This 30-second ad will reportedly be played on CNN, MSNBC and other national cable channels.
The Humboldt Herald
Provoking Humboldt County since 2006
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July 8, 2009 at 4:21 pm
I’m not paying this tax if the cannabis in question is for non-smoking purposes. Every other herb intended for eating does not incur sales tax. If I buy a piece of corn and it is intended for food, no tax. But, if I buy a corn necklace, it is taxable. I’ll pay this tax if I buy a Snowcap medallion.
Can we really say there is a sin tax for edible/vaporizable/topical cannabis? Doesn’t a sin tax imply that you are doing something bad for your health like smoking or drinking alcohol?
When posed questions like this, I would quote the words of the wise Yellowman…
nah pay no tax
nah pay no tax
July 8, 2009 at 4:36 pm
I’ll look forward to seeing it on TV.
The push for legalization is gaining some ground.
I wonder if this is the start of a concerted campaign (putting out big money in advertising)to legalize bud?
People seem to be getting serious about the subject.
July 8, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Let’s get real! It’s time to end this prohibition.
Everybody knows the myth about pot isn’t true, there is no reefer madness. I think cigarettes are the real gateway drug, just look at all the junkies using them!
July 8, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Hey man what myth is that anyway? I think I heard about it awhile back and don’t remember anymore. Don’t remember much anymore but I’m sure kinda hungry and could go for something sweet. Once had had a real sweet brownie, or was it a pineapple? Anyway where was I? Oh yeah, is there something wrong with the bud or what? Someday I’m going to be a brainsurgeon or an airplane pilot. Wouldn’t that be cool, flying wherever I want to go and then doing brain surgery right on the plane? I’ll just put it on autopilot while I operate.
July 8, 2009 at 6:12 pm
Wow, that’s one brave man….
July 8, 2009 at 7:46 pm
I appreciate the sentiment- that being ending prohibition- but lame commercial. Still, Californian’s will endorse it. More on that tomorrow.
What a bunch of idiots in this state.
July 8, 2009 at 9:17 pm
I agree in theory that legalization is a good idea. Prohibition is ridiculous.
However, I think legalization would be devastating to Humboldt’s already struggling economy.
Prohibition acts as a price support system, making sticky Humboldt bud almost as valuable as gold. Humboldt growers get top dollar for their product and spend millions locally in every kind of business imaginable.
When it’s legalized across the state, its value will plummet and production will take place in more hospitable areas, like the Central Valley.
The marijuana money that now fuels our local economy will dry up.
Both the retail and housing-related sectors would take a major hit, resulting in numerous business closures, increased unemployment and reduced sales tax revenues for local government.
We’ll all suffer, whether we support legalization or not.
The status quo, while it has serious problems, is probably preferable, at least for those that care about keeping small businesses open.
Perhaps we should tackle the grow house problem by requiring PG&E to notify local governments when electricity usage exceeds a certain level in single-family households.
If your electrical bill is $600 a month, then you should be required to obtain some sort of “light industrial electrical user” permit, which would require planning dept. approval, or something like that.
It’s a rough idea, but there’s a solution in there somewhere.
July 8, 2009 at 9:50 pm
With it still being against the law in other states I think a lot of the market would just stay underground. The clubs already pay taxes so there’s no bonus money there, unless they plan on taxing marijuana over and above state sales tax, and in that case wouldn’t the well developed underground market thrive as club prices skyrocket?
I like their timing. That whole “strike while the iron’s hot” thing, but I do think it’s a little foolish to quote numbers that are totally fabricated.
On another topic there were a ton of agents, & from what I hear a sizable bust in Benbow recently, but not a word in any of the papers, why aren’t they bragging about it? They crow madly about every little bust then this one gets nada? Why?
July 9, 2009 at 12:35 am
“it’ll ruin the economy” is a terrible reason to not legalize it. when wed was legal in Alaska it was still worth top dollar–as long as it doesn’t get commercialized and industrialized, the average city dweller isn’t going to grow their own.
July 9, 2009 at 5:08 am
The myth depends on what time period you sip your propaganda from.
In the first half of the 20th Century, “benevolent drugs” such as marijuana made bloodthirsty killers out of people. Mexican revolutionaries evidently were savages half-drunk on sotol and marijuana. Cannabis was too often involved in cases of crime committed by Negroes hopped up with marijuana. The ancient doctors of Mexico used this drug to turn their patients into crazy crazy victims. Mr. Anslinger and Mr. Hearst spread the urgent message that a federal law should be made given that 50 percent of all crime involves marijuana. Indeed, some of the nation’s most horrible crimes involved marijuana.
The idea that non-addictive cannabis should be banned due to its users being blacks and Mexicans fell out of favor in the latter half of the 20th Century. This was replaced with the concept that cannabis leads to hard drug addiction even though this was only due to exposure to the black market.
In the 1960s and 1970s, public sentiment began to change. Some people stopped believing that cannabis actually turned users into Negro knife-wielding heroin-addicted Mexican insurgents. The new letters to the editor demonizing cannabis did not talk about Negros or heroin, they talked about how cannabis makes people lazy. Ann Landers mirrored the growing sentiment that pot can kill motivation. In the mid-70s, A new myth began that marijuana used to be a harmless drug, but was now bad because the THC level is so high now.
There aren’t many new myths that I can think of. Do you know of any?
Oakland now levies a 1.8% (or is it 1.4%?) marijuana tax. AB 390 advocates an additional $50/oz which is 15-25% tax depending on if you buy from the teenage kid in the Section 8 housing courtyard or from the old widow in the trailer park. $50/oz will likely be a 200% tax when liquor stores sell cannabis.
July 9, 2009 at 7:30 am
So just how ethical is it to try to balance your budget by excessively taxing a so called medicine? This whole med mj thing is a logical bombshell waiting to explode.
July 9, 2009 at 10:55 am
And then we could completely re-do the county general plan update to reflect the marijuana reality…
July 9, 2009 at 11:05 am
Wouldn’t it be fair play to increase the tax on alcohol to an equivalent 15-25%?
July 9, 2009 at 12:15 pm
Taxation is slavery and is something American Sovereigns are exempt from….if you were born here you are exempt from taxes. It is your Birth Right to resist offshore banks trying to tax you, in an illegal manner- The Tree Of Liberty was planted with these things in mind.
Abolish the corp-gov military, treason charges for anyone who has even collected taxes, return the constitutional gold/silver currency standard, live free
July 9, 2009 at 2:48 pm
The excise tax on vodka etc. is $3.30 per gallon and has not changed since 1991. To be fair to the government overlords, the tax should be raised to around $5 to reflect inflation during the last 18 years.
Anyhow, depending on the quality of alcohol, $3.30 can be a high tax. The price of a cheap fifth of puke-quality vodka is at least 15% taxes. Of course this hits poor people the hardest, but that is how the government likes it I guess.
July 9, 2009 at 6:23 pm
And let me out of jail while your at it….
July 9, 2009 at 6:25 pm
You’re…..I should have paid my taxes.
July 9, 2009 at 9:56 pm
I think the idea is to legalize it across the board, not just tax the sick people.
For us here in Humboldt the dollars are in tourism, not the just crop like hay or potatoes…
imagine:
” Dude I went to Humboldt and it was so killer, we smoked it out in public and then went out to eat, we would have stayed an extra day but the hotel was booked solid” “dropped a big tip after ice cream, dude you should have seen her face… bought a Humboldt sweatshirt too, can’t wait to go back, even the cops are chill”
Really most of the big $ is in tourism, there will still be growers, we will have to supply the tourists with the local Kine!
and no I am not high…
July 10, 2009 at 3:52 am
SoHumborn why is it you quit writing your blog ???
July 10, 2009 at 6:17 am
legalize gambling(lottery) and our schools will be flush with money.Oh wait that didn’t work.Tax the heck out of tobacco for education.Oh that really has done well.Legalizing weed for tax purposes is not a panacea for our fiscal mismanagment in ca. state government.It is realatively easy to produce and hard to regulate.That equals a continuing black market with law enforcement still tied up with finding tax cheats and another another bloated gov agency trying to collect taxes.
July 10, 2009 at 7:14 am
True, not a Panacea. Yet, the connectivity to financial relief is the idea. Afterall, comparing incarceration rates between the affects of legal substances and the affects of illegal substances has been argued to be night and day. For every law, there is some government agency that accepts the structure of things to be and forces itself to be involved in some capacity. This takes A LOT OF MONEY – money we never really had to start with.
When it comes to public funding issues – so many politicians mess around with “private” issues not theirs to decide; and, they continue to try to morph these “private” issues into public oversight spheres of influence – professional sports is also an example besides recreational drugs. The irony is, “How many voters envisioned their elected officials to waste tax dollars, time and energy on immaterial stuff not within the purview of Congress?” Personally, I am waiting for elected officials at all levels to enter into political pubescence, something feminists should have experienced around the age of 12; and, masculinists should have experienced around the age of 14.
Jeffrey Lytle
McKinleyville – 5th District
July 10, 2009 at 9:43 am
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/booster_shots/2009/02/marijuana-use-a.html
July 11, 2009 at 12:08 pm
Marijuana is safer than alcohol. As an adult I should not be punished for choosing to use an alternative and safer substance to alcohol.
July 11, 2009 at 4:17 pm
How does industry increase its sale of widgets ?
They lower the price, make it socially acceptable & make it easier to buy.
Legalizing pot would do exactly that. Does society need more brain dead/ambitionless morons out there ?
People say pot is no worse than alcohol. That is riduclous of course, but look at the hundreds of billions of dollars and millions of wasted lives due to alcoholism.
Besides, any tax money raised by it becoming everywhere would be needed to fund all the new addiction treatment facilities that would be needed.
July 12, 2009 at 7:16 am
Hey Joe, It’s standard operating procedure for the: “Law of the Land,” to steer us into pre-ordained options of purchasing. Alcohol, is promoted and Pot is criminalized. Pharmaceuticals are promoted, natural remedies, Pot, are either criminalized, or they are subject to mis-information, put out by the subsidized Pharmaceutical industry.
July 12, 2009 at 7:36 am
Pot is far less harmful than alcohol. I have experience with both.
Pot is not addictive. Alcohol, sugar, caffeine, nicotine and television are addictive.
have a peaceful day,
Bill
July 13, 2009 at 10:12 am
What about the addictive nature of writing on the internets?
We’d all like to be able to buy cannabis at the Farmers Market and the Stop and Rob instead of from some teenage runaway in the glassblower alley where Marino’s used to be or at that one victorian house next to the Stop and Rob. The only way the government would be willing to accept this kind of activity is through a direct tax or if the true intent of the product is disguised.
Take any number of products which are or have been banned and you will see a disguised version on the open market. Birth control is a fine example which has recently had some addictive public television coverage. Due to obscenity laws, birth control appeared for any number of non-birth control purposes with code words describing other compatible sex products. This may seem like an old-fashioned way of skirting unconstitutional religion-limiting laws, but it is not old fashioned at all. Stop by any Stop and Rob or Nasty and Shady liquor store to see the great advancements in air fresheners, ginseng shots, paper roses, and other useless products conveniently packaged in useful dope pipe-sized glass tubes. There is also be a healthy demand for liquor store brillo pads, blow torch fuel, and turkey basters.
If cannabis intended for smoking were subject to a hefty tax, there would be a market for cannabis intended for any other purpose than smoking. Just as there are hummingbird feeder bongs and dare I say medical marijuana, there will be snacks, air fresheners, energy drinks, necklaces, and floral arrangements made of Granddaddy Purps and Headband.