Oakland Passes Marijuana Tax

2 years ago

0 Comments Say Something »

Text Size

Contributor

In an attempt to ease the economic pain caused by the recession, the Oakland, Calif., City Council has passed a 1.8 percent tax on medical marijuana sold within city limits. An estimated 200,000 California residents use marijuana for medical purposes, and they already pay a state sales tax on their purchases. So how much revenue could the new tax bring to the cash-strapped city? Via The Wall Street Journal:

A city tax on medical marijuana could generate at least $400,000 and perhaps more than $1 million annually, said Rebecca Kaplan, the Oakland City Council member who pushed the proposal.

Sounds good, but that will make only a small dent in the estimated $83 million budget gap that Oakland faces for the coming year.

A bill has also been introduced in the California legislature that would levy a $50 per ounce tax on medical marijuana sold statewide. If it passes, that measure could raise as much as $1.3 billion.

Filed Under: Economy, Budget

Tagged: medical marijuana, MedicalMarijuana, oakland, pot, Top Stories, TopStories

Our New Approach to Comments

In an effort to encourage the same level of civil dialogue among Politics Daily’s readers that we expect of our writers – a “civilogue,” to use the term coined by PD’s Jeffrey Weiss – we are requiring commenters to use their AOL or AIM screen names to submit a comment, and we are reading all comments before publishing them. Personal attacks (on writers, other readers, Nancy Pelosi, George W. Bush, or anyone at all) and comments that are not productive additions to the conversation will not be published, period, to make room for a discussion among those with ideas to kick around. Please read our Help and Feedback section for more info.