PUTNEY — Thanks for covering a forum in the West River Valley regarding taxing and regulating the pot market.
I have now seen for myself what I have been told about repeatedly: the dispensaries in western Massachusetts (in Northampton, Great Barrington, and other towns) have dozens or even hundreds of people on line at all times.
The last time I was in Northampton, I spent a short amount of time in the parking lot of the marijuana store and saw license plates from Vermont and New Hampshire. I spoke with a man who came down from the Upper Valley to wait on line for legal pot.
Brattleboro is beginning what I believe will be a failure, instituting with the 1-percent local-option sales tax an even-higher rate than the already high and regressive 6 percent. There is a good reason why no border town has ever made this gross error in judgment.
We can potentially (and finally) have a strong reason for New Hampshire residents to spend their money in our border towns if we do as Colorado, Massachusetts, Washington, and other states have been smart enough to do: regulate and tax marijuana, and permit businesses to sell it legally and in an organized and smart way.
Our state needs the income, and border towns that generally lose against the competition from New Hampshire can actually prosper.
It is past time to stop the petty squabbling in the Legislature about how to allow the legalization of pot of benefit all the citizens of our state.