Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Colorado Pot Tax Proving More Lucrative Than Expected

slate.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 165 posts

Re: Colorado Pot Tax Proving More Lucrative Than Expected

#101

Post by jaynos »

tsotha wrote: post #99
lugg wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been in the vapor scene for a while, I'm starting to hear a few horror stories about liquid build up in the lungs. My guess is over use but its something to watch for. Regarding pot not causing lung cancer I can't really argue, emphasima on the other hand is a very real thing. While this is anecdotal, my mother is a nurse in a country town where there are a lot of weed only life long smokers and most of the old…

>My understanding was that there is about 10 cigarettes worth of tar in a similarly sized joint. That may be true, but how much does your average pot smoker actually smoke in a day? My dad was a two-pack-a-day cigarette smoker, which is forty cigarettes. I have yet to run into someone who smokes four cigarettes worth of pot in a day, and while I'm sure they must exist from what I can see the average is more like an a…

It helps that marijuana is not addictive in most of the population.

Re: Colorado Pot Tax Proving More Lucrative Than Expected

#102

Post by girvo »

chc wrote: post #47
greghinch wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can brew my own beer relatively easily in the comfort of my own home, for the final price of less than $1 per beer in ingredients. I still buy much more beer at the store than I brew.

The point is not that there won't be a thriving marijuana industry because you can grow your own, but that the industry will not necessarily share the evils of the tobacco industry. The beer industry is a good example. It's nowhere near as powerful or nefarious as Big Tobacco, and in fact the phrase "Big Beer" doesn't doesn't even exist. Beer companies tend to be fairly benign, while the tobacco industry is famous fo…

Hold up. "Big Beer" certainly does exist, and they are god-damn evil, at least here in Australia.

Re: Colorado Pot Tax Proving More Lucrative Than Expected

#103

Post by carbocation »

learc83 wrote: post #94
carbocation wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> studies of marijuana smokers haven't found any conclusive evidence of greatly increased cancer risk There is epidemiological evidence that marijuana smoking is associated with lung cancer. "Greatly" is subjective so I can't really comment on that.

http://news.thoracic.org/june-july-2013/annals-ats.php "findings from a limited number of well-designed epidemiological studies do not suggest an increased risk for the development of either lung or upper airway cancer from light or moderate use, although evidence is mixed concerning possible carcinogenic risks of heavy, long-term use," "In summary, the accumulated weight of evidence implies far lower risks for pulmo…

October 2013: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23846283

> "In summary, the accumulated weight of evidence implies far lower risks for pulmonary complications of even regular heavy use of marijuana compared to the grave pulmonary consequences of tobacco."

Yeah, I think mostly this comes down to the above discussion of "greatly" -- marijuana seems to have some correlation with lung disease and cancer, but it seems to be less than tobacco.

Re: Colorado Pot Tax Proving More Lucrative Than Expected

#104

Post by dinkumthinkum »

chimeracoder wrote: post #13
gopalv wrote: post #2

Ugh, is this going to look like Big Tobacco in 50 years? Vice taxes and revenue streams to be kept alive for the district? That's going to be such a kick-in-the-backside for everyone who just wanted to decriminalize it & stop putting people away for years.

> Vice taxes and revenue streams to be kept alive for the district? In Colorado, the first $40M in taxes each year are required to be allocated towards school funding, per the state constitution. The not-so-subtle goal is to make it politically painful to repeal this amendment, as any attempt to criminalize marijuana again can be spun as an attempt to cut funding for education. > That's going to be such a kick-in-the…

Legalizing marijuana won't get rid of drug cartels.

Re: Colorado Pot Tax Proving More Lucrative Than Expected

#105

Post by egypturnash »

The article notes that it's possible pot purchases may cut into beer purchases. To a certain extent I think that may happen, but I'm pretty sure there are a lot of people like myself, who smoke a LOT more marijuana than they drink alcohol. I suspect there's a lot more revenue to come from legalizing than there is to lose from people choosing weed over beer.

Re: Colorado Pot Tax Proving More Lucrative Than Expected

#106

Post by BrokenPipe »

EliRivers wrote: post #73
chimeracoder wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the concern was that we're just replacing illegal cartels with legal cartels. Agreed, but legal cartels are (marginally) better in that they are forced to operate under the "light of day". This doesn't automatically solve all the problems in se , but it's an important step. > First, that number is apparently fixed (based on your wording, I'm not familiar personally), but the there is, presumably, no upper-b…

Agreed, but legal cartels are (marginally) better in that they are forced to operate under the "light of day". Plus, they have much less need to kill people and that.

And is cheaper and less people go to prison for Prohibition like laws.

Re: Colorado Pot Tax Proving More Lucrative Than Expected

#107

Post by dinkumthinkum »

zebulom wrote: post #70
tsotha wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think the concern was that we're just replacing illegal cartels with legal cartels. If that means fewer bear traps and less rat poison in our national parks, it's a win as far as I'm concerned. >Second, vice taxes tend to be regressive, the poor pay a higher percentage of their incomes. Some of the "education lotteries" (state lotteries that benefit education) are basically mechanisms for transferring wealth from…

Buying a lottery ticket is no more irrational than buying a movie ticket. It buys you a little thrill -- the possibility that you may become rich.

No I don't think that works. Many people buy lottery tickets and really think they are going to win. Movie tickets to entice people with false hopes of riches. They also don't involve gambling addiction.

Re: Colorado Pot Tax Proving More Lucrative Than Expected

#108

Post by dinkumthinkum »

chimeracoder wrote: post #34
erichurkman wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In Colorado, the first $40M in taxes each year are required to be allocated towards school funding, per the state constitution. Won't this end up like lottery funding "education" in most states? [1] A guaranteed $40M in funding to schools means the legislature will simply reduce funding by $40M and move the balance around the general fund to other initiatives. I'm not arguing additional tax money is bad, but we sho…

> I'm not arguing additional tax money is bad, but we shouldn't pretend this will product a windfall of available money for the Colorado school systems. Nobody is - the point is that any attempt to repeal the law down the line can be viewed as a cut to the education budget. The point of the clause is not to generate revenue for the school system; it's to create political friction against reversing the law.

Are you under the impression that attempts to cut education budgets, especially direct ones, always fail?

Re: Colorado Pot Tax Proving More Lucrative Than Expected

#109

Post by lfuller »

iamjustin wrote: post #18
sudomal wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect that legalisation of weed is going to be a blip in history and they'll heavily tax it to phase it out. It just doesn't make sense to encourage people to breathe in smoke.

Honestly, fuck you. You're the idiot that thinks that it's better to jail people for weed than allow people to make their own decisions. Fuck you, Sudomal. Just because it's legal doesn't mean anyone is encouraging it. Lots of things are legal that could possibly be dangerous. Guess in your opinion someone had better get that legislation ready to protect the ignorant masses, right?

I don't think Hacker News is any place for this level of discourse. Voice your arguments, but there is no need for personal attacks.

Re: Colorado Pot Tax Proving More Lucrative Than Expected

#110

Post by rail2rail »

bane wrote: post #78

So let's do some back of the envelope math Colorado: 5,268,367 people (2013 est.) Pot Tax Revenues: $98 million That's $18.60 per person. Assuming demand is constant across the U.S. (which is probably not true, but let's go with it) U.S. population: 317,580,230 (current est.) That's $5,906,992,278 in tax revenues for the entire country. 2014 is expected to be even bigger. So what could the nation do with $6 billion+…

$6 Billion? Think of all the prisons we could build!!
Post reply on HN