Pubdate: Tue, 01 Apr 2014
Source: Pueblo Chieftain (CO)
Copyright: 2014 Danny Calhoon
Contact:  http://www.chieftain.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1613
Author: Danny Calhoon

POT SCARE

We start our second quarter after legalizing recreational marijuana.
March records aren't in yet, but January and February figures show the
Pueblo Country clerk collected $2 million in county taxes.
Recreational marijuana users spent $17 million plus taxes on their
favorite way to relax. Ten million dollars per month that went back
into the local community.

I haven't seen the numbers on medicinal sales. They don't pay taxes,
but one can only guess - say $5 million per month due to higher prices
for medicinal marijuana.

So that's $30 million literally snatched from the Mexican drug cartels
and re-spent locally, creating more sales taxes and a few jobs as well.

Nothing has been said about the savings in law enforcement. Sheriff
Kirk Taylor might not be so fast to bemoan all of those pot smoking
scofflaws. No prosecution, no court dates. We don't see a bunch of
regular people in jail.

How about that spike in crime?

I keep watching the police blotter for that crazy, pot-fueled, crime
wave sweeping our city. I haven't heard, from the few school employees
I know of, a surge in glass-eyed zombies taking over our schools.
Nobody is crying about all those stonies blocking the byways waiting
for the stop sign to turn green. Now maybe we can stop worrying about
marijuana and concentrate on real drugs - the real dangerous drugs.

Danny Calhoon

Pueblo 
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D