[420 Girl]

NY - When asked during his 2001 mayoral campaign if he ever smoked marijuana, Mayor Bloomberg replied, "You bet I did. And I enjoyed it." And over the weekend, he dressed up like a hippie and clowned around with cast members from Hair. But don't be fooled! Nanny Bloomberg is still a prohibitionist; when asked about a coming marijuana legalization referendum in California, Bloomberg said, "I would vote against legalizing marijuana." The Mayor explained that the stuff "keeps getting stronger and stronger" and could lead to "greater use of drugs, which isn't good." Meanwhile, the New York State Senate is preparing to vote on a bill that would legalize, regulate, and tax marijuana for medicinal purposes in New York.

Of course, the Post is very troubled about all this, and today columnist Abby Wisse Schachter argues that the Senate's bill would treat medical marijuana differently than other prescription drugs by taxing it. As such, she opines, "maybe it's a step on the way to legalizing pot altogether—or maybe to taxing all medications." And fearthermore:
The state Health Department would issue licenses to specific dispensaries and growers; the Senate budget projects this could yield as much as $15 million for the state next year alone. But the real gold is the sales tax on every dope purchase—which could bring in up to $500 million for Albany's coffers. But weed would be unique in having a sales tax attached to it. The purchase of prescription pharmaceuticals, and even some over-the-counter drugs, is generally exempt from taxation because of their medicinal value. As the Tax Foundation's Bill Ahern asks, "If they are going to tax marijuana, isn't that just like an admission that it has no medical value?"

We contacted Mike Meno, the Director of Communications at the Marijuana Policy Project, for a rebuttal, and he did not disappoint:
The first thing the article gets wrong is that the tax would not be on the medicine itself, but rather on the dispensers—just like we tax other drugs. Second, it would be an excise tax on the product itself, not the sales transaction, so it wouldn't be a sales tax (or a "sin" tax). Third, the claim that New York could end up with recommendation mills (like in parts of California) is not accurate, because New York's law would require patients to have an ongoing relationship with their doctor. Fourth, because of federal law, marijuana can't actually be prescribed, but is instead recommended. Because of this, marijuana would not be a prescription drug but would rather be in a class of its own.

But the most glaring inaccuracy in the article is the assertion that marijuana is not medicine. Marijuana's medical value has been supported by an ever-growing body of peer-reviewed scientific studies, public health organizations including the American Nurses Association, American Public Health Association, American Academy of HIV Medicine and American College of Physicians, and most recently by a $9 million study from the University of California, San Diego, that was based on 15 separate clinical trials.

There's a reason 14 other states have passed medical marijuana laws and more than a dozen others are considering them—it's because doctors and patients say it works, and that they need safe and legal access to this legitimate treatment option. If some in New York see a way to make tax revenue from this new industry during tough economic times, that isn't reason to dismiss marijuana's proven medical efficacy.


But who are you going to believe, that crazy stoner or the columnist who once described Plan B as "basically a double dose of the regular birth-control pill."

http://www.420magazine.com/forums/in...tensifies.html