Pubdate: Tue, 06 Oct 2015
Source: Las Vegas Review-Journal (NV)
Copyright: 2015 Las Vegas Review-Journal
Contact: http://www.reviewjournal.com/about/print/press/letterstoeditor.html
Website: http://www.lvrj.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/233

MARIJUANA POLICY WILL BURN TAXPAYERS

Over-Regulation Only Helps Criminals

The fundamental goal of drug decriminalization is to put criminals 
out of business. It's to bring billions and billions of dollars in 
black-market, back-room commerce into the sunshine. Prohibitionary 
policies have done nothing to reduce Americans' demand for currently 
illegal drugs, and they have cost taxpayers dearly through the 
militarization of police, crowded courts and the highest 
incarceration rate in the world. Imagine the results of an armistice 
in the war on drugs: more resources for community policing, less 
strain on the justice system and more tax dollars for essential 
government services.

It could happen-provided we don't tax and regulate newly legalized 
drugs to the point that they're unaffordable.

If we're foolish enough to follow that course, nothing changes. The 
street dealers and the cartels will stay in business, spilling blood 
in the process, burdening law enforcement and threatening public 
safety. And little to none of the tax money politicians were counting 
on collecting from drug sales will materialize.

It's important to remember all this as Nevada's newly licensed 
medical marijuana dispensaries slowly open their doors and grapple 
with a regulatory system that is making it expensive to produce 
product for sale. This same system likely would govern legalized 
recreational marijuana, if Nevada voters approve it in next year's election.

As reported Monday by the Review-Journal's Eric Hartley, medical 
marijuana dispensaries and growers want to change lab testing 
requirements to reduce their costs. Currently, a sample must be 
tested from every 5-pound batch for pesticides, toxins and other 
potential contaminants. That testing costs $700 to $1,000 per batch, 
which can add between 2 and 4 percent to the retail cost of the drug, 
which runs about $100 per quarter ounce.

It seems like an insignificant amount, but it has been a big burden 
on growers trying to get their first product to market and deliver a 
return on millions of dollars of high-risk investments in their 
companies. Although medical marijuana is legal in Nevada and other 
states, it's illegal under federal law- and Washington is too 
invested in its drug war to stop fighting it anytime soon, no matter 
how badly it goes.

The Nevada Dispensary Association "feels that these fees are 
prohibitively high and ultimately increase the costs of medical 
marijuana to the patient, to such an extent that many patients may 
not be able to afford their doctor-recommended medication for the 
treatment of a serious condition," NDA Executive Director Riana 
Durrett wrote to state health official Laura Freed.

Indeed, the 5-pound standard is arbitrary considering 
commercial-scale marijuana cultivation facilities grow so much more 
from identical plant strains under identical conditions. The standard 
should be loosened.

"The cultivators are telling us, 'Hey, this is costing us a fortune 
and it doesn't make any sense,'" said David Goldwater, an owner of 
Inyo Fine Canabis in Las Vegas.

Drugs, whether legal or illegal, are at the mercy of market forces 
that give low-cost providers a huge advantage-even if they're crooks. 
The state should serve the interests of taxpayers, not make sure drug 
dealers stay in business.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom