Oakland, Calif. voters approved the nation’s first tax on marijuana this past Tuesday.
Advocates of the new tax argue that this is a positive change in attitude towards marijuana and that assessing tax on marijuana could be a useful source of income tax.
Some advocates see this landslide vote in favor of assessing tax on marijuana as a step towards national legalization of marijuana.
"It's just smart economics," said San Francisco Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi. His District 5 includes four of the city's sixteen licensed outlets; estimates of overall outlets number as many as 40. "It is a progressive tax on a widespread practice and a readily accessible product."
"The voters of Oakland have sent a message to the nation that cannabis is better treated as a legitimate, tax-paying business than as a cause of crime and futile law-enforcement expenditures," Dale Gieringer, California state coordinator for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said.
This is great, but what California really needs is a state-wide tax. I know this is in the works, but hopefully this small step will push along the state bill so that it passes more quickly. While it probably wont save California, a state wide tax could go a long way in aiding their disastrous economy.
It's just a matter of time before it goes statewide. Oakland is pretty much the American pioneer in marijuana reform, I have no doubt it'll catch on. I just hope that the DEA listens to Obama and stops raiding.
Advocates of the new tax argue that this is a positive change in attitude towards marijuana and that assessing tax on marijuana could be a useful source of income tax.
Don't you mean "sales" tax income?
The Federal government, the various State governments and who knows how many local governments probably have billions of dollars in confiscated MJ in storage - I think that'd be a tremendous source of temporary income, to auction it off to sellers after legalizing it, plus the tax then derived from the eventual sales to the public would allow them to make money off of the SAME pot twice!
You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ')group by comment_item_id order by a desc limit 10' at line 1
You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ')group by comment_item_id order by a desc limit 10' at line 1
You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ')group by comment_item_id order by a desc limit 10' at line 1
