Cigarettes and Smokers

[Buckshot Bob]

Seen this today, hopefully the tax revenue does more good than the weed does harm 

 

By Scott McClallen | The Center Square

(The Center Square) – Michigan has collected about $271 million in legal, adult-use marijuana tax revenue since 2019, according to a new report from the Marijuana Policy Project that analyzed tax revenue in states with adult-use cannabis since 2014. In March 2021, the Michigan Treasury described what adult-use cannabis taxes collected in fiscal year 2020 will fund:  “[a]side from the nearly $10 million in disbursements to municipalities and counties, around $11.6 million will be sent to the School Aid Fund for K-12 education and another $11.6 million to the Michigan Transportation Fund, upon appropriation. The remaining $12.5 million amount will be used toward start-up and administrative costs.” Eighteen states have laws that legalize, tax, and regulate cannabis for adults 21 and older. A 2020 voter-approved adult-use legalization law in South Dakota was overturned by the state’s Supreme Court in November 2021. Eight of the laws were approved in 2020 or 2021, and in seven of those states, sales and tax collections have either not yet begun (or began within the last week). These figures don’t include medical cannabis tax revenue, application and licensing fees paid by cannabis businesses, additional income taxes generated by workers in the cannabis industry, or corporate taxes paid to the federal government. As of December 2021, states with legal marijuana reported a collective $10.4 billion in tax revenue from legal, adult-use cannabis sales, with more than $3 billion reported in 2021 so far. States haven't yet reported revenue for the final three months of 2021.  The report includes the tax structure for each state, total revenue generated each year, and additional information about how the revenue is being distributed to public services and programs. Michigan voters approved an initiative to legalize and regulate cannabis for adult use in November 2018. Sales started slowly in 2019 but in 2020, sales skyrocketed. In states with legal, adult-use cannabis sales, tax revenues can be allocated for social services and programs. This includes funding education, school construction, early literacy programs, public libraries, bullying prevention, behavioral health, alcohol and drug treatment, veterans’ services, conservation, job training, conviction expungement expenses, and reinvestment in communities that have been disproportionately affected by the war on cannabis, among many others.

Scott McClallen Staff Reporter The Center Square

[Utah Bob #35998]

20 hours ago, Buckshot Bob said:

And my understanding is that in many states they have raised the tax so high they have made it profitable to have illegal growing operations to avoid the tax . So now you have a whole new problem to police 

That is correct multiple illegal grow operations and black market sales  have been a problem from the start here.

[Utah Bob #35998]

21 hours ago, Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619 said:

 

Can't sugar coat it or get around it: the voters voted to legalize narcotics because that's what they want. They did it here, too. Not much research required.

Previous attempts al legalization here had all failed. Then Big money stepped in with slick commercials and a multimillion dollar propaganda campaign.The thing is that folks who did not use and never intended to voted for it because they were convinced and misled that the tax money would benefit their communities. I’m not at all sure if the issue came up today that it would pass.

[Caladisi kid]

I hear from my co-workers often that they want more money, if they are working and not part of the group getting paid not to work.  Here in Oregon,  average cigarette pack of 20 is $8.00.  If you get insurance from your employer than you pay higher rates, average $10-25 per week as a higher risk client.  So if ya burn through 3 packs a week you are giving up about a dollar an hour in a 40 hour week.  Sometimes ya can't see the paycheck through the smoke.  

[Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619]

I'm amazed by the whole thing. Legal stores, tons of illegal, the stuff being produced by innumerable warehouse loads, yet a tiny amount of the current stuff is said to do the job; is everybody smoking this stuff?

I'm not, but millions of people obviously are.