OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Oakland residents overwhelmingly voted Tuesday to approve a first-of-its kind tax on medical marijuana sold at the city’s four cannabis dispensaries.
Preliminary election results showed the measure passing with 80 percent of the vote, according to the Alameda County Registrar of Voters.
The dispensary tax was one of four measures in a vote-by-mail special election aimed at raising money for the cash-strapped city. All four measures won, but Measure F had the highest level of support.
Scheduled to take effect on New Year’s Day, the measure created a special business tax rate for the pot clubs, which now pay the same $1.20 for every $1,000 in gross sales applied to all retail businesses. The new rate will be $18.
The people, four out of five of them, supported by the businesses paying the new tax, just approved raising taxes by 1500 percent! The city estimates it will raise $300,000 in the first year. As one city drinks deep from the marijuana revenue well, the rest of the cash-strapped cities will get thirstier, and the state will be nearly dehydrated, if I may stretch a metaphor.
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[...] Oakland voters pass first-in-nation marijuana tax [...]
Yeah, that damn government we hired, staffed by people imported from Governmentistan…
Government is us. We don’t hire a government, we are the government.
Taxation is the shared tribute paid by members of a society to derive the benefits of that society and mitigate shared risks. I like having a fire department and police department that will help protect me and my property, regardless if I can afford their services or not. I like having maintained roads to drive on, relatively clean air to breathe, and my food inspected and tested for harm.
We can argue about how much tax, who should pay what share, and how that money should be spent. But the notion of a taxless society is an oxymoron; without taxes, you’d have no society.
All taxation is “protection money”. One day the government that we hired to protect and defend our freedom will give us permission to be free… as long as they continue to get their cut.
In some sense, this is “protection money.” Now we know that the municipal politicians won’t attack what is, in fact, a revenue source for them. In fact, they have a monetary incentive to attract, recruit, and expand marijuana dispensaries.
People may think this is a cynical take on politics but, let’s be honest, can you ever be too cynical about politics?
All that said, this is a big victory!
Can we get something like this passed in San Francisco? Humboldt? Mendocino? Arcata? (Yeah, I know that the last three places are rural…all the better!)