How the U.S. Government Is Profiting From Keeping Pot Illegal
A new report suggests the feds could earn $5 billion in the next decade if weed stays federally banned — so where’s the incentive for legalization?
Wanda James is great at following rules. A former Naval officer and restaurant owner, James has spent the past decade jumping through all the hoops required to run a marijuana dispensary in Colorado: filing all of the appropriate paperwork to get licensed, complying with each new round of regulations and paying “easily double” what a non-cannabis business would in taxes to a federal government that still considers her a criminal.
“No other business that I’ve run has had to operate like this. It is almost impossible to turn a profit,” James says. “It is so frustrating to be treated like drug dealers and effectively taxed double when this industry has already brought Colorado over $500 million to build new schools and support education.”
James is not alone. Because of the discrepancy between state and federal law, legal marijuana businesses are often stuck paying twice as much as normal businesses — effective rates of up to 70 percent — in federal taxes. Exactly how much extra tax revenue makes it to…
