is expected to include proposals to cancel police academy classes, lay off some high-paid attorneys and cut health services, including outpatient treatment programs for the mentally ill and drug addicted.
One thing that won’t be part of the mayor’s cuts package: slashing by 50 percent the city funds given to the Symphony, Opera and Ballet. Supervisor Aaron Peskin called for such cuts last week; if adopted, they would save the city about $1.1 million.
Peskin is also expected to present pages of cost-cutting ideas today, including the arts proposal, as a way to prevent deep cuts to the Department of Public Health and instead spread the pain around.
But Newsom said that while those three cultural institutions and the American Conservatory Theater, the Museum of Modern Art and the Exploratorium will see a 7 percent cut, the 50 percent idea is unnecessary.
“It’s more symbolic than substantive,” he said of Peskin’s proposal. “I want to deal with the real problem, which is hundreds of millions of dollars and not hundreds of thousands.”
Peskin declined to comment Monday.
Salary givebacks or wage freezes from the unions will also not be part of today’s announcement. Newsom said that will have to be part of the budget talks for the 2009-10 year, which starts July 1.
He said he doesn’t necessarily want the Police Officers Association to give back its coming 7 percent pay hike, though, because San Francisco police officers make less than those in small Bay Area cities like Berkeley, Fairfield and Fremont, making recruitment difficult.
This year the mayor had control over about $1.2 billion in discretionary spending, with the rest of the city budget required by law to be spent in specific ways.
Nani Coloretti, the mayor’s budget director, said the midyear cuts will help because programs and positions eliminated now will mean continued savings next year.
“It means you feel pain over 18 months, not over 12,” she said.
Downgrading positions and charging enterprise departments like Muni more for city services are also ways to save money without eliminating entire programs, she said.
Coloretti and Steve Kawa, the mayor’s chief of staff, have been making the rounds to supervisors’ offices in recent days to prepare them for today’s extensive budget cuts.
However, supervisors said the mayor’s representatives have not shared many specifics during these meetings and some have complained they’ve been left in the dark.
Newsom countered that “the board will have ample time to deal with the real issue, which is next year’s budget.”
Chronicle staff writer Marisa Lagos contributed to this report. E-mail Heather Knight at hknight@sfchronicle.com.
Marijuana Policy Project Offers GOP Candidates $20,000
Stories
Days before the first presidential caucuses in a medical marijuana state, the Marijuana Policy Project today doubled its offer to presidential candidates Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Mitt Romney to back up their statements opposing medical marijuana with scientific evidence.
If any of the candidates can prove his statements are true, MPP will donate the legal maximum of $10,000 to his campaign ($5,000 for the primaries, $5,000 for the general election), plus an additional $10,000 donation to the candidate’s favorite charity.
MPP’s original offer of $10,000 for the campaigns was made Dec. 6 in Manchester, New Hampshire.”In responding to questions from patients who have benefited from medical marijuana, Giuliani, McCain and Romney have all made claims that are patently false,” said Rob Kampia, executive director of the arijuana Policy Project in Washington, D.C.
“When appeals to science, compassion and common sense didn’t work, we offered $10,000 to the campaign that could back up the claim that medical marijuana isn’t needed or is too dangerous.
The fact that not one of these candidates has yet to offer any proof indicates they know they’re lying. Patients in Nevada and the 11 other medical marijuana states deserve a real ‘straight talk express,’ not political flimflam.”
“I’m living proof that marijuana works when conventional medicines fail,” said David McDonough of Henderson, a registered medical arijuana patient who suffers from chronic pain that limits his ability to walk.
“Any candidate who’s willing to use the guns and power of the federal government to raid and arrest me for using marijuana legally under state law and with my doctor’s approval had better be able to explain why.”
Any responses from the campaigns will be evaluated by an independent panel of medical experts.
Full details of the challenge and relevant scientific data are posted at http://www.MedicalMarijuanaWorks.org
In response to voters’ questions at campaign events in New Hampshire and elsewhere, Giuliani, McCain and Romney have claimed that marijuana is either too dangerous for medical use or not needed because adequate substitutes exist — claims that are contradicted by published scientific data.
In letters sent this week to each of the three candidates, Kampia cited their specific statements and challenged them to supply proof.
In his letter to McCain, Kampia wrote:
“We are struck by the fact that you consider marijuana to be too ‘damaging to one’s health’ for use even under medical supervision, considering that the Arizona Republic has reported that at least half of your family’s wealth comes from an Anheuser-Busch beer distributorship”.
“The CDC reports that excessive drinking was responsible for 75,000 U.S. deaths in 2001. Marijuana has never been proven to increase death rates or to have caused even one fatal overdose.”
Medical marijuana states loom large in upcoming presidential primaries and caucuses.
Maine holds Republican caucuses on Feb. 1 and 2, and four more medical marijuana states hold primaries or caucuses on “Tsunami Tuesday,” Feb. 5 — Alaska, California, Colorado and Montana.
Copies of the letters to the three Republican candidates are available from MPP director of communications Bruce Mirken at 415-668-6403 or 202-215-4205.
With more than 23,000 members and 180,000 e-mail subscribers nationwide, the Marijuana Policy Project is the largest marijuana policy reform organization in the United States.
MPP believes that the best way to minimize the harm associated with marijuana is to regulate marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol.
For more information, please visit http://MarijuanaPolicy.org.
The New York Herald Sun 