Democratic state Sen. Nicholas Scutari recently sponsored a bill to legalize marijuana. Under this bill, marijuana could be grown, sold and used in New Jersey with a progressive tax on marijuana sales that would grow from 7 percent to 25 percent within five years.
The legalization of marijuana is a growing popular sentiment and is increasingly becoming a reality. There are obvious economic benefits for states that will use it as a source for significant tax revenues, sometimes veiled as taxes for the greater good.
I have never been a fan of sin taxes that discriminate by unfairly targeting certain user groups for tax revenues instead of income-based taxes or uniform sales taxes.
Lawmakers and voters will all eventually need to focus on the possibility or probability of marijuana’s legalization. Although I am skeptical about whether marijuana should be legalized, I am not trying to persuade the discussion in either direction.
Instead, we need to broaden our focus and understand the motivations for legalizing marijuana and the effects of legalization.
Let’s not allow government’s greed for additional sources of taxation to drive the decision for legalizing marijuana. Legalization would not be moving forward as quickly as it is today if high tax revenues were not behind the initiative.
The legalization of marijuana should be a decision based on its own merit without the added payoff from taxation. The only way to ensure this decision is not influenced by a new tax is to eliminate the addition of these high marijuana sales taxes.
Deciding whether to legalize or not to legalize marijuana has significant implications for life in our state. We need to better understand who will be using marijuana; the age of the users; how, when and where will it be used; health concerns and risks; and other impacts to individuals, families and our society.
New initiatives would slow down and careful examination of the pros and cons for legalizing marijuana would be enhanced if new taxes were taken off the table.
Vincent J. Signoriello Sr.
Manalapan