I also point out that we’d be the first conservative Southern state to do so and also the only conservative state that is also a warm weather state to do so and I point out how our state missed an opportunity in the early 1930’s when the vote to legalize casino gambling occurred (and this is actually dramatized well in the Ben Affleck film “Live By Night”) and so the money that would have went here instead went to Nevada and I make my argument that legalizing recreational marijuana will bring a lot of capital into our state and will at least double our annual GDP from the gains, will greatly increase our lodging tax receipts which we can use to further improve Florida, but that for those who worry about us “Californiaizing” the best way to prevent it is to legalize recreational marijuana because what we are, we are likely to disproportionately draw from other Southern states so will likely put a Celtic Southerner cultural injection into our state which we need in these times when it seems like South Florida liberals might soon hijack the state and try and turn it into another California and that likely what overall in any statewide election is a down the middle state that might trend R+1 with who would move here it would likely strengthen the conservative hand to the point where we might quickly move up to as much as R+5 in short order.
I have negative things to say about Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam in this piece as well.
I also make the point that us doing this when no other Southern state with much stronger high tech sectors has will give us an edge in recruiting tech (and I point out most Southern tech is in the Research Triangle of North Carolina, around Austin and surrounding Texas Hill Country, and areas like Huntsville in Alabama) and that it could turboboost our efforts and I again reference my desire for us to try and recruit the main national stock exchange from out of New York City to be relocated in Miami and I praise Governor DeSantis’s efforts to recruit companies from states like New York and California as this will set the stage for our future and this is probably the most important thing we can do and this is the advantage of having a 40 year old raising young children governor rather someone in their 60s or 70s because this is someone whose age cohort is about to enter into the most productive phase of life and so can understand that we can’t just base the state on selling retirement homes, we have to have good jobs to attract those still working and I make the point that the state’s economy was the most vibrant really in the immediate post-WWII era and that recreational marijuana can bring that kind of vibrancy back to the state.
