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Comment by mason240 | Hacker News Reader

>Tax collected on marijuana sales came to $70 million (does not give the time period)

How much does Colorado collect in taxes on cigarettes and alcohol? I can't find any numbers to put this into context.

According to this Colorado DOR [0], this report [1] contains the following figures for Fiscal year 2013/2014 for alcohol excise taxes:

    Spirits: $26,512,197
    Wine:    $ 5,571,591
    Beer:    $ 8,784,975

For a grand total of $40,868,764.

I did not look for figures for cigarettes.

[0]- https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/revenue/colorado-liquor-exc...

[1] - https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/sites/default/files/Liquor%...

Colorado collected $42 million in alcohol taxes over the same time period.

http://dailycaller.com/2015/09/15/colorado-just-became-the-f...

Seems like their alcohol taxes are far too low, considering how much more harmful alcohol is versus marijuana.

Or their marijuana tax is too high (as it were).

If that's all the tax is meant to do, offset harm. Which is only one small part of the story, I imagine.

I've had a hard time convincing many of fellow Coloradoans of how harmful alcohol is compared to marijuana. It's newly legal, so people fear it more irrationally.

This is what I use to get my point across.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2010/11/drugs_caus...

This doesn't take into account the revenue the state gains through its vicious DUI/DWAI laws.

I would venture to guess that number far exceeds $42 mm/annum.

If you are going to include that, wouldn't you then have to include all the money it costs the state to pay for damages caused by drunken drivers?

Looks like ~$200M in state and local tobacco tax revenue in 2012.

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Doc...

According to [1], $206M in 2012.

[1] [http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Doc...]

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