Newsbrief:
Here
Come
the
Revenoors
--
Tennessee
Illegal
Drug
Tax
Now
in
Effect
1/7/05
Under a new law that went into effect January 1, the state of Tennessee has begun assessing an excise tax on illegal drugs. From moonshine to marijuana, and even including prescription drugs procured illegally, the Tennessee tax man wants his cut. According to the Daily Tennessean, it becomes the 23rd state to do so. While proponents of the new law are touting its revenue enhancing aspects, its primary purpose is to further punish people caught in possession of illicit drugs. The law creates a 10-person tax agency at a one-time cost of $1.2 million and anticipates an annual expenditure of $800,000 to fund the office, according to the state Revenue Department. But according to state Sen. Randy McNally (R-Oak Ridge), the law's sponsor, the tax should more than cover the costs to the state. He told the Tennessean he projected collecting as much as $3.6 million in illegal drug taxes in one year. The idea, he said, was to recoup some of the costs of prosecuting and jailing drug offenders. "People felt good that we could do something other than have to spend taxpayer money on housing drug dealers," he said. Under the new law, persons in possession of illegal drugs have 48 hours to report to a state revenue office to pay the tax and get a tax stamp, which must be affixed to the drugs in question. People who comply with the law need not provide their name, address, or other identifying information, and under Tennessee law, the tax office is barred from providing information about drug tax payers to law enforcement authorities. But Tennessee officials don't think that will be the primary way the tax will be assessed. In neighboring North Carolina, which has had a similar law for 14 years, only 79 people out of the 72,000 assessed voluntarily bought tax stamps. The rest were taxed after being arrested on drug charges. Under the Tennessee law, upon making a drug arrest, police have 48 hours to contact the tax office, which will then assess the tax, as well as additional fines for not having paid it in the first place. If suspects cannot immediately pay the tax, the state will seize and sell off any assets to pay off the liability. Such laws are absurd, said Allen St. Pierre, new executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (http://www.norml.org). "On the one hand, it says you can't own a substance. And on the other hand, it creates a taxing scheme. The law on its face makes no sense," he told the Tennessean, adding that it amounted to "legal nitwittery... Drug users should challenge the law in court to either get it wiped off the books or to affirm the legal taxation of drugs within a regulatory scheme similar to that used with alcohol and tobacco." "Some state drug tax laws have been successfully challenged," St. Pierre said, "but legislators then rewrite the laws to satisfy the courts and get them back on the books."
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