Posted on 05/31/2016 12:00:11 PM PDT by DenverCossack
Increases in revenue, even if it is only a one-time surge, are penciled in for all time as a permanent source. Then, when the bootleggers and cheat artists get in the game, selling UNTAXED product at a discount price, the revenue inevitably shrinks.
Then it has to be made up somewhere else. The fiscally responsible action would be to REDUCE expenditure, but most councils, boards and legislatures are hard-wired not to take that route.
All the cool kids now use the term “Stepping Stone” in lieu of “Gateway Drug” for their propaganda pieces.
“However, I am concerned about the message that legalization sends to our children.”
Should people be arrested for adultery? Should laws force mandatory church attendance? How big of a soda should you be able to buy under the law?
Government isn’t here to help you make good choices in life. That’s a childlike view of government. you are the child, the government is here to guide you.
A haiku:
Dollar signs in eyes
Except they’re not HIS dollars
“Creamin’ my jeans, man!”
“I could never prove it, but I have always thought that marijuana was a gateway drug, not because of some physical chemical mechanism, but because in order to buy it you have to deal with the criminal element, who can then push you onto other drugs such as heroin or crack.”
I’ve been saying much the same thing for years — I agree with you 100%.
The argument that something should be legalized because it can then be taxed has to one of the stupidest arguments around.
If the State needs money, it can tax anything it pleases, at any rate it pleases, without legalizing something hitherto illegal.
The cost savings will be enormous, as our experience with alcohol prohibition demonstrated. Killing off a black market dramatically reduces enforcement costs as well as the cost of all the negative consequences of such a market.
You might want to look more deeply into the San Luis valley agricultural scene. It is well known and heavily farmed. It isn’t the Gobi Desert out there. it’s a giant fertile valley, with good farmland, water, sun, and good growing weather.
A ditch weed will grow magnificently there.
But Prohibition ended quickly after it began. There is a long history of illegal drug trafficking in the US. The infrastructure is all there.
The only way to eliminate the illegal drug traffic is to undercut the illegal dealers and the exact opposite is happening. The legal weed is much more expensive. The beauty is that the government can’t tell if the weed you are smoking is legal or not.
As most banks don’t want to be involved in a federal crime, these are all cash businesses.
Anyone care to imagine how many transactions are never recorded in an all cash business? Especially with nice high tax rates to pocket?
That $27 million will be a pipe dream in a year. They’ll be lucky if it generates $6 million.
You can always depend on the government to find a way to screw up a perfectly good solution to a problem.
Is it not amazing that states suck revenue from things you go to prison for— like “numbers” and drugs. It is a sad commentary on our national integrity. I’m ashamed of it.
What essentially happens is that you legalize the use of the product while trying to get tax revenue from it. Unfortunately for the government, you can grow marijuana easily. Tax-free and $200 an ounce for your trouble? Mr Organic Weed Store owner ain’t gonna be happy about that.
I’m surprised Virginia hasn’t legalized it. I wonder if deer eat it. Hmm....
“In fact Denver Public Schools has recently had a large lay off and will be requesting HALF A BILLION dollars from tax payers this fall.”
As if that is a recent phenomenon and not caused by the same decades-old issues that plague EVERY liberal city in America...
“To grow pot there (indoors) a person would have to run AC 24 hours a day for part of the year.”
Indoor growers ANYWHERE have to run AC 24 hours a day, because the heat from grow lights alone in an enclosed space necessitates it.
“If the State needs money, it can tax anything it pleases, at any rate it pleases, without legalizing something hitherto illegal.”
Yes, but then everyone has to pony up. The appeal of taxing marijuana is that it is another “vice tax”, and politicians love those because they do not generate the opposition that a general tax increase does.
Gambling. Pot. Liquor. The Left is always promising a tax bonanza from legalizing vice. The tax revenue never lives up to the hype and all that happens is that the Dems’ cronies end up running the casinos or liquor stores or pot dispensaries. Its just a way to engage in crony capitalism to create a regulated industry that is beholden to the Dem politicians.
However, coastal Northern California, with it’s constant cool breeze coming off the ocean most of the year, is far more favorable from an economic stand point. It would cost a lot less to cool a grow op there, and simply opening some windows would do a big part of the cooling job.
I would bet a dollar that indoor growers in Alaska, in winter, do not have to use AC to cool their grow op, within reason.
There was nearly $1B in sales from legal pot in CO in 2015. That's more than a few people buying.
A marijuana DUI law is in effect in Colorado which sets a legal limit for the amount of active THC in your system while driving. The legal limit is 5 nanograms per milliliter of blood.
One out of every 8 DUI arrests in Colorado now is for marijuana impaired driving.
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