"N.Y. governor faces criticism after proposing tax on drugs"
"by Keith B. Richburg, Washington Post | February 18, 2008
NEW YORK - If you can't beat it, tax it.
That seems to be the axiom in New York these days, where Governor Eliot L. Spitzer, struggling to close a $4.4 billion budget gap, has proposed making drug dealers pay tax on their stashes of illegal drugs.
Ha-ha-ha!
And just how are they going to enforce that?
Might as well CALL IT WHAT IT IS: De-facto LEGALIZATION!!!
I mean, are the dealers and users going to get AMNESTY?
Otherwise, no workie, guvvy!!!!
Put that joint down, will you, Spitzer?
It's gone to your head!
The new tax would apply to cocaine, heroin, and marijuana, and could be paid with pre-bought tax stamps affixed to the bags of dope.
Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!
Some critics in the Legislature have expressed incredulity.
"I guess if it moves, he'll tax it," said Republican state Senator Martin J. Golden, who dubbed the proposal the crack tax. Some opponents said that because cocaine and marijuana would be subject to the new levies, it should more aptly be called the crack-pot tax.
"How do I explain to my 16-year-old son that we're giving a certain legitimacy to marijuana, cocaine, and heroin?" asked Golden, a former New York City police officer who represents a Brooklyn district. "We are taxing an illegal substance." He added, "Is prostitution next?"
On the other side of the aisle, some Democrats, too, were stunned by the plan. "My initial instinct is: I don't understand it," said Bill Perkins, a state senator from Harlem. "Most of the dealers I'm familiar with are petty crack dealers - most of them are crackheads. They are broke, to say the least. I just don't understand how you impose a tax" on broke crackheads, he said.
Taxing illegal drugs is more widespread than is generally known. At least 21 states have some form of tax for illicit drugs, although some of those laws have been challenged in courts, and others have fallen into disuse. Almost all the drug-tax laws still in effect are used mainly by local law enforcement agencies as a way to seize drug money and fund counter-narcotics operations.
NICE RACKET, huh?
CREATE a PROBLEM, then BENEFIT from its "SOLUTION!"
Ah, yes, the "WAR on DRUGS!"
The controversial idea grew out of the efforts to fight bootleggers such as Al Capone during Prohibition - going after the bootleggers for unpaid taxes often required a lesser burden of proof than a criminal prosecution. Taxing illicit drugs gained popularity during the 1980s and early 1990s, when prosecutors and law enforcement authorities were pushing for mandatory sentences and other measures to signal a crackdown on drugs and drug abuse.
"It was a way of getting tougher on criminals," said Joseph D. Henchman, tax counsel for the Tax Foundation, a Washington educational group. "It kind of boggles my mind. If you want to get tougher on drug dealers, increase the penalties."
"It's just weird to put an excise tax on an illegal substance," Henchman said. "When you tax something, it's a way for the government to say you can have it, but we want a piece of it. . . . It's sending a mixed signal."
Not if the guv is toking up a storm and snorting away!
Then it makes sense!!!
Last September, a state appeals court ruled a drug law in Tennessee unconstitutional, saying that an illegal substance could not be taxed.
In Massachusetts, the state Supreme Judicial Court ruled in 1998 that a drug tax was an unconstitutional form of double jeopardy, so it is not used, although it remains on the books, according to the Department of Revenue.
Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, called the drug tax a quintessential example of the absurdity of the war on some drugs. He said taxing drug dealers, and especially users, "is like squeezing blood from a rock."Or like partying with a doped-up governor!
What the hell is Spitzer on, and whatever it is, shouldn't he share?
And did HE PAY HIS TAX on HIS DOPE, readers?
Must be heavy shit!
