Posted on 07/09/2009 11:54:11 PM PDT by DryFly
Now the potheads want to pay their fair share. California marijuana consumers are trying to balance the state budget by regulating and taxing the sale of marijuana. They sale that taxes on marijuana could pay the salaries of 20,000 teachers.
If illegal aliens can come out of the shadows, why not the pot economy?
I’ve advocate this plan for years.
If people are stupid enough to smoke that $hit, I’m smart enough to tax ‘em for it.
Don’t worry. California will tax marijuana so highly - like everything else there - that it will give a new life to the home-growers. They’ll become the new “bootleggers” in the new Prohibition era. Personally, I think the CA legislature prefers, and is on, cocaine.
I don’t see a tax on a vice as helping much. The Lottery was supposed to pour money into education and support it forever, but it was not the magic answer. Why would taxing pot be any different?
Personally, I like the flat tax, but I’d settle for one with only a mild incline.
Prohibition II?
Uh-uh, I don’t think so!
I agree with you about the so-called “sin” taxes. First, most of them (like Obama’s enormous federal cigarette tax) are regressive taxes and only hurt the less affluent. Second, most of them don’t go to the purposes that were their excuse in the first place. Your example of the lottery is a good example. Another is the gasoline tax. The original pretext for that was highway maintenance and construction. We all know that we could have roads paved with gold if those billions were used for that purpose. The list is endless. As that old sage once said, “the power to tax is the power to destroy.” And the fact is that it’s no longer a quaint old saying - it’s HAPPENING TODAY to more and more people! The problem is that regardless of the form of taxation we’ll be suffering needlessly unless we reduce the damned SPENDING. And with Obama we’re headed for Chapter 11 and the next generations are already in hock!
It's not about the pot, it's about the control.
Obey Repug/Dem/Fed Gov.
Pay your taxes, and more.
Pay all fines, fees, permits.
Keep your chains rust free.
/neo serf out
Of course pols will simply spend more money than they claim said tax would collect.
In rock form of course
Why should a multi-billion dollar industry be given tax exempt status? It sure hasn’t done anything to stop - or even slow - the use of marijuana so far.
But how many LEO would loose their jobs
Not one police officer would lose their job if marujuan were legalised. Not unless they were caught smoking it, and probably not then.
You’re absolutely right , my bad .The coffee hasn’t kicked in and I just didn’t think it through.
Some people brew their own alcohol and roll their own cigarettes. Not many, tho. And the tax on those products ain't light.
Besides, given the option between doing something legally and expensively, or doing it cheap and illegally, most people will opt for the former. That's just human nature. Being able to buy weed from a drugstore, where you just show ID and get a package covered in warning labels, will be way more appealing to most users than trying to grow their own and risk getting caught. Not for possession, but for tax evasion, which carries some sting to it.
Even if the DEA and SWAT teams get their budgets cut, the IRS will still be rolling strong.
>They sale that taxes on marijuana could pay the salaries of 20,000 teachers.<
>But how many LEO would loose their jobs <
My 2 cents worth and 17 years in the field, it may not be a bad idea.It is a multi bill dollar business.
Regulations may help keep it our of the hands of kids, it being a violation in most areas sure hasn’t.
How many cops will lose their jobs? None, there are more important things to do than hand out tickets to pot heads.
It would free up the nuisance petty stuff and allow leo’s to work on more important stuff, be it crimes resulting from the use of narcotics (larceny - burglary - robbery) or more importantly, the manufacturing & distribution of harsher drugs, Heroine, cocaine, Meth and crack which are out of control.
“It would free up the nuisance petty stuff and allow leo’s to work on more important stuff”
___________________________
Are you sure you want to ignore the “petty stuff” and go for the more important stuff? I thought the New York/Rudy Guliani lesson was that by cracking down on the minor stuff, you ended up with less large crime, as well. Would we be creating an environment where heroin is the new pot, if pot were down-graded to an over-the-counter product? I honestly don’t know anything drug law enforcement. That’s why I’m posing the question. (Well, also I’m afraid of legalizing pot, because the substance abusers nearest and dearest to me already have enough temptations and troubles.)
>Are you sure you want to ignore the “petty stuff” and go for the more important stuff? I thought the New York/Rudy Guliani lesson was that by cracking down on the minor stuff, you ended up with less large crime, as well. Would we be creating an environment where heroin is the new pot, if pot were down-graded to an over-the-counter product? I honestly don’t know anything drug law enforcement. That’s why I’m posing the question. (Well, also I’m afraid of legalizing pot, because the substance abusers nearest and dearest to me already have enough temptations and troubles.)<
right now we have serious problems in most areas about crystal meth labs all over the place. Yet it is easier for most narcotics ppl to get into a weed house, make apinch and call it a number.
I understand your point and there is some validity to it for certain. But there is a lot of things that end up going by the wayside that should be handled that aren’t because of a lack of man power.
IMO, I would rather take out a meth lab, crack cook house, heroine dealer than worry about someone selling weed.
problem, ther aren’t enough narcs out there to do what needs to be done.
So taxing, regulating and controlling the “demon weed” is not that bad of an idea.
I think your views are naive in the sense that you claim people will pay more excessive taxation simply because it’s “legal.” Of course, some always will. However, right now the underground cigarette business is booming. And, most of the consumers are respectable people who feel that Obama’s federal tax is regressive, unjust, and excessive. With them, it’s a patriotic case of taxation without representation. And, as one of our early American patriots said, the power to tax is the power to destroy. Americans understand better than most people the difference between what’s legal and what is moral or ethical. That is also why the 18th Amendment was eventually repealed by the 21st in 1933. With respect to Mexifornia, (a bankrupt, failed state) I think its experience with out-of-control taxation and regulation is a “show and tell” for the entire nation. The proposed marijuana tax is an apt example. Rather than undertake serious internal reform of its infrastructure the ‘answer’ is another tax. This also why so many families and small businesses are exiting CA as fast as they can.
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