i heard weed was illegal cause they cant tax it

i heard weed was illegal cause they cant tax it.. is that true?

 

Why couldn't they tax it? They tax beer, and you can make that at home as easily as you can grow pot.

I think the reason pot is illegal has much more to do with hemp competing with the petrochemical industry, and marijuana competing with the pharmaceutical and liquor industries. Not to mention the fact that if pot were legal, we wouldn't need all those cops, judges, and prison cells!

There is LOTS of money being made by keeping pot illegal. Follow the money....

 

theres more money to be made by making pot legal. closing down all those prison cells and firing all those cops and judges means less income that has to be made. there is a statistic that says that every state would save 30 million a year by legalizing marijuana.

 

Do you have any idea how powerful a lobby the combination of the oil, pharmaceutical, liquor, and prison-industrial complex represents? And how much they contribute to political campaigns (to both parties)? And the WoD provides a valuable excuse for the militarization of domestic police, and the building of a vast network of prisons, which come in handy for population control.

Yes, there would be money to be made by legalizing pot, but NOT by the above entrenched interests, who control our government policy. The pot money would be made mostly by an entirely new industry, or (hopefully) by individual small-scale growers working for themselves.

The "powers that be" simply ain't gonna let that happen without one hell of a fight.

 

I've wondered, thinking about Big Tobacco and how they are said to put a lot of crap in their cigs that make them more addictive (and megabrewery beers here in the US tend to have a lot of poor quality shit in them), would a hypothetical new pot industry start putting crap into their marijuana products? I think it's certainly possible, although the fact cannabis is easy to home-grow would undermine that. I figure if cannabis ever did become decriminalized/legalized they'd keep the cultivation of it illegal (homegrowing, I mean), since that would make it a more profitable crop.

 

I'm sure that if grass were legalized under a corporate model like cigs or beer, the product would be shitty schwag, mixed with all kinds of additives, with a government-mandated maximum THC level. That's why I don't support simply legalizing it and handing it over to corporate interests.

Personally, I would like to see alcohol, tobacco, and smokable cannabis treated the same--but not at all like they are now. All three would be available only on a "grow your own" basis. No corporate interests making profits by selling shitty (and in the case of alcohol and tobacco, addictive) products, and no governmental conflict of interest by being dependent on tax revenue while officially discouraging consumption.

You want tobacco or weed? Grow 'em. You want beer or liquor? Take up homebrewing/distilling.

Absolutely no for-profit sales allowed. Distribution on a barter basis (product for product) between cooperative groups or individual growers/producers would allow for economies of scale while preventing the rise of corporate monopolies. Free distribution for medical purposes allowed, of course.

Industrial hemp would be treated like any other agricultural crop.

"Come the Revolution", I guess.....

 

I don't know if I'd be that hardcore anti-business, although I certainly don't want a potential marijuana industry to end up like Big Tobacco or the megabreweries. I think they should just enforce stringent purity and quality codes on marijuana products. Similar to how the Germans have their centuries-old Reinheitsgebot - a law from the 1500's that states all beer sold must only be made from the four basic ingredients of malt, hops, water, and yeast. The Reinheitsgebot I've read is why many American megabrews aren't sold in Germany, though I'd imagine our shit megabeers wouldn't have a chance in the Vaterland of beers anyway.

 

They Should Tax Marijuana, There Make Crazy Money Man

 

Ellis.I agree to a degree to what you say,but it is a double edged sword.If govt was to distibute and tax that would open the doors for all private parties to grow there own for personel use as well!There are no laws now governing that exclude people from growing there own tobacco or producing there own alcohol.There would be benefits to!

 

Why would that necessarily be so?

Tobacco I'm not sure about (but I think there are laws against it) I've certainly never heard of anyone doing it. In the case of alcohol, home production of hard liquor (distilled spirits) is ILLEGAL, even for personal consumption. Homebrewing beer or wine is legal for those of legal drinking age, but subject to strict limitations on quantity, and with sales prohibited.

 

Our government passed a law in 1937 that could have allowed for legal distribution of marijuana. They even developed tax stamps.(they just chose not to issue them) The stamps still exist
Unfortunately, the law was written in a way that was impossible to follow. To possess pot you had to have the stamp, to get the stamp you had to possess the pot. (talk about being in two places at the same time)

 

Where is your proof on hard liquor not being legal to produce with no sales for personel consumption? Seems to me that was abolished after prohibition! I would be intrested to see these laws,I am not doubting you but is new to me!

 

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/hemp/taxact/mjtaxact.htm

 

The Marihuana Tax Act was passed because the government realized that it had absolutely no constitutional right to make the stuff illegal. But they could tax it.

The tax varied depending on whether you were a prescribing doctor ($1 per year), a dispensing druggist ($15/year), a hemp grower ($25/year), or an importer/producer of cannabis products ($50/year). If you weren't a registered party under one of these classifications, then you were supposed to pay a $100 per OUNCE tax. Needless to say, the tax was far more than the price of the pot at the time, making it effectively illegal, if not in actual law. People caught in posession of weed were charged not with drug posession, but tax evasion!

Marijuana didn't actually become ILLEGAL until the passage of the Controlled Substance Act of 1970.

A similar prohibitive taxation exists today with certain types of firearms, such as machine guns and silencers. Many people think these things are illegal, when they are just taxed at a very high rate to make private ownership effectively impossible.

 

Straight from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms website:

http://www.atf.gov/alcohol/info/faq/newfaqbackup.htm#s1

 

Ellis,alot of intresting info on that link!Thanks

 

Producing large quanities of alcohol is a whole lot harder than growing weed. Try it. A six pack a day?

And tobbacco is a bitch to grow and cure. I grow it, and I know. You are allowed to grow 40 lbs processed a year for personal consumption.

When the GAO recomended weed be legalized and taxed, they failed to present a viable tax plan. This was part of the pre-tense for Reagan rejecting the report.

Weed cannot be sucessfully taxed. It's too easy to grow, and an underground will exist as long as an alcohol and tobbacco type tax scheme is tried. No one has ever presented a viable plan.

It must be legalized for personal growth and sale or the underground will still be there, and only the promise of elimatating the marijuana underground will ever give us the leverage for legalization.

 

thanks for the tobacco info,i did think that was legal but atf site gave no info on personel amounts!So tobacco is a bitch to grow?What is difficult about it Geck?

 

my dad does

 

The tax is just $200. In 1934 (passage of the 1934 National Firearms Act), a Thompson M1A1 cost $200, so the $200 tax doubled the price. But now, it's just like whatever. If weed were taxed $100/ounce, it would be sold legally for $150/ounce probably, which would be like whatever. But back then, $100/ounce... yea that is ridiculous.