Posted on 07/18/2009 9:33:52 AM PDT by luckybogey
California currently collects $18 million in sales taxes from marijuana dispensaries, and Yee said a regulated pot trade would bring in $1.3 billion...
Valid for one year, it is all that California law requires to purchase and smoke eight ounces legally.
…Oakland allows anyone with a medical card to cultivate 72 plants — 12 times the number the state legislature suggested in SB 420, which passed in 2003...
This bill would impose a fee of fifty dollars ($50) per ounce for the sale of marijuana sold at retail...to include all marijuana, concentrated cannabis, and their derivatives, except that marijuana containing less than one-half of 1 percent THC by weight is not subject to this supplemental fee.
The Marijuana Policy Project provided funding for the research discussed in this report. Executive Summary
* Government prohibition of marijuana is the subject of ongoing debate.
* One issue in this debate is the effect of marijuana prohibition on government budgets. Prohibition entails direct enforcement costs and prevents taxation of marijuana production and sale.
* This report examines the budgetary implications of legalizing marijuana – taxing and regulating it like other goods – in all fifty states and at the federal level.
* The report estimates that legalizing marijuana would save $7.7 billion per year in government expenditure on enforcement of prohibition. $5.3 billion of this savings would accrue to state and local governments, while $2.4 billion would accrue to the federal government.
* The report also estimates that marijuana legalization would yield tax revenue of $2.4 billion annually if marijuana were taxed like all other goods and $6.2 billion annually if marijuana were taxed at rates comparable to those on alcohol and tobacco...
(Excerpt) Read more at luckybogey.wordpress.com ...
Pikers. Think how much money the state could collect from taxing meth, cocaine and heroin. Why, California could balance its budget and be able to afford to keep its illegals on the dole for a long, long time if they just wouldn’t be so short-sighted.
Great!
More DUMBING down of America through Marijuann and able to TAX the idiots for wanting to be DUMBED DOWN.
Of course, like ABORTION, it’s all in the false name of “compassion”. Expect more Obama voters from this garbage.
Heck, legalize Meth too!
In fact, make all ILLEGAL drugs LEGAL so you can TAX consumers and make society a better place!
LOL!
Anything for $$$$$.
Dude!!!
George Soros is pleased.
California could join all the other booming and productive world economies where pot is legal
Why pay the stupid government tax when it’s cheaper and easier to just grow it myself at home?
So are many LIBERAL Freepers and LIBERALtarians and Humanists posing as “Christians”.
1Thes.5:6,8
[6] Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.
[8] But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.
To be “sober” is not to be on mind altering drugs.
California currently collects $18 million in sales taxes from marijuana dispensaries, and Yee said a regulated pot trade would bring in $1.3 billion
A REGULATED Pot Trade?
Oh right.The drug dealers scumbag smurders terrorist are just going towalkawaysoyou can have a regulated pot trade..
I worry about the Soros infiltration of conservative sites and events. At CPAC both pro and con in a legalization debate were Soros people.
There’s something very wrong with that and there’s something very wrong with those who look the other way as a means of getting their way.
Tax ignorance.
Tax narcissism.
Tax laziness.
Cali would be rolling in ‘da dough.
“Pikers. Think how much money the state could collect from taxing meth, cocaine and heroin.”
Kiddie porn and child labor is also a HUGE opportunity...if we legalize it, we could take in BILLIONS to subsidize more socialist programs...
I don’t understand how you can tax illegal activity. Perhaps California can figure out a way to tax the illegal aliens for crossing the border and solve the budget crisis, if it’s okay to tax illegal activity.
1.
The state is myopic. They could legalize all drugs why single out marijuana. There are plenty of people using cocaine, heroin, etc.
2.
If they legalize marijuana, would the sentences of those convicted for carrying or selling be vacated? Why not?
If the drug was distributed by unlicensed pharmacists and now it is legal, it doesn’t seem fair to keep people in jail for mere possession.
>>>> To be “sober” is not to be on mind altering drugs. <<<<
Because I believe the War On Drugs (and esp. marijuana) is highly destructive of American society and has brought about a complete perversion of American law enforcement during my lifetime does not also mean that I want to “be on mind altering drugs.”
For some reason I’m not one bit surprised that you make such an equation.
Of course the math does not add up.
Why would any one go to a dispensary when they can grow it in their living room, or, as in California, their yard, porch etc.
If this happens the price will plummit, the taxes they are now collecting will go down, and the California voter will be even stupider.
The good news about even stupider voters is they may forget to show up at the polls, forget to mail the ballot, forget the stamp.
But I am sure ACORN has a way to deal with those issues.
For the same reason that they would go to a liquor store to buy a six-pack of beer instead of brewing it themselves.
A Modest(o) Proposal, or, Keeping California Green
Cheers!
IMO the average pothead is kind of a harmless degenerate and there’s really no point in spending money arresting them.
I also don’t think that legalizing pot will cause big problems because (as above) most people aren’t interested in being pothead degenerates, for the same reasons that they aren’t interested in becoming drunks and winos.
But IMO the most important thing is getting law enforcement out of the pothead loop, which wastes their time and attention, both of which should be directed to other problems.
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