SENATE BILL WOULD TAX PORN, ILLEGAL DRUGS

Taxes on pornography and illegal drugs are part of a Senate bill that
sponsors hope will to put a dent in the $200 million deficit in the state
budget.

Senate Bill 600 is being sponsored by Sen. Charlie Shields, R-St. Joseph.
It would impose a five percent gross receipts tax on pornographic material,
and a tax of $3.50 per gram of marijuana and $200 per gram of all other
controlled substances.

"I think (taxes on pornography and illegal drugs) are the ones that will
least effect the common working man," said Sen. Patrick Dougherty, D-St.
Louis. "Those cobbled together may be able to help."

If the bill passes, drug dealers would be required to buy drug-tax stamps
as proof they had paid the tax. Those found to have not paid the tax would
be fined twice the amount they were supposed to pay.

Currently, 23 states have drug-stamp laws. Sen Anita Yeckel, R-St. Louis,
who sponsored a bill creating an illegal drug tax before it became part of
Senate Bill 600, said most of the money raised by the drug tax would come
from fines, not from the tax itself.

Yeckel uses North Carolina as an example, where, since a drug-stamp law was
passed in 1995, only 63 people have purchased drug stamps and the state has
assigned 60,000 fines.

"It's kind of like an Al Capone thing," Yeckel said. "They were never able
to get him on murder charges, but they were finally able to get him on tax
evasion."

Yeckel said North Carolina gains $5 million to $6 million a year in revenue
from the fines.

However, Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization
for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said the fines border on double jeopardy.

St. Pierre said there have been cases in which people have been acquitted
on a drug offense, only to be hit by a fine for failing to pay an illegal
drug tax.

"In a criminal trial, you have a jury of your peers," St. Pierre said. "You
don't have that when a tax evaluator goes after you. You don't have right
to council or a jury."

States should make up their minds about how they want to deal with
marijuana, St. Pierre said.

"Either tax it and legalize it or don't legalize it and don't try to tax
it," St. Pierre said.

Along with the illegal drug and pornography taxes, the bill would tax
pharmaceuticals and lottery winnings by non-residents.

Yeckel said higher education could see some of the funding it lost this
year restored if the state legislature were able to increase revenue.