Cannabis doesn’t need a sin tax.
Why do governments even tax “undesirable” goods?
A 124% markup on liquor? Are you kidding me? Imagine what they’ll do with shatter.
Cannabis shouldn’t have a “sin” or excise tax, since it’s punishment for bad behaviour.
What’s bad about cannabis?
And what difference does a sin tax make, anyway?
It just harms everyone by raising the cost of getting messed up. Because, plainly, no matter what the financial cost, many people will prefer to augment their reality with drugs or alcohol.
Not only is cannabis the safest substance of them all, it’s also a natural plant. A medicine for many and therapeutic for pretty much anyone who uses it.
But even if cannabis were the worst thing in the world, there still wouldn’t be justification for sin taxes on consumers and their industry.
It’s not the government’s job to dictate people’s morals.
What makes cannabis more “undesirable” than refined sugar or bad dietary pyramids promoted by the state? Especially when the entire fabric of the modern state rests on non-consensual relations with the citizenry.
Moral relativism is not legitimized by majority rule.
Drinking, dabbing, smoking, eating a pot cookie, putting cannabis oil in a banana, trying DMT, or taking too many Tylenols than recommended just because it feels better, is an individual choice.
Certainly, family and friends can and likely will intervene, it could even be over a weight issue, since it’s far more unhealthy to drink pop all the time than it is to smoke cannabis.
But those are the consequences, and thus the price we pay, for living in a free society.
It is not the job of taxpayers to save people from themselves, not even for the children.
If you’ve been cursed with that Puritan streak, use it voluntarily, donate to charities and work with people who ask you for help.
Don’t impose harm on consumers and then take the moral high-ground when defending yourself. There is no righteousness in using force against innocent people and their property.
The problem isn’t drugs, but people’s relationship to drugs. Not everyone is an alcoholic, so it’s wrong to punish responsible adults with sin taxes.
Canada doesn’t need sin taxes. Cannabis certainly doesn’t.
Even tobacco is a personal choice, one that we all pay for through health care, but that’s a problem with the Soviet-model, not smoking tobacco itself.
But if thought-police can turn people against alcohol and tobacco users to justify sin taxes and excessive regulatory controls, then what will stop them from doing the same thing to us, craft cannabis connoisseurs?