Letters to the Editor

Cover, April 15: “Road to Reform”

Look Deeper

Thank you for finally covering the elephant in the room. This is a major issue for NM, and [for many years] the Green Party of Santa Fe's Committee to Legalize Marijuana [has looked at] the legalization of hemp.

One of the strong arguments for legalizing marijuana remains the incentive of increasing state revenues.…If potential state revenue can be used as an argument for whether or not people are punished, then justice becomes a matter of business, which will focus our public discussion on whether we could raise more money from fines on marijuana or on taxes on legal sales.

This is a turning of our backs on the more important social question of criminality and justice. If we are debating whether or not to fine or imprison people for a certain activity, our conversation should be focused on what sort of values are being transgressed rather than its value to our coffers.

Even the argument that there are medical benefits to marijuana does nothing to challenge the consensus that recreational use is criminal.

With our country leading the world in incarceration, largely because of our war on drugs…we need to be asking more profound questions of what constitutes criminality and what constitutes policy that best protects our rights.

Now that the city has reduced possessing small amounts of marijuana to a civil infraction with a nominal fine, the stakes we have in this conversation have been lowered, but we as a city and as a state have not yet addressed deeper and more difficult questions of what constitutes justice and which elements of society are criminal.

Sky Tallman
Green Party of Santa Fe

News, April 15: “Extreme Value”

Find Another Way

Property taxes are not very well thought out and are unfair.

Property taxes are a regressive tax. In other words, poor people pay a higher percentage of their income to property tax than rich people.

Every year hundreds of taxpayers lose their properties because they can't pay their taxes.

In addition, the assessed value may not reflect the market value of the property, as it is done in a mass appraisal....No properties in my neighborhood have sold for what the assessor says mine is worth.

Legislators should think of less unfair ways of funding their pet projects.

Tom Noeding
Taos

Santa Fe Reporter