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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

#121

Post by smtddr »

wavefunction wrote: post #119
noonespecial wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I agree with this.

I strongly believe people who put down the lottery just can't let go of their super-rational minds and just enjoy an irrational thrill every once in a while. Sure, the people who spend $100 a month on Lotto when they only make $400/mo... that's a bad decision. But just $2 once every couple of months when the jackpot is some insane number? Why not? It's just $2 bucks! Yes the odds of you winning are smaller than Plank Length[1], but just let yourself go every once in awhile and enjoy a thrill and imagine "What If...". The Lottery is not a scam; assuming you understand the chances of winning is as close to zero as can be without actually being zero. People actually do win & get the money. Now, if someone can prove to me that all the winners are fake and nobody ever gets any of this money... then that's another story.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_length

EDIT: Downvoted. Not surprised; I just tried to make an argument about letting go of rationality on HN. That's probably the most offensive thing I can say here. :)

Re: Colorado Pot Tax Proving More Lucrative Than Expected

#124

Post by wavefunction »

smtddr wrote: post #121
wavefunction wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I agree with this. I strongly believe people who put down the lottery just can't let go of their super-rational minds and just enjoy an irrational thrill every once in a while. Sure, the people who spend $100 a month on Lotto when they only make $400/mo... that's a bad decision. But just $2 once every couple of months when the jackpot is some insane number? Why not? It's just $2 bucks! Yes the odds of you winning are…

I upvoted you, sometimes it's lonely being correct ;)

Re: Colorado Pot Tax Proving More Lucrative Than Expected

#125

Post by nerfhammer »

hmsimha wrote: post #69
nerfhammer wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think governments have big evil long-term schemes like this

You forgot your sarcasm tag, I hope.

Yes, governments are simultaneously short-sighted, cunning, inept, plodding, plotting, shambling, scheming and carry out very long-term schemes. But they're also short-sighted and can't do anything right. But also they do nothing unintentionally and 20 things don't go wrong with their schemes. And you can understand governments best by thinking of them as having the motives of a single person in your hunter-gatherer band, who is too greedy and too powerful who takes too much and doesn't give enough back. You can understand governments as you would by trying to read the motives of a single person, capable of thinking, coherency, making singular decisions, led by greed. Basically governments have all the properties of a action movie villain. Think of an action movie villain that isn't motivated by greed or power lust, just like every political villain from all time ever. Taking too much and not giving enough back; betrayal. Or, wait, was I talking about the Greek gods? The natural world can also be understood as reading the motives of a person with human emotions that never do anything by mistake. Think of a movie villain that was more or less accidentally carrying out their misdeeds, mostly coerced by circumstances, blundering along the way. That wouldn't be a very fun movie to watch. Villains always fully choose their evil, no circumstantial factors force their hand. Also Greek gods. And you can understand them by imputing their completely human motives; they always plot and scheme. You have to be able to guess the actions of the other members of your small hominid tribe. Every movie villain explains his motives and his long-winded scheme that would quickly fall apart in reality but that kind of realism wouldn't make a good movie. Political villains however, are often as hopelessly inept as incredibly as they are cunning and good at carrying out multi-generational schemes. Scheming and plotting like a person would. Like Lothar over there by the fire who doesn't give enough back from the hunt, or Runs with Horses over there who is amassing so many alliances as to be a possible threat to my alliances. Could he be planning to attack me, or take my stuff? Me, I care only about the tribe, for others in the tribe, the Real People we should care about, which also includes me of course. I've been doing a lot for the tribe lately. Could you help me tomorrow to rebuild my hut?

Re: Colorado Pot Tax Proving More Lucrative Than Expected

#126

Post by nirnira »

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.

Why not? Legalising drugs destroys every single element which supports violent paralegel cartels.

1) It eliminates legal risk, so drug production becomes instantly a much more lucrative activity, enticing more people to do it.

2) Profits are reduced as the market becomes more competitive.

3) The cartels are unable to pursue their "normal" extralegal means of suppressing competition, because the parties they might seek to suppress now have legal access to state protection.

4) In a competitive, legal market, the successful firms will be the ones which offer the best product - the firms with the best drugs, the highest standards of quality and ethics, the nicest stores, and the best customer service. Why buy from dodgy drug-dealers when you can walk into a beautiful store and get great customer service?

In short term yes, cartels may attempt to protect their monopoly, but in the long term, legalisation dooms them as cultural dinosaurs unable to compete in the new legal, open market.

Edit: This analysis depends upon low taxation. High taxation will still incentivise extralegal selling, but it probably makes the black market a bit safer regardless.

Re: Colorado Pot Tax Proving More Lucrative Than Expected

#127

Post by fsckin »

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+…

> So what could the nation do with $6 billion+ extra dollars every single year?

Bong hits for NASA

Re: Colorado Pot Tax Proving More Lucrative Than Expected

#128

Post by thedufer »

chc wrote: post #55
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…

It isn't conclusively proven yet, but there is some evidence that marijuana use is correlated with less drinking. It isn't purely hypothetical, and in fact it's an argument I've heard from some legalization advocates in California. I'm not sure where they came up with the "marijuana causes drinking" scenario, though. I've never heard of such a thing.

> I'm not sure where they came up with the "marijuana causes drinking" scenario, though.

The link between alcohol and marijuana use is very complicated, to say the least. For example, a decrease in price of marijuana leads to (obviously) more marijuana use, but (less obviously) fewer DUI-related deaths. It has also been found to be more directly linked to lower alcohol consumption. Thus, you'd want to call them substitutes (with the economic meaning of the term).

However, it has also been found that banning alcohol (on a school campus, specifically) led to a decrease in marijuana use, showing that they also can behave as complements to each other.

Its all very complicated and its hard to be sure how these interactions will go, although most evidence does seem to point in the direction of lower alcohol consumption.

Source: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/01/05/marijuana-much-more-tha...

Re: Colorado Pot Tax Proving More Lucrative Than Expected

#129

Post by sounds »

derefr wrote: post #100
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+…

Here's a longer, but still mostly back-of-the-envelope calculation: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/01/05/marijuana-much-more-tha... It turns out that the tax benefits pale in comparison to the slight reduction in car accidents caused by drunk drivers (because pot use seems to displace alcohol use.)

Well, that's not exactly what was said at http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/01/05/marijuana-much-more-tha... -- but I appreciate that you linked there because with some careful record-keeping, some actual data could be collected in Colorado.

Quoting now from http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/01/05/marijuana-much-more-tha...:

  Costs from legalization compared to current system: 200 kQALYs and $2 billion
  Benefits from legalization compared to current system: 260 kQALYs and $7 billion
Although it’s not going to be necessary, we can interconvert QALYs and dollars at the going health-care rate of about $100,000/QALY ($100 million/kQALY):

  Costs from legalization compared to current system: 220 kQALYs
  Benefits from legalization compared to current system: 330 kQALYs
And get:

Net benefits from legalization: +110 kQALYs

Except that this is extremely speculative and irresponsible. By far the largest component of the benefits of legalization turned out to be the effect on road traffic accidents, which is based on only two studies and which may on further research turn out to be a cost. And by far the largest component of the costs of legalization turned out to be the effect on IQ, and we had to totally-wild-guess the QALY cost of an IQ point loss. The wiggle room in my ignorance and assumptions is more than large enough to cover the small gap between the two policies in the results.

So my actual conclusion is:

There is not a sufficiently obvious order-of-magnitude difference between the costs and benefits of marijuana legalization for a evidence-based utilitarian analysis of costs and benefits to inform the debate. You may return to your regularly scheduled wild speculation and shrill accusations.

Re: Colorado Pot Tax Proving More Lucrative Than Expected

#130

Post by nirnira »

jonathanmarcus wrote: post #112

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.

Well said. But that's the conflict of America - lip-service to freedom on the one hand, extreme moral conservatism and idiotic public policy on the other.
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