Toke and Tax

Momentum seems to be building for marijuana legalization. Rep. Barney Frank, in a New York Times interview over the weekend: "Do you think your bill to legalize marijuana will ever pass? Yes, in the next five years." Amity Shlaes, in a new Bloomberg column: "People feel about marijuana today the way they felt about liquor when FDR became president. Americans are increasingly supporting legalization of the drug. For the first time in memory, it seems conceivable that a president might be able to push legalization through Congress. If the administration backed the legalization of marijuana, consumers would be so grateful that the government could tax the heck out of the herb."