Chicago to Apply 9% ‘Amusement Tax’ for ‘the Privilege of Witnessing, Viewing or Participating in the Chewing of Gum’
Posted: July 12, 2015 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Entertainment, Food & Drink, Humor, Law & Justice, Politics | Tags: Amusement Tax, Arrest, black market, Blue State Model, Chicago, Democratic Party, Gum Tax, Illinois, Law, Netflix, Netflix Tax, Regulations, Tax law, Taxation, Taxes 1 Comment
[See also – Chicago to Apply 9% ‘Netflix Tax’]
Too Much Weed. No, Really, Too Much Weed: Growers Struggle With Unexpected Oversupply
Posted: January 16, 2015 Filed under: Economics, U.S. News | Tags: Alaska, black market, Cannabis (drug), Cannabis cultivation, Colorado, Hemp, Leon Washington, Medical cannabis, Seattle, Washington State 2 Comments
Many of the state’s marijuana users have stuck with the untaxed or much-lesser-taxed pot they get from black market dealers or unregulated medical dispensaries
“Every grower I know has got surplus inventory and they’re concerned about it. I don’t know anybody getting rich.”
— Cannabis farmer Scott Masengill
A big harvest of sun-grown marijuana from eastern Washington last fall flooded the market. Prices are starting to come down in the state’s licensed pot shops, but due to the glut, growers are — surprisingly — struggling to sell their marijuana. Some are already worried about going belly-up, finding it tougher than expected to make a living in legal weed.
“Too much what?” — Salvador Dali
“It’s an economic nightmare,” says Andrew Seitz, general manager at Dutch Brothers Farms in Seattle.
State data show that licensed growers had harvested 31,000 pounds of bud as of Thursday, but Washington’s relatively few legal pot shops have sold less than one-fifth of that. Many of the state’s marijuana users have stuck with the untaxed or much-lesser-taxed pot they get from black market dealers or unregulated medical dispensaries — limiting how quickly product moves off the shelves of legal stores.
“State data show that licensed growers had harvested 31,000 pounds of bud as of Thursday, but Washington’s relatively few legal pot shops have sold less than one-fifth of that.”
“Every grower I know has got surplus inventory and they’re concerned about it,” said Scott Masengill, who has sold half of the 280 pounds he harvested from his pot farm in central Washington. “I don’t know anybody getting rich.”
“I wouldn’t worry too much about it. My sources tell me it’s a natural supply-demand fluctuation.”
“It’s the volatility of a new marketplace.”
— Randy Simmons, Washington State Liquor Control Board
Pot’s Black Market Backlash
Posted: November 15, 2013 Filed under: Economics, Law & Justice, U.S. News | Tags: black market, Colorado, Jacob Sullum, Legality of cannabis, Marijuana Policy Project, Nick Gillespie, Washington 1 Comment
How prohibitionists and nanny staters are trying to keep marijuana illegal—or at least inconvenient.
Nick Gillespie writes: In 2012, voters in Colorado and Washington passed full-on, no-hemming-or-hawing pot legalization by large majorities. Lawmakers in each state have spent the better part of the past year figuring out how to tax and regulate their nascent commercial pot industries, which will open for business in 2014 (until then, recreational pot is only supposed to be cultivated for personal use). The spirit behind the legalization efforts in both states was that marijuana should be treated in a “manner similar to alcohol.”
Unfortunately, it’s starting to look like both states are going to treat pot in a manner similar to alcohol during Prohibition. Not only are pot taxes likely to be sky high, various sorts of restrictions on pot shops may well make it easier to buy, sell, and use black-market marijuana rather than the legal variety. That’s a bummer all around: States and municipalities will collect less revenue than expected, law-abiding residents will effectively be denied access to pot, and the crime, corruption, and violence that inevitably surrounds black markets will continue apace.
pundit from another planet 