The same day the Los Angeles City Council took its first votes to shut down rogue medical marijuana dispensaries, the chamber roiled with city workers who denounced plans to balance the budget with furloughs and layoffs.
When medical marijuana advocates had their chance to talk, they seized on the coincidence and startled the council with their message. Don't ban us, they said, tax us.
Last week, Councilwoman Janice Hahn proposed to do just that. "They have suggested it, so I just decided let's do it," she said, noting that the city is drafting rules for its hundreds of dispensaries. "To me, the next logical step was, hey, wait a minute, we should be able to benefit from the sales and the revenues."
Hahn's proposal, which she hopes could raise tens of millions of dollars, comes as lawmakers across California, anxious for new revenues, have started to focus on one of the state's most lucrative and least-taxed businesses.
The state's first vote on the issue will be counted Tuesday in Oakland, where voters have been casting mail-in ballots on a proposal to levy a business tax on medical marijuana dispensaries. The initiative, backed by the dispensaries and with no organized opposition, could spur copycat tax measures in fiscally stressed cities around the state.
"Oakland is really just the beginning," said James Anthony, a lawyer who represents dispensaries. "I think a lot of local governments are ready, where they weren't ready five or even three years ago."
On a statewide level, Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) introduced a bill earlier this year to legalize and tax pot, which drew widespread attention to the issue.
Although Sacramento faces a $26.3-billion shortfall, the bill is on hold as the assemblyman works to build support.
Estimates of how much money could be raised by taxing marijuana vary widely.
Last week, the state Board of Equalization calculated that Ammiano's bill, which would place a $50-an-ounce levy and sales taxes on all marijuana purchases, would raise $1.4 billion a year. The tax board's researchers cite academic and federal studies, including estimates that the state grows $13.8 billion worth of marijuana a year and Californians consume about a million pounds a year.
"Because it's an underground business at the moment, there aren't hard data," said Robert Ingenito, chief of the research section at the Board of Equalization.
