IRS levies $2.3 million in back taxes, interest and penalties on SF marijuana dispensary

by Clifford F. Thies

Chief Justice Marshall put it succinctly. The power to tax is the power to destroy. The feds have found yet a new way to enforce the marijuana prohibition: through the tax code. A San Francisco medical marijuana dispensary has been found to be liable for millions of dollars of back taxes, interest and penalties, because it deducted the cost of the product it sells to its customers. This product is illegal under federal law, no matter that it is grown in California, bought and sold within California, and used in California, all in accordance with California law.

How is it that a completely intrastate product is subject to Congressional regulation?. Because if you grow and smoke your own marijuana, if means you won't go blind from glaucoma and thereby need federal government-regulated, interstate products that treat your blindness. Well, that's the theory of the U.S. Supreme Court. Now the Obama administration wants to take this theory of interstate commerce one step further. The Obama administration wants to require people to buy federal government-regulated health insurance on the basis that you might one avail yourself of health services which, of course either is either directly interstate commerce or is connected to something that is connected to something that is interstate commerce. This is called the "six degrees of separation" theory of interstate commerce. Anything or nothing at all is connected to interstate commerce by no more than six connections.

With regard to marijuana, back in the days of the adoption of the very Constitution today's justices are supposedly interpreting, marijuana, then usually referred to as hemp, was routinely grown for the purposes such as manufacturing rope for sailing ships. George Washington himself grew the stuff. It was perfectly our right as Englishmen to grow marijuana. Part of our liberty that we brought with us into the Union. And, there was no law on the federal books on marijuana until 1937 because prior to the FDR Administration, there couldn't have been. Nobody would have even thought the federal government had the power to regulate marijuana. But, starting with FDR, there was an accelerated discovery of all kinds of new powers for the federal government. Every year, we discover new powers. Like the President can, without due process, order the death of anybody he determines is a terrorist. And, marijuana, why that's just another form of terrorism that the federal government will keep us safe from, no matter what the stupid people in the stupid states might decide.

But, instead of using predator drones to take out the marijuana dispensaries of San Francisco, they've decided to use an even more effective weapon: the federal income tax. After all, it's the way they got Al Capone.

Source: MyFoxNY.com Photo credit - The Fresh Scent

UPDATE!!

From the Editor: Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com is headlining a similar story today, "Obama Admin Launches Medical Marijuana Crackdown" by Publius. A commenter at Breitbart - Morgue MD - wrote:

I bet the stoners will blame Republicans and continue to vote for Democrats instead of looking up the word "Libertarian", and joining the GOP.