Harris’ weed plan won’t make Black men rich or keep black market sellers out of jail | Opinion
It is a little odd. When Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris was thinking about what Black men need, two of the most important five things that came to mind were weed and cryptocurrency. At least that’s the case if you judge by her recently released “Opportunity Agenda for Black Men.”
Maybe she has better info than me, but those are not the first things I think of.
Legalizing marijuana nationally isn’t a bad idea. I’ve supported it since I was a college student columnist at the University of Iowa’s Daily Iowan. Libertarians at places like the CATO Institute have been on the case for far longer. It is already reality in much of the U.S.
And I’ll admit, there is a symmetry to the idea that the Black men who have been disproportionately sent to prison for dealing and smoking illegal weed should be among the first to become millionaire entrepreneurs dealing legal ganja. However, Harris’ effort is a tad late. Legal weed is a $20 billion industry and the first millionaires are already enjoying their hard-earned boodle.
In any case, the idea is already law in Missouri and a number of other states where efforts have met with limited success.
But when a Democrat wants to set you up in business, it is best to be a little wary. Progressive Democrats like Harris think about businesses primarily at two times: when they want to tax them and when they want to regulate them.
Democrats who want to legalize marijuana have done a lot of thinking. In Missouri that tax on Marijuana sales is 6% on top of the normal sales tax, with local option sales taxes on top of that and with local option marijuana taxes on top of that.
The most heavily taxed locales in Missouri rival California’s base weed tax of 15%. When you figure in the 7.25% sales tax and local option taxes, more than a quarter of your Mary Jane dollars there goes to the government.
In New York, the desire to bury marijuana businesses in regulations was so high that years later they are still not done writing the rules and what rules there have been are so onerous that most of the storefronts selling “legal” marijuana are violating the law in one or many ways, which means they can be shut down at any time. You need a Department of Labor certificate, a business license, a marijuana license and occupation safety inspection, a social and economic equity analysis and state-approved insurance, among myriad other things.
The result in state after state is that to get Black people into the marijuana business they have to subsidize it. Imagine that. Marijuana is in such high demand that spending hundreds of billions of dollars on the war on drugs couldn’t stamp out the black market or stop illicit fortunes from being made, but Democrats (most of the states where it has been legalized are Blue states) legalize it and all of a sudden the industry is so turgid that it needs subsidies to get moving again.
Illinois had to give out $20 million in subsidized loans. In California, the taxes and regulations were so bad in 2021, five years after legalization, the state had to launch a $100 million bailout of the industry for businesses of all colors.
And legalizing marijuana doesn’t really mean men stop going to jail for selling it. The Black market is still going strong in many states where marijuana has been legalized for one reason — all the taxes and regulations make the legal stuff so expensive, black market sellers still have the opportunity to make bank in the shadows. Police are still raiding dealers.
It would be great if Kamala Harris is able to legalize marijuana. It will keep users from being harassed by the police. But will it keep Black men out of jail while making many of them successful entrepreneurs? Don’t hold your breath.
This story was originally published October 22, 2024 at 5:08 AM with the headline "Harris’ weed plan won’t make Black men rich or keep black market sellers out of jail | Opinion."