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False Promise of Tax Revenue from Pot
HealthZette ^ | 5/31/2016 | Kristen Fischer

Posted on 05/31/2016 12:00:11 PM PDT by DenverCossack

Dollar signs are flashing in the eyes of state lawmakers under pressure to legalize marijuana. In Arizona, the state has been told it could make $113 million if it legalizes recreational marijuana; in New Jersey, the financial promise behind a push for legalization is $300 million.

If all 50 states jump on this bandwagon, total revenues could be approximately $5.3 billion at a 15 percent tax rate, a Tax Foundation study found. That number could surge to $8 billion at a 25 percent tax rate.

More money may sound like a win for states. But some officials may be paying too much attention to the potential dollar signs — and not enough to the health and societal ramifications of making marijuana legally available.

“Legislators are being aggressively pressured by an army of lobbyists hired by the marijuana industry, which is motivated by increasing marijuana consumption,” said Henny Lasley, co-founder and project director for Smart Colorado, a nonprofit group aimed at protecting the health, safety, and well-being of children in the state. Lasley said legalization supporters claimed the model would eliminate the black market and generate revenues at the same time but that hasn’t been the case.

The state itself has emerged as a new black market, said Lasley. There are also reports of marijuana from Colorado being found internationally.

“The voters of Colorado were promised that the first $40 million annually of new tax revenue would go to our schools, and yet this annual number has not been achieved,” she said.

The revenue goals were not reached in the first two years and just $27 million has gone to schools, reports have found. A new video circulating — dubbed “How Marijuana Legalization Impacts Denver Public Schools” — aims to educate voters about how state excise taxes on marijuana are used.

(Excerpt) Read more at lifezette.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; US: Colorado
KEYWORDS: colorado; marijuana
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To: DenverCossack

I bet the pizza, ice cream, and Doritos distributors love their little munchies increases.


41 posted on 05/31/2016 1:03:02 PM PDT by showme_the_Glory ((ILLEGAL: prohibited by law. ALIEN: Owing political allegiance to another country or government))
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To: DesertRhino

With the abdication of large segments of our society from any type of parental oversight and guidance, the lower orders absolutely DO need moral guidance.

The next generation of poor children will be the first to uniformly be raised without any guiding moral principles, as policy.


42 posted on 05/31/2016 1:04:04 PM PDT by T-Bone Texan (Don't be a lone wolf. Form up small leaderlesss cells ASAP !)
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Thing I don’t get is how everywhere before legalization there were posters and pamphlets everywhere extolling how awesome hemp was to make rope, or clothes or oil or any number of wonders. Yet after legalization in colorado, I have seen no measurable uptick in hemp rope, or clothing or oil manufacturing.


43 posted on 05/31/2016 1:04:52 PM PDT by dsrtsage (One half of all people have below average IQ. In the US the number is 54%)
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To: T-Bone Texan
With the abdication of large segments of our society from any type of parental oversight and guidance, the lower orders absolutely DO need moral guidance.

From the government?

44 posted on 05/31/2016 1:07:58 PM PDT by Ken H (Best election ever!)
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To: AppyPappy

You can make your own alcoholic drinks too, but it’s a royal pain to do. I’d wager in a non-prohibition environment that’s how the weed situation would end up as well - a relatively small community of microcrafters and an industry that puts out high volumes of product at a wide range of quality and price.


45 posted on 05/31/2016 1:11:17 PM PDT by thoughtomator
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To: T-Bone Texan

“it’s up to us as parents to double down.”

Yup

“I don’t want to have to explain to my kids that yeah, smoking pot is bad, but that dude walking down the street with a doobie in his pie hole is not doing anything morally wrong because the govt says it’s OK.”

Kids, we have a crazy government run by leftist lunatics....

What did you expect for about $13,000/year for K-12 education per kid provided by the leftist nanny state, a quality education?


46 posted on 05/31/2016 1:13:27 PM PDT by Brian Griffin
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To: Ken H

And tons of illegal dealers are moving in because they can hide in plain sight.


47 posted on 05/31/2016 1:19:39 PM PDT by shelterguy
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To: thoughtomator

Except that the government can regulate the legal marijuana operation to death like they did tobacco.

But if you just grow a little patch of Weed next to the cucumbers, you can pull some serious change on the black market and the government will think it is grown for personal use. If government weed is $400 an oz and black market is $200 an oz, you can make $100 an oz.
Not only that, the legal sellers have to lawyer up just like the tobacco companies.


48 posted on 05/31/2016 1:20:47 PM PDT by AppyPappy (If you really want to irritate someone, point out something obvious they are trying hard to ignore.)
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To: T-Bone Texan

“I don’t want to have to explain to my kids...”

All recreational drugs I know of have adverse impacts on people.

Your kids should know adverse impacts for tobacco, marijuana, cocaine, opiate, stimulant, alcohol and sugar usage by the age of 10 if you as a parent are doing a proper job.

Leftist governments are inherently immoral.


49 posted on 05/31/2016 1:22:50 PM PDT by Brian Griffin
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To: shelterguy
And tons of illegal dealers are moving in because they can hide in plain sight.

That makes no sense. State grow operations are licensed and inspected. Illegal growers have to hide their operations as much in CO as elsewhere.

50 posted on 05/31/2016 1:24:11 PM PDT by Ken H (Best election ever!)
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To: AppyPappy

People can legally grow their own in CO, up to 6 plants. Despite that, a billion dollars worth was sold in the legal market.


51 posted on 05/31/2016 1:29:57 PM PDT by Ken H (Best election ever!)
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To: DenverCossack

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfsT_c-PZXg

Things to do in Denver when your Dead

Warren Zevon


52 posted on 05/31/2016 1:31:09 PM PDT by corbe (mystified, still. But never hillary)
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To: Ken H

I’m guess that billion $ will creep downward.

6 plants? The War on Drugs continues.


53 posted on 05/31/2016 1:33:22 PM PDT by AppyPappy (If you really want to irritate someone, point out something obvious they are trying hard to ignore.)
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To: NohSpinZone

Are there any hard facts


54 posted on 05/31/2016 1:38:20 PM PDT by arthurus (Het is waar. Tutti i liberaliThe state decides who can vote on state issues. soli o feccia.)
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To: discostu

Ditto.


55 posted on 05/31/2016 1:39:05 PM PDT by arthurus (Het is waar. Tutti i liberaliThe state decides who can vote on state issues. soli o feccia.)
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To: T-Bone Texan

Well, in a mild climate you might get away with opening the windows and using a lot of fans. In Alaska, it would be too cold for that I think. We’re talking about tropical plants, so if the temperature drops too low, that is going to ruin them as well.


56 posted on 05/31/2016 1:39:31 PM PDT by Boogieman
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To: DenverCossack

“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.”

DPS is a taxpayer ripoff that spends monies not on education but buildings for admin types and for special projects no related to education. They should be defunded for decades until the money they already squandered has been accounted for,


57 posted on 05/31/2016 1:46:45 PM PDT by CodeToad (Islam should be banned and treated as a criminal enterprise!)
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To: Sasparilla
I know why the insurance companies worked so hard on DUI's. They get to double the insurance rate for 5 years if caught. How does this work with a THC conviction?

I know they say it is for the children but in Pennsylvania they DUI checkpoints start around 11:00 PM when the Children are in bed.

58 posted on 05/31/2016 2:05:16 PM PDT by IC Ken
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To: discostu; DenverCossack
I suspect the tax money is a less than zero sum game for several reasons.

They say that Colorado is on pace to sell $1 billion worth of pot in 2016. Let's make the math easy and assume a 10% tax rate. That's $100 million in new taxes.

But where did that $1 billion come from?

The real downside is the mental illness, by-polar and schizophrenia that pot use has been linked to. Colorado may find themselves with a future health and disability crisis. If so they will have burned their future up in pot.

59 posted on 05/31/2016 2:19:27 PM PDT by DannyTN
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To: DannyTN

In this case it’s just the usual government shell game. We’re dealing with this in AZ, the layers of government have learned that Americans would really like their schools to not suck, so they push various tax hikes and other things with the promise of “we’ll use the money for the schools”, so people approve. Then they don’t spend the money on the schools, because if they actually did spend the money on the schools the schools might stop sucking, and then how would they pass the next tax hike. AZ is currently in a massive legal battle because people finally got tired of that shell game and sued the government, which didn’t stop the legislature from pushing a bill (which unfortunately just got passed) to sell off the AZ trust land and give the money to the schools. Of course people didn’t notice the small section of that bill that says “oh and we can spend money earmarked for the schools on corrections and other stuff”, which not only means we’ll sell our trust land, but the schools won’t get that money, but it means if they lose the lawsuits on the previous bills they now get a pass.

CO has pulled in close to 6 times the amount promised for the schools in pot taxes. Now yes, some of that money is probably coming from other places (haven’t seen anything about other sin taxes but I’d agree with you some of those are probably making less than they used to), but I doubt it’s enough to give them a valid reason to have only put half the promised money into the school budgets. But they know if they properly fund the schools the next tax quest won’t be as easy a sell.


60 posted on 05/31/2016 2:31:12 PM PDT by discostu (Joan Crawford has risen from the grave)
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