In case you were wondering, I’m watching the legalization of recreational marijuana to see what effect heavy-handed regulation has on a newly legal industry. My hypothesis? Overbearing regulation will restrict, if not strangle, an emerging industry.
Articles discussed in this post: taxes raised from recreational marijuana in Colorado may have to be returned to taxpayers and two radically different plans for legalization in Ohio.
4/1 – New York Times – In Colorado, Marijuana Taxes May Have to Be Passed Back – The taxpayer’s bill of rights in Colorado requires that when the state collects more money that it forecast on passing the state budget, the excess has to go back to taxpayers. Sounds like an okay plan, right?
Wrinkle in that plan is that all programs generating money get hit. Apparently the details in the voter approved plan will require that most or all of the money collected on sales of recreational marijuana may have to be returned to the taxpayers somehow.
To whom and how much remains to be determined. State legislators want to keep the money, of course. So they are trying to figure out how to not return it to the taxpayers.
