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Marijuana economics
Taxing medical use can ease budgetary pain
Here in Colorado, the amounts will certainly be much smaller, but the state and its municipalities could enjoy some revenue from the same product.
Colorado's attorney general, John Suthers, has said that his office's opinion is that medical marijuana can be subject to sales taxes. The city and county of Denver had been moving in just that direction.
Suthers was quick to say that his opinion does not affirm the legality of medical marijuana, the use of which was approved by Colorado voters in 2000, just that it can be taxed. Had it been considered a prescription drug, it could not be. Colorado exempts prescription drugs from sales taxes. Suthers wrote that, in the language, physicians when they approve the use of marijuana are only stating that the drug might be of some medical benefit. That is not the certainty of a prescription.
And - surprise - a major group promoting medical marijuana in the state says it welcomes a sales tax on the product. That tax-me stance does not occur often.
The executive director of the Colorado Wellness Associates sees in the tax a way to help legitimize the medical treatment. And while he did not say it, he may also hope that the state and various municipalities become accustomed to, if only to a small degree, the revenue that comes from taxing medical marijuana.
Proponents of marijuana for medical use have successfully put the camel's nose under the tent. Dispensaries are springing up around the state, benefiting some doctors in a small way, and the real estate trade and generating some media advertising. Now, there will be tax revenues. All this is a good example, if small, of how legislation can create a new component to the economy and add to government revenues.
What will be next?
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