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Colorado Pot Tax Proving More Lucrative Than Expected

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Re: Colorado Pot Tax Proving More Lucrative Than Expected

#111

Post by dinkumthinkum »

hershel wrote: post #21
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.

Marijuana is a drug that encourages people to be less political active(the "laziness" effect) . I would think governments would like such a thing in politically unstable times.

Right, so the protests of the 60s prove your theory right? It's not like Nixon started the war on drugs for the exact opposite reason, right?

Re: Colorado Pot Tax Proving More Lucrative Than Expected

#112

Post by jonathanmarcus »

Marijuana should be legal because the US is supposed to be a free country and there is no reason it should be illegal. Tax revenue is a dirty justification that only demonstrates the extreme hypocrisy. It should never be the justification for legality or illegality. The whole discussion about tax revenue allocation is nothing more than red herring. A 25% tax is nothing more than extreme government theft.

Re: Colorado Pot Tax Proving More Lucrative Than Expected

#113

Post by Crito »

catshirt wrote: post #93
just2n wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's clearly what I have proposed. Let's ignore the decades of research that clearly indicates that smoke produced from burning any form of cigarette is carcinogenic and triggers allergy symptoms and complications caused by chronic illnesses like Athsma in others. It takes a certain level of inconsideration to sit there and cause other people to breathe smoke. How much would it impact someone, say yourself, to kill…

as an allergy susceptible smoking asthmatic, i'm going to go out on a limb and guess pollen (or dust, or mold, or...) is a bigger trigger for allergies and asthma than second hand smoke. but i welcome any sources that support your claim. when i was 12 i was sledding in a park and an overwhelming smell of cigar smoke came over me. i found the guy and asked him to stop smoking because it bothered me, he said "get out o…

Yeah, if we were banning things because of allergies, lets go after the oak trees first. Those things are absolute menaces: http://www.joelgarver.com/imgs/pollen.jpg

Re: Colorado Pot Tax Proving More Lucrative Than Expected

#114

Post by dinkumthinkum »

mattstreet wrote: post #33
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.

And yet we build roads.

I think roads are entirely different.

Re: Colorado Pot Tax Proving More Lucrative Than Expected

#115

Post by dllthomas »

dinkumthinkum wrote: post #104
chimeracoder wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

But it will reduce their profits, as they have to face competition.

Re: Colorado Pot Tax Proving More Lucrative Than Expected

#116

Post by yetanotherphd »

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+…

You could also raise that much money by raising income taxes.

There are good reasons to legalize pot, but the ability to raise tax revenue isn't one of them.

Re: Colorado Pot Tax Proving More Lucrative Than Expected

#117

Post by Dylan16807 »

johnbenwoo wrote: post #52
SandersAK wrote: post #50

The "think piece" part of this article, which makes up most of the text, is pretty hilarious: "A key question about the public health impact of legal marijuana is how does it change alcohol consumption patterns. To the extent that legal marijuana displaces legal booze purchases, you're going to see an offsetting decline in alcohol tax revenue. Which would be fine—a big win for public health, in fact—but not quite the…

Not saying it does, just "asking the question." Gotta love speculative journalism.

It's very clearly not providing an opinion guised as a question. It suggests that it could go up or down, and concludes that it is something to watch out for, because these are two variables very likely to be connected.

Re: Colorado Pot Tax Proving More Lucrative Than Expected

#118

Post by trysomething »

nerfhammer wrote: post #27
carbocation wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding the health aspects of marijuana, we of course lack the wealth of knowledge that we now have on the detrimental effects of tobacco on pulmonary function and lung cancer risk. The experts with whom I have discussed this (a few pulmonologists) usually ask about marijuana smoke in the same breath as tobacco smoke, and consider it a probable carcinogen. Fun somewhat-related fact that I learned last week: a one h…

The deleterious health effects of cigarette smoke is the burning plant matter and not the nicotine, so it wouldn't be surprising if marijuana were in the same ball park of dangerousness. Related is the danger of smoke from ordinary wood fire, see: http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-fireplace-delusion

Even if this were true, even heavy pot smokers inhale far less plant material than your average cigarette smokers.

Re: Colorado Pot Tax Proving More Lucrative Than Expected

#119

Post by wavefunction »

noonespecial wrote: post #59
hfsktr wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I reading that correctly? You are saying that poor people are stupid?

The lottery is a voluntary tax on the numerically illiterate. Think of it this way: they graciously raise their own taxes to make up for the deleterious effect on society of remaining numerically illiterate. The money even goes towards preventing this condition in others.

Yes, the $2 a ticket costs is a sign of the incredible "numerical illiteracy" (the word is innumeracy) of lottery players.

That or they just 'waste' $2 on a long-long-long shot knowing that they won't win but don't care because, really, it's only $2 and how much does the average American pay for their coffee?

Now people who dedicate significant portions of their resources to scratch and lotto tickets have a different problem than either wasting $2 or innumeracy. It's called poor impulse control.

Re: Colorado Pot Tax Proving More Lucrative Than Expected

#120

Post by numo16 »

girvo wrote: post #102
chc wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It is everywhere, and its name is AB InBev...One look at AB InBev's brands page[0] makes me glad I live in Michigan, where the craft brewing scene is amazing.

[0]: http://www.ab-inbev.com/go/brands/brand_portfolio/local_bran...

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