Pubdate: Sat, 26 Jul 2014
Source: Metrowest Daily News (MA)
Copyright: 2014 MetroWest Daily News
Contact:  http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/619

A SALES TAX ON MARIJUANA?

Is marijuana medicine or a recreational intoxicant? Has it been 
legalized in Massachusetts to provide compassionate relief for the 
truly sick, a legal alternative to a black-market drug, or is it just 
another way to pad government coffers?

These questions were raised by a hearing on Beacon Hill this week on 
a bill that would allow Franklin to charge sales tax on medical 
marijuana. Several other communities that, like Franklin, are 
expected to have medical marijuana growing operations or 
dispensaries, have expressed similar interests.

Well, you can't blame them for asking. But you can question their logic.

First, Massachusetts has legalized marijuana for medical purposes 
only. That's what will be cultivated in a warehouse in a Frankl in 
industrial park. Under the law, it will only be sold to patients 
whose doctors have documented a medical problem for which cannabis is 
an appropriate treatment.

Medicine is medicine, and Massachusetts does not apply sales taxes to 
medicine. Would Franklin officials like to charge sales tax for 
antibiotics, aspirin or drugs used in cancer treatments?

Franklin officials say they need more revenue to pay for expected 
increases in law enforcement costs. Granted, the marijuana warehouse 
will hold valuable merchandise, but so do other buildings in the 
industrial park. Like other tenants, the marijuana outfit has good 
reason to protect its property with private security, but he also 
faces strict requirements to do so under his state license. Besides, 
we're not convinced any additional police officers will be necessary. 
It's a factory and a warehouse, not a party. Nor are the worries town 
officials have expressed about traffic convincing. Every business 
draws some amount of traffic, but a few shipments a day - at most - 
from the growing operation to the dispensaries the firm will operate 
in Brookline and Northampton can easily be accommodated.

With the Legislature wrapping up its formal sessions for the year, we 
don't expect them to do anything with this bill, and it will be a 
tough sell anyway. The creation of a local option sales tax, in any 
form, deserves serious study and de bate.

As for special taxes on marijuana, that discussion should wait until 
it's being sold for recreational, not medical, purposes. As in the 
states that have already legalized recreational marijuana, Colorado 
and Washington, we can expect state and local politicians to milk tax 
revenue from the industry if and when it's legalized, and setting the 
right tax rate is a tricky business. There is already concern in 
Washington that taxes are so high that black-market pot may continue 
to outsell the legal, regulated variety.

For Massachusetts, that discussion is years in the future. For now, 
there are just t wo kinds of marijuana in the Bay State: medicinal 
and illegal. Neither of them can be, or should be, subject to sales taxes.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom