Since Jan. 1, 1991, Louisiana drug dealers have been required to pay taxes and affix tax stamps on their illegal products or face penalties.






Paying taxes and placing a $3.50 per gram stamp on marijuana and similar stamps with higher fees for harder drugs doesn't make the products legal. But it does relieve dealers and major customers from being assessed double the amount if they get caught not paying taxes.
When Rep. A. Dale Smith, D-Pollock, got the Legislature to approve Act 90, it wasn't necessarily to make a lot of tax money but to have a hammer to hit drug dealers if they were caught without tax stamps. The rallying cry was that while gangster Al Capone escaped other charges, the feds jailed him for tax evasion.
But district attorneys fear that using the law could cause problems with criminal prosecution.
Lack of enforcement has now made the law that was intended to make drug manufacturing and dealing less attractive more of an afterthought than a weapon.
The problem, said John Williams, a specialist in drug prosecution for the Louisiana District Attorneys Association, is the possibility that the law could be ruled unconstitutional, as with similar laws in other states. Some laws have been thrown out as "double jeopardy," trying a criminal twice for the same crime.
"In effect, it's just sitting there," Williams said. "It's not being used because it may well preclude criminal prosecution. Nobody wants to take the chance of losing a criminal case" against a drug dealer just to collect taxes.
Another reason law enforcement is not eager to impose the law is that any taxes collected go to state agencies, "not to law enforcement," Williams said.
Louisiana is not alone in imposing taxes on illegal drugs. More than half the states adopted similar laws but many have repealed them after court challenges.
No record could be found of Louisiana's law being challenged on constitutionality.
State Department of Revenue records show 513 stamps sold since 1999. Records of earlier sales were not readily available, but department spokesman Byron Henderson said sales vary from year to year.

And over those years, revenue from stamp sales has been sporadic. In fiscal year 2008-09, $12,657.88 came into the state treasury from drug stamp sales. This past year, sales jumped to $26,700. The record year since 1999 was 2005-06 when stamp sale revenue was $32,477.






Much of the proceeds come from taxes on drugs other than marijuana. Some sales are to stamp collectors.
"Stamp sales are confidential," Henderson said. "We don't ask why buyers want the stamps. We just sell them."
However, "we've had people come in who are stamp collectors and they're quick to say so. They don't want you to think they are drug dealers."
Even when the law is enforced, not much money can be collected from ex-convicts who had their property and illegal earnings seized when they were arrested, said Revenue Secretary Cynthia Bridges.
"You can't get blood out of a turnip," she said.
The biggest example of that was two years ago.
Todd Matherne, 31, of Houma and his father were arrested and pleaded guilty in 2005 of manufacturing and selling steroids, which fell under the controlled dangerous substance portion of the law.
That section calls for a tax of $100 per gram if the substance is sold by the gram or $400 per 10 doses if the drug is sold by the dose, as steroids are sold.
State Police seized about 20,000 steroid pills and capsules and 5,400 doses of Cialis.
Matherne's tax bill was just over $52 million, doubled because he did not pay up front.
After serving three years of a seven-year sentence, he filed suit against the Terrebonne Parish district attorney and sheriff, state police, Attorney General Buddy Caldwell and the Department of Revenue, challenging the assessment.
When all was settled, Matherne paid the state $2,000, revenue department records show.
Bridges said her department has a division that works with tax debtors to work out a compromise settlement when it's obvious someone can't pay.
"Why should I waste my limited resources to pursue that kind of debt when I could be pursuing a more high-value activity?" she asked. "The Department of Revenue's ability to pursue payment depends on the law being enforced at the police or prosecutorial level."
As to whether the law should be repealed if it's not going to be enforced, she said "that's a policy decision that needs to be made above my pay grade."
Since the Legislature adopted the law, unless the drug tax is repealed at that level, "we have a right to pursue it," Bridges said.