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Marijuana Vote in Colorado Weighs 25% Tax for Recreation

UPDATE: Colorado voters approved a 25% tax on newly legalized marijuana, paving the way for retail sales to begin next year. The ballot measure broke the tax down into a 15% excise tax that will go toward school construction and a separate 10% sales tax to fund enforcement of marijuana policy. In total, new tax revenue is expected to add about $50 to the price of an ounce of medium-quality marijuana.

Just two months before Colorado retailers begin selling recreational marijuana to legal adults for the first time in the U.S., voters will weigh in today on a 25 percent tax to help fund enforcement efforts intended to forestall federal intervention.

As the drug emerges from prohibition in Colorado, state officials and even existing medical marijuana dispensary owners say taxes are necessary to ensure there’s money to cope with uncertainties likely to crop up in a new industry being watched worldwide. “We don’t want to be at odds with the federal government and have them swooping down into our state,” said state Senator Cheri Jahn, a Democrat from Wheat Ridge who worked on a task force that devised regulations for the new industry. “We worked really hard to make sure we had tight statutes so there could be tight enforcement,” Jahn said. “Without funding, that cannot happen.”

The proposed marijuana taxes are among several ballot measures in Colorado today. Other issues include a $950 million state income-tax increase to finance education, local initiatives to restrict oil and gas drilling, and whether voters in 11 counties want to secede from the state after lawmakers passed the toughest gun-control laws in a decade.

Polls show a majority of voters approve of a proposed 15 percent excise tax on the wholesale price of retail marijuana that will go partly to fund school construction and a 10 percent sales tax to finance regulatory efforts. Even so, the passage of Proposition AA in a state with a long anti-tax history is not a sure thing.

Here are both websites for opposite positions:
http://www.yesonpropaa.com & http://noovertaxation.org

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Source: Bloomberg