California Gives Marijuana Smokers Licenses and Paid Family Leave

Prior to leaving office as California Governor, Gray Davis signed into law provisions for issuing licenses in 2004 for medical marijuana smokers. The California Department of Health Services will start the program with four new staff members and about $325,000 approved in the state budget. It's not clear as to whether or not the certified doper card will be considered a valid form of identification like a driver's license. Also, authorities have not commented on the contentious issue of having two pictures on the doper's license, one stoned and one straight.

Another law, effective January 1st, 2004, grants workers up to six weeks of paid family leave at 55 percent of their wages. Business owners have expressed considerable apprehension about the new requirements. Mark Vegh, an attorney for TOC Management Services in Redding, stated:

"One difference with paid family leave is that there's no minimum size for employers to be affected," while previous state and federal leave laws applied to companies with at least 50 employees, [and]

"The other big difference . . . is there's no waiting period for it to apply to a person," he said. "A person could take family leave the first week on the job."

So let's do the math. Six weeks adds up to a little more than 11 percent of the average work year, therefore, businesses in California can expect their productivity to decrease by that amount without any decrease in cost of doing business. And, even if my numbers are inaccurate, the net result has got to be a chilling effect on the state's ability to attract new businesses. There should also be no surprise when a business decides to relocate outside California.

It should be obvious why the State of California has such a deficit. If people are going to be paid to be non-productive (i.e. paid family leave, paychecks to the homeless), it will be impossible to balance the books without a massive tax on the productive members of society. There have even been whispers of possible legislation requiring employers to pay people while they are commuting to and from work and to provide a comprehensive vacation benefit, to include airline tickets, hotel, meals, etc., along with paid time off.