[420 Girl]

For the time being, the twin demons of Nationalization and Bailout have overshadowed the more nitty-gritty issues of running America, but this won't last. Sooner or later the attention will shift away from how awfully big a number 850 billion is, and back to where that money comes from.

Where does it come from, one might ask? Education, health care, and various other throwaway portions of societal infrastructure, which have been living the barebones existence of a famine victim for almost a decade. The question is twofold: Does nature abhor a monetary vacuum, and if it does, where will the new cash come from?

The legalization of certain vices is guaranteed to be a more common headline in the next few years, especially as states realize that the federal money they count on to educate and care for their citizens might not go very far.

California has been in and out of headlines in the past several years for Drug Enforcement Agency raids on marijuana farms, which can be legally operated with the proper licensing under that state's laws. According to statistics from both the DEA and the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), approximately $35 billion of marijuana is grown in America each year. Just imagine the tax revenue.

The legalization of any vice is accompanied by strict regulation and control. Consider that prostitution and marijuana use are practices that, like abortion, do not disappear when made illegal. Government regulation would result in safer conditions and products. The stigma that accompanies prostitution is due in large part to the horrible and degrading conditions many sex workers operate in, which could be reduced with proper organization and health care. The stigmas that accompany marijuana have been largely proven false, the result of the 30-year war on drugs, which has been riddled with more admitted misinformation than the Nixon presidency.

The only obstacle to these practices and many others being legalized is the continued existence of moral law. But morality is far too arbitrary to be an effective basis for the legal system. The simple existence of competing moralities makes it in fact immoral to allow moral laws. Instead, logic and scientific reasoning should be the basis for our decisions.

Marijuana is an innocuous substance worth billions as a cash crop, and prostitution has been and will be a reality long after America is only a memory. It's time we started treating these practices as realities and made intelligent decisions regarding their place in our society - and for our tax dollars. More than a monetary salvation, this decision will represent to the world that America is willing to treat its citizens like adults.

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