It's likely the Dems, in the wake of a state Republican landslide in November, want to curry favor with the electorate and remind them that they are on the same side of a very popular issue. That's nice. But to really show their oysters, they need to make a legislative move to shore up the MMMA and make some noise about hemp. In the hard economic times we live in, and with the state stripping every expense imaginable, it seems the economic innovation of hemp could be a big part of a turnaround.

Some economists believe that even without hemp, marijuana itself could give us an economic boost. I just came across this 2005 paper by Jeffrey Miron, a visiting professor of economics at Harvard that was endorsed by 530 economists including three Nobel laureates. Miron's published report reads: "Replacing marijuana prohibition with a system of legal regulation would save approximately $7.7 billion in government expenditures on prohibition enforcement — $2.4 billion at the federal level and $5.3 billion at the state and local levels. ... Revenue from taxation of marijuana sales would range from $2.4 billion per year if marijuana were taxed like ordinary consumer goods to $6.2 billion if it were taxed like alcohol or tobacco."

*Erratum: The original version of this article misidentified the group that funded the poll study.

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