Coloradians are learning there is more to legalizing marijuana than just a simple statement by the voters. Regulating the industry is taking up hundreds of hours of legislator’s time and costing taxpayers a wad of money. Fortunately for Colorado residents the tax revenue generated by the sale of legal weed so far, outweighs the administrative costs.
One of the issues currently facing administrators is marijuana concentrate and the potency of edibles sold.
When people buy marijuana from a store in Colorado the amount of weed they walk out with is easy to measure – just measure it on a triple-balance scale. This is not the case when they buy a brownie or cookie.
Did you know that an ounce of marijuana concentrate has 10 times the THC as an ounce of green weed? An ounce of weed could last a medical marijuana user 1-2 months whereas an ounce of hash oil concentrate could last the same user as much as a year.
Colorado still needs to figure out how much marijuana concentrate should be allowed to be purchased on any given visit. The state of Washington (the only other state in the US to have legal marijuana) allows a person to purchase less than an ounce of hash oil, 16 ounces of edibles and 72 ounces of marijuana-infused beverages.
We will continue to follow Colorado and Washington’s attempts to deal with marijuana in their respective states. Hopefully, a good portion of the tax revenues will be used for drug classes. What do you think?