C<\/span>olorado\u2019s legal cannabis industry has reached a major milestone, providing the state with $500 million in revenue since the start of commercial sales in 2014. This does not include additional revenue collected at the local level\u00a0by city and county governments.<\/p>\n A recently released\u00a0analysis of state data<\/a>\u00a0by Denver-based VS Strategies traces the flow from\u00a0the state\u2019s five main revenue streams (the 15 percent excise tax and 20 percent special tax contributed the bulk of the funds) and maps out\u00a0how the money is being distributed across the state.<\/p>\n According to the report, revenue currently appears\u00a0to be pouring in at a similar rate to last year: Cannabis sales for 2017 so far have already surpassed total sales for 2014 and are well on the way to something comparable to the $198,522,164 collected in 2016.<\/p>\n The allocation of cannabis revenue broke down as follows: 51.3 percent to K-12 public schools, 14.2 percent to substance abuse and prevention programs, 11.9 percent to covering regulatory costs, 10 percent to surveys, research and public education, 8.4 percent to other public health programs and 2.6 percent to criminal justice and public safety, with the final 1.6 percent going to youth services programs.<\/p>\n State legislator\u00a0Rep. Jonathan Singer, a former youth counselor who\u2019s taken a lead role in promoting Colorado\u2019s legal cannabis industry as a revenue stream for social services, joined Lauren Arnold, Executive Director of Adoption Exchange \u2014 an adoption and foster service organization that recently received more than $3 million in cannabis revenue through the Tony Grampsas Youth Services Program\u00a0\u2014 at a press conference to speak on the historic milestone for the state.<\/p>\n At the presser, Mason Tvert \u2014 former communications director for the Marijuana Policy Project, now with VS Strategies \u2014 and cannabis attorney Brian Vicente, who were both instrumental in the 2012 campaign for regulated and taxed commercial cannabis sales, handed Singer a giant \u201ccheck\u201d for $500 million.<\/p>\n \u201cLegalizing, regulating, and taxing marijuana for adult use has generated hundreds of millions of dollars in new revenue for Colorado,\u201d Tvert said. \u201cMarijuana tax money has been used to improve a wide range of programs and services. It is funding everything from school construction to substance abuse treatment to fighting homelessness. While it might not fix every school or help every person who needs it, it is having a significant and positive impact on our community.\u201d<\/p>\n Tvert added that he\u2019s excited for the milestone and where the money is going.<\/p>\n \u201cWe hope lawmakers will continue to distribute these funds responsibly and not lose sight of what voters intended when they opted to regulate and tax marijuana similarly to alcohol,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n At the local level, cities are spending their piece of the pie in various ways: Last month Pueblo County used $420,000 in local revenue to provide college scholarships to 210 local students; In Aurora, $1.5 million went to fight homelessness, with additional funds\u00a0going to improve roads and help pay for a new recreation center.<\/p>\n And over in Edgewater, they\u2019re literally rebuilding the town: Pot taxes accounted for 20 percent of the city budget in 2016 and that revenue is being used to repave all of its streets, fix miles of sidewalks and help fund the construction of a new city complex.<\/p>\n TELL US,<\/strong> what could increased revenue do for your city or town?<\/p>\n The post Colorado\u2019s Legal Cannabis Revenue Hits the $500 Million Mark<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Colorado started collecting taxes from the sale of legal cannabis in 2014. This month, the state\u2019s total cannabis revenue reached the half-billion dollar mark. Colorado\u2019s legal cannabis industry has reached a major milestone, providing the state with $500 million in revenue since the start of commercial sales in 2014. ThisContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,21,80,170,65,729,153],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17916"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17916"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17916\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17917,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17916\/revisions\/17917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: Colorado\u2019s Legal Cannabis Revenue Hits the 0 Million Mark<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"