Selling Crack is Whack Iness You Tax

While perusing Queens Crap, I came across an article about a recent proposol by by New York Governer Elliot Spitzer. As reported by The New York Daily News, And the New York Post, the proposed law would require drug dealers to pay $3.50 dollars a gram for marijuana and $200 a gram for all other controlled substances.

The proposal contains a passage which speaks of secrecacy. Any dealer or drug user buying said stamps is allowed to do it annonymously and the without fear of the information being used to implement them in non-tax related crimes.

As such, dealers and users are expected to affix the appropriate stamps on their drug packaging verifing that the proper tax has been paid.

Spitzer acknowledge the unlikelihood of a drug dealer coming forward to buy said stamp. "[The] proposal requires 'prompt notification'" of the tax commissioner by law-enforcement agencies and DAs 'who obtain any information that indicates that a dealer has failed to pay the tax due," Spitzer's aids told The New York Post.

In essence, a drug dealer caught with three grams of cocain would be charged for drug possesion and related charges and additional charges for avoiding the drug tax.

Critics of the proposal have labeled it "The Crack Tax." Opponents of the legislation argue that taxing it assumes that it is legal. Many fear that the tax may be the first step towards legalizing drugs.

As absurd as the proposal may sound, it is not unique. Infact, Spitzer's proposal was based off a similar one in North Carolina; similar legislation is Tennessee and other states. As the Post reported the only people buying the stamps aren't drug dealers-but stamp collectors!

The proposed legislation further reiterates what I've said all along-that the government's war on drugs is simply a need to get a slice of the pie. Even if passed, I severly doubt that all illegal drugs will be legalized-doing so is not ecomical. The legislation would allow the government to have their crack and smoke it too; they gain a piece of the illict income while "keeping America Working" by keeping police officers, prosecuters, lawyers, drug rehabilaters employed.

Ever since I wrote the feature for The Villager about the rats in Washington Square Park, I have become obsessed with them. The story was written the same week as the story broke about the Rats [I capitalized this because they have been mentioned in the news so much that I feel they are like celebrities] in the KFC--Taco Bell on 6th ave in the Village.

For anyone who was sleeping in a cave recently, and after hiting the streets of NYC, I know some people have, a camera crew caught a dozen rats running around KFC. Now first, lets reitterate, a dozen. They were huge too, the size of cats.

My story, was on the rat problem in W.S. but I was also assigned to reference this incident. I saw the KFC rat video so many times, I have become paranoid. Since then, I constantly look for rats, expecting them to come out of the crack of every wall at any given second. Which brings me to my rant.

So, yesterday, I was walking from around uptown around 50th street, and I see this woman. She is standing near an entrance to the subway, but it is gated off. She was standing there with bread in her hand, breaking pieces off and throwing it into the subway. She threw it in there the way people do when they are feeding the birds. But there weren't any birds in there, that's where the rats live! Is she crazy? NYC is dirty enough, rats have plenty of food already. They are already as big as cats, does she want them to be the size of tigers?