IRS Also Targeted Colorado’s Marijuana Legalization Groups

Grassroots groups behind the effort to legalize marijuana for recreational use in Colorado are speaking out against the extra scrutiny they received from the Internal Revenue Service as well. The Daily Caller reports:

Mason Tvert, […] the director of SAFER (which stands for Safer Alternatives for Enjoyable Recreation), said it took more than a year for the IRS to approve its 501(c)4 tax status while pestering him with “absurd” questions about its activities.

For example, the agency sent Tvert copies of news stories from the Internet — including readers’ comments on those stories — purporting to show that SAFER organized “festivals and protests that are not always peaceful.”

But Tvert said SAFER wasn’t involved in any of the examples.

“They sent web pages from various local NORML organizations and news articles about [Seattle’s annual pot festival] Hempfest and various events that we never organized,” he said. “So it was just ridiculous.”

[…]

MPP was also singled out for “grueling audits,” according to an article written by director Rob Kampia for The Huffington Post.

The organization was audited in 2000 and in 2006, but found to be in compliance with IRS rules.

At the present time, these reports about the IRS placing extra scrutiny on groups that support marijuana legalization are anecdotal. Yet as the IRS is pressed to answer more questions about their admitted targeting of conservative groups, stories such as these raise questions about whether the IRS put other types of political action groups under the microscope too.