Stoned Gull

Who Wants To Pay Taxes? Cannabis Consumers Do!

This coming Tax Day, April 15, millions of Americans lament paying their state and federal income taxes. This particular Tax Day, there are hundreds of organized 'Tea Parties' where citizens will actually protest paying income taxes by dumping tea into local bodies of water (apparently inspired by CNBC's Rick Santelli's recent rant advocating such).

However, what group of citizens in America are standing before the government and media, jumping up and down, effectively begging to be taxed?

The estimated 35-40 million cannabis  consumers, joined by non-consuming anti-prohibitionists, are calling on the government this Wednesday, Tax Day,  to end 70-years of a failed prohibition, and replace it with logical alternatives to prohibition--such as actually controlling cannabis production, sales and use via taxation.

In Massachusetts, how does the commonwealth 'control' deadly, addictive and dangerous products like alcohol and tobacco? Last I checked they employ a decidedly low tech, low cost and effective solution: a tax stamp

Found on the bottom of the cellophane packaging on every pack of 'coffin nails' lawfully sold at the retail level in Massachusetts is what? A little tax stamp.

When a bottle of liquor is lawfully purchased in Massachusetts, what does the adult consumer have to do to access the dangerous drug? They have to physically break the state-issued and coded tax stamp to take the cap off the bottle.

Who says state and federal government can't actually control 'drugs'? Ever heard of the division of the US Treasury called BATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms)?

At 8:00 AM on Wednesday, April 15, Tax Day, representatives from NORML, including myself, will convene a press conference in New York City, at the steps of the main Post Office in Manhattan, where we will present a check for $14 billion to the US Treasury, which represents the annual costs of cannabis prohibition conservatively arrived at by Harvard economics professor Jeffrey Miron.

I say conservative because I've seen credible estimates that $14 billion of cannabis is consumed annually in California alone.

In these tough, seriously recessionary times in our economy--just as with the ending of alcohol prohibition brought on by the Great Depression--elected policy makers need to look for untapped revenue sources and to reduce government expenses, and there are millions of Americans ready and able to help reduce the burden on taxpayers and cut ineffective government spending by replacing cannabis prohibition with cannabis control.

Check out NORML's webpage on Tax Day for updates and media interviews.

Allen St. Pierre is a native of Chatham and the executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) in Washington, D.C.