DON'T LEGALIZE POT TO BALANCE BUDGET

As Gov. Frank Murkowski and members of the Alaska Legislature struggled with
ways of closing a fiscal gap of a few hundred million dollars this year, one
of many ideas for generating additional revenues was an increase in the
state tax on tobacco.

To raise money by that means is a fairly easy call: Cigarettes are bad for
you anyway, and if you want to indulge in such risky behavior you should
have to pay for it. A sin tax as we all know it.

While an added tax on smokes was being debated, we received letters to the
editor from a number of writers who argued that if tobacco were to be taxed
into oblivion, then alcohol should be as well. Alcohol use and abuse comes
with its share of social ills, the reasoning goes, and if smokers are
required to pony up for their habit, those who imbibe should be required to
do the same.

I agree on both counts. I'm not a smoker, so it's easy for me to get in line
behind those who think cigarettes could never cost too much. I can also go
along with what I suppose would be considered a privilege tax if I choose to
buy a six-pack of beer, a bottle of wine or a bottle of distilled spirits.
If I want to play, so to speak, I know I have to pay. Fair enough.

Just after the end of last month's special legislative session a local
observer of state politics e-mailed me and suggested this revenue generator
in a purely hypothetical way (and on this one we disagree, by the way):

Have the Legislature legalize the use of marijuana for personal use and tax
it heavily, very heavily. To do so would eliminate the black market and the
profits that drive it, and the state could regulate the product much as
tobacco and alcohol are.

Another part of the argument is that if the state controlled the production,
distribution and regulation of marijuana, its use would likely decline and
tens - if not hundreds - of millions of dollars in annual revenue could be
realized. The suggestion was that the state's drug abuse problems might also
decline if marijuana were legalized outright, but I don't share that
opinion.

As with tobacco and alcohol, I think a case for legalizing marijuana is a
fairly easy one to make, at least on the surface. Yes, the state could reap
all kinds of tax dollars by doing so, but I think any argument that there's
an overall greater good associated with legalization just isn't there.

If legalization of marijuana meant no more than occasional, recreational
use, that's one thing. But, as statistics prove with alcohol abuse and its
related problems here in Alaska (ours are the worst in the country), the
state could be creating a monkey it would never get off its back. That's a
huge risk to take on several levels, and one the state wouldn't likely win.

The governor and the Legislature can justify additional taxes on cigarettes,
alcohol and even gasoline as far as I'm concerned. But I don't know that
Alaska, or even Southern states like Mississippi and Alabama, states with
perpetually chronic budgetary woes, are ready to legalize recreational drugs
to balance their books.