California's economy is in deep trouble and threatens to drag the rest of America down with it.

So it was hard to go past Advertising Age running this brief commercial from the Marijuana Policy Project:



It's actually a stupid commercial as California's problems have absolutely nothing to do with marijuana. It's more about the inability of governments there to frame responsible budgets and spending that's just way over the top.

Still, as Slate pointed out earlier this year, marijuana is California's largest cash crop. It's valued at $14 billion annually, or nearly twice the value of the state's grape and vegetable crops combined. "Put it all together, and California could potentially wipe some $3 billion off its budget deficit by letting its people puff and pay. That still leaves it with a gaping $39 billion hole to fill, so the state's problems go far beyond what a new cash crop can fix. But anything to help soothe the state's chronic fiscal pain-even if unpalatable to some-is worth considering."

Bruce Mirken, the Marijuana Policy Project's spokesman told SF Weekly blogger Joe Eskenazi that California's plight needed attention. "This is just generally to further the discussion of this issue, which hasn't really been talked about until the last few months," Mirken says. "But, for God's sake, when you're talking about $20 billion-plus of cuts to schools, law enforcement, and basically everything else the state does, here's a huge industry that's basically exempt from taxes. It's crazy."

Yep, so crazy that people will come up with bizarre solutions.