<story><title>Colorado Pot Tax Proving More Lucrative Than Expected</title><url>http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2014/02/20/colorado_pot_tax_revenue_more_money_than_expected.html</url><text></text></story><parent_chain><item><author>gopalv</author><text>Ugh, is this going to look like Big Tobacco in 50 years?&lt;p&gt;Vice taxes and revenue streams to be kept alive for the district?&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s going to be such a kick-in-the-backside for everyone who just wanted to decriminalize it &amp;amp; stop putting people away for years.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tomphoolery</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t believe it will be quite the same. Big Tobacco really profits off the fact that most people can&amp;#x27;t grow tobacco year round, and thus must purchase it at some point throughout the year. That basic fact is what ensures those companies never die. Tobacco was always grown outdoors, and there was never a need to research how to cultivate it clandestinely, be it indoors or small numbers.&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, pot can be grown in a computer case or a closet. It&amp;#x27;s been bred for almost 100 years (maybe more) to be grown out of sight and out of mind. Given a very small amount of research and learning, almost anyone on the face of this planet can grow a marijuana plant. It&amp;#x27;s called &amp;quot;weed&amp;quot; for a reason.&lt;p&gt;edit: In other words, it&amp;#x27;s not exactly the same thing as what big tobacco was doing, which is marketing products on a mass scale, all the while knowing the kind of health damage that such products caused. That is what people had problems with.</text></comment>
<story><title>Colorado Pot Tax Proving More Lucrative Than Expected</title><url>http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2014/02/20/colorado_pot_tax_revenue_more_money_than_expected.html</url><text></text></story><parent_chain><item><author>gopalv</author><text>Ugh, is this going to look like Big Tobacco in 50 years?&lt;p&gt;Vice taxes and revenue streams to be kept alive for the district?&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s going to be such a kick-in-the-backside for everyone who just wanted to decriminalize it &amp;amp; stop putting people away for years.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>hershel</author><text>Technically, there are ways to prevent some of the harms of marijuana: Using e-cigarettes and using marijuana strains who mostly contain CBD(which generally has positive effects) and little THC(which creates feelings of paranoia and might have mental health risks) , so there are possible regulatory means to reduce lots of the risks without reducing tax revenue.</text></comment>