Pubdate: Thu, 18 Feb 2016
Source: Sacramento News & Review (CA)
Column: The 420
Copyright: 2016 Chico Community Publishing, Inc.
Contact:  http://newsreview.com/sacto/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/540
Author: Ngaio Bealum

KEEP THAT WEED CHEAP

Where can I get the cheapest referral?

- -JG

Anywhere? Seriously, these doctors' offices are mostly the same. Back 
in the day, it would cost upward of $100 for a doctor's 
recommendation. These days, you can find one for about 40 bucks. Grab 
a coupon out of this paper and go. Look for a place that has a doctor 
on-site, ask about court support in case you are arrested (although 
you probably won't get dragged into court unless you have pounds and 
pounds of weed plus hundreds of plants), and have a great time as a 
cannabis patient.

Your question has me thinking, though. As it stands now, there are 
about a million cannabis patients in California. a typical 
recommendation will cost between $40 and $60. You could pay more for 
one of those "Grow 99 plants!"-type recommendations, but those 
letters don't really hold up in court. What if we legalized weed, and 
instead of an outrageous tax, we just charged folks something like 
$50 a year for a "weed license"? That's $50 million off the top (not 
counting the money we would make from tourists) straight into the 
coffers of the state. That way, we could lower the proposed taxes and 
maybe make a dent in the black and gray markets.

Consider that as opposed to a recent proposal from Sen. Mike McQuire, 
suggesting a 15 percent tax on all medical marijuana sold in 
California. This would be on top of the taxes cities and counties 
charge, making the effective tax rate almost 30 percent in some 
places. Virtually every cannabis advocacy group in California opposes 
this bill.

Maybe my idea wouldn't work, but we have to think of ways to keep the 
pot taxes from being ridiculous. Legislators have to remember that 
weed is doing fine. It's the state that needs the money. If you make 
the taxes and regulations too restrictive, people will go back to 
their friendly neighborhood weed man and the state will be cut out of 
the deal. Listen, California's cannabis sales could top $1 billion a 
year with no problem. Ten percent of a billion is $100 million. I 
think an extra $100 million a year, plus the revenues from the 
licensing and all the other regulatory BS, should be enough money. We 
will see how it goes, but something has to be done to let legislators 
know that trying to kill the golden goose is never a good idea.

What's good?

- -Dabben Onnem

It's all good! Everyone wants in on the weed game: Bernie Sanders 
talked so much about weed that Hilary Clinton has had to change her 
stance; Roseanne Barr is opening a dispensary in Santa Ana; the 
family of Bob Marley has weed that just now got into the shops (and I 
need to try it); Snoop Dogg just signed a deal to sell cannabis in 
Canada; Margaret Cho has a line of delicious cannabis flowers 
available-Margaret and I are on the same boutique cannabis label, 
BTW; and it looks like Arizona and New Mexico will have cannabis 
legalization initiatives on the ballot in 2016! Weed stays winning.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom