 People are finding it laughable. Governor Spitzer is pushing for legislation to tax the sale of drugs in NY. I for one, fully support this. I'd like to know what the protesters against this are thinking. For years, in all of the conversations I've had either in a moral or political arena, the general consensus seemed to be “If they could tax drugs, they could pay off the national deficit...” or something to that effect. Well, now when someone wants to do it, everyone laughs at him. They scoff the idea. I think the good governor is dead on. When I read other stories about this, I see people saying things like... “Apparently though, New York’s Governor Eliot Spitzer has run out of legitimate businesses to tax oppressively, because he now has proposed a “drug stamp” plan to tax the city’s drug dealers and users as well.” This from this article . Mr. Johnson, the author of that article, also seems to think there would be issues in dealing with federal authorities for drug dealers, as opposed to the restraints being lifted around tax centers, where local and state police would not be allowed to arrest dealers for drug crimes. I would like to take a moment to point out that...
...the federal government has no say in drug laws. These are laws granted jurisdiction to states. When they pass legislation to counter drug laws in states like California, those laws are invalid and should be ignored, since they are unconstitutional. Well, let's try to think about this. There are a lot of taxes on people and businesses in this state. Most companies looking to incorporate seem to do so in Maryland or other locations. So, if we could tax drugs, it's not going to lower the taxes already in place, but wouldn't it help curb new taxes that would further restrain people from doing business in our town? Do you really oppose drug dealers having to pay their way like everyone else? I think Mr. Johnson's point is that some thug gangster is not going to pay the tax anyway, or that their primary concern is not paying taxes, but killing grandma. Guess what – those things are happening anyway. Gang violence is not going to be changed by drug taxes. Educating our youth and giving them hope that there is something out there that isn't gang life is about the only solution to that. Prison is not a deterrent, it's a punishment. What about cigarettes? Those are taxed in New York higher than most places in the entire world. There's a drug that kills MILLIONS of people. Yet because they have lobbyists in D.C., they will remain legal and they will continue to kill people. You can tell me it's not as bad as a crackhead robbing mom and dad to get high, but I've seen a single mom with three kids spending her last $5 on cigs about 1000 times more than I've seen crackheads begging for money. It's all in how you look at it. Mom could have spent that $150 that month on groceries, the electric bill or even “wasted it” taking her kids to a couple of cultural or educational events. So why shouldn't we tax marijuana and cocaine? I fail to see the down side of this. Some people who are against this claim that there will be problems because drug dealers will not be able to be arrested within a certain distance of a tax center. Is this a problem? I don't think cocaine and crack dealers are really the target here in this sense. Since the proposed tax on cocaine and crack is $200 per gram, which sells on the street for $50-$100 per gram, I would have to imagine that the primary target here is marijuana. It's the most heavily trafficked drug in the world, and the tax proposed for that is a mere $3.50 per gram. Marijuana sells for anywhere from $100 - $600 an ounce, depending on your location and the quality. So is adding $98 to an ounce really so big a deal? Let's be honest here. Marijuana is illegal due to nothing more than politics. There have been massive amounts of research on it. It's very useful not only in it's drug state, but for the production of a ton of other things. Anyone who strongly opposes marijuana legalization is probably pretty ignorant to the facts. It hasn't been linked to cancer. Not once. It has no severe side effects other than memory loss after exposure for long periods and it isn't anymore addictive than bowling. I find this proposal to be a happy medium, and one that will help to aid the state with millions in tax dollars. I highly doubt Gov. Spitzer is ever going to do much to lower our taxes, and for that I am disappointed. However, I think this drug tax is an excellent idea, and one that I hope gets somewhere as it has in more than a dozen other states like California and Utah. In its stead, should we not go with this tax, perhaps we could help to make up some of the lost monies from 9/11 and other natural disasters, money we were supposed to get from federal aid by placing a tax of $100 an hour for any federal politician from out of state who crosses in to NY. I'd support that tax too.
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