Pubdate: Tue, 29 Apr 2003
Source: Maneater, The (Columbia, MO Edu)
Copyright: 2003 The Maneater
Contact:  http://www.themaneater.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1283
Author: Brenden Clawson

SENATE BILL WOULD TAX PORN, ILLEGAL DRUGS

Taxes on pornography and illegal drugs are part of a Senate bill that 
sponsors hope will to put a dent in the $200 million deficit in the state 
budget.

Senate Bill 600 is being sponsored by Sen. Charlie Shields, R-St. Joseph. 
It would impose a five percent gross receipts tax on pornographic material, 
and a tax of $3.50 per gram of marijuana and $200 per gram of all other 
controlled substances.

"I think (taxes on pornography and illegal drugs) are the ones that will 
least effect the common working man," said Sen. Patrick Dougherty, D-St. 
Louis. "Those cobbled together may be able to help."

If the bill passes, drug dealers would be required to buy drug-tax stamps 
as proof they had paid the tax. Those found to have not paid the tax would 
be fined twice the amount they were supposed to pay.

Currently, 23 states have drug-stamp laws. Sen Anita Yeckel, R-St. Louis, 
who sponsored a bill creating an illegal drug tax before it became part of 
Senate Bill 600, said most of the money raised by the drug tax would come 
from fines, not from the tax itself.

Yeckel uses North Carolina as an example, where, since a drug-stamp law was 
passed in 1995, only 63 people have purchased drug stamps and the state has 
assigned 60,000 fines.

"It's kind of like an Al Capone thing," Yeckel said. "They were never able 
to get him on murder charges, but they were finally able to get him on tax 
evasion."

Yeckel said North Carolina gains $5 million to $6 million a year in revenue 
from the fines.

However, Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization 
for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said the fines border on double jeopardy.

St. Pierre said there have been cases in which people have been acquitted 
on a drug offense, only to be hit by a fine for failing to pay an illegal 
drug tax.

"In a criminal trial, you have a jury of your peers," St. Pierre said. "You 
don't have that when a tax evaluator goes after you. You don't have right 
to council or a jury."

States should make up their minds about how they want to deal with 
marijuana, St. Pierre said.

"Either tax it and legalize it or don't legalize it and don't try to tax 
it," St. Pierre said.

Along with the illegal drug and pornography taxes, the bill would tax 
pharmaceuticals and lottery winnings by non-residents.

Yeckel said higher education could see some of the funding it lost this 
year restored if the state legislature were able to increase revenue.
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