Medical-Marijuana Sales Tax Nets $2.2 Million For Colorado This Year

[Michael Komorn]

Medical-marijuana sales tax nets $2.2 million for Colorado this year

By John Ingold

The Denver Post

POSTED: 11/23/2010 01:00:00 AM MST

UPDATED: 11/23/2010 06:36:57 AM MST

 

 

Medical-marijuana dispensaries are now putting hundreds of thousands of dollars a month into state and city treasuries in Colorado.

So far this year, the state has collected more than $2.2 million in sales tax from dispensaries. In Denver, which has more dispensaries than any other city in Colorado, the businesses have also paid more than $2.2 million this year in local sales tax. Colorado Springs has collected about $380,000 in local sales tax.

"It's just another excellent example that shows that medical marijuana isn't just amazing for patients but it's also productive for non-patients — for neighborhoods and cities," said Betty Aldworth, the executive director of the pro-dispensary industry group Coloradans for Medical Marijuana Regulation.

The money is certainly welcomed in government budget offices across Colorado, which have struggled to keep the books balanced during the recession. But, in the overall budget picture, the infusion is little more than a speck. Colorado, for instance, took in more than $1.8 billion in sales-tax money during the fiscal year that closed at the end of June, according to the governor's Office of State Planning and Budgeting.

In Colorado Springs, dispensaries represented 0.5 percent of the city's October sales-tax revenue. In Denver, they are on pace to be about 0.7 percent of the city's projected $417 million in sales-tax revenues this year. By comparison, restaurants — the city's sales tax champs — bring in about $6 million per month, city budget director Ed Scholz said.

"So it's not a significant amount of money," Scholz said.

Still, medical-marijuana advocates said the revenues show that their industry deserves a place in local economies.

In Denver, for instance, monthly marijuana-related sales-tax receipts since March have stabilized around $265,000, which Norton Arbelaez, the owner of the River Rock Wellness dispensary, said shows medical-marijuana businesses can provide a consistent revenue stream. He also said sales-tax receipts should nudge upward if Colorado's medical-marijuana patient registry — now at about 115,000 people, according to the state Department of Public Health and Environment — continues to grow.

Arbelaez — who is also the chairman of the board of the Medical Marijuana Industry Group, a statewide trade organization — said the revenue is an argument for the continued legitimization of the dispensary system.

"This isn't new money," Arbelaez said. "Patients, before we had medical marijuana in Colorado, were spending this money in the black market. ... This is money that the city and state get a piece of as well."

State Attorney General John Suthers — who authored an opinion that medical-marijuana sales in Colorado should be taxed but who has also contended dispensaries are beyond what state voters intended when they legalized medical marijuana — said through a spokesman that the new revenue stream doesn't change his opinion of dispensaries.

Suthers also said focusing just on revenue ignores other impacts dispensaries may have on the community.

He noted a report by Education News Colorado showing that drug-related suspensions at schools in the state are up by nearly a third, something some attribute to the more open availability of marijuana.

Aldworth, with Coloradans for Medical Marijuana Regulation, conceded that the revenue numbers probably won't persuade cities that have banned dispensaries to reconsider.

"People don't get excited about medical marijuana because of the tax revenues," she said. "That's just another bonus. People get excited about medical marijuana when they see its effects on the patients."

John Ingold: 303-954-1068 or jingold@denverpost.com

 

 

 

Read more: Medical-marijuana sales tax nets $2.2 million for Colorado this year - The Denver Post

 

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[MichiganMan]

I love how they compared the revenue from MMJ to their restaurants.

[+EdwardGlen]

Jesus Christ Michigan politicians wake up and smell the money! You hypocritical SOBs are crying about budget deficits and yet you want to spend hundreds of thousands of tax payer dollars persecuting legal patients and caregivers.

 

Allow dispensaries to tax any medical cannabis at the currant 6% and leave us dieing and sick people alone. The priorities of Lansing and Washington DC are as mixed up as a twelve year old.

 

Would anyone object if the taxes from cannabis went into a separate fund for social net programs I don't. We have a lot of Michiganders that need help and many many more will in the up coming months with unemployment extensions stopped.

 

At my currant use I'd pay $28.50 a month in taxes on my cannabis so what! I don't know maybe make a choice 50% social fund 50% state tax coffers. Together we can work this out to every one's satisfaction but our opponents are going to have to be willing to sit down and be willing to compromise as it seems we always do.

 

Think about this use the taxes from cannabis for unemployment payments so no more of our citizens lose their homes and can feed their families. Use some of the taxes for other social safety net programs it should not go into the general fund so it can be exploited.

 

Grow industrial hemp.

 

Why does it seem the people in charge are finding it so hard to find ways to put people to work or generate tax revenues with-out ripping off the middle class anymore. How many acres of industrial hemp can Michigan grow and how would that relate to tax revenue. (this is easy maybe i will run for office)

 

Wow I don't people...l really worry at times about where the heck our state heck the country will be in twenty or fifty years, I doubt we would recognize either.

 

But I also believe that we can change things before we reach critical mass and implode socially.

[GanjaWarrior]

i dont object... however, in principle it seems down right wrong that i could have just paid taxes on something the feds are sending me to prison for. i am happy to pay the tax, when the state accepts it they should stand up for us to the feds.

[Kingdiamond]

Thats nothing compared to the money being shoved into the pockets of politicians on both sides of the table as long as big pharm is paying graft no amount of money earned for state goverment from taxation of cannabis helps our cause.