DES MOINES – Iowa could reap millions in new tax revenue if legislators and the governor would only legalize pot, a financial tools website said Monday.
Nerdwallet.com, which creates financial tools and analysis for several top new websites including the New York Times, said states could gain just over $3 billion in tax revenue from legal marijuana sales. It said Iowa’s “piece of the pie” could be over $24 million if it allowed legal pot sales.
There are 84,128 pot smokers in Iowa over the age of 25, NerdWallet.com, said, and many of them have money to spend on the product they so covet. Iowa has a potential marijuana market size of $111,734,749.
Many say that legalizing pot sales would save thousands of individuals from “needless incarceration”, and free up prisons for more hardened criminals.
I agree with LVS. Plus, pot will continue to be marketed here on the black market as it is now and no taxes will be collected, it has shown to be true in Colorado already. The cops will just have to change their focus from what they are doing now to catching the black market dealers that are not paying taxes. There is nothing to be gained here.
I’ve read countless idiotic comments on this site, but this might be the best one yet! Drugs are only sold on the black market now and not a cent of taxes is earned from that. Yes, the black market still exists in CO but they are also raking in millions of dollars from the people who buy legally. The law is still new, problems like this will work themselves out with further tweaking of the laws.
And what is it going to cost in all the judges, law enforcement, prisons and all the other things that will be needed when you open up a gateway drug. They never tell you that. There are enough brain dead people running around here now without making it legal to destroy the brains of people who can’t afford to lose any intelligence.
Gateway drug, LOL. The real gateway drug is already legal LVS – it’s called alcohol. One might even argue the real gateway drug is tobacco. How about caffeine? Young kids getting those latte’s can feel the effects of that caffeine buzz and want more. A drug is a drug is a drug is a drug. Making some legal and others not is idiotic. It didn’t work with alcohol during prohibition and it’s not working now with any other drugs.
Agreed. Education and awareness are far better tools than prohibition and punishment. In Amsterdam they even have guides telling you what to expect from certain types of psilocybn or cannabis, and they grade the substances based on potency. The world we live in polychemical, and people can either ignore and fear this or become aware and educated. I was fearful and ignorant once, and that’s no way to be. Awareness with an ability to make informed decisions is the proper course of action
Stores in Colorado do the same thing.
Let’s legalize already and focus on some real drug problems!
“National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) show that nearly one-third of people aged 12 and over who used drugs for the first time in 2009 began by using a prescription drug non-medically”
http://www.whitehouse.gov/ondcp/prescription-drug-abuse
“In 2011, of the 41,340 drug overdose deaths in the United States, 22,810 (55%) were related to pharmaceuticals”
http://www.cdc…
The last link didn’t post for some reason so here it is again if anyone wants to check the quotes references from either Government websites.
http://www.cdc.gov/homeandrecreationalsafety/overdose/facts.html
No, LVS, there are no reputable studies whatsoever that pot is a “gateway drug” to anything.
I understand you are a Big Government fan, but before we waste more money on the parasites of the war on drugs–the cops, judge, prosecutors, and jailers–you could try a more honest argument than the lame one you posted.
@Rhambo-A pot head like you trying to tell the rest of us we are wrong is really what is wrong here. There are all kinds of study’s proving what I said and you damn well know it. You are just to stupid to understand them. Try telling the world that pot doesn’t dumb you down when you are a prime example that it does.
Here’s a study from 2014 on how alcohol is the real gateway drug
http://www.collective-evolution.com/2014/04/12/study-the-gateway-drug-is-alcohol-not-marijuana/
Here’s a CBS news piece showing 7 myths of marijuana. #2 is that it’s a gateway drug
http://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/marijuana-7-health-myths-up-in-smoke/2/
It’s not the drug itself that leads people to other drugs, it’s their person situations and circumstances.
Additionally, making pot illegal means you have to buy it from a drug dealer, who might also have harder drugs for sale. If pot is legalized that would mean the users wouldn’t have to interact with criminal drug…