Yakima City Council supports seeking pot tax revenue
At the heart of the debate was whether it would be hypocritical for the council, which banned the growing, processing and sale of marijuana within city limits, to seek tax revenue raised by businesses in cities that do allow them. But the five council members in attendance agreed with staff that easier access statewide could have a local impact on law enforcement.
“I’m prepared to defend cries of hypocrisy from now until whenever,†Councilman Dave Ettl said.
Best response:
Alison Holcomb, criminal justice director for the ACLU of Washington and author of the initiative, said the law was written to dedicate funds to statewide public health and safety efforts, but she worries local governments are trying to skim some of that to boost their general funds.
She said it is hypocritical for cities that banned pot businesses to seek funds generated from those businesses. Holcomb said the Yakima City Council only contributed to the problems law enforcement may face when it voted in January to ban pot businesses.
“They’re continuing to contribute to the problems of illegal sales and illegal activity, and they should not benefit from continuing to contribute to this problem,†Holcomb said in a telephone interview from Seattle.
Suggest that they ‘allocate’ most of the money to those places that allow dispensaries, to ‘offset the extra costs which they may incur’ as a result. If there is anything left, divide it evenly between ALL cities, towns etc. evenly on the basis of population and require that they use it for only coping with substance abuse problems. Notice that most of the banning is in comparatively low population areas, so they would get very little, yet the system would in fact be fair.
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It’s simply window dressing to try to dedicate certain funds to a particular expense without recognizing that in the world of fungible there isn’t anything more fungible than money.
Let’s look at the $40 million cannabis tax dollars that are earmarked for education. For the sake of argument let’s say that Colorado is spending $100 million on those expenses with the money coming from the general fund. When the lawmakers write the budget for next year they use the earmarked funds for education but they spend only $60 million from the general fund for education. The terms are satisfied but education funding doesn’t increase by even a dime.
I wonder, how hard could it be to include a clause prohibiting the lawmakers from cutting current funding levels? Even forbidding it years from now with minimum funding also being adjusted for fluctuations in the value of currency? Until the fungibility of money is considered it’s just Madoff style accounting.
There is no such thing as beer money except in your imagination.
The thrust of my comment was, those who play get more money than those who choose not to.
primus, I was primarily speaking to Ms. Holcomb.
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Let’s see if I can dumb this down for the Yakima City Council;
If you don’t let the ice cream truck drive down your street, you don’t get a share of the tutti frutti taxes collected from the ice cream truck when it drives down other streets.
I know, that’s not dumb enough for them to understand. But that’s about as dumb as I can go.
I’m more offended by the presumption that their irrational fears and hysterical rhetoric are a valid basis for anything. It’s just plain stupid.
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MapINC Recent Media HeadlinesMar 1 2014
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v14/n213/a07.html
Perhaps citizens in Yakima and other cities where prohibs have control of their city govts should sue they’re city government for endangering citizens by forcing a black market to continue where none is needed.
Yakima’s population is heavily weighted with Latinos, mostly migrant farm workers and illegals and they have a big problem with Latino gang activity. I don’t know if that has anything to do with the city’s government making these decisions about selling rec cannabis or not, but I’d be willing to bet it has something to do with it. At any rate, I’m going to take some of the excellent comments on this thread and email them to the legislators.