Pompo

Oakland voting on pot tax backed by advocates
7/19/09|San Francisco Chronicle| by Matthai Kuruvila, Chronicle Staff Writer



At Coffeeshop Blue Sky on 17th Street in Oakland, patrons can buy lemon bars filled with 10 doses of cannabis hash with a recommendation from a doctor. Get there fast. The "edibles" here fly off the shelves.

Walk over to the Patient ID Center, and you can buy commercial machines that can trim the leaves off of cannabis quicker than you could do with scissors.

And over at Club Z, members of the underground club don't need prescriptions and are sampling the varieties of pot before they buy.

People may be debating legalizing marijuana in other parts of the state and nation. But here in the nine-block cannabis district of Oakland known as Oaksterdam, it's hard to argue that it's not here already.

"At this point, dude, seriously, let's just face the fact that everybody is smoking," said Jaime Galindo, who gave a reporter a tour of Club Z. "Bus drivers, cops - your grandma."

Measure F has no formal campaign opposition.

Oakland voters may take the city, the longtime epicenter of the cannabis legalization movement, to yet another threshold Tuesday. Measure F, one of four measures on a mail-only ballot due Tuesday, would establish a new 1.8 percent tax for "cannabis businesses" - believed to be the first of its kind in the nation.

"We're moving toward being accepted like Budweiser beer," said Richard Lee, whom High Times magazine deemed in its February issue as "the mayor of Oaksterdam."

The tax, which Lee and other advocates sought, is imposed on the gross receipts from nearly every aspect of the cultivation, production or sale of marijuana and its derivatives - all of which happen in Oaksterdam.

The colonists of early America declared "no taxation without representation," but cannabis advocates want taxation to get representation.

And Measure F is a harbinger.

Polls show majorities of the state and nation favor legalization, and cannabis proponents are preparing a statewide legalization and taxation measure for the November 2010 ballot.

Oakland's measure is expected to generate only $294,000 annually - a meager sum for the city of Oakland's $414 million budget. But the state Board of Equalization estimated last week that the state would take in $1.4 billion if a cannabis legalization bill introduced by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, were to pass.

There are also other motivations.

In Oaksterdam, non-cannabis businesses say the cannabis businesses help their bottom line.

"The traffic that it brings to the neighborhood is great," said Gertha Hays, owner of A Diva's Closet, a women's clothing store.

Brandon Anderson drove from Martinez to buy a sixteenth of an ounce for $22 and a $10 hash chocolate candy from Coffeeshop Blue Sky. (He passed on the cannabis-laden cookies, brownies, lollipops, pesto, peanut butter and jelly.)Anderson, who has a prescription for anxiety and pain relief, said he'd be happy to pay the tax, he said, because "it's a way to give back to the community and generate money."

Local and state politicians have hardly held back on their views. Lee showed a letter in his office from Don Perata, the former state senate majority leader, who is now running for mayor of Oakland.

"Sooner or later," Perata wrote in blue ink on the letter, "we'll get legalization."


In Insight: Oakland's evolution from pariah to pioneer on medical marijuana. E2


Pot, by the numbers
Percent of Californians who support legalization and taxation of marijuana: 56

Percent of Americans who support legalization of marijuana: 52

Amount taxation of marijuana might bring in to the state: $1.4 billion

Amount Measure F would bring in revenues to the city of Oakland: $294,000

DoobieBrother

Oakland is like a dream. I fantasize about living there. If only.

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We must do everything we can to keep Republicans out of office. If they ever regain majority, Republicans will erase everything we've worked for and put us right back where we started.

Buzzby

If anything will get the legislature to act on Tom Ammiano's proposed legislation, it's the threat of a more liberal ballot initiative. It's much easier to amend laws passed in the legislature than laws passed by ballot initiative.

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