Pubdate: Sat, 02 Apr 2016
Source: Elko Daily Free Press (NV)
Copyright: 2016 Elko Daily Free Press
Contact:  http://www.elkodaily.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2326
Author: Jim Hartman
Note: Jim Hartman is an attorney in Genoa, Nevada.

LEGAL POT - BAD FOR NEVADA

Out-of-state pot industry promoters are pouring millions of dollars 
into Nevada to legalize recreational marijuana in this state. To 
qualify for the ballot, these promoters raised nearly $800,000, with 
60 percent from outside Nevada - given by pot industry corporate 
donors from California, Colorado, New Jersey, Illinois, Texas, 
Missouri, Massachusetts - and including $250,000 from the Washington 
D.C. pro pot lobby group, Marijuana Policy Project.

Nevadans need to know what this initiative is NOT. This initiative is 
NOT a Nevada-based libertarian "live and let live" effort to permit 
limited "backyard marijuana grows." Instead, the initiative will 
require the Nevada Department of Taxation to be radically transformed 
into a massive bureaucracy and become the single most powerful agency 
in state government.

Under the initiative, the Department of Taxation would be given the 
responsibility to set marijuana prices; regulate pot potency; certify 
and license marijuana cultivation, retail and wholesale 
establishments; ensure background checks are made on all employees; 
inspect pot establishments, testing facilities, etc. The duties of 
the Nevada Department of Taxation under the initiative are 
unprecedented and would overwhelm the department as currently constituted.

The taxes generated from marijuana sales under this initiative would 
be totally consumed by the bureaucratic costs of legal pot 
administration run by state government.

Colorado voters legalized recreational marijuana in November 2012. It 
is now expected to be a $1 billion business in 2016, with 
recreational marijuana sales increasing by 55 percent in January 2016 
from one year earlier. The result has been an alarming growth in 
underage marijuana use, increase in drug crimes, a continuing 
marijuana "black market," sales dispensaries focused in inner-city 
neighborhoods, as well as issues related to health, banking, 
pesticides and neighborhood zoning.

The tax revenues raised from pot sales have not covered the 
regulatory overhead. Information on the owners of Colorado marijuana 
businesses is opaque and not readily available. Colorado's 
neighboring states, Nebraska and Oklahoma, have sued Colorado as a 
result of negative impacts in their states.

Nevada is already near the bottom of most U.S. rankings for schools. 
Studies show early marijuana use contributes to higher drop-out rates 
and poorer university entrance scores. Studies also show how early 
marijuana use is associated with lower IQs and other cognitive 
ill-effects, leading to 1 of 6 regular teenage users becoming addicted.

Today's new commercial "potpreneurs" are selling "Pot Tarts" and "Pot 
Gummy Bears." Are we comfortable with legalizing marijuana edibles 
like these that appeal to children?

The experience of legalization in Colorado has already shown that 
recreational marijuana use has compromised the state's workforce, and 
caused large companies to hire workers from other states, as would-be 
employees fail pre-employment drug tests. The "New Nevada" is 
expecting to see large growth in advanced manufacturing jobs; can we 
afford to have Nevada jobs imperiled?

Both Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval, a Republican, and neighboring 
California Governor Jerry Brown, a Democrat, have indicated their 
opposition to the legalization of recreational marijuana. As Governor 
Brown observed: "if there's advertising and legitimacy, how many 
people can get stoned and still have a great state or a great nation."

A bipartisan coalition of Nevadans needs to unite in the recognition 
that legalizing recreational marijuana is bad for kids, bad for 
Nevada families, and bad for Nevada employers.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom