barnyard
Member
This week the Denver Mayor and City Council threatened me with a year of jail for smoking a J on the front porch of my home. Totally ridiculous.
This is just a few weeks before Coloradans vote on the excessive taxation scheme of Proposition AA. Bad timing folks.
Here's a basic explanation of Proposition AA - using conservative numbers - from an editor on the Western slope:
http://westernslopewatchdog.com/2013/09/editorial-vote-no-on-proposition-aa/
"It was 1974 when I first smoked marijuana, finding relief from pervasive insomnia, severe anxiety, social ackwardness, lack of enthusiasm for food, and various other problems that I later decided had to be genetic in nature.
In 1975, I wrote a science fiction story predicting the legalization of marijuana.
In 2012, Colorado voters brought my prediction to reality. The benefits of legalization include: depriving cartels and terrorists of black-market funding; freeing police resources to fight real crime; lowering the price of pot, making it less appealing to get-rich-quick illegal dealers; establishing an access system that excludes teenagers; and, ending a judicial bias against blacks, hispanics and us poor white hippies.
Amendment 64, which legalized marijuana in Colorado, suggested to the legislature that it might want to consider a small excise tax to fund the agency that would regulate purity, potency, weights and measures, and compliance with the new, admittedly experimental law.
In their infinite lack of wisdom, the Colorado legislature came back to the voters with an atrocity called Proposition AA, wanting to implement a 10 percent wholesale tax and 15 percent retail tax on marijuana sold in retail stores. No retail tax at all was authorized by Amendment 64 – the amount of the excise tax was clearly limited to 15 percent.
Under medical marijuana legalization, prices of pot have dropped from $400 per ounce to the range of $175 to $280. A 25 percent tax could push prices back up as high as $355 per ounce, close to the black market price of $400.
That means that illegal dealers would set the price at $300, undercut the government-taxed retail stores, and keep their illegal businesses going full steam. What’s the point of legalization if the illegal street dealers, who will sell to kids, keep on going full steam?
Because only about 10 to 12 percent of Colorado residents consume marijuana, the legislature thinks the other 88 to 90 percent will be willing to vote in a 25-percent “sin tax” on marijuana to fund schools and heavy-handed marijuana regulations.
This is a bad idea, and it should be voted down. If this proposition loses, then the state sales tax of 2.9 percent will apply to retail marijuana, along with whatever local governments add, and that’s enough. Forty percent will still go to schools, and the rest will go to legal marijuana compliance.
The proposed tax would not apply to medical marijuana, encouraging even more people with questionable medical claims to seek medical marijuana cards, overburdening an already overburdened system.
The whole point of Amendment 64 was to treat marijuana exactly as alcohol is treated in Colorado, and there’s no 25 percent sin tax on alcohol in this state.
Marijuana will provide plenty of money to state and local governments without Proposition AA. There’s no need for an excessive, 25-percent sin tax on marijuana… it’s just more governmental greed."
VOTE NO ON PROPOSITION AA!!!
This is just a few weeks before Coloradans vote on the excessive taxation scheme of Proposition AA. Bad timing folks.
Here's a basic explanation of Proposition AA - using conservative numbers - from an editor on the Western slope:
http://westernslopewatchdog.com/2013/09/editorial-vote-no-on-proposition-aa/
"It was 1974 when I first smoked marijuana, finding relief from pervasive insomnia, severe anxiety, social ackwardness, lack of enthusiasm for food, and various other problems that I later decided had to be genetic in nature.
In 1975, I wrote a science fiction story predicting the legalization of marijuana.
In 2012, Colorado voters brought my prediction to reality. The benefits of legalization include: depriving cartels and terrorists of black-market funding; freeing police resources to fight real crime; lowering the price of pot, making it less appealing to get-rich-quick illegal dealers; establishing an access system that excludes teenagers; and, ending a judicial bias against blacks, hispanics and us poor white hippies.
Amendment 64, which legalized marijuana in Colorado, suggested to the legislature that it might want to consider a small excise tax to fund the agency that would regulate purity, potency, weights and measures, and compliance with the new, admittedly experimental law.
In their infinite lack of wisdom, the Colorado legislature came back to the voters with an atrocity called Proposition AA, wanting to implement a 10 percent wholesale tax and 15 percent retail tax on marijuana sold in retail stores. No retail tax at all was authorized by Amendment 64 – the amount of the excise tax was clearly limited to 15 percent.
Under medical marijuana legalization, prices of pot have dropped from $400 per ounce to the range of $175 to $280. A 25 percent tax could push prices back up as high as $355 per ounce, close to the black market price of $400.
That means that illegal dealers would set the price at $300, undercut the government-taxed retail stores, and keep their illegal businesses going full steam. What’s the point of legalization if the illegal street dealers, who will sell to kids, keep on going full steam?
Because only about 10 to 12 percent of Colorado residents consume marijuana, the legislature thinks the other 88 to 90 percent will be willing to vote in a 25-percent “sin tax” on marijuana to fund schools and heavy-handed marijuana regulations.
This is a bad idea, and it should be voted down. If this proposition loses, then the state sales tax of 2.9 percent will apply to retail marijuana, along with whatever local governments add, and that’s enough. Forty percent will still go to schools, and the rest will go to legal marijuana compliance.
The proposed tax would not apply to medical marijuana, encouraging even more people with questionable medical claims to seek medical marijuana cards, overburdening an already overburdened system.
The whole point of Amendment 64 was to treat marijuana exactly as alcohol is treated in Colorado, and there’s no 25 percent sin tax on alcohol in this state.
Marijuana will provide plenty of money to state and local governments without Proposition AA. There’s no need for an excessive, 25-percent sin tax on marijuana… it’s just more governmental greed."
VOTE NO ON PROPOSITION AA!!!
