The pot punishment

A helpful hint for all those pot industry lobbyists who may be new to Massachusetts. Folks around here are fond of local control — and they don’t take kindly to pressure.

And make no mistake, the new campaign to withhold marijuana tax revenue from cities and towns that restrict pot sales is just that — an attempt to intimidate. It is also a terrific way to alienate folks in those communities whose votes last year helped legalize the industry.

The Boston Globe reported Monday that some proponents of legalized marijuana plan to ask the Legislature to block communities that vote to limit or ban marijuana sales from sharing in the pool of new state tax revenue that those sales generate.

The Globe calls it “a long-shot idea.” It should have no shot.

A community that moves to reject pot sales loses the opportunity to collect a local tax on pot businesses. Entirely reasonable.

But taking the next step — by docking the community a share of the state revenue generated by pot sales — is not just infeasible as a practical matter. It defies the logic underpinning state taxation. State taxes are supposed to fund collective costs, those that burden or benefit the commonwealth as a whole, and those costs don’t stop at the town line.

And once again we find ourselves returning to the alcohol analogy. If a community bars the sale of booze — and a handful still do — the state doesn’t dock that community its share of the state tax on alcohol sales. It really is remarkable how the pot lobby, which ran an entire campaign on the idea that marijuana should be regulated and taxed like alcohol, now waves away such comparisons.

This isn’t a matter of fairness, as supporters claim. It’s just a heavy-handed attempt to pressure communities into accepting every pot-related enterprise that comes down the pike. The lobbyists already managed to create a two-tiered system for how communities may decide on local pot restrictions. But taking the next step — parceling state aid based on local policy preferences — is not just undemocratic. It’s moronic.