The Cannabis Tax Act (CTA), which would reform state marijuana laws, is sponsored by the political action committee, Campaign for the Restoration and Regulation of Hemp (CRRH).

Our efforts to place the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act (OCTA) on the ballot through the initiative petition process will begin for the 2010 ballot in July 2008. We are also working to introduce Cannabis Tax Act proposals in Washington state and other locations.

Please note: Since OCTA is the model we have been primarily working with to date, its specifics are discussed here in detail. However, many of the references to OCTA will apply to future efforts by CRRH in other state's proposals.

The Oregon Cannabis Tax Act (OCTA) will regulate the sale of cannabis in state-run package stores and in bars and coffeshops that get a license. Adults can also grow their own without a license and farmers will be able to grow unlicensed industrial hemp. We decided to implement the sale of cannabis in existing liquor stores to comply with an international treaty that requires that a single state commission control the commerical marijuana market. We think by complying with this internatioanl treaty, which carries the same weight as the US Constitution in federal court, OCTA will be upheld in federal court. We estimate that hundreds of millions of dollars will be raised each year for state revenue, perhaps more than 20 percent of a state's total budget, 90 percent of which will go to the state general fund, 8 percent to drug-abuse treatment programs, 1 percent to drug education and 1 percent to create and fund an agricultural committee that promotes hemp fiber, protein and oil crops and industries.

We will take that money out of the underground economy and regulate an untaxed market that constitutes Oregon's largest industry. By allowing responsible adults to purchase marijuana in state package stores, we will stop the ongoing decline in social services and state educational funding for public schools and colleges, provide money for other state programs and lower the state legislature's ability to raise taxes for these programs on the general population. We want to emphasize that OCTA will save Oregonians money for their own use, rather than require them to pay more taxes for state programs.

OCTA will raise tens of millions of dollars each year to fund substance-abuse treatment upon demand for alcoholics and other addicts. Currently, 90 percent of these people are turned away when they seek treatment.

OCTA is the solution.  

OCTA will let doctors ameliorate or even end the suffering of many patients with a diverse assortment of illnesses and injuries. Marijuana is much safer, more effective and less costly than many alternatives currently in use.

OCTA will also deregulate the industrial production of hemp fiber, seed oil and protein crops. The cannabis sativa plant produces more fiber, protein and oil than any other plant on earth. Hemp paper and fuel are not capital intensive and can be produced on a local basis with comparatively little money. Let's put economic control back into local hands and create thousands upon thousands of sustainable jobs by passing OCTA.  

At the same time, OCTA will return much control to our farmers, and away from the multinational industries that dominate our political process and destroy our environment. These capital-intensive, non-sustainable, and environmentally destructive industries have usurped our economic resources and clear-cut huge tracts of the world's forests, given us massive oil spills, wars, toxic waste, massive worldwide pollution, global warming and the destruction of entire ecosystems.

Prohibiting the cultivation of this ancient plant, the most productive source of fiber, oil and protein on our planet, is evil. In its place we have industries that give us processes and products that have led to unprecedented ecological crisis and worldwide destruction of the biological heritage that we should bequeath to our children, grandchildren and future generations.