The Stanislaus County Insider
"Save Our Society From Drugs (S.O.S.) has over ten years of experience in monitoring and making policy recommendations on drug policy issues including those pertaining to the legalization and regulation of marijuana. S.O.S. takes a comprehensive approach to promote sound drug policy that includes education, prevention, abstinence-based treatment, scientific research and community awareness. Our members include doctors, researchers, law enforcement officials, business leaders, lawyers and parents, just to name a few.
We have analyzed the proposed 2010 California ballot initiative to regulate, control and tax marijuana and believe that it will have significant negative impacts on the state of California. Please take this opportunity to review our analysis.
Intent of initiative:
1.Regulate marijuana in a manner similar to current regulations on alcohol in order to give the state of California control over the cultivation, processing, transportation, distribution, and sale of marijuana. Puts local governments (not the state) in charge of setting up ways to regulate marijuana, including but not limited to the ability to impose taxes.
2.Allow for adults 21 years of age and older to possess up to one ounce of marijuana and cultivate marijuana in an area up to twenty-five square feet.
3.Allows local governments to license public establishments that would permit on-premises consumption of marijuana.
1. Regulate marijuana in a manner similar to current regulations on alcohol in order to give the state of California control over the cultivation, processing, transportation, distribution, and sale of marijuana.
One must realize that the imposition of any fees associated in the cost of “regulated” marijuana will only increase the illicit cultivation and sales of the state’s marijuana black market. Proponents of marijuana legalization claim that regulating and taxing marijuana, like alcohol and tobacco, will eliminate black market sale of the drug. This is simply not true. According to the Framework Convention Alliance for Tobacco Control, each year tens of billions of cigarettes vanish into the black market, reducing government revenue and financing criminal groups. The Tobacco Atlas reports that about 600 billion cigarettes where sold on the black market in 2006, and recent news indicates the situation is getting much worse.
The loss of tax revenue resulting from black market sales falls on the national finance ministries not on the tobacco manufacturers who make their profit when the product is distributed. Similar to tobacco, the proposed initiative calls for transportation of marijuana from a licensed premise for cultivation or processing to a licensed premise for sale or on-premise consumption of marijuana. Tobacco is smuggled into the black market during distribution from manufacturers to retail establishments; the same is likely to happen with marijuana while it travels between cultivators and retailers.
Tax revenue collected from tobacco and alcohol do not come close to the costs associated with those substances. A National Institute on Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse report titled Updating Estimates of the Economic Costs of Alcohol Abuse in the United States: Estimates, Update Methods and Data, states that alcohol-related costs from health care, lost productivity, and criminal justice amount to over $185 billion. The Tax Policy Center shows that federal excise taxes on alcohol in 2007 totaled around $9 billion while states collected around $5.5 billion. Even when combined, $14.5 billion does not put a dent in the $185 billion societal costs associated with alcohol. Without evidence to prove otherwise, one can only surmise the same outcomes for marijuana.
Furthermore, the initiative does not require the state to impose a tax on marijuana; instead it states that a local government MAY adopt appropriate taxes or fees to control, license, regulate, permit or otherwise authorize the cultivation, processing, distribution and sale of marijuana. Section 2-A item 6 of the initiative claims that taxing and regulating marijuana would “generate billions of dollars in annual revenue,” but without requiring the imposition of a tax, how would this be accomplished? This initiative is being falsely promoted to the public as an answer to California’s budget crisis; however, by not requiring a tax, the true intent of the initiative is clear, outright marijuana legalization.
Marijuana cultivation and distribution are often linked to a larger criminal enterprise that is involved in other activities such as arms dealing, human trafficking, prostitution, and the funding of terrorism. It would be naïve to think that these operations would cease to exist or risk being investigated in order to decrease their profits by paying taxes.
Analysis of 2010 ballot initiative to legalize marijuana.
Calvina Fay.
June, 2010
Dear California Voters:
