Colorado raises $150 million from marijuana. Will more states legalize?

[Zorro]

Colorado has brought in more than $150 million in marijuana tax revenue, according to official state data.

That doesn't make it a budgetary panacea, warn lawmakers.

"The big lesson we tell other states is you probably shouldn't legalize marijuana if you want to make money – that's not why you do it," said J. Skyler McKinley, deputy director of the governor's Office of Marijuana Coordination, to the Huffington Post. "You do it because you think that a regulated marketplace might be safer than an unregulated marketplace, or you believe that the war on drugs didn't work."

A representative from Washington – which has raised about $83 million in taxes since becoming the second state to legalize marijuana sales – agreed.

http://news.yahoo.com/colorado-raises-150-million-marijuana-more-states-legalize-191729332.html

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. Sooo just ignore all that revenue, it's not 'why you do it'...

I dunno, 150 million isn't anything to sneeze at in my books, even if the state spends a lot more each year.

[Ghost in the Machine]

8. Right? It's $150 Million MORE than what they *would* have had. Let's hope that they put it to good

use for the people of the State. How many more States could use this?? I know *mine* could.

Peace,

Ghost

[Logical]

2. Money should not be the point. It should be not locking up people for a drug safer than most. nt

[L. Coyote]

10. How much can they raise commuting sentences?

That's my question.

[Logical]

11. Good point! A lot of money! Nt

[Yavin4]

3. It's $150 million + Savings from not prosecuting pot

Savings in the form of less policing, less need for lawyers/judges, less need for jail space.

[RobertEarl]

7. Colorado is closing prisons

Most everyone else is building more prisons.

[mucifer]

4. If every state does it there won't be as much revenue.

Less people will travel to get it. Chicago is desperate for money and Illinois is even more so. $150million would be a start.

[fadedrose]

5. If all states legalized it,

it will be more affordable.

Plus, people in warmer climates can grow it all year round, and northerners could grow during summer and maybe have a closet dedicated to it.

It's not intended to bring in millions....it's to replace dangerous medicinal and pleasure drugs....that's the intent of people trying to get it legalized.

It should not make any state rich, and CO and WA are possibly reaping the last great year for sales, except for special types.

[TheSarcastinator]

6. Hickenlooper's lapdog should shut his mouth

"The big lesson we tell other states is you probably shouldn't legalize marijuana if you want to make money – that's not why you do it," said J. Skyler McKinley, deputy director of the governor's Office of Marijuana Coordination, to the Huffington Post. "You do it because you think that a regulated marketplace might be safer than an unregulated marketplace, or you believe that the war on drugs didn't work."

That quote reeks of such clueless arrogance it is astonishing. Hickenlooper has NOT been a very strong leader for the state the way people had hoped (he drank fracking fluid for Halliburton, among other things) and most importantly, he was vocally opposed to legalization from the beginning. Cannabis was medicalized and then legalized in Colorado by THE PEOPLE, who engaged in ballot initiatives to build the laws directly into the state Constitution, which is one of the reasons that the DEA hasn't gone after as many dispensaries in CO as they have in CA. The People had to vote it into law despite the lies and bad science spread by idiots like Christian Thurstone and Patrick Kennedy and even in the face of outright governmental fraud, when enough "missing" ballots from the original 2000 medical initiative were found in the desk of the post-election deceased Sec. of State Victoria Buckley to have passed the law the first time it was on the ballot instead of the second. John worked hard to keep the laws from passing and then tried repeatedly to create major roadblocks in the regulatory process. Hickenlooper and his little buddy J. Skyler need to shut their frack holes.

[lpbk2713]

9. Florida might.

If Rick Scott can figure out a way to personally make a few bucks off it you can count on it.

[leftyladyfrommo]

12. I wish Kansas would do this.

It would solve their budget problem.