A budget cure: Marijuana taxes?

[Roon]

Daniel Stein says the salvation of U.S. taxpayers could be marijuana.

As Washington breaks the bank on Wall Street bailouts, President Barack Obama's stimulus package and other spend-now, pay-later measures, most observers agree that politicians will eventually need to increase revenue or cut spending to cover the federal government's debts.

Stein believes Washington could begin to balance its books now if politicians would take a serious look at his industry. The owner of two retail outlets that he claims generate $1 million in revenue annually, Stein says he pays around $80,000 a year in sales taxes to the state of California. But the federal government, which does not acknowledge Stein's sales as legitimate commerce, gets nothing from his business.
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/StockInvestingTrading/a-budget-cure-marijuana-taxes.aspx?GT1=33002

[NightWatcher]

1. imagine the revenue of the first state to legalize and embrace pot tourism

How many people go to Amsterdam or BC just so they can smoke out in the open? Imagine if a state legaized and taxed open pot sales. Coffee shops? theme restaurants? novelty sales?

[texastoast]

2. Yep, the plant that can do it all

Besides the fun part. Industrial use, clothing, paper, medicine, ahem, green bulding material in the hurd form. Then tax that Maui stuff.

[patrice]

5. You left out fertilize crop lands.

It binds nitrogen in the soil the same way soy beans, alfalfa, clover, and some others do. They are called "green manure" crops for their soil building properties.

[frogcycle]

3. SOMEbody has to say it:

I want some of whatever he's smoking.

[flvegan]

4. Big pharma will never allow it.

Remember to heed our corporate masters.

[aquart]

6. Unless we let them lease the marijuana farms and control the merchandising.

Problem so solved.

[aquart]

7. It will also crash the market for the Mexican drug cartels.

[flvegan]

8. Not so long as one could grow it him/herself.

[Occam Bandage]

10. People could also grow their own tobacco and brew their own beer.

Yet only hobbyists do.

[flvegan]

11. Tobacco and beer have *what* exactly to do with pharma?

Last I checked, pot has a medicinal purpose and a street value much higher than those other two items.

Hobbyists do so to improve on quality and to enjoy some of their own.

[Occam Bandage]

12. The overwhelming majority of pot consumption has fuck-all to do with medicine.

It only has a higher street value because it's illegal; it costs little more to grow than tobacco leaves do.

If pot were legal, the only people who would grow their own would be hobbyists. Most beer drinkers don't brew their own. Most cigarette smokers don't grow their own. And almost nobody bothers growing their own plants for medicinal use. Even most "herbal life" holistic-medicine people buy their stuff from stores, despite the fact that nothing stops them from growing their own St. John's Wort.

[flvegan]

14. Right, and legalize it

and see how that changes. Cutting big pharma out of their cut.

[Occam Bandage]

16. See how what changes?

You think that if it were legalized, the increase in purely medicinal use would outstrip the increase in recreational use? I think you're buying into the "medical marijuana" business just a bit too much. Medical marijuana is the fringe of pot use.

And legalizing it would not "cut big pharma out of their cut." It would, rather, allow big pharma to profit off it by selling it in neat little packages. The only reason as high a proportion of pot smokers grow their own as do today is that they can't just walk down to the corner store and buy a pack. The only people who would grow their own marijuana if it were legal would be a few scattered hobbyists, no more a threat to corporate profits than the few scattered home-brewers or home-tobacco-growers are to the profits of Marlboro or Budweiser.

[flvegan]

17. If you say so.

It's a control issue, not a medicinal v recreational issue.

[Occam Bandage]

27. "It's a control issue"

To borrow a phrase from Rick Sanchez, what the hell does that mean? At least the argument that Big Pharma is using all its apparently-enormous political influence to keep cannabis illegal is mildly reasonable if you accept that they stand to lose profits through the legalization of marijuana. This, of course, is something of a crock; cigarettes and alcohol are enormous money-makers, and I'm sure industry would love to get a piece of the enormous pot market. Heck, the entire argument of the thread--that tax revenue would make tons of money for the government--is completely incompatible with the argument that big industry would not make money off pot. In order for there to be tax, there's gotta be sales.

Yes, "they're doing it to protect profits" is a bad argument, but at least it would sound convincing to someone who didn't feel like thinking it through. But "they're deliberately blocking a major potential source of profit SO THEY CAN CONTROL US BOOGA BOOGA" is bizarre from the get-go. Pfizer doesn't give a shit about "controlling" you for its own sake. They just want to sell you stuff. GSK is not some sort of comic-book brotherhood of villains that sits in its underground lair and hatches villainous plans to further the cause of villainry. It's a publicly-held company interested in finding new sources of income to provide higher dividends to shareholders.

"It's a control issue" and "they're doing it to protect profits" are both completely unnecessary theories. Pot is illegal because many people became afraid of it, as the result of media hysteria upon its introduction to American society (of a sort no different than any other ratings/sales-driven media panic), compounded by politicians happy to slander it as a way of proving their tough-on-crime credentials. It remains illegal mostly because of societal inertia. It'll probably eventually become legal, sold in stores by major corporations, and heavily taxed.

And on that day, a new generation of liberals--having never known a time pot was illegal--will probably be convinced that pot is a tool of corporate control of the lower classes, sold in Brave-New-World fashion to keep them complacent and make a profit at the same time.

[HillbillyBob]

26. I personally have used it as medicine,

I am long term hiv+, also have seizures and 3x cancer survivor.
It does what opiate based pain relievers do not. It also helped me cope with hiv and cancer meds.
I have not even SEEN any for a year and Im getting worn out being sick every day.
Not to mention crabby!

[tridim]

28. I feel sorry for people who have never smelled a living cannabis flower.

Because it's a beautiful thing to behold.

IMO there's no way to guage how many people would grow their own if it were legal. Lots of people grow their own tomatoes, and if you can manage to get a tomato plant to produce fruit you can grow cannabis buds that are better than almost anything you can buy on the street or in a legal dispensary. Most people just don't know that yet.

[Occam Bandage]

31. Gardens are another great example.

Anyone can grow their own food. More to the point, anyone can grow in a small plot almost all the herbs and spices they'd need for a year's worth of cooking. The flavor would be better than anything you can buy in a store, much cheaper, and fulfilling to grow. And yet most people don't. Sure, some people do grow their own, but mostly only a few gardening/culinary hobbyists--and even still, most people who have gardens with herbs and spices still buy spices to supplant their gardens, just as most people who grow tomatoes still buy produce as well, and just as most people who brew their own beers still go to bars as well.

I'm not saying some people won't be hobbyists. Plenty of people will. But they will be a small minority, just as all DIYers are in all fields. The prospect of home growing doesn't threaten corporate profits any more than gardening threatens agribusiness.

[Trajan]

13. Tobacco and beer are a GREAT analogy ....

Even against your protests that they do not .....

ALL are used as mood alterants by the public, and all are 'contraband' that is attractive to bootleggers when restricted ....

They are almost EXACTLY the same ....

[Chulanowa]

35. Both substances have their medicinal uses

You don't get substances with such a long history of use without there being some benefit to the users, in some way. The thing is, tobacco and alcohol - and yes, pot - are so overused, usually at the detriment of the user's health (and if you think overuse of pot is any healthier than overuse of cigarettes or something, you're fooling yourself) that the actual medical benefits of them are obfuscated.

Nicotine has roles in treatments of various neurological disorders such as tourette's syndrome, and has some anesthetic value. It also causes the constriction of blood vessels, which is one reason your grandmother would apply a tobacco poultice to an insect sing to prevent swelling (mine did, anyway). Alcohol has various positive effects on digestion and the nervous system. And of course, the bonuses of pot are easy to find on DU.

Unfortunately, rampant overuse pretty much makes these health benefits and medicinal uses moot, and basically builds a wall against any rational use of these things.

[HillbillyBob]

24. We need to get the corpses out of our government not

give them a new revenue stream.
WTF happened to RICO and the AntiTrust laws?
We need to get them out and dust them off and put them to use.
If a few or even many congress critters get caught with their hand in the pockets of the corpses, so be it.
If we run it like the state ABC stores or even sell it through the ABC stores or Tobacco outlets. Virginia has a lot of those and they are private entities, I really don't know how that is set up.
They are mom and pop places, that is the ones I have been in are and they are hurting because of all the taxes on them.
In the case of State ABC stores the outlet and distribution infrastructure is already there.
Since cigs are so expensive now and have so many chemicals in them, we have bought organic tobacco seeds to try doing it ourselves, get weened off the chemicals then maybe I can break the habit altogether.
Besides we live on what was a tobacco field since about 1735, so I know it grows here. We even got a type of seed that was developed in the area.
Hemp was even grown here at one time I do believe.
In colonial days during the years that our republic was new, all farmers were required to grow hemp for fabric and ropes.
http://www.hempmuseum.org/SUBROOMS/HEMP%20HISTORY%20EARLY%20U.S..htm

"Hemp was second to tobacco as the crop to grow in early America. The demand for tobacco in England, kept the farmers busy with this cash crop. Most of the hemp crop in America was used at home in local commerce, much to the dismay of King George and the English navy.
snip
Maps, log books, Bibles, books were all made of rag bond paper that had a high hemp content from recycled clothes of homespun hemp, sails, ropes, tents made of hemp. The collection and recycling of rags for paper was an industry for hundreds of years in Europe, and a lesson to us on the importance of paying attention to recycling in general, we have got to stop burying what was once our wealth."
snip

[PJPhreak]

9. Because making weed legal and taxing it

just makes too much common sense!
As an retired grower and smuggler I would have been all too happy to have been a legitimate small business owner,rather than what the "System" calls a "Criminal".
Yes I got caught...yes i've been convicted...and incarcerated. Cost the Feds Many thousands of tax dollars,Your tax Dollars to prosecute me for what amounted to a big bag of Weed, Nothing more.
No Coke,No Meth,No Dope,No Doses,No Points,No Guns,No Gangs. Nada,Nothing,Ever.

I am and always have been a Peacenik Deadhead. I am Totally Harmless and always will be.

So why did the Gooberment spend All That Money to Arrest,Try and Incarcerate me for 30 months for something that a majority of adult Americans want legal and have for many years??

Beats The Hell Outta Me!

[dreamnightwind]

34. Hey now

Just a shout-out to ya, PJPhreak, from a fellow traveler.

Look for a while at the china cat sunflower,
Proud walking jingle in the midnight sun.
Copperdome bodhi drip a silver kimono,
Like a crazy quilt stargown through a dream night wind

[Amonester]

15. K&R

Only 1 rec. (so far) for "The Key" for solving economic insolvency in the long run?

Please send the link to the article (at the very least...) to:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/CONTACT/

HOPE Someone will read it...

[Mopar151]

18. All the ninnies think

That legal pot will create legions of additcted wretches. I beleive that it will create legions of "bud snobs", much like wine snobs. Big wholesalers will have product that aficinados disdain as the herbal equivalent of Night Train, and individual farmers will have fanatic followings like estate wines. I hope some folks I know get real legal recognition for their art, they are certainly deserving!

[HillbillyBob]

25. Maybe our organic style(too expensive to get certified)

Could turn a profit instead of needing input from our jobs.
We did not really buy Green Acres to turn a profit, just break even and grow our own food and to have peace.
I have known many folks who smoked, a few were burnouts, but most smoke a bit, but hold jobs and have it in the evening instead of a cocktail.
I would love to see bud snobs, instead of convicts.
The next poster states that it will not generate that much income/revenue.
Maybe it would maybe it would not, but how much is it costing the fed to snoop out, arrest, try, convict and jail pot smokers? We would not be spending that on polices state and they could be looking for real violent criminals.
It has become it's own self sustaining entity which is a shame.
How much does it cost society when a father of 3 with a wife gets busted?
She had no viable income or goes to work at a shit job because she has no skills or if its mom that gets busted and dad has try to raise them on his own and he is not prepared or cannot keep watch to keep them out of trouble, or a son or daughter gets busted and it costs mom and dad everything in legal fees and kid still goes to jail for whatever amount of time, and then he/she is a convicted felon with no way to earn a living when they get out and no one wants to hire an ex convict. After looking for work he/she resorts to other kinds of crime , robbery or theft to eat... sorry spiral down hill, in and out of the clink.
As a for instance.
I had a friend in SoFla, his brother-in-law called him up one evening and said my van broke out on the highway would you come help?
The friend got there, it was the battery or alternator, B-I-law said "I ll walk up to the auto parts store" and get parts i guess..in the mean time a state trooper came by and stopped to see if he could render aid. Then looked in the van which the friend had not...1.2 million in purest high grade pot. something like 1 3/4 tons.friend got arrested his stay at home wife and 2 daughters lost their home, she had a heart attack(likely would have sooner or later) the kids went into foster care, she later died because they did not have insurance the hospital put her out after 2 days and everything they had worked for for 20 years gone. The little girls were 5 and 9 I think it was. Multiply that by say 40% of the folks in jail for pot. Now I realize not every one gets busted for such a large amount, but it was not even his and he did not know what B-In-Law was up to. Yes he did smoke but did not mess with large amts. If it were legal there would not be a black market.
I had even had my home raided while I had a furniture customer there to pu some stuff I had refinished for them. The cuffed us all. Someone called up the cops and said we have five pounds of pot. In that then/there I would have spent the rest of my life in prison in Al, if there had been anything to find.
I was terrified my partner was left on the floor having a grand mal seizure while cuffed, my customers were taken in too, and their little girl left there by herself while we were hauled downtown and given the 4 degree for about 3 hrs chained to a desk. Turned out they had been under surveillance for almost 2 years because I was out gay and had diverse friends.

[Mopar151]

29. I'm so with you

In simple terms, with pot (and most botanicals), the vast majority of the harm done comes from the enforcement side.
Really, we are trying to push a rope - our public health system is far more suited to dealing with these sorts of issues, and could do so much more efficently.
I would only hope that we regulate the growers lightly and well, and bias the system toward minimizing middlemen - like we should for all farmers.

[Echo In Light]

30. Bring on the "bud snobs" then, by all means!

:hi:

[Mopar151]

32. Aficianados, would be better

At least to book the VT Harvest Tour. Highlighted by a stop at the Tunbridge Worlds Fair for the Judging of the Buds, and fried dough on the midway. Judgin by my previous trips to tha area, I would'nt make it much past the breakfast stop.

[tridim]

36. People are going to be shocked at how deep the cannabis genetic pool already is

It's already much more diverse than wine grapes IMO.

We already have different hybrid lines that smell like grapes, grape koolade, grape candy or grape soda. Then there's blueberry, Kush, diesel, floral, skunk, lemon, orange, spice, bubblegum and berry smelling strains. It's almost endless, and it all happened during prohibition.

I can't wait to see what happens when Cannabis is finally legal.

[anigbrowl]

19. I'm totally supportive...but it won't bring in THAT much money.

Our budget shortfall in California is about $42 billion. The annual turnover of the pot business in ca is about $30 billion. Every little helps of course, but at best you're looking at bridging maybe 10% of the gap with MJ taxes. It's nothing to sneeze at, but it's not the solution to every problem either.

[JVS]

20. If you really want to rake in the dough tax opium

[Oldenuff]

21. I don't understand people...

It's as if to say,If you will give us the right to legal Cannabis,we'll just fall all over ourselves to pay taxes for it.

I'm all for legalization...I'm just not of the opinion that we ought to be paying taxes in exchange for our right to decide for ourselves as adults.

[ContinentalOp]

22. I love how the tobacco smokers are crying about taxes

and the weed smokers are begging to be taxed if only you decriminalize their chosen vice. Kind of puts things in perspective doesn't it? Until this issue is resolved I really don't want to hear another smoker whining about not being able to blow their smoke in my face in public.

[Fumesucker]

23. Umm.. Decriminalization doesn't mean taxation..

Only in a full-on legalization scenario would pot be taxed.

Alcohol was "decriminalized" during alcohol prohibition, there was no penalty for possession or consumption of alcohol, only for sales, manufacture or importation.

[dreamnightwind]

33. all arguments against this are bogus

I've never seen an issue with such specious arguments on the side of the status quo that is left as is for so long.

It's way past time for this. How many of us are criminals because of this, but have never engaged in a single criminal act in our lives? Insanity.

There's a cultural persecution aspect to pot laws, always has been. Blacks and hippies are being selectively arrested, jailed, denied employment, in some cases even losing child custody, because of this tragic law.

Anyone here think that if right-wing church-goers used pot as their chemical of choice that it would still be illegal?

I can't believe we've stood for this persecution all these years. Enough.