The Congressional Research Service (CRS) released a comprehensive thirty five-page report last week examining the federal government establishing a wholesale excise tax on the production and sale of cannabis-related products.
In what is one of the most comprehensive policy and fiscal reviews to date of how cannabis can be taxed and regulated numerous areas of consideration were reviewed including enforcement, discouraging youth use, choosing the base to tax (i.e., weight, potency and price), restrictions, labeling, measurement, special tax rates, home production and medical cannabis. Members of Congress initiate these reports to CRS.
CRS’ economic analysis indicates that cannabis prices are likely to fall from today’s prohibition-influenced prices of $200-$300 an ounce to as low $5-$18 ounce. Economic modeling based on a $40 billion annual cannabis market in the United States tests a $50 per ounce federal excise tax price point (generating nearly $7 billion in federal excise taxes).
When making the logical comparison of alcohol and cannabis’ ‘external costs’ (i.e., taxation to equate with external costs of the drug use to society), researchers peg alcohol’s external costs to the nation at $30 billion annually; cannabis, at $0.5 – $1.6 billion.
NORML Executive Director Allen St. Pierre commenting on the new CRS paper: “This CRS report on the prospects of the federal government taxing and regulating cannabis is another clear indication of the political saliency and fiscal appeal of ending cannabis prohibition at the state, and increasingly at the federal level (replacing the nearly eighty-year old failed federal policy with tax-n-regulate policies that are similar to alcohol and tobacco products).
With fours states and the District of Columbia since 2012 opting for legalizing cannabis, dozens of members of Congress from both major political parties—from states with legalization and those that pine for it—are getting serious about making sure the federal government does not lose out on hundreds of millions annually in tax revenue from the ever-growing cannabis industry in the United States.”
The tax is huge if you need cannabis for medicine. Schizophrenics need 600mg of CBD per day. That is on the order of 1/8 to 1/2 oz high CBD cannabis per day.
http://www.nature.com/tp/journal/v2/n3/full/tp201215a.html
No way that is affordable with the proposed tax rate.
Eric K. Johnson says:
December 5, 2014 at 2:57 pm
I agree. But the law is not against Blacks. It is against the poor who sell on the street who are mainly Blacks.
Here is how those things are designed:
“Look, we understood we couldn’t make it illegal to be young or poor or black in the United States, but we could criminalize their common pleasure. We understood that drugs were not the health problem we were making them out to be, but it was such a perfect issue…that we couldn’t resist it.” – John Ehrlichman, White House counsel to President Nixon on the rationale of the War on Drugs.
Just Republicans? They all enforced those laws.
i have read the history watch the documentary from 1923 to 2014 i have been in jail im on probaion now and will be till october 2015 just for haveing thc nothing eles in my system i think it unfair why it illegal in the first place and the stuff i suffered the the cops pointing a gun the to my head beating me while i had cuffs on just because i had one gram of weed and i ran my mouth then thrue in jail with gang members childmolesters murders rapest real sick people all could think was its just a plant that god put on this world chapter 1 verse 11 and 12 so go ahead tax it but hurry up so the stuff i went thrugh dont happen to anyone eles they my be not so lucky as i was
“comment: always recall one thing: Prez. Obama is not “actually black”; Prez. O’ is “50% black and 50% white; says “genetics”.
So do not refer to Prez. Obama has “a black man; refer to him as “having darker skin”.
This is due to a higher Melanin(skin) content.
I agree. But the law is not against Blacks. It is against the poor who sell on the street who are mainly Blacks. – MSimon
I agree…I should have stated, Poor and or Black”.
I’m an old white geezer who remembers being told in my all white School that America was a “Classless Society” where anyone could become President…among a host of other purposeful lies.
I believe skin color or tone or hue is now virtually irrelevant in our increasingly dystopian Corporate Dominated System.
I do not mean to imply or suggest “Race” can not be used as a pretext for mass manipulation but rather refer to the real secret…That secret being the fact that our current Entitled Overruling Rich Class Masters do not care or even need to know the skin color of their Exploited Working Poor Underclass Slaves/Serfs…wherever they are located on our Planet.
Eric, yeah I’m not seeing thing connected by a “Overruling (Over Entitled?) Master Class”, while rich people don’t see things the way poor people, they can still be a bunch of racists, but that isn’t their focus, making money is. Hollowing out once poineering companies and turning half our economy into China Outlet is not strongly attached to marijuana prohibition, the “control freak” self-serving attitudes are the same.
Creating a “Prison Economy” where the only jobs are working in jails, while continuing to send jobs to China, is becoming an Ouroboros. The animal is eating its own tail and shitting in its own mouth. But sociopaths in leadership positions see this a positive thing: Mitt Romney is coming back to teach us all how to be better people, by serving bad ideas!
He’ll tell Americans to stop smoking weed and the Chinese to stop drinking tea. It takes time from your day when you could be emulating him and be making money for him.
Enjoying your life isn’t on his schedule.
Not investing in our own people is a racist and foolish problem here in Americon.
Think about how hard the racists are still trying to push this “one drop of ‘black blood’ and you’re still black” bullshit so hard? They are still trying to push millions of their fellow American into some “not really an American ’cause you don’t look like me” zone. Denying your fellow Americans their votes directly or lowering the weight of said by law. This silly program has been part of the Republican Party since the early 1980’s. How can you attract brown people to vote for you when you literaly have racist policies toward your own people?!?!?! And the answer is: Just be a bigger asshole and blame illegal immigrants that cannot vote anyway. “We cannot stop being racist to our people because Mexicans come here illegally” is actually what these idiots say.