... about what Colorado can do with all that recreational weed money.
I knew we were gonna make bank (go Colorado go!) when I saw this headline:
Colorado Recreational Marijuana Sales Exceed $5 Million In First Week
Colorado marijuana dispensaries made huge sales in the first week of legal recreational marijuana.
Owners of the 37 new dispensaries around the state reported first week retail sales to The Huffington Post that, when added together, were roughly $5 million.
That's a lot of green for Colorado's legal weed.
Yes, yes it is a lot of green. It is, as they say, a metric fuckton of green that the state of Colorado could sorely use in its coffers.
Unbelievably, yearly 2014 sales tax estimates of recreational pot are expected to hit or exceed $133 million dollars, which is "far above previous estimates". This is crazy: the original estimates were less than one half of the most current projections for the Weed Windfall™.
That's a lot of fucking money. I'm just sayin'.
I know that, for now, Governor John Hickenlooper (we call him "Hick") has stated that he'll use most of that money -- $99 million, actually -- to go towards education aimed at preventing kids from doing drugs.
I think that's a mistake on many fronts, not the least of which is that the War on Drugs has been lost for quite sometime now, and now that marijuana smoking and sales are fully legal in the state of CO, we need to teach kids to be responsible consumers of pot, just like we do when we talk to them about drinking alcohol:
"Please don't do it, but if you do, make sure that you drink/toke responsibly and don't get into a car with someone who's been driving while drinking/toking, either. And don't call me to come bail you out of jail, because I'm not going to do it."
I think the state of Colorado could save most of that money to be used for other, more worthy projects.
So I present to you:
$133.00 MILLION WEED WINDFALL BUDGET!
March 6, 2014
by Shiz
* $50 million goes to K-12 schools around the state to help more disabled and special needs children, reinstitute music and art programs, and hire more aides.
* $10 million is used to increase pay for teachers who's classroom performance meets or exceeds expectations every year
* $10 million is used to increase pay for police officers, firefights, EMTs, and first responders
* $10 million is used to increase pay and fully staff city, county, and state government offices, including libraries
* $50 million is used to fund infrastructure upkeep, maintenance, or replacement, including city, county, and state highways, roads, bridges, power plants, and the like
* $3 million is up for grabs :)
That's how I would do it, anyway. You really should listen to me, Hick, I'm smart!
Comments? Questions? How would you earmark this awesome money?