I'm a big time believer in legalizing drugs. maybe the only worse defeat in our war on drugs has been our war on poverty.
I'm ready to wave the white flag on both.
None the less, while I'm a believer in legalizing drugs, I'm not one of those people who believe you can just legalize them and "tax the crap out of them".
Why?
Because we already have an underground economy already established to deliver those drugs to market. All taxing them does is keep that pipeline going. Then all we would have is "legitimate" dealers being undercut by black market activity.
All you need for proof is to examine what New York has done to cigarettes......
The underground tobacco market is spreading like a fast-growing cancer in the wake of tax hikes that make New York cigarettes the most expensive in the nation -- and it's costing the state tens of millions a month in lost tax revenue, a Post analysis has found.
Illegal cigarettes are pouring into neighborhood bodegas by the truckload from neighboring Indian reservations, lower-tax states in the South and even as far away as China, authorities say.
Government data show that New York state is being smoked out of as much as $20 million a month from all these illegal cigarette purchases -- an estimated 7.3 million packs a month sold off the state tax radar.
More.......
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