In the two years since the state legalized the sale and use of marijua

Question

In the two years since the state legalized the sale and use of marijuana, Kerry County has seen a dramatic increase in marijuana use. This has caused an issue both with Kerry County’s largely older and more-conservative population and with local businesses that complain of the smell. To significantly reduce the use of marijuana within the county, Kerry County plans to implement a 50% sales tax on the sale of marijuana, believing that the higher cost will serve as a deterrent to many local marijuana users.

Each of the following constitutes a reason to believe that Kerry County’s plan will not achieve its goal EXCEPT:

C. Kerry County already levies similar "sin tax" sales taxes on other recreational drugs such as alcohol and tobacco.

Each of the following constitutes a reason to believe that Kerry County’s plan will not achieve its goal EXCEPT:

A. Despite the legalization of marijuana, there remains a non-trivial black market for the illegal sale of marijuana in Kerry County.

B. Marijuana use has been most popular among young professionals, a demographic that tends to have a large amount of disposable income.

C. Kerry County already levies similar "sin tax" sales taxes on other recreational drugs such as alcohol and tobacco.

D. Kerry County is among the smallest counties in the state, with no location that is more than a 20-minute drive from a neighboring county.

E. The state law that legalized marijuana also allows residents to grow a small amount of marijuana for personal use.​

jwang516 · Answer

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Hmm....I struggled between C and E in this question. I picked C in the end but I'm not too confident

Our conclusion is that "higher cost will deter many marijuana users". We are looking for an answer that will NOT weaken the conclusion

A. Will weaken. If there's a black market, users will go to the back market to buy marijuana after the tax increase
B. Will weaken. Since the typical users have a lot money, then they will continue buying the marijuana even if they are more expensive
D. Will weaken. If the county is near other counties, the users can easily go to the other counties to buy marijuana

C. Unsure....we don't know the effects of the law on the other drugs....if the laws worked then it will weaken the argument. If the laws di dnot work, then it willnot weaken the argument.

E. I guess this will weaken it? If you can grow marijuana, then you can just grow it now instead of buying it. The only thing that stopped me is that the answer notes that only "a small amount of marijuana" can be grown and the prompt is talking about the drastic increase of marijuana....so even if a user grows a small amount of marijuana, the user may still be deterred from using a lot of marijuana due to the high costs. but I still think this is a better weakener than C

Interested to hear the OA and explanation between C and E. Thanks!

sobby · Answer

Will go with C here..

For E- if ppl can grow marijuana ,they no need to worry about sales tax n all..

anuj11 · Answer

D - We don't know whether the other counties sell marijuana or have a illegal network that sells it, the residents can go to other counties but what if marijuana is only available in Kerry county.

C is a 50-50 - If the sin tax is effective then it will strengthen but if not then it will act as a undermining choice.

C vs D - D looks better here

rekhabishop · Answer

I agree! Kerry county was always small. It's not that after the legalisation of marijuana, it has become smaller, or anything. Option D is irrelevant. The premise is that after legalisation, people started smoking a lot and local businesses complained about the smell. Now, if people were already going to other counties, the local businesses would stop complaining and maybe people will stop smoking because of the distance, or the effort. They might even smoke in the shop itself (which will be in the other county) Option C might still have a possibility of weakening, as the population might be used to the "sin tax" and hence the implementation of a 50% tax won't matter much. Summoning the experts! mikemcgarry , DmitryFarber , daagh sir, abhimahna , WaterFlowsUp , carcass . Please take a look and correct the OA, if required.

BeingHan · Answer

Between C and D, D won't let the plan succeed as 'no' location is more than 20 mins from Kerry county. So if the prices were high , people can go to any neighbouring county to get weed where it might be cheaper. Remember, the whole state has legalised weed. This leaves us with only C.E is negated as people can start growing their own weed if prices become higher.

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pra1785 · Answer

Hi Anuj,

The answer cannot be D because it says the STATE legalised. So other counties most likely also sell marijuana and since its closeby, the increased taxes to reduce selling of marijuana fails. Hence this weakens the argument.

Hope this helps.

Skywalker18 · Answer

In the two years since the state legalized the sale and use of marijuana, Kerry County has seen a dramatic increase in marijuana use. This has caused an issue both with Kerry County’s largely older and more-conservative population and with local businesses that complain of the smell. To significantly reduce the use of marijuana within the county, Kerry County plans to implement a 50% sales tax on the sale of marijuana, believing that the higher cost will serve as a deterrent to many local marijuana users.

Each of the following constitutes a reason to believe that Kerry County’s plan will not achieve its goal EXCEPT:

C. Kerry County already levies similar "sin tax" sales taxes on other recreational drugs such as alcohol and tobacco.

Each of the following constitutes a reason to believe that Kerry County’s plan will not achieve its goal EXCEPT:
Boil it down - To significantly reduce the use of marijuana within the county, Kerry County plans to implement a 50% sales tax on the sale of marijuana . But this plan will fail EXCEPT -

A. Despite the legalization of marijuana, there remains a non-trivial black market for the illegal sale of marijuana in Kerry County. - Incorrect - if 50% sales tax is implemented , then people might buy from black market
B. Marijuana use has been most popular among young professionals, a demographic that tends to have a large amount of disposable income. - Incorrect - people have extra money
C. Kerry County already levies similar "sin tax" sales taxes on other recreational drugs such as alcohol and tobacco. - Correct - this does not give us a reason to believe that the plan will fail 
D. Kerry County is among the smallest counties in the state, with no location that is more than a 20-minute drive from a neighboring county.- Incorrect - a neighboring county might have cheaper supply of marijuana
E. The state law that legalized marijuana also allows residents to grow a small amount of marijuana for personal use.- Incorrect - People might grow marijuana at their homes.

Answer C

Bunuel · Answer

VERITAS PREP OFFICIAL SOLUTION:

In any Plan/Strategy question, it is important to determine exactly what the goal of the plan is. Here the goal is to "substantially reduce marijuana use," which you should see is different from related goals (perhaps to reduce marijuana sales or to eliminate marijuana use). Precision in wording and understanding the exact goal are keys to these questions.

You can anticipate reasons that raising the sales tax and therefore the cost of marijuana might not result in a significant decrease in marijuana use. Focusing on use - and not sales - provides a great entry point: what if people find a way to get marijuana without having to buy it? Choice E suggests that they might be able to simply grow it on their own and avoid both the price and the tax.

What if they can buy it somewhere else and avoid the tax? That leads to answer choices:

A: If people can buy it on the black market and avoid paying the sales tax, then they can still use it without being affected by the tax.

D: If people can buy it nearby in a county that doesn't have the tax, then they'll avoid the tax.

What if the tax just isn't that big of a deterrent? Choice B suggests that the largest group of users may must not care about paying more to use marijuana.

That leaves choice C, which you should see does not directly address marijuana at all. Even if similar taxes for similar goods are already on the books, that still means that the net cost of marijuana will markedly increase under the sales tax. If that is, indeed, a deterrent then the taxes on similar goods won't matter. C does not attack the problem head on, and is therefore the only answer choice that does not give reason to believe that the plan will not work.

shubham2312 · Answer

in my opinion the issue with option C is

we are not 100% sure about the outcome of TAX, what if the tax on alcohol and tobacco is just 1% or 10% than it wont be a deterrent for a person.

here we are going with common sense that levying additional tax reduces the consumption of an item, but if we put that same theory in real life every year government in india increases tax on cigarettes still number of smokers are increasing.

kindly any expert throw some light on it

AvidDreamer09 · Answer

IMO

Conclusion: Kerry County believes that the higher cost will serve as a deterrent to many local marijuana users.

Simplified Question: Choice which is directly impacted by sales tax.

Or

We are looking for a choice that would discourage people or strengthen the Kerry County belief

A. Despite the legalization of marijuana, there remains a non-trivial black market for the illegal sale of marijuana in Kerry County.
 The sales tax has no direct effect on the existing black market. So wouldnt reduce consumption

B. Marijuana use has been most popular among young professionals, a demographic that tends to have a large amount of disposable income.
 Which mean even if they add the sales tax they wouldnt reduce consumption This will not deter users. this does not strengthen the conclusion

C. Kerry County already levies similar "sin tax" sales taxes on other recreational drugs such as alcohol and tobacco.
 Sale tax has direct effect. sin tax + sale tax = more tax and hence may strengthen Kerry County’s plan to reduce consumption

D. Kerry County is among the smallest counties in the state, with no location that is more than a 20-minute drive from a neighboring county.
 Sales tax does not have any direct effect and hence will Weaken Kerry County’s plan. The users avoids tax

E. The state law that legalized marijuana also allows residents to grow a small amount of marijuana for personal use.​
 The sales will not have any effect on people who grow it locally

ParthSanghavi · Answer

daagh   VeritasKarishma

Why is (C) correct and not (B)?

The conclusion is that higher taxes will prevent people from using weed. We need to find an answer that tells us that higher taxes will not have their intended effect.

(B) tells us that the users of marijuana have enough money to buy it despite the increased taxes. Hence the tax will not prevent people from buying weed.

(C) tells us that there is a 'sin tax' on alcohol & tobacco. The argument does not mention the effects of the 'sin tax' on alcohol & tobacco. We have no clue on the no. of people who consume alcohol & tobacco and whether implementing the 'sin tax' led to an increase or decrease in the number of alcohol & tobacco users.

VeritasPrepBrian · Answer

Hey Parth - actually I think you nailed it! The question asks for which choice will NOT weaken the conclusion ("all of the following will weaken EXCEPT") so if you're seeing B as a weakener and C as no impact, then you've got it - C doesn't weaken the plan so it's right. A couple other notes on this problem:

-If D is controversial at all, I kind of get it...this is actually one of mine and I'm going for the fact that "county" is a subset of "state" which is pretty common knowledge in the U.S. but not necessarily in other places. That's why D leads with "Kerry County is among the smallest counties in the state" to demonstrate that the state (which legalized marijuana) has many counties, and to hopefully eliminate the advantage/need for the knowledge of the American city-->county-->state-->country organization. As you guys know the GMAT does a lot of statistical analysis on its pre-test experimental questions and one o the reasons is to eliminate cultural bias...I still think with that preamble to D it's pretty fair but I also wouldn't be shocked if it statistically came back that Americans have a slight leg up on this one.

-One of my inspirations for this one is the archetype behind choice C, which seems to trap way more people than it should - in Plan/Strategy questions, people give too much credence to the mere mention that "this plan exists in other places" or "this plan exists for other products/categories." To me that always sticks out like a sore thumb: unless an answer choice demonstrates 1) that that "plan existing in another somewhat-similar context" was either very effective or very ineffective, *AND* 2) links that effectiveness or lack-thereof to the situation we're talking about, it's always irrelevant. It sounds good to people - it kind of has that "safety in numbers" (if other countries are doing it, if similar taxes apply to similar products, etc., then there must be something to it?) but logically it doesn't connect the dots toward THIS plan in THIS circumstance, so when you get that type of answer choice just be really, really skeptical. Here with C we don't know whether the alcohol/tobacco taxes have been effective, whether manufacturers just reduced prices rendering the taxes moot to the consumer, whether demand for the products was so high that people paid the tax without thinking about it...AND we also don't know that marijuana users would react the same way as alcohol/tobacco users, anyway, so even if we knew about the effectiveness of the existing taxes we still can't conclude anything about what would happen with this tax.

ParthSanghavi · Answer

Thank you VeritasPrepBrian for a detailed solution

VerbalBot · Answer

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In the two years since the state legalized the sale and use of marijua

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