It must be the cannabinoids coloring the conversation, the Record-Searchlight of Redding opines in this editorial. As Californians debate legalizing marijuana through Proposition 19, proponents have thrown around some astonishing numbers about the value of the state’s weed crop and the potential tax revenue if it were brought into the mainstream, regulated and subject to the same visits from the tax man as any other business. Fourteen billion dollars is one figure commonly circulated number for the cash value of California’s marijuana production — more than the state’s vast dairy and grape industries put together. [...]
Aug 112010
Since we just learned that Rand Paul allegedly kidnapped a girl in college and tried to force her to take bong hits, today seems like as good a day as any to ask the question of how legalizing marijuana could affect California’s budget crisis. The answer is complicated, and numbers from different state analyses contradict each other, writes TheAtlantic.com Staff Editor Chris Good. Supporters of legalization have claimed that California could raise between $1.3 and $1.4 billion if it legalizes pot. That’s the figure the Yes on 19 campaign uses, quite prominently, on its website, [...]
Bud’s note: File this under “Are you fucking kidding me?” Love or hate cannabis, this is one mangy dog of a ballot measure that proposes to tax growers based on garden size. Good luck with that concept, even if it passes. Which it won’t. ============= Voters in Rancho Cordova will decide in November whether to tax residents who grow their own pot. The city measure, put on the Nov. 2 ballot by the City Council this week, would impose taxes on all local residential cultivation if California voters approve Proposition 19 to legalize recreational use. [...]
LONG BEACH — Recreational marijuana, if California voters legalize it in November, may end up being taxed in Long Beach, but medical marijuana won’t. The City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to place a recreational marijuana tax on the Nov. 2 ballot, but it would go into effect only if California voters approve Proposition 19 at the same time. More than 50 percent of Long Beach voters would have to approve the tax for it to pass, the Long Beach Press-Telegram reports. Recreational marijuana businesses would be taxed 15 percent of their gross revenues — [...]
If voters in November pass Proposition 19 to legalize marijuana, Californians will be inhaling a new tax and regulatory environment as well, according to this Orange County Register editorial. Voters are weighing it closely: A Reuters/Ipsos poll taken in late June found that Prop. 19 was opposed by Californians, 50 percent to 48 percent. A key element of the “Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010″ is taxation, coming at a time when the state has difficulty balancing its budget every year. The deficit for the still-unpassed budget for fiscal year 2010-11, which began [...]
STOCKTON — A City Council committee Wednesday endorsed a revised set of rules that would regulate medical marijuana dispensaries in the city but relax some restrictions outlined in an earlier draft. There was a round of applause from the medical pot advocates and lawyers gathered when committee member and Councilwoman Susan Eggman asked for acknowledgement of the city’s efforts to tailor a fair compromise. The full City Council is scheduled to weigh in on the proposed rules late next month, Daniel Thigpen reports in the Stockton Record. (Subscription required.) It will be the second time. [...]
A week after throwing its support behind a medical marijuana ordinance that many saw as one of the most pot-friendly in the area, Richmond’s City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to scratch a number of the ordinance’s most controversial clauses. In a separate move, the council agreed to allow city voters to decide on a new pot tax. Mayor Gayle McLaughlin, along with Councilmembers Nat Bates, Jeff Ritterman and Jim Rogers, all reversed course on a number of key aspects of the pot ordinance Tuesday that they had insisted on during their July 20 meeting, [...]
In July of 2009, Oakland became the first city in the U.S. to tax the sale of medical marijuana. Now, exactly a year later, the City Council has taken another major step on the road toward outright legalization. The council has voted to license four new industrial-sized marijuana farms in the city. These so-called Walmarts of pot will be authorized to grow and process marijuana to sell to the four city-approved medical cannabis dispensaries. The ordinance must be read at a meeting a second time before it becomes law, which is expected Tuesday. For the [...]
STOCKTON — The City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to place a measure on the November ballot that would put a 2.5 percent tax on sales at medical marijuana dispensaries. The measure also would levy a 10 percent tax for all other marijuana businesses, the Stockton Record reports — but that’s all it reports on its website unless you’re a subscriber. ========= For a peek at the ballot measure, click here and then click on Agenda Item 8.04. Update: Here’s the rest of the Record’s story after going through a cumbersome registration process. Most readers won’t [...]
Redding will not join a small but growing group of California cities looking to shore up faltering budgets by taxing marijuana. A City Council majority Tuesday strongly rejected the idea of taxing Redding’s 19 medicinal cannabis clubs, the Redding Record Searchlight reports. Council members seemed more willing to consider a tax on recreational marijuana, should voters on Nov. 2 approve Prop. 19. That ballot measure would allow possession of up to an ounce of cannabis for any purpose. But with Prop. 19’s passage far from certain, council members said it’s too soon to consider a [...]
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