Pot Taxes Should Not be Used to Build Roads, but instead to Rebuild Communities that have been Destroyed by the War on Drugs Connecticut Democrats Show their True Colors on Cannabis Legalization

In an effort to fund a new transportation plan without the need for tolls, senate democrats in Connecticut are proposing the legalization of cannabis.

Apparently, republicans don’t want tolls and the democrats do. But the dems don’t have the votes to make that happen. Thus the suggestion to use funds from the legalization of cannabis to pay for the transportation project.

Why it should be up to the cannabis industry to fund a fucking road is beyond me.

Yes, roads cost money. And if you’re so hell bent on building more of them, you can either jack up the taxes on citizens or use tolls. Nobody wants either, yet the cash has got come from somewhere. That being said, it shouldn’t have to come from the cannabis industry.

Truth is, if the state is insistent upon overtaxing the cannabis industry, those funds should be used to rebuild the black and brown communities that have been destroyed by the war on drugs. Those funds could be used to revitalize those neighborhoods with new schools and pre-k programs, incentives to entice businesses to move into those areas, and desperately-needed infrastructure upgrades.

The war on drugs was, and remains, a war on poor people and people of color. To disregard this entirely and suggest using tax dollars stolen from the cannabis industry to fund a project that politicians clearly never had any idea how to fund to begin with, is not only absurd, but it’s an act of incompetence.

Instead of using the legalization of cannabis as a bargaining chip to fund a transportation project, perhaps the legalization of cannabis should be used as a way to just make things right.