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Grover Beach council backs marijuana tax

July 6, 2016

medical marijuan rxThe Grover Beach City Council plans to place a medical marijuana sales tax on the November ballot. The council is also preparing to reverse its medical marijuana bans and allow cannabis businesses to operate in the city. [KSBY]

In January, amid a statewide rush to adopt medical marijuana regulations, the Grover Beach council passed a cannabis cultivation ban. The city already had an ordinance in place that prohibited brick and mortar medical marijuana dispensaries.

City officials have since changed course and have received four applications for code amendments that would allow a variety of medical marijuana businesses to operate in Grover Beach.

On Tuesday, the council directed staff to plan comprehensive medical marijuana regulations, which will include provisions allowing the sale, transportation and cultivation of cannabis in Grover Beach. The council also directed staff to draft a medical marijuana sales tax initiative.

In order for the tax initiative to appear on the November ballot, the city must adopt an ordinance and submit the ballot measure to San Luis Obispo County by Aug. 12. The council plans to introduce the ordinance at its July 18 meeting and formally approved it on Aug. 1.

California voters may legalize recreational use of marijuana in November.

Last week, the Santa Barbara City Council voted to place a 20 percent marijuana sales tax on the November ballot. If approved by voters, the tax would apply to both the sale of medical and recreational marijuana.

Grover Beach’s medical marijuana regulations are expected to take four to six months to be finalized.


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Studies indicate THC helps with Alzheimer’s symptoms by binding to and preventing the formation of plaque in the brain.


It is promising.


I want to see marijuana fully legal. Tax it like soda or cigarettes. Study the effects over time. Why not TRY it to see how it effects crime, health, revenue?


High doses of Vitamin C have been shown to cure cancer, and yet it isn’t an option to most Americans. They are forced chemo drugs as their only “health insurance approved” treatment. Why NOT explore options?


THC itself has no calories. No beer gut.

Can’t OD on THC like you can on Xanax or opiates.


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Cannibis should remain medical, and patients should be more carefully scrutinized by the “doctors.” The most important advantage of legallizing it, however, would be to help encourage the Feds to reclassify cannibis away from a Schedule 1 drug, in the same catagory as heroin, which is known to be equally as addictive as tobacco.


Interestingly, it can be offered at such significant government-subsidized discounts, all the way up to 100% for cancer patients through the Campassionate Use Act at licensed Collectives such as this one up near Santa Cruz: http://bit.ly/29p4y1O.


Access to this effective medicine should never be cost prohibitive. California proposes to tax it’s sales at 20% while the city of Grover Beach intends to add another 15%. That’s a clear definition of highway robbery and presents incentives for criminals to simply steal it at gunpoint.


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Most certainly supported by Third district supervisor Adam Hill, aimed to appease additional votes from stoners to maybe help gain his re-election.


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You non-smokers need to lighten up. I bet you value personal freedom when it involves something you enjoy. Try a little bowl. It does wonders for an uptight, puckered butthole.


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“I bet you value personal freedom”, when it has no effect on other law abiding citizens you bet I do, but if my so called personal freedom effects my law abiding neighbors and the community, no.


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Relax. It doesn’t really affect you. You probably can’t even accurately identify who smokes.


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I can’t always tells who has been drinking and is driving impaired but that doesn’t make it any less illegal.


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Sigh…


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Makes perfect sense. The area is declining, and the people who are left in GB are people who can’t make it elsewhere. Folks like that are much more likely to use coping mechanisms to get through life. The city government sees that they can make some money off the “citizenry” of the area. A while back they thought they could make money off the good citizens, so they’d prefer to keep those druggies out. But now that SLO has screwed up it’s future, they’ll take whatever they can get.


No different than the reason any of the crappy parts of any town have plenty of liquor stores. The Government figures they might as well make money from the people that can’t or won’t succeed.


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Don’t do it and never have, but it seems odd that the City wants to tax this but not my Norco.


Why is that, are they seeing a “Cash Cow” ?


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They have too many feeding at the trough and instead of cutting some of them off they just want to keep the gravy train going, long enough for them to get their golden goodbye.


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To government, marijuana is the new tobacco:


When tobacco smoking was prevalent and in fact encouraged by our government healthcare costs were low. Social Security was solvent and there was plenty of reasonable turnover in employment because our citizens died in their mid-to-late sixties from heart disease and other smoking-related complications. The government received abundant tax revenue from the product that nearly every adult American was addicted to.


Enter the 1980s when anti-smoking advocates begin to get traction and when cigarette smoking was put in a negative light by society. The number of smokers declined each year and with it we saw an increase in longevity and increasing health care costs because people were living longer and needed to take advantage of medical treatments that they previously never lived long enough to need and Social Security begins to run short of funds again because people are collecting their checks a lot longer.


Now comes marijuana, which is being touted as “good medicine.” Everybody’s being encouraged to light up or at least eat a marijuana-infused brownie for their good health and the government sees an opportunity.


Increase tax revenue while encouraging people to use this new magical weed. With any luck longevity of citizens will go down, tax income will go up, the burden on Social Security will lessen as our citizens die earlier and best of all we will all be too numbed out of our minds from smoking pot to pay attention to what the politicians are really up to.


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Thanks for the better explanation. Your chronological explanation is very accurate based on real verifiable data.


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Nothing negative has happened in Oregon like your negative opinion, people are not dying earlier (Probably living longer and more comfortably due to high CBD salves which eliminate pain without the “high” and are far safer that prescription Rx.) The only “New Magic” associated with Cannabis was the Magical thinking that the idiotic “War on Drugs” would eliminate drugs and lessen crime which has proven in Cannabis’s case to be a wholly made up farce.


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A classic diversion. “Everybody’s being encouraged to light up”. What? I’m not seeing this. What I do see is everyone is being encouraged to drink wine, especially in this county. It’s OK to have some wine anytime and with everything for any reason. The last time I looked, alcohol was a poison… The people who are living longer from not smoking are soon going to realize they need a working liver to continue living. Social security seems rather secure to me.


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Sounds like Gov is already spending the anticipated cash flow in the business of dead heads. Next we taxpayers will have to fund their sorry asses because they won’t get off of theirs to find a job. Oh yes, mandatory drug testing will be less likely now because that will be counter to the 20% Gov wants. Beware Gov may promote all drugs which will help to make Social Security financially sound because less will live long enough to collect.


0

Mandatory drug testing should be illegal anyway


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Why stop there make driving under the influence legal.


0

Apples and oranges.


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They need more money so they can payoff Torres


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