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Medical marijuana touted as cure for cities' budget woes

28/07/2009 01:40:00 admin

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By Rachel Stockton (rachels@foodconsumer.org)

In the aftermath of the overwhelming support for marijuana taxation in Oakland last week, other cities in California, such as San Francisco and Berkeley, are looking to similar legislation as a possible reprieve from dire financial straits.

By the end of next year, the Oakland marijuana tax is expected to bring into the local coffers approximately $294,000 the first year. Statewide, officials believe that an official pot club tax could assuage some of the huge debt California is stuck with. Assemblyman Tom Ammiano introduced a bill this year to legalize and tax marijuana. Additionally, a group of defense lawyers have proposed the "Tax, Regulate and Control Cannabis Act.” The proposal needs nearly ½ million signatures to make it to the November 2010 ballot.

The Oakland legislation is, at least in part, a result of Obama’s promise not to raid licensed, medical marijuana dispensaries. Although medical marijuana is legal in the state of California, at the federal level, it is still very illegal – and federal law usurps state law in just about every instance. Any such legislation to tax dispensaries would have been moot under the Bush administration, which stringently and actively raided them.

The legalization or decriminalization of cannabis is likely to remain a hot topic in the coming months. Those in favor of removing legal barriers to the drug say that the effects of marijuana are much less extreme than that of alcohol; those against legalization believe that the number of addicted persons will increase, should weed suddenly become assessable.

According to the New York Times, 9% of adults who have ever tried pot eventually become addicted. That percentage jumps to 30% of those who smoke it daily.

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Comments (2 posted):

The Green Cross SF on 28/07/2009 15:41:53

Punishing patients to gain social acceptance of a rushed unproven experiment involving general adult use is irresponsible and unfair. The medical community has worked hard to fight for the rights of patients and caretakers. Kevin Reed, President of the The Green Cross may have said it best, when he commented that “this frantic, ‘we need money, legalize now’ movement may totally derail what we have been tirelessly working for during the last thirteen years. Proponents of legalization run the risk that people may not like what they see, the legalization-for-all social experiment might fail, and bring the medical cannabis movement down with it.

ItsCalled Duplicity on 28/07/2009 19:16:42

The current situation is the direct result of President Obama speaking out of both sides of his mouth. On the one hand Obama is saying legalization is a bad idea, yet he does nothing. Furthermore, the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy” is saying “Legalization is not in the president’s vocabulary, and it’s not in mine, Marijuana is dangerous and has no medicinal benefit…”

On the other hand AG Holder is telling people he is deemphasizing raids on “care providers” and “it’s a state problem”. He says this despite the clear intent of Congress and the Supreme Court’s upholding the law made by Congress. Evidently AG Holder forgot his job is to enforce the law (as opposed to an individual case) and thinks it’s to make it by not enforcing it.

The irony is Congress gave AG Holder the power & process to make it available for medicinal purposes. But here again AG Holder has done nothing.