Pubdate: Thu, 22 May 2014 Source: Patriot Ledger, The (Quincy, MA) Copyright: 2014 GateHouse Media, Inc. Contact: http://www.patriotledger.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1619 Author: Steven P. Epstein LEGALIZE POT, THEN TAX IT Why is it when it comes to marijuana you blindly adopt the liberal spendthrift claim "the state needs the revenue" when the truth is the preservation of our property and liberty depends upon the electorate being vigilant to insure the Legislature be frugal. Substance abuse treatment is a worthy recipient of revenue and better arguments for applying the old 5 percent sales tax (not the 6.25 percent sales tax passed in 2009) to marijuana and other products not exempt under current law made. You just did not make them. Your blind acceptance of the peer pressure by the example of other states is not part of a good argument. Nor is your acceptance of the claims of those who benefit directly or indirectly from revenue taken from the people that marijuana is a "gateway drug." The best argument, though one I am not yet persuaded, would be to repeal the state's unjust and unwise prohibition on adults engaging in the cultivation of cannabis and commerce in all its products. The savings in law enforcement expenditures would translate into more time spent enforcing other laws. Those engaged in the commerce would pay income taxes and collect the sales tax. Your thinking is the type John Adams warned against when, in 1774, over the penname Novanglus, he wrote: "Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people. When the people give way, their deceivers, betrayers, and destroyers press upon them so fast, that there is no resisting afterwards. The nature of the encroachment upon the American constitution is such, as to grow every day more and more encroaching. Like a cancer, it eats faster and faster every hour. The revenue creates pensioners, and the pensioners urge for more revenue." STEVEN P. EPSTEIN Georgetown - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom