Tax Move: California To Vote On Bill Legalizing Marijuana With State Getting Dealer’s Cut Of $50 An Ounce at Pat Dollard

Tax Move: California To Vote On Bill Legalizing Marijuana With State Getting Dealer’s Cut Of $50 An Ounce

January 12th, 2010 (20) Posted By Pat Dollard.

The first step to legalize marijuana in California could happen Tuesday.

Lawmakers will vote on Assembly Bill 390 — legislation to tax and regulate marijuana. The assembly’s Public Safety Committee is expected to vote after a hearing that begins at 9 a.m. hearing.

The bill, authored by San Francisco Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, would essentially treat pot the same way alcohol is treated under the law and would allow adults over 21 to possess, smoke and grow marijuana.

The law would also call for a fee of $50 per ounce sold and would help fund drug eradication and awareness programs. It could help pull California out of debt, supporters say, raising up to $990 million from the fees.

This is the first time in U.S. history any state legislative body has ever considered repealing marijuana prohibition, which has been in place since 1913.

Your Ad Here

MohammedSucksHogCock

Legalize it. Tax the living shit out of it, and use the $ to finance the war on terror. Make the hippies worth something for once.

Seriously, I’d rather the country profit from someone’s addiction than have that same money going to gang-bangers. It’s not like we can stop people from doing it, so might as well make it work on the country’s behalf.

Have we learned nothing from the insanity of Prohibition?
MarkF

I know many here are vehemetly opposed to legalizing weed and consider anyone supporting it to be a liberal drug fiend. At that risk I think it “high” time we take the weed biz away from illegal drug gangs and get some good from it. I don’t smoke it myself but would rather it be controlled and taxed like booze. No matter how you feel about its use, fact is it is readily available to anyone who wants it and always will be. Controlling its distribution would put a big hurt on the gangs that bring it over the border. Let the name calling begin!
Bob USMC

This is a huge joke if anybody thinks that the guvment will get huge tax revenues from this. Just about every last pot smoker will just grow their own pot like so many tomatoes in the backyard……..

FOR FREE!!!

How much tax revenue will the guvment get then??

ZERO!

MohammedSucksHogCock

There is no doubt that many will continue to grow their own, but remember we’re talking about tens of millions of people who have spent their lives being hounded by the authorities. Given the choices of:

A) Spend $X to get high, and always be chased by cops who want to put you in jail, or
B) Spend $X to get high

…which will 98% choose?
Bob USMC

No, the obvious choice will be to go spend $XX to get a buzz or spend $ZERO to get a buzz. Gee, which would anyone with a brain choose??

Every last pot smoker I know, and I know plenty of them from being in the music business, would just toss the seeds out their window and let the “Wildwood Weed” grow wild if it’s not illegal to grow it. It’d literally be like growing tomato plants on the deck or something.

If this passes, I truly hope the stoners all grow it for free and the guvment doesn’t make one red cent. How dumb to want to give this guvment more tax revenue. Screw them! Plus, not every pot dealer is a “gangbanger”.
MohammedSucksHogCock

A valid point of view I admit. Now do you realize how easy it is to manufacture your own booze? To make a still is preposterously easy. You can make 4th run butane alcohol in a weekend: 7 gallons of 80-proof hooch for the cost of $20. Seriously good stuff, and a lot easier on the liver than store-bought whisky. I knew Brits who did this in Saudi Arabia. Out of nothing but water, sugar and a cup of baker’s yeast. Awesome stuff with tonic and a wedge of lime!

I see your point, Bob, and I realize how easy it is to grow your own, but I still believe that a life free from “the man breathing down your neck” (and take a guess what happens to people busted for making their own booze) would appeal profoundly to the wild majority of potheads.

Not saying I can predict the future, but the way things are is just making the wrong people rich. That’s all. :beer:
mike3481

Bob, I agree. The Government will never see a dime.

The $990 million they hope to collect is a pipe dream, pun intended.

If they legalize it, potheads will not pay the Government anything cos they don’t now. They’ll see this a tax on their lifestyle and say screw you to the Cali Gov.

They would legally buy seeds online and use a 2′x2′ space in the corner of their parent’s basement where they’ve been living the last 15 years since dropping out of High School, to grow their own smoke.

The clinics that now sell pot legally will be put out of business within a year.

If this were to get past all the hurdles in it’s way and become Law it would fail faster than Obama has.

T-Bagg

Tabacoo and alcohol are legal and taxed. Why not this?
josephus

Stoners keep voting Demo-crap!
Keep ‘em dumb and happy in the Nanny State. Perfect for the statists.

Stabinator

So you are in favor of continued governmental oppression of personal freedoms? Who gives a rat’s ass if the potheads want to get high? I think legalizing and taxing the shit out of weed is a good idea nation wide. It will most certainly cut into the drug gang’s business and all the violence that surrounds that. Then we can concentrate our efforts and resources on the truly harmful drugs like coke, meth, heroin, etc.

GregGS

hmmmmmmm… Soma 2+2 will = 5 in the future.
ZenDraken

“The law would also call for a fee of $50 per ounce sold and would help fund drug eradication and awareness programs. It could help pull California out of debt, supporters say, raising up to $990 million from the fees.”

Another example of Liberals working at cross-purposes against themselves. They want to increase tax revenue, while simultaneously suppressing the very mechanism for raising the same tax revenue.

They use naive and simplistic static analysis, and they never understand the importance of the Laffer Curve (Look it up, it’s enlightening).
just posting

I want it legalized, it is being legalized for financial reasons, instead of the reason that government never should have banned it in the first place.

This is my proposal, legalize it and minimally tax it. Lets see if these asshole CA politicians would be for it.

More revenue does nothing for this state, They will NEVER stop spending.

Tommyknocker

Back in the late 60′s & into the 70′s when I used to use there was only Mexican pot on the “market”. When summer rolled around the pot dried up & you would start to see Hashish become available. I knew then that the supplies were controlled by organized crime…Now the Mexican mafia lives in Ca. sponsoring “gardens” in remote areas, manned by Mexicans who’s families are held hostage. Gotta’ close the borders whether pot is legal or not but legalizing it would put these bad people out of business. (that business anyway).
Tommyknocker

Oh Yeah, Giving politicians more money for any reason has continually failed to do anything but somehow make politicians richer…
tlk

We used to get up on Saturday mornings in the 70′s and go to the forest preserve – it was the weekly drug shopping spree..could get just about anything we wanted and it was all out in the open..no hassles. The parking lot was lined with dealers and it was sure fire proof that capitalism works because the competition was what made it affordable!

billy_bonney

Bullshit, $50 an ounce yeah like gang banging M-13 maggots are gonna pay a tax….how stupid are we to beleive that?

Tax Marijuna and create a billion dollar bauracracy to oversee it, a boobocracy that costs more than it gathers in revenue just like ATF.

Billy
http://patdollard.com Pat Dollard

I just want to see the coupons from Albertson’s.
Madre

Billy’s right. This is really about making another beaurocracy which the funds from these proposed taxes will never be enough to pay for, thereby creating an excuse to tax the rest of us even more.
MarkF

There are more issues here than just tax revenue for certain. No doubt the the gubment will mis-use the revenue, that part goes without question regardless of what is being taxed.

Would it deter criminal enterprise? Yes. It would surely be safer to get and without the fear of legal woes.

Would it encourage drug use among non-users? Debatable. My son can get it anytime he wants at school but we talk about it a lot and he agrees the deficits outweigh the benefits (which for him would be more of a social networking tool). Legal use would actually make it less appealing to some kids. That forbidden fruit thing. Also, if taken away from the dealers it would be harder for kids to get. For under age kids it is easier to get weed than booze.

Would it allow for more crime fighting resources to be directed to bigger problems? Yes. Forget the wasted police-judicial resources; there are thousands of non-violent pot heads languishing in jail at tax payer expense. Why not replace them with the repeat offending child molesters wandering our streets. Do an online search of your local judicial public records. You will be amazed how many sex offenders are in your neighborhood!

Would Obama finally be able to appoint a knowledgeable and competent CZAR? Weed CZAR!