Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/cash-strapped-california-towns-eye-tax-hikes-for-medical-marijuana Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript With budget woes causing cuts to essential services across California, several communities in the state are weighing whether to raise additional revenue through tax hikes on medical marijuana. Spencer Michels reports. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. SPENCER MICHELS: In Oakland, California, this summer, 80 percent of the voters approved a measure to increase taxes on medical marijuana.California is one of 13 states that permit growing and using marijuana for medical purposes. It's been legal here since 1996. Hundreds of licensed clubs like this one in Oakland cultivate and sell packaged marijuana to smoke or to eat, including varieties called Purple Kush, Jack the Ripper, and White Widow.The clubs pay a minimal business tax, $1.20 on every $1,000 in sales. The new Oakland tax is $18 on $1,000, a huge jump designed to raise money for the city in tough economic times.City Council Member Rebecca Kaplan is one of the authors of the measure. REBECCA KAPLAN: We expect to raise about $1 million or so next year from the tax as it gets implemented, and potentially more into the future. And what that means is 10 city workers who will be able to keep to jobs who would otherwise be laid off. That means park being maintained, libraries opened, the things that the community really needs. SPENCER MICHELS: But Kaplan, an attorney, had other motives besides revenue. REBECCA KAPLAN: Prohibition has been such a failure that, even when you don't want people using it all the time or everywhere, regulation and control can be a better solution. So, the regulations in Oakland both bring in money for general public services, but they also allow us to control where they are relocated, when they are open, how they're run. They have to have inspections. SPENCER MICHELS: Dispensary owners like Richard Lee helped write and then supported the increased taxes, figuring that tying the cure for the city's budget woes to marijuana was a way to legitimize the lucrative business of pot. RICHARD LEE, Cannabis Club Operator: We see it as one more step toward being accepted as part of the community, as opposed to being seen as a problem that has to be shut down.