4 ms·

I think the concern was that we're just replacing illegal cartels with legal cartels. The tax revenue thing is also kind of misleading. First, that number is a

by glesica 13y ago

I think the concern was that we're just replacing illegal cartels with legal cartels. The tax revenue thing is also kind of misleading. First, that number is apparently fixed (based on your wording, I'm not familiar personally), but the there is, presumably, no upper-bound on the actual revenues, so as revenues increase, a smaller percentage goes to education. Second, vice taxes tend to be regressive, the poor pay a higher percentage of their incomes. Some of the "education lotteries" (state lotteries that benefit education) are basically mechanisms for transferring wealth from the poor to the rich(er). Poor people buy the lottery tickets and the tax revenues go to fund college scholarships for middle and upper-middle income kids. That's not socially healthy. Given the two points above, there's a real danger that marijuana taxation will be used to transfer the overall tax burden from higher income people to lower income people.

chimeracoder 13y ago
> I think the concern was that we're just replacing illegal cartels with legal cartels. Agreed, but legal cartels are (marginally) better in that they are forced to operate under the "light of day". This doesn't automatically solve all the problems in se, but it's an important step. > First, that number is apparently fixed (based on your wording, I'm not familiar personally), but the there is, presumably, no upper-bound on the actual revenues, so as revenues increase, a smaller percentage goes to education. Yes, I'm just pointing out that the motivation for the tax was not the same as the motivation behind your typical "vice taxes". It was proposed by the people who wrote Amendment 64 (proponents of legalization). Naturally there's a tradeoff to be made, as you point out, but IMHO, it was a clever attempt to construct the amendment "defensively", to mitigate the risk of people trying to repeal it. The size of the tax, and what to do with any excess revenues, are where one has to make a value judgement, and it really comes down to whether one thinks income should be redistributed from rich to poor, poor to rich, or neither. That's a separate discussion, though - I think almost anybody would agree that it's better to be debating the exact structure of the tax, than to be stuck debating whether or not we should force the drug trade to happen in a completely unregulated, untaxed, underground market.
- EliRivers 13y ago
  Agreed, but legal cartels are (marginally) better in that they are forced to operate under the "light of day". Plus, they have much less need to kill people and that.
  - BrokenPipe 13y ago
    And is cheaper and less people go to prison for Prohibition like laws.
cdash 13y ago
I don't think you will find too much argument from people that want it legalized that they would not like marijuana taxed at a normal rate. I just think that it is a battle to fight another day. It is hard to argue that the poor are worse off buying marijuana legally rather than illegally, especially when the prices start to fall below what you would pay on the streets which it will as soon as the supply is able to meet the demand. Supply is pretty low because the only companies who have licenses are medical marijuana companies that already had a license, more companies will become licensed soon. Added to the fact that in Colorado I think anyone is currently allowed to grow a small number of plants for themselves without being licensed and they can end up not paying any tax.
- bane 13y ago
  > Supply is pretty low because the only companies who have licenses are medical marijuana companies that already had a license, more companies will become licensed soon. It's also a high risk business. You might invest millions on growing a crop only for the Federal administration to change policies in a few years and come in and blowtorch your crop.
  - alexeisadeski3 13y ago
    Why would they blowtorch it? Them there wouldn't be any evidence for the Federal indictment.
    - bane 13y ago
      It's what they do with it. Storing hundreds of tons of weed plants isn't necessary if it's well documented. http://reason.com/blog/2012/08/22/feds-destroy-1-billion-in-pot-to-celebra http://reason.com/blog/2012/08/22/feds-destroy-1-billion-in-... http://calcoastnews.com/2011/07/feds-raid-sanger-pot-farm-destroy-thousands-of-plants/ http://calcoastnews.com/2011/07/feds-raid-sanger-pot-farm-de... Either way, you won't get it back and your investment is gone.
tsotha 13y ago
>I think the concern was that we're just replacing illegal cartels with legal cartels. If that means fewer bear traps and less rat poison in our national parks, it's a win as far as I'm concerned. >Second, vice taxes tend to be regressive, the poor pay a higher percentage of their incomes. Some of the "education lotteries" (state lotteries that benefit education) are basically mechanisms for transferring wealth from the poor to the rich(er). Poor people buy the lottery tickets and the tax revenues go to fund college scholarships for middle and upper-middle income kids. That's not socially healthy. There's nothing wrong with taxing stupid.
- hfsktr 13y ago
  Am I reading that correctly? You are saying that poor people are stupid?
  - dmicah 13y ago
    I believe he's saying that the odds of winning the lottery and not in one's favor, so it's foolish to play.
  - anonymoushn 13y ago
    People who buy lottery tickets specifically
  - noonespecial 13y ago
    The lottery is a voluntary tax on the numerically illiterate. Think of it this way: they graciously raise their own taxes to make up for the deleterious effect on society of remaining numerically illiterate. The money even goes towards preventing this condition in others.
    - wavefunction 13y ago
      Yes, the $2 a ticket costs is a sign of the incredible "numerical illiteracy" (the word is innumeracy) of lottery players. That or they just 'waste' $2 on a long-long-long shot knowing that they won't win but don't care because, really, it's only $2 and how much does the average American pay for their coffee? Now people who dedicate significant portions of their resources to scratch and lotto tickets have a different problem than either wasting $2 or innumeracy. It's called poor impulse control.
yardie 13y ago
> I think the concern was that we're just replacing illegal cartels with legal cartels. Just like how legalised gambling just made it legal for the mobs to run casinos? Except that's not what happened. Investors came in, bringing real managers, real security, and real regulation. They turned the seedy, Las Vegas strip into Disneyland. And those old mob run casinos, you'll find their demolition videos on youtube.
- glesica 13y ago
  I didn't say the methods used by the new cartels had to be identical to those used by the old. I also never said anything about criminals. You can have a perfectly law-abiding, non-violent cartel that is, nonetheless, bad for society.

by glesica 13y ago

chimeracoder 13y ago

> I think the concern was that we're just replacing illegal cartels with legal cartels. Agreed, but legal cartels are (marginally) better in that they are forced to operate under the "light of day". This doesn't automatically solve all the problems in se, but it's an important step. > First, that number is apparently fixed (based on your wording, I'm not familiar personally), but the there is, presumably, no upper-bound on the actual revenues, so as revenues increase, a smaller percentage goes to education. Yes, I'm just pointing out that the motivation for the tax was not the same as the motivation behind your typical "vice taxes". It was proposed by the people who wrote Amendment 64 (proponents of legalization). Naturally there's a tradeoff to be made, as you point out, but IMHO, it was a clever attempt to construct the amendment "defensively", to mitigate the risk of people trying to repeal it. The size of the tax, and what to do with any excess revenues, are where one has to make a value judgement, and it really comes down to whether one thinks income should be redistributed from rich to poor, poor to rich, or neither. That's a separate discussion, though - I think almost anybody would agree that it's better to be debating the exact structure of the tax, than to be stuck debating whether or not we should force the drug trade to happen in a completely unregulated, untaxed, underground market.

EliRivers 13y ago
Agreed, but legal cartels are (marginally) better in that they are forced to operate under the "light of day". Plus, they have much less need to kill people and that.
- BrokenPipe 13y ago
  And is cheaper and less people go to prison for Prohibition like laws.

cdash 13y ago

I don't think you will find too much argument from people that want it legalized that they would not like marijuana taxed at a normal rate. I just think that it is a battle to fight another day. It is hard to argue that the poor are worse off buying marijuana legally rather than illegally, especially when the prices start to fall below what you would pay on the streets which it will as soon as the supply is able to meet the demand. Supply is pretty low because the only companies who have licenses are medical marijuana companies that already had a license, more companies will become licensed soon. Added to the fact that in Colorado I think anyone is currently allowed to grow a small number of plants for themselves without being licensed and they can end up not paying any tax.

bane 13y ago
> Supply is pretty low because the only companies who have licenses are medical marijuana companies that already had a license, more companies will become licensed soon. It's also a high risk business. You might invest millions on growing a crop only for the Federal administration to change policies in a few years and come in and blowtorch your crop.
- alexeisadeski3 13y ago
  Why would they blowtorch it? Them there wouldn't be any evidence for the Federal indictment.
  - bane 13y ago
    It's what they do with it. Storing hundreds of tons of weed plants isn't necessary if it's well documented. http://reason.com/blog/2012/08/22/feds-destroy-1-billion-in-pot-to-celebra http://reason.com/blog/2012/08/22/feds-destroy-1-billion-in-... http://calcoastnews.com/2011/07/feds-raid-sanger-pot-farm-destroy-thousands-of-plants/ http://calcoastnews.com/2011/07/feds-raid-sanger-pot-farm-de... Either way, you won't get it back and your investment is gone.

tsotha 13y ago

>I think the concern was that we're just replacing illegal cartels with legal cartels. If that means fewer bear traps and less rat poison in our national parks, it's a win as far as I'm concerned. >Second, vice taxes tend to be regressive, the poor pay a higher percentage of their incomes. Some of the "education lotteries" (state lotteries that benefit education) are basically mechanisms for transferring wealth from the poor to the rich(er). Poor people buy the lottery tickets and the tax revenues go to fund college scholarships for middle and upper-middle income kids. That's not socially healthy. There's nothing wrong with taxing stupid.

hfsktr 13y ago
Am I reading that correctly? You are saying that poor people are stupid?
- dmicah 13y ago
  I believe he's saying that the odds of winning the lottery and not in one's favor, so it's foolish to play.
- anonymoushn 13y ago
  People who buy lottery tickets specifically
- noonespecial 13y ago
  The lottery is a voluntary tax on the numerically illiterate. Think of it this way: they graciously raise their own taxes to make up for the deleterious effect on society of remaining numerically illiterate. The money even goes towards preventing this condition in others.
  - wavefunction 13y ago
    Yes, the $2 a ticket costs is a sign of the incredible "numerical illiteracy" (the word is innumeracy) of lottery players. That or they just 'waste' $2 on a long-long-long shot knowing that they won't win but don't care because, really, it's only $2 and how much does the average American pay for their coffee? Now people who dedicate significant portions of their resources to scratch and lotto tickets have a different problem than either wasting $2 or innumeracy. It's called poor impulse control.

yardie 13y ago

> I think the concern was that we're just replacing illegal cartels with legal cartels. Just like how legalised gambling just made it legal for the mobs to run casinos? Except that's not what happened. Investors came in, bringing real managers, real security, and real regulation. They turned the seedy, Las Vegas strip into Disneyland. And those old mob run casinos, you'll find their demolition videos on youtube.

glesica 13y ago
I didn't say the methods used by the new cartels had to be identical to those used by the old. I also never said anything about criminals. You can have a perfectly law-abiding, non-violent cartel that is, nonetheless, bad for society.