Can We Learn Anything From Colorado’s First Year Of Selling Legal Pot?
All our eyes have been on Colorado as they completed their first full year of recreational pot sales. With $76 million in tax revenues from recreational pot, it’s hard to say Colorado’s pot sales had a bad year. But does that really mean Colorado has reasons to jump for joy?
[one_fourth]
[/one_fourth][three_fourth_last]
Impressive as those numbers are, there are still issues that many haven’t considered. Making recreational pot legal doesn’t necessarily guarantee those consumers will leave the black market. Why? Legal sales of marijuana are always going to be undercut by users purchasing on the black market in order to avoid the higher taxes.
It also isn’t a cure all for the states current budget issues. Most of the money goes into the state general fund. And even though voters dedicated the first $40 million in excise taxes annually should go straight to the statewide school construction fund as of now, that fund has generated only $10 million dollars.
Right now, people are willing to travel to purchase the drug legally rather than face criminal charges for purchases where they live. As more states legalize, Colorado will face more competition and their revenues will more than likely not be the same.
Even if every state in the country can find some market for marijuana, many are still skeptical about legalizing the highly controversial drug. Strong opinions vary throughout our country but it’s hard to admit to even the most conservative of views that Colorado’s tax revenues were anything short of impressive.
The next question is if the statistics coming out of Colorado and Washington (the other state with legalized recreational pot sales), is enough to force those states on the fence over the debate to change their views. Only time will tell but were guessing it’s a pretty good push in favor of making pot legal across the country.
