If you can’t keep Louisianans from getting high legally, maybe you can discourage them by taxing one form more, somelegislators hope.
Ever since the institution of medical marijuana in Louisiana almost a decade ago, and a few years later legalizing sale of consumable hemp products, it’s been easier than ever to go around in a haze without legal repercussions. In the case of medical marijuana, what started as a tightly-controlled regime somewhat based upon science that shows marijuana provides almost no genuine medical benefits of any kind has become a free-for-all where just about anybody can get as much as they want for whatever reason they want. The trend continued last year where a couple of new laws extended the program to 2030 and eased some administrative burdens, although at least lawmakers didn’t go for complete legalization.
Complete legalization, limited only in respect as being termed a “pilot program,” is back on the table this term from HB 627 by Democrat state Rep. Candice Newell, who brought the legalization effort last year. Should that succeed, Democrat state Rep. Edmond Jordan has HB 636 all cued up and ready to go to tax it, although applied not to the sellers but producers of the constituent parts.
Hopefully, these will go nowhere but for another hallucinogenic product it’s gone way beyond the camel poking its nose into the tent. After hemp production and sales legalization, lawmakers realized the way the law was written it could deliver products that deliver quite a buzz as well. Legislation passed last year tapped brakes onto the industry, forcing a toning down of potencies and restricting sales to fewer potential outlets and not to people under 21.
But the problem remained in that even if “servings” were quantified at a lower size and psychotropic level, with impunity adults can run out and buy as much as they want to bring about a high, although with more difficulty. Even though the state tax receipts from these items consist of only a few million bucks annually, the nascent industry’s lobbying arm has proven adept at keeping the enterprise legal (Louisiana’s level of regulation falls about in the middle of states; a few make it illegal while about half have it legal with little restriction, with the rest in between).
Thus, a couple of bills have been prefiled for the upcoming regular session that would jack up taxes on hemp-based sales as a disincentive for use. One, HB 235 by Republican state Rep. Mike Echols, would tack on an extra 17 percent excise tax with collected monies distributed to education, criminal justice, drug education, and hemp testing uses. The other, HB 187 by GOP state Rep. Bryan Fontenot, raises the existing three percent levy only 12 percent.
If legislators want to walk back hemp legalization while assuaging any guilt they might feel about allowing adults to walk into almost any kind of stores and grab enough products to buzz yet mouthing pieties about not hampering business but secretly looking for more revenue for general purposes, they might latch onto Fontenot’s bill. They also could approve a pair of bills by Republican state Rep. Laurie Schlegel that apply punitive measures to illegal sales.
But neither genie appears to be put back into the bottle, or at least realistically restricted in any way. Just not enough of the spirit of Daniel Schneider to go around the Capitol, it would seem.
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