On March 25, The Associated Press reported that Colorado lawmakers are bound to weigh a bill to reinstate marijuana as a possible federal pot crackdown. If this bill is passed, marijuana growers will be allowed to restore their recreational marijuana as medical marijuana.
- Colorado lawmakers proposed a new bill regarding medical and recreational marijuana.
- They will reclassify it in case of a federal pot crackdown.
- The taxes for recreational marijuana are higher compared to those perceived for medical pot.
This possible reclassification would be an expensive and dramatic change for Colorado. The state could lose over $100 million every year because of a lower tax rate on medical marijuana. Colorado imposes a greater tax for recreational marijuana compared to medical one. For the first one, it perceives a 2.9% tax while for the second about 17.9 %. Tim Neville, the lawmaker who sponsored the bill, claimed that if the federal law changes, all their businesses would like to stay in business. Every business has made significant investments.
Neville also claimed that entrepreneurs in Colorado should know how to alter that product to transform it into the medical counterpart to sell it. Based on the latest data provided, last year in June, Colorado had 827,000 cannabis plants in the retail system. Half of this quantity was in the recreational market. The new bill permits the marijuana industry to find out that there is something after the day of tomorrow, irrespective of what tomorrow might bring.
Last week, this bill passed the committee in the state’s Senate led by GOP. This is an unusual strategy used to protect this industry from a potential pot crackdown. This attitude is known to be the most courageous attempt by a US marijuana state to prohibit the intervention of federal authorities in Colorado’s marijuana market. If it appears any change in the federal law, then all 500 licensed recreational marijuana growers will be able to reclassify the pot as being medical.
If this change is needed, then people should know that recreational marijuana would not be erased from the charts, but it will not completely protect it either. Nevertheless, the new bill will help growers safeguard their inventory if federal authorities seize recreational weed. This bill attracted the attention of many people, including members of Trump’s administration, like Sean Spicer, who said that recreational weed and medical marijuana are not one and the same thing.
However, those who sponsor the bill see this as a possible exit strategy which could be helpful in the new marijuana industry.
Image source: flickr
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