Legalizing the retail production and sale of cannabis in the United States would yield over $3 billion in annual tax revenue, according to an analysis published this week by the personal finance website, NerdWallet.com.
Authors provided a state-by-state economic analysis, taking into account available data estimating marijuana use rates (for those age 25 and older), cannabis market size, and state and local tax rates. Researchers also assumed a flat, 15 percent excise tax on commercial marijuana production. (This excise tax rate is presently imposed in Colorado.)
Based on existing market projections, California would gain the largest amount of annual tax revenue ($519,287,052) were commercial cannabis production and sales to be legalized for adults. Other top tax revenue generating states include: New York ($248,103,676), Florida ($183,408,640), Texas ($166,303,963), and Illinois ($126,107,360).
Washington, which began allowing retail cannabis sales this summer, is estimated to reap some $119,000,000 in annual tax revenue, according to the study’s projections. Colorado, which has allowed retail cannabis sales since January 1, 2014, is estimated to gain some $78,000,000 in annual revenue.
Revenue projections for all 50 states are available online here.
Pennsylvania could be raking in $104,235,067 per annum. The prohibitionists in the state have done an excellent job running the economy into the ground. When the federal stimulus money ran out because Pennsylvania spent all of it right away cannabis revenue could have helped avoid a whole lot of the hurt the state has been going through. Governor Corbett and his fellow republican prohibitionists–with few exceptions–have caused a financial mess that makes the state ripe for legalization, but only once the public’s state of denial about legalizing cannabis is out of the way.
The state senator, a republican, representing northern Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, is pro-legalization after been bitten by the cancer bug. Take a look at the local NORML chapter for Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and you’ll find all the state republican politicians are against cannabis–even medical cannabis. Mike Sturla is a democrat, the only one for it. See for yourself.
http://www.lancasternorml.org/
These republican prohibitionists don’t give a rat’s ass about what Dr. Sanjay Gupta says because he doesn’t vote in their districts. In one newspaper article or tv interview or another, they all are waiting for medical professionals who vote in their districts to stick their necks out and either draft a letter or tell them personally that they want to be able to recommend cannabis or even prescribe cannabis to their patients. Can you fuckin’ believe it!? Do they know how busy doctors are!? There must be some doctors in Pennsylvania who would do it if it were legal, and someone needs to help out the medical professionals and draft the letter and just have them sign it or something, then send it to each one of these republican prohibitionists. Same to be done in other parts of the state to both democratic and republican prohibitionist politicians who are spouting this same shit.
Its good to see larger-picture reports like this!
The folks @NerdWallet did a great job; they even made a cool map to show the data.
Its an exciting time, for sure 😉
Aloha, Max
now if people would just stop lying about the evil of us smoking or eating medicinal marijuana that would be just perfect
Some serious numbers!
Maybe this legalize marijuana stuff may catch on after all.
Thank you marijuana nerds at nerd wallet.com
Thank you for publishing this before November elections in Texas! Now Texans go vote for Wendy Davis! Early voting ends October 30th. Voter Registration ends October 8th. You can still get friends and relatives on line at Vote-Texas.gov and click on the register tab. You can contact Cheyenne at Norml.org for events and Texas NORML meetings (every Second Wednesday at the Flamingo Cantina west 6th street.)
Now we’re talking in the only language politicians understand; dollar signs
Taxing a free plant is just wrong
[Editor’s note: Thinking cannabis (or any recreational drug) is going to be (or should be) tax free is politically naive and economically selfish. Possession amount of cannabis cultivated or traded among friends and/or patients for self enjoyment like beer or jams, sure. Cultivating and selling large amounts of any commodity or service is going to be taxed virtually everywhere on the planet (only real debate is HOW much the taxation rate). BTW, with the taxation of cannabis industry (and it is AN industry) comes the self-evident influence in politics. So-called ‘drug dealers’ possess no political sway. They are hunted, jailed and/or killed, not courted by elected policy makers and their gun-toting agencies.
Will the end of cannabis prohibition be hastened and replaced with more free-market oriented public policies led by politically influential industry-types, or, by furtive, underground illegal marketers and tax scoffs?
Think about it.]
To the average working person, $3,000,000,000 sounds like a lot. However, the way our Govt wastes money, it’s just a drop in the bucket… I fear it’s not enough to get the prohibitionists to change their minds and end their stupidity.
The GOP should take a long, hard look at these numbers. Obviously, science doesn’t persuade them, but this money will.
And when they finally join our ranks, the battle is over.
Now let’s see what it is when we factor in money saved by the elimination I arrest, court, and expensive jails.
3 Billion a year might not be alot to our government but that is jsut the potential profits. what about the savings? Law Enforcment expences across the country to learn about, go after, prosecute, then jailing the victim. Im sure all expences linked to cannabis prohibition add up to much more then a mere 3 billion. our government should see this as a gold mine!
medical cannabis tax and users between 21 and 24 are not accounted for so the numbers will swell a bit more in the real world.
PLUS if this were to happen we would also legalize hemp. Hemp for food,energy,medicine, and textiles among other uses will also generate billions! The real $$$ is in hemp not cannabis.
@ Galileo
We’ve a hard nut to crack here in NM. We’ve had MMJ for several years now; however, the current GOP establishment, Tea Party Gov. Susanna Martinez and Albuquerque Mayor Ray Barry, seem hell-bent on taking us back to the Dark Ages. Alas, with the conservative media out here falling all over itself promoting both of them, I fear both will be reelected.
But here and there our side is chipping away at them. Santa Fe just voted to reduce MJ penalties; and the Albq city councilors (the Dems anyway) vow to reintroduce those measures at first opportunity. You can’t keep progress down forever.
It is truly astonishing to understand we are talking tax revenue alone. Does the average tax paying citizen understand the indirect (and direct) hard dollars our government will have to find another excuse for fleecing from us in the name of drug enforcement, incarceration for marihuana offenses, unconstitutional trials, detainments, lawyers, DA’s, judges, court admins all paid with our taxes to enforce marihuana laws?
Laws that were made to divide, control, to assert authority over the lives of citizens where none was needed or necessary.
Laws that were manipulated over time to focus on the poor, communities of color and the homeless.
For taxpaying citizens who can’t see the irony in completely footing this bill for decades with our own tax dollars and watching as society slowly devolves around us while swallowing the lies hook line and sinker about the “dangers” of Marihuana, well, we need to be fleeced then, we need to be dehumanized by this tyrany if we won’t stand up to it.
Not one American citizen who considers themselves free and truly believes in the idea of what America truly is, what it truly means to be American, none would rest, or ever vote against ending these injustices. No one should ever stop until it is truly understood that it was, it is and it will forever be ” of the people, for the people and by the people”. Real Americans should not rest until this injustice is completely overturned nationally.
I am for the fight, of the fight and will see the “war” won. It will be over sooner than we think now and the shame is that the reason will be money but whatever works.
Most of us will live to see the day when the “authorities and experts” on the dangers of that marihuana will come clean, either because they’ll see how uniformed they were or they’ll just admit the jig is up.
2015 is going to surprise many Americans but not all of us. This isn’t gaining steam, it’s steamrolling.
It’ll be over sooner than we think – I love it!
Unfortunately around $10 Billion is spent annually on the drug war. A large chunk of it on Cannabis prohibition. Do the math, $3 Billion vs $10 Billion, and you see why progress has been so slow. It is still a net loss for the folks who rely on the drug war capital. We are going to have to ride this one out. The good news is that we are finally reaching the tipping point. I’m very tired of waiting.
I presume this is just direct taxation on the industry. It does not include the benefits from job creation and the growth of the support industries (leisure, accessories, growing equipment etc) or the reduction in policing and incarceration costs. You could easily double that figure when calculating the annual economic benefits. But as @Miles says that is still a drop in the bucket as far as the national economy goes.
Taxes Taxes Taxes !
I know I’m paying my fair share of taxes.
Taxing something just to make it legal ?
taxing it @ what rate is the big unknown.
the black market is still thriving in Colorado where cannabis is legal.
people are tired of government adding another tax to their lives.
everything should be taxed @ the same rate.
a high “sin” tax won’t work & is destined to fail in the free market system.
people will just purchase from the black market system something they have
be doing for generations.
Weed The People recommends a tax revolt.
grow your own, tell the government to take a hike.
vote out all who disagree. think about that.
[Editor’s note: Alcohol Prohibition would have lasted another 50 years without taxation…perpetuating the non-free market of underground cannabis economy with non-compliant players will unnecessarily extend prohibition (even though the populace wants otherwise).
As stated in one of America’s first Supreme Court decisions ‘the power to tax is the power to create or destroy’. Citizens, electing pro-reform candidates, can have sway over the effective tax rates and licensing costs related to the production and sale of cannabis. This is a far more effective and sustainable manner to check overly tax-hungry governments than promoting cultivators, sellers and consumers to ‘cheat the system’ and risk arrest and serious penalties.]
how about how crazy the cops are getting, must be their “piggy” banks we’re going to clean out.
I can understand the need for a regulated marijuana market, and I have no problems with paying my fair share of taxes. However when it comes to sin taxes on marijuana I don’t think we owe the prohibitions anything except 40 miles of bad road, and a hard time.
Alright Weed the BullPull, or whoever you think you represent, stop ranting your anarchy on this blog. I mean damn, who do you think is buying your regurgitated Koch propaganda that somehow, magically, private corporations will benevolently end prohibition without taxation? Bitch, taxation WITH representation IS Democracy! What you’re preaching is called A PLUTACRACY, when private business like insurance gets to set the costs of health care and marijuana, which is what we already have under prohibition! We all want to grow our own but that shit ain’t gonna happen unless we create some commercial marijuana revenue so some representatives can FINALLY start defending our right to allow patients and doctors determine the cost of marijuana and health care. Get off the Libertarian rant and vote For fair marijuana taxation and regulation, which is what NORML has always been about.
Why are we paying to fund another war ?
shame shame shame
take that noble peace prize away
did he get that in a crackle jax box?
Jah love. Give thanks and praises for this wonderful article. It is about time that data from this kind of research came out. We all know that Cannabis and hemp can save our economy and empower millions in the U.S. and around the world. And as a RastafarI, I can attest to the suffering of so many blacks and other people who fought for so long to use cannabis and hemp. I am thrilled by the legalization successes in the U.S. and elsewhere and I am hoping and praying that the people who were previously victimized when it was illegal will share in the profits. NYC wake up!!! Blessed love.
@Julian
guess all the real hippies are gone. Have been replaced with
advocates for MORE Taxes while hiding behind tax free status ie. NORML
what a long strange trip it’s been ????
Americans should take note that retail marijuana consumers willingness to pay these high tax rates is very generous, and tolerant.
It’s not about the money, it is about the pursuit of happiness.
Haven’t weed proponents been talking about the financial benefits of a legalized marijuana industry for years? Nothing wrong with paying taxes on the weed. Small price to pay for legalization 😀
Yup A drop in the bucket of The Legal Cannnbis Market. We’ll need more farmers.
Really? Our tax dollars are being spent on the drug war under prohibition and would most certainly continue to do so in an unregulated market that would leave drug lords using corporate warfare to continue prohibition for pharmaceutical and industrial profit. Just because we eliminate the prison lobby, an enormous accomplishment in itself, does not mean that all prohibitionists like Pfizer and Koch Industries will stop funding private prohibitions like patenting or all new f’d up laws.
Legal, regulated taxation with revenue on education is happening right now in Colorado with limited rights to grow. Let’s get our banks out of the drug laundering business and let cartels solve their disputes in a courthouse without torture or bloodshed. By having representatives in our government empowered by commercially taxed cannabis we can achieve this peace.
Anyone that tells you untaxed unregulated private cannabis corporations will keep our best interests at heart prefers the violent profit of unregulated, privatized prohibition.
@Evening Bud,
“You can’t keep progress down forever.”
Really??? Umm, ever hear of the Middle East?
@weed the people:
Ok. Some relaxing Indica… I’m calm now. So… I don’t get it; you’re upset about corporations that don’t pay taxes? Like GE, Koch Industries and the list goes on? That would require Reform and Regulation right? In other words, “taxes.” But you’re also upset over too many taxes. Which would require… “Regulation.” You gotta make up your mind man! Are you for anarchy? Like “No king! No king! La-la-la-la-la-lah!????” Or are you for the flat tax? How about a “fat” tax, where we only tax fat people? Pick a tax! Then go vote, n choose your poison like the rest of us.
I mean $#!+, at some point you gotta realize there is “no taxation without representation.” You’re venting steam on the amount of tax when it appears to me we should be focused on the quality of representation we receive from the said tax so we can IMPROVE our f’d up laws!
With all due respect Weed People, if you have a better way of creating pro-legal cannabis representatives without purchasing commercially taxed marijuana or donating to lobbies like NORML PAC, please share, because I’ve tried and believe me standing on government property in your underwear smoking a joint by the lake just ain’t gonna cut it! … It might get you arrested while your so called friends laugh that the cops didn’t find THEIR stash because I was the only one who was 21 and the rookie cop said he’d hit me with Felony distribution to a minor even though it was my little sisters weed and the rookie clearly slept with my sisters friend, Kelly so she could get out of a speeding ticket… (Gasp!) …I don’t know that it happened all in that order… but that’s besides the point; I’m not bitter.
Sooooo…
Commercially taxed marijuana creates pro-marijuana representatives that create pro-marijuana laws. End stop. Period.
As for growing free as the wind… Tax free or otherwise…
Right now, we can make up to 500 gallons per year of beer. How many people do you know that DO that? None. Why? Because it’s WORK bitch!
Now, I will give you this; Americans don’t seem to understand how easy it is to grow hemp compared to marijuana, much less the utility of hemp for energy, medicine, shelter, building materials, and the list DOES go on. Likewise, we can’t ignore how WELL that marijuana motivates us to build $#!+ we otherwise wouldn’t care about. I mean if you had to build something to save your momma’s life, chances are, under pressure to perform, your momma would die. But while you’re high? Stop the damn train! I think I have an idea! There may be hope for my tribe after all! And all that took was some WEED?
If you can live off the land like our ancestors did, using hemp and marijuana for fuel, shelter, food and medicine, then by God in CreAtion subsidize the man’s farm and leave the taxes to the big guys like the commercial industries. But if their is one thing we forget as tax-hating politician-blaming Americans (myself included) is we FORGET the DECISIONS and VOTING power we have as CONSUMERS. If you don’t like taxed marijuana, and choose not to purchase it or even purchase the drug lord empowering crap off the black market streets… Then try and grow it yourself without taxing it at all and see who finds you first; a benevolent politician wanting to represent poor farmers? Or the DEA cartel who just bought another politician into their pockets?
Face it Weed the People, taxing commercially sold marijuana can create the best friend a self sustaining farmer ever had.
Fairly Taxed and Represented Marijuana=Sustainable Democracy.
I don’t think these “destroy the Fed”, “the Fed runs on stolen money” types get how money even works.
However, we should be auditing the Fed every year… ’cause that is how money does work. You should not be paying taxes on food. You should be paying taxes on marijuana you purchased for entertainment. But not for medicine. Hence why there should be medical marijuana laws and just marijuana regulations and taxes. And no Sin taxes as that is just absurd. Sins taxes are for Sinful things, like gambling, Alcohol, cocaine and whores!
@Dave;
I have to say I was with you all the way up to “whores.” Hell yes let’s tax recreational marijuana in order to achieve pro marijuana representatives; but let’s not forget that prohibition of ANY kind is built for an exploiting black market; including prostitution. Regulation and taxation is the only way to balance any market. I realize as I’m saying this, we should tax and regulate pussy… Which just sounds all kinds of f’d up… But it’s better than throwing pussy on the black market because we all know that $#!+ ain’t right!
@Julian
what are you smoking?
you somehow morphed my comment regarding paying too much in taxes
into some anti capitalism tirade. got news for you high taxes are due
to liberal socialism paying for all the programs for people to get free stuff without working. why does cannabis get taxed @ a much higher rate than
most other “goods” is the issue. if you want socialism then go somewhere else. Weed The People believe in the simple things like the Constitution and what it stands for.
And if we simply removed all marijuana laws and treated it similarly to stinging nettles or comfrey, the savings would dwarf the $3 billion in revenues from regulating it. Also, the $3 billion in new revenues would be offset by the massive new regulatory structure. Just stop regulating it altogether, get the government out of the business of regulating what a private citizen wants to do with their own body.
Julian, Laws have to cover everyone, not just choosen few that never make mistakes–or so they tell us. Like I said, “Sin Taxes” are for Sin Full activities and purchases. Why are we paying to lock up whores, they should be paying us for us putting on with their bullshit sociopathy.
Manufacturing toxic chemicals might also be covered by the “sinful activity” catagory…
@weedpeople, uktena, or any other Libertarian that wants to brainwash voters into throwing their vote away like Republicans aren’t bought out and sold out rotten to the core by prohibition; No one believes your propaganda. I don’t even believe YOU do.
It’s been clear that some of the best donations to NORML are from Libertarians like Jeff Bezos from Amazon. Heck, I just used Amazon Smile yesterday, but just like Amazon Smile, pennies go to NORML Foundation while dollars go to Republican no-income-tax Prohibitionist “think tanks.” These groups such as Americans for Prosperity love to promote Libertarian Republicans on pro marijuana platforms on one hand while making sure some Prohibitionist Tea Party puppet gets the lions share of support on the other. Prohibition depends on these two faced laundry machines for dirty drug and campaign money. Until the Times breaks the paper trail from funding something evil like patent 6630507, or the Stand Your Ground laws that defended Zimmerman’s murder of Trayvon Martin; then, Bezos, WalMart and McDonalds retract their funds for fear of their consumer image and they all find some new libertarian lobby to dump their dirty charity on in the name of paying zero taxes. It’s corporate welfare you need to be worried about destroying capitalism because our economy depends on allowing average American consumers to pay taxes and keep consuming… An activity that “social taxes” promote, like using revenue from commercially taxed marijuana on education.
What I did in my earlier post was reveal your contradiction that that taxes are socialist and “too high ” and you even suggested a flat tax at one point. But then you went to extremes and argue marijuana should not be taxed at all. Fact is, as NORML and Colorado have proven, that sensible regulation works. Revenue there has increased. Crime has decreased. Representatives see the money, the votes and the benefits like reduction in violence and they’re standing up to prohibition. That wouldn’t have happened without taxed marijuana. Yes, those of us who wish to grow our own will exist in peace and there will be industries for home-growing built off of that, but there will still be people lining up to purchase commercially grown herb, and be happy to pay a tax on it if it means cops won’t arrest them and cartels won’t kill them because the industry will be fairly regulated.
Face it, the gig is up on prohibition, whether it’s supported by the C.S.Act or or by private means as you are suggesting by saying don’t regulate, don’t tax, don’t sponsor pro marijuana, Democratic representatives, thus giving Prohibitionist corporations the free reign to sponsor all new bad laws… As you KNOW they will.
Blaming our debt on taxes spent on “social welfare” while commercially taxed marijuana is building schools in Colorado is about as transparently futile as trying to hide vomit in a clear plastic bag. I agree with Dave Evans that a proper audit… REGULATION… Is the way to improve our Democracy. All this anarchy about abolishing the government is unconstitutional. The C.S.Act is Unconstitutional. And it got there because some crooked Republican used fear and lies to convince everyone to extremes like the Drug Wars and prohibition to scapegoat our socioeconomic inequality. You want to believe that unregulated, untaxed marijuana will keep the Prison lobbies, Koch Industries, Pfizer, drug testing industries, GW Pharaceuticals, cartels and the DOJ to benevolently stay out of our lives and let us grow in peace? Fine, live in your bubble of propaganda. Just do us a favor and keep it off this blog; we’re trying to end a Drug War.
@Dave,
If I’m going to go down in the books for “taxing pussy” on the NORML blog, then please allow me to clarify my position:
Prohibition promotes violent, criminal black market cartels. So the same person that wants to sell you a stolen DVD player may also be involved in human trafficking, drug smuggling and so on. Why? Because they are illegal and punishable by incarceration for profit… profit created by the resulting demand in the black market… created by rising prices from unregulated prohibition.
So instead of offering a woman shelter and an education whether being abducted and victimized into prostitution or actively participating in the sale of her own body, our system is offering her fines and jail time so she’s broke, so her pimp can bond her out and keep her trapped into a prostitution-promoting system. I’m not even going to get into what happens to the passports of foreign nationals. Jailing prostitutes, whores, sex workers, whatever you want to call them, instead of rewarding their better choices with education is just plain WRONG.
Would a meth-head seek treatment while they could be incarcerated for seeking help? NO. Because Meth is prohibited. We don’t offer the meth-head education, food and shelter for making the sober choice of treatment. We just throw them in jail. Want to know how many prisons in the U.S. are meth free? You guessed it; ZERO.
A case study for prohibition’s failure is Nicaragua. After the Oliver North scandal of the eightees the U.S. cut off foreign AID to Nicaragua, which was only allowing the CIA and ATF to sell weapons to all sides of another contrived civil war… so they let Nicaragua fend for themselves.
Nicaragua got rid of their killer police and stopped incarcerating and killing kids, and instead offered children shelter and education as an alternative to the drug war. The murder rate is now less than 1 in 10,000 people.
HOnduras, however, is still in full swing with “foreign AID” from the U.S. and the DEA was caught running around dressed as local police raiding and pillaging villages for asset forfeitures. One DEA agent even killed an unarmed pregnant woman. Honduras now leads as the murder capitol of the Western hemisphere, exports more cocaine than any other nation on earth, and has spawned the drug-war child-refugee crisis we are still dealing with at our borders.
We don’t need to ask only if prohibition needs to end, we need to understand it must be replaced with regulated revenue from prohibited substances, promoting agricultural production and education. Whether we’re talking about prostitution, marijuana or a glass of milk, PROHIBITION CREATES CARTEL VIOLENCE.
The legislative authority given to the executive branch has infiltrated and corrupted every level of our government, including the DEA, who after Congressional investigation, it was discovered that it was THEY who lead the Secret Service to those prostitutes in Cartagena. All that was about was a decoy to keep the press off of Obama’s response to international scrutiny over the failed drug war at the Summit of the Americas… but no one ever heard the President during an election year say “We will not be changing our drug policy at this time,” because we were all too worried about some Colombian prostitute commiting SEXpionage? REALLY?
There is a reason we have three branches of government. It is time for Congress to do their JOB and legislate. Because the President, the Attorney General, the DOJ much less the law enforcement has NO business writing prohibitive drug and criminal policies. Without groups like NORML to write better policies, we are left up to the hat switching lobbyists of Washington to write prohibitive policies for profit… and that includes patent 6630507, the patent that gives the Department of Health and Human Services the patent to cannabinoids as neuroprotectants… while they take children into custody for private adoption profit and kickbacks from the DEA for closing drug related offenses. That’s what happens when you let a cop write drug policy; Asset forfeitures and lots of sick and imprisoned people;
Prohibition and Marijuana patenting= More violence
Education and Regulation= Less violence
Support the 1%, vote republican or democrat.
This 1% is protected by an infrastructure enslaving the rest of the population. Attempting to ‘govern’ what slaves eat or ingest through vapor is nothing but control.
Go ahead, support the 1% by voting for democrats and republicans.
The 1% is already fully supplied with non-gmo foods and plenty of untaxed pure, sunshine fed mariJUana. If you get my meaning.
taxing a free plant is wrong
taxing just for sake of legalization is wrong
two wrongs don’t make it right.
Weed, where does this free plant grow? On your property that I need permission to enter? On someone else’s land you don’t have permission to enter? If they own the plant, they can sell it and pay taxes on the transaction.
And how is a plant that sells for $300 an ounce free, anyways? Did you fall and hit your head? We are talking about marijuana, you might otherwise know as “The World’s Largest Underground Market”??? All that gold is free too if you own it and leave it in the ground. But you’re going to have to pay (economic activity) to get it out of the ground and prepare it for sale.
Also Weed, the only places in the United States Plants and Animals grow freely is on Government Land in the form of Natural Preserves paid for with our Taxes. There are private holdings, but these can be switched out if not also attached to a Conservation Easement.
Cannabis does not naturally occur in North America and it will not be welcome on Wildlife Preserves. I will be pulled as it is an unwanted weed in those places.
So I do ask again, where does this “free plant” grow so freely? A) In the Middle East and surrounding regions like the Indian Subcontinent.
Hemp grows does grow feral here, but it isn’t marijuana…
@ Dave Evans & anybody else who doesn’t understand.
The cannabis plant should be considered “free” because it’s a gift to
us from GOD !!!
do you believe in GOD?, or are you an atheist who only believes in
taxing something that people should be allowed to grow “free”
can you dig it ?
(Sigh) Dave, I think we’re talking to paid tape recordings.
Alas, to make my point finally clear; Weed the People, do you shit in the woods? And if so, do you claim title to these woods or posess contractual agreement to shit freely in said woods like a bear, or other creatures with tails that work as natural toilet paper?
Are you aware that Angel Soft and Quilted Northern are branded and Patented by Koch Industries that own the logging patents (no pun intended) that create every incentive to outlaw a domestic hemp industry that could better wipe our @$$ by artificially increasing the price of timber and petrochemical products?!!
I know what you’re thinking; now this guy wants to tax and regulate my shit? Well, quite frankly, if you’re leaving little treasures wrapped in elephant leaves throughout the woods where the public might say, hike and bike, my answer, unequivocally, is yes. If youre shitting on the surface of your own property and I happen to live downstream from you then Hell yes, you will be hearing from the local health ordinance (paid for with our “socialist” tax dollars, thank you very much).
If you live in the city, you pay a sewer tax.
If you live in the country, you need to pay between $8,000 to $16,000 for a septic system.
In the old days we either dug a deep hole and told everyone not to walk behind the barn at night or we simply shat down stream. But with an increasingly globalized and populated planet with worries about the Ebola virus or chloroform bacteria, shitting in our water supply is just not a reasonable alternative, especially when most people nowadays live downstream.
My question to you, Weed the People, since shitting and shit itself, per SE, are perfectly “natural” products of a seemingly “free” activity; How would you propose to clean up America’s shit without TAXING and REGULATING everyone in the participating economy?
Oh! Let me guess! Untaxed, unregulated private corporations and industries will benevolently take it upon themselves, without big bad government’s taxed “ass-sistance,” (see how I did that? Ass- sistance? 🙂 Tough crowd… 🙁 )
Or let’s look at the ancient Aztek civilization; We could use human sacrifice and slavery to build a sanitation system better than any Europe had ever seen! And Europeans had FUEDALISM for Crissake! PLENTY of serfs to build latrines and sewers with. So what was the problem? I mean besides the fact the French thought bathing was unhealthy? Well, to be fair, some castles had Roman style toilets, Which was basically a moat of shit, flowing down the streets into the River Thames culminating into the Great Stink of London in 1858, where the penetrating smell of shit was so powerful and potent in the London summer months, that even the stink of Lies from Libertarians in Parliament proved no match to disguise nor mask the odorous plight of the common people… (In other words, even the halls of Parliament reeked of shit, so they couldn’t deny the problem anymore… Sound familiar?)
Say… How did the UK solve this wasteful, effluent, defecating, gastrointestinal crisis of epic proportions? I mean cholera was dropping Londoners like… well… A cholera epidemic in a country with poor sanitation. Let’s see what Wikipedia has to say;
“Heavy rain finally ended the heat and humidity of summer and the immediate crisis ended. However, a House of Commons select committee was appointed to report on the Stink and recommended how to end the problem. A bill was rushed through Parliament and became law in 18 days, to provide more money,” (Gasp! Taxes?!!!), “to construct a massive new sewer scheme for London, and to build the Embankment along the Thames in order to improve the flow of water and traffic.”
I KNOW, I KNOW, Weed the People! How DARE they tax the people for their shit without ASKING if they even WANTED their $#!+ TAXED! (Never mind the pile of dead cholera victims piled up in the middle of the shitty streets, they can’t vote anymore anyway).
Indeed, the Great Stink of London happened precisely because wealthy estate holders and owners of early corporations called Joint Stock Companies, (Also representatives of Parliament; sound familiar?)… They all had toilets and lived on the tops of flowering estates with the cleanest spring water to… Drink, (apparently bathing still wasn’t popular in Europe… Go figure).
The point is, no one in Parliament gave a SHIT (pardon the expression) about the common folk until the STENCH of their collective FECAL matter was so POTENT, they couldn’t even PRETEND NOT to CARE anymore! (Does this remind you of anything yet Weed the People? Perhaps a certain correlation between marijuana policy, prohibition, taxes and our current U.S. Congress?)
If you’re not getting it yet, well, then, you’re full of shit.
And hey, I’ll be the first to admit; everybody’s shit stinks… Which is precisely why we need fair taxation and regulation to prevent natural or unnatural dis-ass-sters (see? I did it AGAIN!) SUCH AS; prohibition or poor sanitation… From happening EVER AGAIN.
So, in closing, Weed the People, if you have anything more to say about “taxing a free plant is wrong” we really don’t give a shit; Or perhaps, better stated, because we DO give a shit, we have to tax and regulate it. And that’s what this shit called Legalization is all about.
@Julian
I smell bullsh$t
you must be still living @ home typing away on your parents dime
Do they pay you allowance for the amount of words you put together?
Julian stay away from the dark side. come into the light . ie. get a job !
@weed the people
Well sacate el dedo and pay your sewer tax and I’m sure the smell will get a lot better!
Not that I need to prove anything to you, but I’m self employed, I own a successful business and I contract as Project Manager for an international diagnostics corporation. I got two jobs, pay my taxes and plan to legalize commercially taxed and regulated marijuana and subsidize hemp for my farm whether you like it or not. And I got all that done while I was high as a cat’s back.
Sometimes in life you can’t get stuck in an “either or” argument. The answers in life are more often “both and more.” I’m givin’ you a hard time because you seem like an intelligent person and I wanted to challenge you to look deeper into your own ideology. I asked you some tough questions, and I don’t expect you to answer them here or right away.
But it sure was nice sparrin’ with ya. I don’t know bout you but I laughed my ass off.
all I got to say is, if you who are complaining about taxing herb are also the ones who would vote AGAINST a bill to legalize solely because you would be taxed on it really suck and if you presently are able to consume it and still hold a decent job, you should be made to give hair samples randomly for ….oh, I dunno….say, 5 FRIGGEN YEARS OR SO. then, you would better understand that most of us would be willing to give up a little bank to have a small bit of freedom in the privacy of our own home without fear of loosing everything that we work hard for! if you do that, you help to ruin a chance at people having the freedom to help themselves, deciding for themselves what is right for them and , not a friggen self serving government. I have consumed for 32 years until my employer started hair testing and, I would be tickled pink to pay some extra friggen tax to pick up where I left off when cannabis helped me in every day things in my life. you may not bitch so much about taxes if you were told you were not ‘allowed’ to consume cannabis. its not just because we get high!
Weed those People,
Yes I do get it. You don’t get how the economy works. You’re actually being quite annoying with your stance, it isn’t just what you say; but now you want to bring God into it as if that is even going to help you make your point; when even Jesus actually said, ‘Pay your taxes and stop whining about it’. No one agrees with your tax exempt status for all marijuana, not even Jesus.
??? Get it now?
@Dave
???
“Jesus said pay your taxes”
he spoke to you & that’s all he had to say ?
Dude you are tripping, get a grip.