PotShot

Bill would put new tax on illegal drug trade
Mark Schreiner | StarNewsOnline.com | July 8, 2006

Raleigh | Instead of suing drug dealers, state Sen. Julia Boseman is now seeking to tax their trade.

The Democrat from Wilmington persuaded a Senate committee Friday to recommend a bill creating a tax on the sale of illegal drugs and putting the proceeds into a fund to compensate people hurt by drug abusers.

The program would be similar, but apart from, an existing state excise tax on illegal drugs. The excise tax generated $78 million between 1990 and 2004, according to the N.C. Department of Revenue. Tax bills are usually presented to people charged with possessing illegal drugs.

Originally, Boseman had sought to change state law to allow former drug users, parents, employers and others to sue drug dealers for damage caused by their customers. She chose to name the fund for Blaire Thompson, a Pender County teacher who died in 2004 from a heroin overdose.

Thompson's parents said they would have liked to have sued a drug dealer to get compensation for the things their daughter stole from them to support her habit.

Legal experts and members of the Senate Judiciary Committee questioned whether the proposal would set a bad precedent for North Carolina law by allowing a person who participated in a crime, a drug buyer, to sue for damages.

"Instead of trying to change tort law, we thought we'd add to North Carolina's tax on illegal drugs," Boseman said. "Families won't have to sit through another trial, and there would be money available to help victims."

The new proposal, Senate Bill 1211, would create the Blaire Thompson Fund within the existing N.C. Crime Victims Compensation Commission. The bill would also establish an illegal drug transfer tax of $10 per gram of marijuana, $120 per gram of cocaine, $250 per gram of heroin, $100 per gram for other illegal drugs sold by weight and $250 for 10 doses of any drug in pill form or otherwise not sold by weight.

Unlike the current drug excise tax, which divides proceeds between local police and the state government's general fund, all the proceeds of the transfer tax would go to the compensation fund.

To get a payment a person must "have suffered damages" caused by the illegal use of a controlled substance.

The bill needs a hearing by the tax-writing Finance Committee before moving to the full Senate. If adopted by the Senate, it would still need the approval of the state House and the governor before becoming law.

Mark Schreiner: (919) 835-1434

mark.schreiner@starnewsonline.com

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