MEDICAL MARIJUANA WON'T PROVIDE ANY TAX DOLLARS

EDITOR:

At the secretary of state forum in Chino Valley recently, a
representative of the Marijuana Policy Project blurted out, during
time allocated to a different proposition, that taxes from medical
marijuana could make up Arizona's budget shortfall. I asked for equal
time but the secretary of state official would not let me speak, so
I'd like to respond here.

Proposition 203, which takes up 11 pages in the secretary of state's
publicity pamphlet, includes language that makes marijuana
dispensaries tax exempt. And unlike similar laws in other states,
Arizona's law has no provisions for charging fees for marijuana cards.
In other words, medical marijuana will not provide Arizona one penny
in tax dollars.

In fact, it will cost the state because the Department of Health
Services must administer it. Colorado has already been forced to
budget several million dollars to administer its medical marijuana
law. Also, in other states, marijuana dispensaries have bred crime,
and that racks up criminal-justice costs.

So, from a budgetary point of view, Proposition 203 offers us the
worst of both worlds. While it won't generate one penny in revenue, it
will drain away millions of dollars that the state desperately needs.

Ed Gogek, M.D.

Prescott