Pubdate: Sat, 24 Nov 2012
Source: Victoria Times-Colonist (CN BC)
Copyright: 2012 Times Colonist
Contact: http://www2.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/letters.html
Website: http://www.timescolonist.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/481
Author: R.W. Dresser

MARIJUANA REVENUES COULD EASE POVERTY

Re: "B.C.'s poverty rate ranks 2nd worst in nation, report says," Nov. 22.

Let's kill a whole flock of birds with just one stone.

B.C.'s child-poverty problem is disgraceful. Money is urgently needed 
to begin remedying this unacceptable situation. Yet the government is 
already cash-strapped, or so we're told.

The Times Colonist recently reported that British Columbians buy an 
estimated half-billion dollars worth of marijuana annually. That is a 
half-billion dollars of untaxed economic activity. The province 
doesn't collect sales and excise tax on the end-user transactions. It 
doesn't collect business taxes nor does it receive any of the income 
tax that ought to be paid by producers and their employees. Instead, 
these tax scofflaws use those unremitted revenues to purchase other 
consumables brought into the province, including guns, heroin, 
cocaine and meth.

Why don't we do what Colorado and Washington state have done and, 
since then, five other states are proposing to do.

Why don't we stop criminalizing our kids and get this unstoppable 
product brought into the open where it can be regulated and taxed? 
Then we could take the sales taxes, the excise taxes and the 
associated business taxes and put together a handy fund to direct to 
the problem of child poverty.

We might not want marijuana and child poverty linked directly, but 
government is very skilled at laundering money for political cover, 
so we can leave that matter to them.

So, let's do what the people of Colorado and Washington have just 
done; let's grow up.

R.W. Dresser

Parksville
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom