Colorado: Weed Killer
Conventional wisdom now equates legality with a dedicated tax and regulatory apparatus
While browsing the commentary after Election Day 2013 I kept reading about the victory in Colorado. I thought, “Fantastic! They shot down that silly marijuana tax.” Actually, what they shot down was Proposition 66, a different tax and an effort to revamp the government schools there.
Proposition AA, the marijuana tax, passed with over 60 percent of the vote. It creates two new taxes for the newly legalized recreational pot: 15 percent at the wholesale level and a 10 percent retail sales tax. Some cities, like Boulder, piled on to the tune of a further 8.5 percent local tax on top of the state tax.
"The passage of Proposition AA today completes the historic process of regulating and taxing marijuana in the state of Colorado," Brian Vicente, one of the architects of marijuana legalization and a proponent of the tax measure, said in a statement.
That is to say, Vicente sees the institution of these taxes as inherent to the process of legalization—if there aren’t taxes applied and bureaucracy erected around it, it’s not actually legal.Read the rest here.
Ⓐ Steve Ⓐ
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