| Lincoln Journal Star |
| This $50 drug tax stamp is required by law for anyone selling half an ounce of marijuana in Nebraska. |
Lots of folks might tell you that taxation is the first step towards legalization, but it ain’t necessarily so. Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, a number of legislatures passed laws establishing state taxes on illegal drugs — though very few people know about the taxes, and even fewer pay them. Nebraska, in 1990, was one of the states which decided to tax illicit drugs, and like most of the other state drug taxes, that law is still in effect.
People hauling drugs through Nebraska are required by law to buy stamps to affix on the packages, even though the drugs are illegal in the first place, reports Cory Matteson of the Lincoln Journal Star. The stamp doesn’t legalize the transport, yet it’s illegal not to have it.
Nebraska’s drug tax stamps are actually pretty cool looking, for kitsch value alone. In what lawmakers must have imagined was a bold and thought-provoking design, the somber background is a tombstone marked “RIP” with the foreground featuring a skull and… not crossbones, but crossdrugs: a syringe and a fat joint.
“The 1990 Nebraska Unicameral passed and Governor Kay Orr signed LB260 establishing a state tax on illegal drugs,” said Deepa Buss, spokeswoman for the Nebraska Department of Revenue. “The intent of the law was to give law enforcement an alternative tool against drug dealers.
“If a prosecutor couldn’t win a conviction for selling drugs, he might be able to send the suspect to prison for failing to pay the drug tax,” Buss said. “Or the prosecution could win a conviction on both charges, increasing the potential penalties.”