cannabisnews.com: Don't Legalize Pot To Balance Budget Don't Legalize Pot To Balance Budget Posted by CN Staff on July 04, 2004 at 08:27:17 PT By Robert Hale Source: Juneau Empire As Gov. Frank Murkowski and members of the Alaska Legislature struggled with ways of closing a fiscal gap of a few hundred million dollars this year, one of many ideas for generating additional revenues was an increase in the state tax on tobacco.To raise money by that means is a fairly easy call: Cigarettes are bad for you anyway, and if you want to indulge in such risky behavior you should have to pay for it. A sin tax as we all know it. While an added tax on smokes was being debated, we received letters to the editor from a number of writers who argued that if tobacco were to be taxed into oblivion, then alcohol should be as well. Alcohol use and abuse comes with its share of social ills, the reasoning goes, and if smokers are required to pony up for their habit, those who imbibe should be required to do the same.I agree on both counts. I'm not a smoker, so it's easy for me to get in line behind those who think cigarettes could never cost too much. I can also go along with what I suppose would be considered a privilege tax if I choose to buy a six-pack of beer, a bottle of wine or a bottle of distilled spirits. If I want to play, so to speak, I know I have to pay. Fair enough.Just after the end of last month's special legislative session a local observer of state politics e-mailed me and suggested this revenue generator in a purely hypothetical way (and on this one we disagree, by the way):Have the Legislature legalize the use of marijuana for personal use and tax it heavily, very heavily. To do so would eliminate the black market and the profits that drive it, and the state could regulate the product much as tobacco and alcohol are.Another part of the argument is that if the state controlled the production, distribution and regulation of marijuana, its use would likely decline and tens - if not hundreds - of millions of dollars in annual revenue could be realized. The suggestion was that the state's drug abuse problems might also decline if marijuana were legalized outright, but I don't share that opinion.As with tobacco and alcohol, I think a case for legalizing marijuana is a fairly easy one to make, at least on the surface. Yes, the state could reap all kinds of tax dollars by doing so, but I think any argument that there's an overall greater good associated with legalization just isn't there.If legalization of marijuana meant no more than occasional, recreational use, that's one thing. But, as statistics prove with alcohol abuse and its related problems here in Alaska (ours are the worst in the country), the state could be creating a monkey it would never get off its back. That's a huge risk to take on several levels, and one the state wouldn't likely win.The governor and the Legislature can justify additional taxes on cigarettes, alcohol and even gasoline as far as I'm concerned. But I don't know that Alaska, or even Southern states like Mississippi and Alabama, states with perpetually chronic budgetary woes, are ready to legalize recreational drugs to balance their books. Robert Hale is publisher of the Juneau Empire. Source: Juneau Empire (AK)Author: Robert Hale, The Juneau Empire Published: Sunday, July 04, 2004 Copyright: 2004 Southeastern Newspaper Corp.Website: http://www.juneauempire.com/Contact: letterstotheeditor juneauempire.comRelated Articles & Web Sites:Alaska HEMPhttp://www.alaskahemp.org/Free Hemp in Alaskahttp://www.freehempinak.org/State Appeals Legal Pot Ruling http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread18183.shtmlAlaskans to Vote on Pot Legalization in '04 http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread18067.shtmlMarijuana Initiative May Make Ballot http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread17405.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #16 posted by John Tyler on July 05, 2004 at 07:50:07 PT Poor logic Robert Hale logic falls on it's face. People in Alsaka have been using weed when it was legal years ago and they used it when it was illegal. They will keep using it in the future wheither it is legal or not. The public wants it. It should be legally available to adults with reasonable regulation and (with the gov. involved) resonable, not heavy, taxation. Heavy, unreasonable taxation on anything leads people developing cost saving counter measures. [ Post Comment ] Comment #15 posted by Arthropod on July 05, 2004 at 07:35:23 PT: Whoops The link I provided will take you to a mirrors page, click on one of the pages under the column titled "Download". Wait for the file to download, then open the file from wherever you downloaded it to. I suggest downloading to the desktop to make it easy to find. After the file is installed, go download the movie. Download the movie here [ Post Comment ] Comment #14 posted by Arthropod on July 05, 2004 at 07:28:50 PT: BitTorrent If anyone is confused about how to download the movie, click the link I have provided. It is the software to download torrent files. Someone on here will have to figure out what codec the movie is encoded in, as I have AOL rigt now and it would take me days to download the movie. Download the file, install the client, and then go download the movie. Download BT Here [ Post Comment ] Comment #13 posted by FoM on July 04, 2004 at 11:57:50 PT Dankhank Torrent's the name I remember. I really don't understand downloading movies or music. I have saved a few songs I found on the Net but they even seem to be gone now. I can make a copy of a CD I buy. That way I can use the copy and still have the original to make another copy if I need too. I burnt up my first copy of Greendale so I thought it would be smart to do after buying another copy. [ Post Comment ] Comment #12 posted by Dankhank on July 04, 2004 at 11:44:08 PT Cam and Torrent ... are the two formats, I guess, that are used to encode F/11 at these sites.I confess I know little of these but suspect they must be Linux or Mac ...Mpg, Avi, DiVX when available I will try ... Resist the madness ... [ Post Comment ] Comment #11 posted by FoM on July 04, 2004 at 10:57:14 PT Never Mind Nuevo Mexican I re-read your comment and we are on the same page! LOL!Sorry for the rebuke! [ Post Comment ] Comment #10 posted by FoM on July 04, 2004 at 10:55:32 PT Nuevo Mexican Happy Fourth of July! That download stuff justs goes over the top of my head. I'm stuck in text mode! LOL!Just a rebuke. This isn't the most depressing 4th of July but the most hopeful one ever! Remember our glass is over half full now!Have a good one! [ Post Comment ] Comment #9 posted by Nuevo Mexican on July 04, 2004 at 10:44:43 PT Download Fahrenheit 9-11, Moore Approves!!!! This is truly a happy Fourth of July, after 3 of the most depressing Fourth of Julys' i've experienced!Rumsfelds' daughter was to get married on the Fourth last year, but a lightening bolt started a huge fire near two of his seven homes, so they canceled the wedding, and the fireworks display! Which was appropriate, as there was nothing to celebrate, and the fire purified the toxicity Rummy brings to 'our paradise' here in El Norte!Let's hope this is the last nail in the coffin for the Neocon Cheney puppet!http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=113415&threshold=1&commentsort=0&tid=188&tid=97&mode=thread&pid=9605759#9605778Headed to a parade Rumsfeld attends every year! My sign will say: Wake up, wake up, wake up! It's time to make our move! (From the new song by Lostprophets: Wake up! It rocks musically and lyrically, and is up there with Incubus New album as well!) [ Post Comment ] Comment #8 posted by afterburner on July 04, 2004 at 10:02:29 PT Heavy Taxes & Smuggling, Soccer and Monkeys "Have the Legislature legalize the use of marijuana for personal use and tax it heavily, very heavily. To do so would eliminate the black market and the profits that drive it, and the state could regulate the product much as tobacco and alcohol are."This heavy taxation argument is illogical. When Canadian taxes on tobacco were too high, cigarette smuggling increased even though tobacco is and was a legal product. If we are trying to remove cannabis from the black market, then there is a limit to how much tax can be levied before the black market is reignited."If legalization of marijuana meant no more than occasional, recreational use, that's one thing. But, as statistics prove with alcohol abuse and its related problems here in Alaska (ours are the worst in the country), the state could be creating a monkey it would never get off its back."The statistics on alcohol abuse and its behavioral problems have no bearing on recreational, social, medical, or spiritual use of cannabis. As the recent Euro 2004 soccer games demonstrated, cannabis-fueled fans are largely peaceful, compared to alcohol-fueled fans who are likely to tend toward violence. Also, the monkey on your back image is a cheap shot attempting to link cannabis with opiate addiction, an overly exaggerated extrapolation beyond the discredited "stepping stone" or "gateway" theory. [ Post Comment ] Comment #7 posted by Virgil on July 04, 2004 at 09:58:30 PT A prohibitionist newspaper- Really? Who ever heard of that? [ Post Comment ] Comment #6 posted by FoM on July 04, 2004 at 09:32:10 PT Happy 4th of July Everyone I made this page for my friends on the Neil Young Board I go too but I thought some of you might like the page so here it is! Happy 4th of July [ Post Comment ] Comment #5 posted by kaptinemo on July 04, 2004 at 09:23:19 PT: He runs, he trips, he falls on his a** I'll never understand it.An author seems to make all the connections. He seems to start to get the critical points behind cannabis prohibition. The dots start to look like a picture...and then, part of the way through, sometimes at the very end, when he's almost at the logical finish line, like a tumbling runner, his foot catches on an irrationality and he falls flat on his face. Or something else more durable, but less dignified.This is but another case of that. The author makes (very sophomorically, IMHO) the case for legalizaion on economic grounds. And yet he falls flat on his rhetorical tochis by assuming the stale old posture of addiction, a posture not supported by medical science.Honest ignorance I can understand and forgive. But willful ignorance is inexcusable in face of the available research. A willful ignorance that Mr. Hale is sadly exhibiting for all the world to to read. [ Post Comment ] Comment #4 posted by cloud7 on July 04, 2004 at 09:01:19 PT Just dont take away *MY* drug "I can also go along with what I suppose would be considered a privilege tax if I choose to buy a six-pack of beer, a bottle of wine or a bottle of distilled spirits. If I want to play, so to speak, I know I have to pay. Fair enough."He's pays an extra tax on his choice of intoxicant. We go to jail and get raped for our choice. Fair enough. [ Post Comment ] Comment #3 posted by FoM on July 04, 2004 at 08:59:02 PT cloud7 I've tried to download Neil Young live concert music ( Neil Young said he doesn't mind as long as is it live concerts) with that program because I remember the name but it scared me for fear of causing something to go wrong with my computer. I don't have a DVD player on my computer so I'll wait until it's released. It's supposed to be released by the end of the summer. If it is illegal to use I have no idea. [ Post Comment ] Comment #2 posted by cloud7 on July 04, 2004 at 08:49:14 PT FoM Please delete my last message if you would like. How legal it is to download is questionable. Maybe you could just leave the google news link up? [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by cloud7 on July 04, 2004 at 08:32:34 PT Download Fahrenheit 9/11!! Moore has given permission for people to download his movie off the web. I found a place to get it here: http://67.19.19.67/index.php/weblog/steal_this_movie/You can read articles from some papers about it here: http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&edition=us&ie=ascii&q=moore+download [ Post Comment ] Post Comment