LATEST COMMENTARY AND NEWS

The Board of Supervisors approved a 45% tax reduction for cannabis operations, taking $800K from county revenue for the 2021/2022 fiscal year. Now, instead of the County funding essential services from cannabis tax revenues, as was promoted in Measure A (the legislation that legalized cannabis in Sonoma County), taxpayers will be shouldering the cost of the cannabis program instead.

In their ability to weather the emerging cannabis market, Sonoma cannabis operators share many similarities with Humboldt’s growers. Humboldt just approved an 85% tax reduction for growers -- erasing $13M from their budget. Instead of cannabis subsidizing communities, taxpayers will now be subsiding unprofitable, uncompetitive cannabis cultivation -- and living with worse enforcement.

Despite firestorms and a pandemic that have kept customers away from Sonoma County businesses, no special tax treatment has been proposed for our hotels, restaurants, or grape growers.

Proposition 64’s selling points were to legalize and grow the cannabis market, and lower cannabis prices to benefit consumers. This promised that taxes would not just pay for the program itself but they would be sufficient to offset the secondary impacts of cannabis use (e.g. drug treatment, youth programs, environmental protection). The county set the tax rate relatively low and now there is serious doubt that the program costs are covered, let alone these secondary impacts.

On Feb 16th, the North Bay Business Journal reported youth and social justice groups across the state, including the North Bay, countered with a letter requesting the taxes remain for their own survival.The letter signed by 152 children’s advocacy groups claims that if state lawmakers “lower, suspend and/or eliminate the tax rates approved by voters in Proposition 64, we will see an immediate, negative impact on thousands of children living in poverty and children of color across our state.”