Time - Colorado will suffer if Sessions’ Department of Justice decides to pursue the federal prosecution of marijuana laws. State taxes on the sale of retail and medical marijuana brought the state nearly $180 million in tax revenue in 2016. Marijuana sales injected more than $1 billion to the Colorado economy in 2017, according to The Cannabist.
“In Colorado it is a billion dollar industry, and it probably produces half a billion dollars in taxes — taxes that are often diverted to schools, to health programs,” Floyd Ciruli, a Denver-based political analyst, tells TIME. “That part of it motivates people who might be less inclined to be supportive: the Chamber of Commerce, older individuals, business-oriented Republicans.”
In a Gallup poll from October, a record 64 percent of respondents backed the legalization of marijuana, including a majority of Republicans for the first time.
But though the rancor over Sessions’ decision has been bipartisan, the consequences will imperil Republicans alone.
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If Sessions gets his way, Oregon will need to stop earthquake retrofitting and modernizing school buildings. That is what Cannabis taxes are doing in Oregon. I suspect state government will fight tooth and nail against losing that.
The GOP has not done well in Oregon since the mid 1980s, but we still have one Republican US Congressman who can lose his office over this.
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