Colorado literally doesn’t know what to do with all of the revenue from legalizing and taxing marijuana. The state has $66.1 million in excess tax revenue from recreational pot sales and the voters get to decide how it’s spent.
Proposition BB, up for a vote in less than two weeks, would allocate all of the extra funds entirely to the state; $40 million for school construction and $12 million for marijuana education.
Governor Hickenlooper, who opposed the legalization of recreational marijuana, now supports keeping all of that revenue for the state.
“All the pot revenue that comes in — our goal is to regulate marijuana, to make sure our kids don’t get access to marijuana and, as the voters originally intended, that we build buildings to improve our K-12 education,” Hickenlooper says in the video below.
If the measure fails, the tax money will be returned to Colorado residents.
According to local NBC News 9:
If the proposition fails, $25 million would be refunded to tax payers, amounting about a $6 to $8 refund for most Coloradans.
As for the rest of the money, $24 million would go to marijuana cultivators and $17 million would be refunded to marijuana purchasers through a temporary sales tax reduction.
“Druggies” funding education. Who would have thought?
Why not? Druggies have been in charge of education for centuries. You are aware that alcohol is a drug?
What a concept — taxpayers deciding how their money will be spent. I’ve long said that the framers of the Constitution missed the most important “separation of powers” of all: the power to say “how much” tax will be collected separated from the power to say “on what” it will be spent. In other words, if legislators have the power to tell us citizens how much tax will be taken from us, then each individual taxpayer gets to specify directly what they want the money to be spent on. And if the legislators get to tell us citizens what they’re going to spend the money on, then each individual taxpayer gets to say how much they’re willing to contribute. My guess: War would get a lot less funding under such a system.
Of course they are. And how many residents are going to demand the “tax” be removed??? Let’s take the money from the cannabis buyers and give that money to whoever the heck we want and whatever is left over, let the voters decide which government entity will have control over the remainder. No corruption here. It the new normal
Most of the revenue will go to Visine, Frito-Lay, and 7-11.
What a novel approach. Asking taxpayers what to do with THEIR money. I’m sure this is spreading to the federal level any minute.
They could use some of the funds to pay for a citizen militia to keep the Feds out.
Please don’t give it to the local/state/federal government.
How about spending it as reparations to Coloradans who were imprisoned by the War on Drugs?
What about food & shelter infrastructure for the homeless vets & normal people that have been thrown out of their houses & marginalized by thieving banksters?
i od’ on hash oil. the ambulance took me to the emergency room where they waited for me to die. total bill; over 7k. they say it’s not addictive- no kidding.