“I’ve challenged people over and over, including at conferences and on twitter, to name a jurisdiction that taxes tobacco by nicotine content, and no one has.” On 4 September 2018, I wrote that, and it’s still true.
Make that “unconcentrated tobacco” or “cigarettes.” Now that vaping has caught on, I wouldn’t rule out taxing vaping material by nicotine content. It’s concentrated, so it’s homogeneous. And it’s workable to tax marijuana concentrates by THC, like Canada.
But taxing unconcentrated plant material is SUCH a bad idea that no jurisdiction does it for analagous cigarettes. Sampling allows cheating and manipulation. These products are not homogeneous. If that’s a deal killer for tobacco, why isn’t it for cannabis?
So maybe this is a publicity stunt. The first message RECEIVED naming a jurisdiction that taxes cigarettes by nicotine content gets a $50 reward. Write contest@newrevenue.org.
The Center for New Revenue 