The Note - March 1993 - Taxation Without Legalization - Hemp activists Debbie Moore fights Kansas drug tax stamp hypocrisy - by C.J. Janovy -

Debbie Moore was sitting two feet from the front door of her storefront shop in Wichita when the police burst in. It’s not as if such an intrusion was unexpected, Moore’s front window displays a large cardboard marijuana leaf, and the name of her business is the Hemp Store.

Moore’s store is otherwise known as the headquarters of the State Center of Kansas Environmentalists for Commerce in Hemp. In addition to selling her homemade clothing, Moore uses the location to distribute literature and other movement to legalize hemp. Advocates have convincingly documented medicinal and nutritional benefits of the plant, as well as its use as a source of fuel and fiber, they’ve also made a good case for the argument that hemp’s illegal status is probably the result of a massive corporate conspiracy on the part of, among others, chemical and pharmaceutical companies and Hearst publishing interests.

Moore made no secret of the fact that she also sold smokable marijuana. However, she assumed she did so legally, because she was in possession of $900 worth of current Kansas drug tax stamps.

In a written statement Moore says, “It was an outstanding tax debt that has prompted me buying and selling the herb marijauan, and with tax stamps, I will admit that I was buying and selling more product that I had before, but I was also buying more tax stamps, and paying more sales tax. Since January 1991 I have paid between Federal Income Tax, State Income Tax, State Sales Tax, City Sales Tax, City Home Occupation License, Personal Property tax on my 12 year old equipment, and Kansas Marijuana Drug Dealer Tax stamps, I have paid out over $10,000 in taxes on a total cash flow of approximately $21,000.”

In 18 states , including Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Iowa, drug tax stamps are the government’s latest volley in its war on drugs. According to a Kansas Department of Revenue pamphlet, drug dealers are required to purchase tax stamps and affix them to their “products”. According to the pamphlet, “The fact tat the business of dealing marijuana and controlled substances is illegal does not exempt it from taxation. Legitimate business transactions are taxed. Dealing drugs is a large part of a previously untaxed underground economy.”

The fact that marijuana and controlled substances (under Kansas law, marijuana is not a controlled substance) are taxable would seem to indicate that the government considers drug dealing a “legitimate business transaction” However, the taxation-without-legalization concept is just the opposite. It is primarily a method of allowing the government to seize a drug dealer’s personal property, and press charges for failure to pay taxes in addition to charges for dealing drugs. According to the KDR, “Failing to affix tax stamps to illegal drugs may result in the issuance of a jeopardy tax assessment and tax warrant by the Department of Revenue against the drug dealer based upon the amount of the drugs seized...Execution of the tax warrant may involve the seizing and selling of the drug taxpayer’s real and personal property to satisfy the drug tax liability. In other words, the drug taxpayer (i.e., dealer) subjects his/her property to possible seizure by failing to purchase the necessary drug tax stamps.:

Debbie Moore knows all about seizure of her personal property. “I was sitting right in front of the door working on an art project when the police tapped on the door, less than 24 inches from the door handle, and I had to roll to get out of the way of the door, they entered so fast,” she writes in her statement. “Upon entry, my first statement was, “I have marijuana tax stamps,’ and where my product was. Of course, all who have watched Top Cops and Most Wanted know this did not prevent the police from destroying my house, and taking my personal clothing, jewelry and decades-old keepsakes.”

According to her written statement, Moore’s list of property seized by the police includes items as “30 copies of Jack Herer’s & Chris Conrad’s book THE EMPEROR WEARS NO CLOTHES, library (of) approximately 4,000 sheets giving complete information on industrial hemp; several thousand handout sheets educating on hemp; 1,800 U.S. Voter Stickers with hemp leaves. Chapstick made from hemp oil, approximately 20 units; photo album pictures (of) all the places myself and my daughter have supported the movement; assorted legalization badges (28 units), 850 stickers with peace sign and hemp leaf;) 1, 120 Hemp for Fuel stickers; 1,500 Hemp for Ecology stickers with green leaf on silver; several hundred T-shirts; 50 scarves or bandannas,” and ironically, “1,000 Stop the Persecution stickers.” Other property seized included jewelry, fabrics and bags made of hemp fibers.

Moore says she believes the seizure laws violate the U.S. constitution. The Seizure laws teach a broad disrespect for property,” she says. “It’s stomping all over the Constitution. People have a right to own property.” Moore says most people who deal drugs “have worked for years at another job to accumulate what they have,” and that it’s not fair for the government to seize property that was acquired with income that is not the result of drug dealing.

Currently, Moore is awaiting trial on the charge against her. Possession with intent to sell marijuana, which is a “C felony, punishable by up to 20 years,” according to her attorney, Wichita’s Charles O’Hara.

O’Hara says he has “filed some pre-trial motions for some legal interpretation about her stand, which is basically that buying a tax stamp makes the possession and sale of marijuana legal.” According to O’Hara, “they say if you sell marijuana, you have to pay a tax for doing it. She pays the tax for doing it, and then she sells the marijuana, and they come and arrest her. It seems like basic unfairness that the government can make a profit off the illegal activity, and then turn around and arrest the person for what (the government has just) made a profit off of.” O’Hara says he believes that despite the government’s war on drugs, the government still “condones (the use and sale of marijuana) for purposes of collecting tax dollars. The inconsistency of it is unbelievable.”

Dean Reynoldson, a spokesperson for the KDR, says that the use of drug tax stamps essentially provides government with additional ammunition with which to prosecute drug dealers. “Instead of just possession, dealers are looking at two charges, so the prosecutor has one more chip to use” against the dealer, Reynoldson says.. He points out that half of the revenues collected from drug tax stamps go back to local law enforcement agencies, and is generally used to purchase such items as “drug dogs and surveillance equipment for narcotics units to assist in their investigations.”

Also Reynoldson says, the tax stamps are “intended as a disincentive to drug dealing business - it’s going after their assets, a way to get into drug dealers’ pockets.” He says the tax stamps are “working very well. They’ve been embraced by the law enforcement community, and Kansas has one of the highest per capita collections in the nation.”

O’Hara argues that the government shouldn’t need additional ammunition against dealers. “If they have a law that says it’s illegal to do something, just enforce the law,” he says. “Why do they need a bigger stick? The government has lost control in this alleged drug war, and this is a complete example of it. This is a bunch of legislators and bureaucrats trying to give themselves jobs just to keep themselves employed. It’s like saying if you’re going to murder, if you’re going to commit a robbery, you have to go out and get a license to do it.”

According to O’Hara, he took Moore’s case because “I believe that in our country, as a free country, you have a right to do things that don’t hurt other people. I don’t use marijuana, I don’t condone it, but if you want to use it, it’s not going to hurt anybody. It’s awfully hard to believe that our government puts manijuana together with crack cocaine and heroine, and even power cocaine, and punishes them all the same. You never hear about someone being ‘high on marijuana’ committing a violent act such as rape.”

“The sad thing about it,” Moore says, “is that the D.E.A. is chomping on people like me all over the U.S. I knew when I opened the store it was just a matter of time (until it was raided), and if they couldn’t find something on me they’d make something up.”

Moore was well aware that she was drawing attention to herself, in her basement “conference room,” Moore and other hemp advocates conducted classes in hemp education, raw fiber resources, and medicinal and nutritional uses of the herb. Some of the classes, which were held on the second and third Saturday of every month, were even sponsored by the Wichita Free University. Moore says attendance at the classes varied from five to 20 people.

“We were distributing so much literature, and so many people were coming into the store - especially young people. A couple of article appeared in the high school papers,” she says, and that was all it took before she started feeling the heat.

Regardless of that heat, Moore says she is determined to proceed with “the movement” “We knew somebody would eventually get busted, and I feel lucky it’s me. My goal in life is to become instrumental in the legalization of marijuana.”

Moore says hemp advocates are currently having regular meetings with “each committee of the legislature that’s pertinent, and lobbying” for marijuana legalization.

A spokesperson for Kansas Attorney General Bob Stephan says the attorney general “favors legalizing marijuana marijuana for medicinal purposes only, when it would be prescribed by a doctor for cancer patients who need treatment. But otherwise he would not favor the legalization.”

Obviously, hemp advocates are facing a long, uphill battle.

Moore says she believes in ending ignorance about hemp through education. During her interview with The Note, a man in a business suit recognized Moore, introduced himself and expressed his support for her views. Moore was in Lawrence for a Hemp/Debbie Moore benefit at Liberty Hall, which drew approximately 600 supporters. People such as the man in the business suit are the types of people, Moore says, who need to help demonstrate that “It’s not the slime of the earth who enjoy cannabis. A lot of (marijuana smokers) are nine to five business people.”

Moore says she’s “one of those people who’ll go out to the airport” to talk about legalization of hemp. She goes to festivals and sets up booths - or even just stands on street corners - to distribute her literature.

In person, it’s hard to imagine a better spokesperson for the hemp movement. Moore is quintessentially likable, good humored, ebullient. The former accountant and Shaklee distributor, now a “fashion designer and artist,” says she’s “really good” at rollerblading, and has learned to play 7,000 songs on her Casio keyboard. She’s a body builder who says she can leg press 310 pounds 45 times.

“Out of everything I’ve wanted to do in life, I’ve done everything,” she says. “Up until November, I was having the time of my life. It’s fun, to tell the truth. When this is over I’m gonna sell the best cannabis you can buy, I always did.”

Regarding her case against the government, Moore says, “I would rather be dead than concede to persecution from the government. I won’t plea bargain. No technicalities, no plea bargains. If I slide there’s no legalization in the end. I honestly believe that we will see hundreds of thousands of people let out of jail.”

O’Hara is matter-of-fact about Moore’s chances of bringing about the legalization of hemp. “Anytime you’re leading a cause against a government establishment, it’s obviously not an easy task, “ he says. “But I really believe that Debbie Moore believes that this is a task which should be started. She adamantly believes that what she’s doing is right.