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+--- Thread: Attention Senator Russel Ruderman - (/showthread.php?tid=13085)
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Attention Senator Russel Ruderman - - rainyjim - 02-01-2014
Aloha Senator Ruderman,
I urge you, on the behalf on my fellow Puna residents, to submit legislation on two fronts:
First: dispensaries for medical cannabis users to allow for a safe place of purchase and levy additional taxes for our poorly developed infrastructure, education, and healthcare systems.
Second: Full legalization of Cannabis sativa flowers and hemp.
Mahalo Senator Ruderman
Aloha mai kakou
RE: Attention Senator Russel Ruderman - - Kapohocat - 02-02-2014
quote:
Originally posted by rainyjim...
First: dispensaries for medical cannabis users to allow for a safe place of purchase and levy additional taxes for our poorly developed infrastructure, education, and healthcare systems.
This is like the pork bills.
Dispensaries are the wave of the future and then you tagged on "additional taxes" to the first. IMHO, these are two separate issues or before I shove my ft in my mouth, did you mean tax the weed like any retail location and use the tax money for infrastructure?
RE: Attention Senator Russel Ruderman - - rainyjim - 02-02-2014
I mean tax it like a sin tax. Alcohol, cigarettes, et. al. Like the dispensaries in CA and CO.
RE: Attention Senator Russel Ruderman - - Rob Tucker - 02-02-2014
If medical uses of marijuana are valid, and I think they are, then why should they be taxed heavily? Wouldn't that be punishing those who have a medical need for it?
Colorado and Washington have approved marijuana for recreational use. That is a different story.
RE: Attention Senator Russel Ruderman - - rainyjim - 02-02-2014
You make a good point Rob.
I'm going to assume it was a 'compromise' of sorts with the 'powers that be' to make up for their private prison industries financial losses / the war on drugs.
In this country it has been made very clear that profits of corporations come before any other consideration. So, perhaps when these corporations who have a stranglehold on the 'free market' bounce back from their private prison industries financial losses then it will be possible to do away with the 'tax'.
Pretty sure we pay 'normal' taxes on pharmaceuticals instead of 'sin' taxes so I do see your point and agree it is unfair.
RE: Attention Senator Russel Ruderman - - Guest - 02-02-2014
Colorado originally set up the whole new "legal" pot into two separate tax categories - medical, which is only taxed at 2.9% and recreational - taxed at 25%.
While there is already challenges to this - in the context of the State now wanting to tax ALL marijuana sales regardless of medical or recreational use, the intent was to NOT tax medicinal use heavily.
However, that being said - it is now apparent in the already recent challenges to taxing medical pot at the much higher rate - that the State of Colorado is already addicted - to the millions of tax dollar revenues being generated - and wants even a bigger piece of the pie!
RE: Attention Senator Russel Ruderman - - Bullwinkle - 02-02-2014
The "tax stamp" idea is often floated in legalization schemes
The home grower would be required to buy "tax stamps" and have those attached to the storage medium of the finished product....a tax stamp in the baggie if you will..... I foresee that as the way Hawaii will enter the cannabis era.
Colorado and other legal states have had huge price run ups . although the law came into effect 1/1 the producers had no time to "run up" any production of the recreational product. That could not be done until after the law passed - creating huge pressure on the medicinal inventory jan. 1.
RE: Attention Senator Russel Ruderman - - Kapohocat - 02-02-2014
quote:
Originally posted by Bullwinkle.
The home grower would be required to buy "tax stamps" and have those attached to the storage medium of the finished product....a tax stamp in the baggie if you will.....
To clarify - are you talking about the home grower for personal use or the home grower selling to dispensaries...
If you were growing it for yourself wouldnt taxing it be like taxing tomatoes from your own garden that you consume?
RE: Attention Senator Russel Ruderman - - kalakoa - 02-03-2014
quote:
If you were growing it for yourself wouldnt taxing it be like taxing tomatoes from your own garden that you consume?
Missing the point. If you register for the tax stamps you've self-reported an activity which remains illegal under Federal and/or State statutes.
Besides which, the tax stamps already exist because they were never taken off the books after the US "Hemp for Victory" campaign during WW-1.
RE: Attention Senator Russel Ruderman - - Russell - 02-03-2014
Thanks for the input, Rainyjim and others.
I have already proposed bills on both subjects this year, and they are alive and awaiting hearings and testimony! Now they need support to get them passed.
These bills can be tracked and testimony submitted at http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/advreports/main.aspx
SB2358 would 'decriminalize' cannabis; there is not support for full legalization yet, so this is the best step forward that has a chance.
SB2942 would establish MM dispensaries.
Please send in support for these bills to the committees they are referred to. For assistance contact my office or Public Access Room. And in future, the best, most timely, way to suggest proposals to me is thru my office, not this ( or any blog.) senruderman@capitol.hawaii.gov
Russell