Pubdate: Tue, 10 Apr 2007
Source: Press Democrat, The (Santa Rosa, CA)
Copyright: 2007 The Press Democrat
Contact:  http://www.pressdemo.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/348
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Proposition+215
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Marijuana - Medicinal)

MARIJUANA TAX

State Needs to Meet Responsibilities Before It Claims Share of Revenue

What part of accountability doesn't the state of California 
understand? State government can't be bothered with providing a 
coherent framework for the dispensation of medical marijuana, but it 
will be happy to slap a tax on anyone who sells it.

On Sunday, the Sacramento Bee reported that the state Board of 
Equalization has served notice that the sellers of medical marijuana 
must pay state and local sales taxes.

If medical marijuana is reaching people who need it, this means the 
state tax agency is eager to take money from people seeking relief 
from cancer or AIDS.

It remains to be demonstrated, of course, that current practice 
guarantees that marijuana reaches the people who need it. Absent 
state regulation, there is a patchwork of local rules that sometimes 
becomes a pretext for use by people who want to smoke marijuana 
because, well, they want to smoke marijuana.

In that way, medical marijuana and Proposition 215 get dragged into 
the politics of legalizing pot -- a separate subject.

If the state wants to tax people who are sick -- a cruel idea -- it 
needs to to meet its responsibilities by establishing common-sense 
rules for the prescription and distribution of medical marijuana. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake