Reshared post from +Breaking News
Colorado collects $3.5 million in 1st month of marijuana taxes
+9NEWS: Colorado collected $2.1 million in recreational marijuana taxes in January, the state Department of Revenue reported. These are the first tax figures for the first U.S. state to legalize retail marijuana.
Officials also reported the state brought in $1.4 million from medical marijuana.
Colorado legalized pot in 2012. In November, voters enacted the 15 percent excise tax and a 10 percent special sales tax on the drug, which is charged on top of ordinary sales tax.
Read more: http://www.9news.com/story/news/local/2014/03/10/first-month-of-marijuana-taxes/6257687/
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Colorado raises $3.5M in first month of marijuana taxes
DENVER—The first tax figures for the first state in the nation to legalize retail marijuana shows the drug brought in $[GRAND TOTAL] million in taxes
I have a Timothy Leary album from the late 1960s where he's being interviewed about legalizing drugs and he essentially advocates legalizing them so we can collect tax money on them. I've always thought it made sense.
It's been a long-term idea.
A bit of parallel trivia: one of the biggest barriers to alcohol Prohibition was that the US federal government's major income at the time was excise taxes, much of which came from liquor. The only thing that made Prohibition viable was the Federal Income Tax, which was pushed for by temperance and other pro-Prohibition groups for just that reason. Once the Federal Income Tax was passed, Prohibition was possible and passed shortly thereafter.
On the back end, one of the major groups pushing for an end to Prohibition were the era's equivalent of the "One Percent," who figured that once alcohol excise taxes were back in play that the income tax could be repealed. Unfortunately for them, the Great Depression and FDR came in and they never got income tax dropped after Prohibition was ended.