Legalizing Marijuana Would Generate Billions In Additional Tax Revenue Annually

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(HuffPost) As Washington lawmakers struggle to find ways to balance the national budget, a significant source of revenue may be burning away right before their eyes.

The federal legalization of marijuana would offer a large new revenue stream, according to research from the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.

“We don’t know the size of the marijuana market right now, and we certainly don’t know what would happen to the price and the demand for marijuana under different levels of legalization,” Carl Davis, senior analyst at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy told The Huffington Post. “But we do know that legalization would lead to a positive revenue impact on the income and sales tax side.”

According to a 2010 study from Cato, legalizing marijuana would generate $8.7 billion in federal and state tax revenue annually.

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Christie proposes $1.6M for medical-marijuana program

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(Philly) Gov. Christie has proposed a $1.6 million budget for New Jersey’s three-year-old medical marijuana program - more than twice the current spending plan - in anticipation that more dispensaries will open this year.

So far, only one of the six nonprofits that the state selected as dispensary operators two years ago has opened for business. In December, Greenleaf Compassion Center in Montclair, Essex County, began selling the drug to the first wave of the more than 800 registered patients. Many patients are on a waiting list.

The governor’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2014, which begins July 1, is based on the expectation that more dispensaries “will come on line as they get local approval to open and operate in communities,” Michael Drewniak, Christie’s spokesman, wrote in an e-mail. “That will require more resources from the state in terms of inspection, product testing, and supervision.

The current budget is $784,000.

The increased funding will pay for additional staff to cover those tasks and to conduct background checks, which include an investigation of the finances of the dispensary operators and boards, said Donna Leusner, spokeswoman for the state Department of Health.

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Blacks And Latinos Dominate Oakland Marijuana Arrests

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(CannabisNews) A New Report Also Shows That 20 Percent of the Drug Arrests Are Cannabis-Related Despite a City Law That Makes Pot the Lowest Law Enforcement Priority.

Until US Attorney Melinda Haag launched her much-criticized crackdown on Oakland’s medical marijuana dispensaries last year, the city was held up as a beacon of level-headed tolerance toward cannabis in the pot-friendly Bay Area. And even when the statewide campaign to legalize pot for recreational use failed in 2010, city officials were still among the most outspoken in California for large-scale medical pot cultivation. Casual weed smokers have also found Oakland to be a welcoming place: The successful 2004 ballot initiative Measure Z made adult recreational use of marijuana the lowest law-enforcement priority for the Oakland Police Department.

However, a report released last week by the city commission that monitors OPD’s compliance with Measure Z includes troubling findings about the racial composition of Oaklanders arrested for marijuana-related crimes. According to the Cannabis Regulatory Commission’s biennial report, roughly 20 percent of Oakland’s narcotics arrests in 2011 were for marijuana offenses – and 95 percent of arrestees were black or Latino.

“In a city as diverse as Oakland, the committee needs to take to heart that the vast majority of marijuana offenses are being enforced against minorities,” said Sierra Martinez, an environmental attorney who has been a member of the Oakland Cannabis Regulatory Commission since 2011. “There is a history of the Drug War being enforced against low-income communities and communities of color, and this is recent evidence of that reality.”

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Knowing Your Rights When Dealing With The United States Border Patrol

(420Times) Where does our freedom as Americans begin and end? Should legal citizens of the United States be subjected to Nazi-style checkpoints when we’re over 100 miles from the nearest foreign borders?

The United States Homeland Security and Border Patrol checkpoints that are designed to ensnare illegal immigrants are apparently just another way for thefederal government to harass otherwise law abiding inhabitants of this so called “free country.”

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Neptune cops seize marijuana, gun, machete, samurai sword and ninja weapons from man's house

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NEPTUNE (APP) — Police raided a township man’s home and seized marijuana and various weapons, including a loaded gun and ninja hand claws, authorities said.

David Christopher Gibson, 51, of Taylor Avenue, was arrested Friday after a month-long investigation by the department’s Quality of Life Unit, said Chief Robert Adams.

Gibson was charged with possession of less than 50 grams of marijuana, possession with intent to distribute, possession of hollow point bullets, certain persons not to possess weapons and several counts of unlawful possession of a weapon.