Here’s some great news on a Monday. Schools, police forces, and addiction treatment centers in Oregon are three-and-a-half million dollars richer.
How did a state come into such a wonderful windfall? By simply allowing citizen to do what they already were doing.
Smoking that ganj.
In October, Oregon legalized pot, and on January 1, a statewide tax went into effect for all sales.
Over that month, the state reaped in $3.48 milli in tax. That’s the revenue they expected to raise for the whole year. Done in the first month.
Oregon dispensaries sold at least $14 million worth of recreational marijuana in January alone. That figure doesn’t take into account medical marijuana sales, which remain untaxed.
The collections for a single month exceed state economists’ projections for the entire year.
All that nug puffing is going to a good cause, too.
[The] law says 40 percent goes to the state’s Common School Fund, 20 percent to mental health, alcoholism and drug services, 15 percent to Oregon State Police, 10 percent for city law enforcement, 10 percent for county law enforcement and 5 percent to the Oregon Health Authority for alcohol and drug abuse prevention, early intervention and treatment services.
That’s some pretty dope shit, no? There really is no downside to legalized pot.
[H/T Mic]