April 08, 2013 08:07 AM UTC

Taxing (The Hell Out Of) Legal Weed

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• by: Colorado Pols

AP's Kristen Wyatt reports via the Durango Herald:

A legislative panel decided Friday that marijuana in Colorado could be taxed at rates above 30 percent. But voters would have to OK the taxes, and some lawmakers fear the state’s tax-skeptical public could reject such high rates.

A House-Senate panel set up to propose marijuana regulations agreed to ask voters to approve a 15 percent excise tax, plus a 15 percent sales tax on the newly legal drug. If the full Legislature agrees, voters would be asked about the taxes in November. Commercial pot sales will begin in January…

Republican Rep. Brian DelGrosso said many who voted to make marijuana legal did so because of the potential taxes it could raise for schools. But he worried that even tax fans could pause at taxes in excess of 30 percent.

…But most of the panel agreed with the tax rates, pointing out that the Legislature could lower them later. The tax measure passed 8-2.

The fact that Rep. Brian DelGrosso is even talking about such a large proposed tax without invoking the Boston Tea Party reveals something very important about the debate over implementation of Amendment 64, passed last year legalizing the recreational possession and sale of marijuana in Colorado. For our part, we have consistently argued for as high a tax on legalized marijuana as can be levied–and it seems likely that voters will indeed approve a hefty tax on legal pot that they would never support for other commercially sold products.

But how much is too much, folks? We don't have a good sense of the answer to that question. As a vice product that has been illegal for many decades, and using the taxation of, for example, tobacco as a guide, one would think that the public would tolerate a tax on pot that doubled the retail price of the product or more. On the other hand, the easily-quantifiable public costs of tobacco use do not cleanly apply in the case of marijuana–at least not yet.

One thing we agree with Rep. DelGrosso on wholeheartedly is that Amendment 64 was approved by voters to produce revenue for the state, in addition to the goals of policy harm reduction and reasonable, enforceable laws. Despite our state's stoner reputation, we'd say many if not a majority of the voters who approved Amendment 64 are not themselves pot smokers. Those are the voters who need to feel confidence in this process.

And they're in this for the money.