Revenue Enhancer

Senator John Sapien has a really bad bill in the Legislature that would put a 25% excise tax on medicinal marijuana.  He would also charge patients a gross receipts tax when buying it.  Sapien is just being a populist politician.  Meanwhile those patients, with terminal diseases and suffering, would have to offer up what little they have left under our health care system to make Sapien look tough on drugs.  He should go have a chat with some of these poor folks.

But in the spirit of things here is a revenue enhancing idea for the law makers.  They already want to raise taxes on soft drinks, chips, cookies and foods that are 'bad' for you.  So why don't we just legalize marijuana and heavily tax its sale for everyone but medical patients.  We all know what would happen then.  Everyone would pay their taxes on the grass, we would save taxes on criminal justice time wasting on marijuana prohibitions, and we would send millions of new tax dollars to the treasury from the new tax on munchies.  Everybody wins.