Medical Marijuana Accounts for $7 Million in Sales Tax for Colorado
By: Marci Manley, KARK 4 News
Updated: November 1, 2012
Medical marijuana products have been legal in Colorado since 2000.
Over the past 12 years the green rush for both products and money from sales has continued to grow, but dispensary owners say that growth hasn't gone unchecked without regulation.
At Summit Wellness Dispensary, Crystal Lasiter dishes out marijuana; not as a recreational drug, but as a dose of medicine.
The medical marijuana system has been in place for over a decade in Denver and the state of Colorado.
You have to have a medical problem or concern and a red card certificate to prove you're a patient.
Roughly 500 marijuana dispensaries exist in Colorado, accounting for thousands of sales and $7 million in sales tax going straight into state coffers over the past two years.
And the options aren't limited to bud for smoking bowls, but lotions, lip balms and edibles.
Aside from sales, those behind the counter say the biggest payoff is the positive impact on patients.
"A lot of our patients have come in and said their doctors had them on all sorts of medications that would make them sick or make them unable to function move and its been an amazing alternative for most of them," Lasiter says.
While there are those who try to skirt the system, Lasiter thinks seeing people happier and healthier means a bad bud in the bowl doesn't ruin the whole batch.
"Yes, you have the people who come and you know yeah -- they probably don't necessarily need it for pain," she says. "Just seeing them be able to function on a daily basis without being in pain, that's worth it."
Over the past 12 years the green rush for both products and money from sales has continued to grow, but dispensary owners say that growth hasn't gone unchecked without regulation.
At Summit Wellness Dispensary, Crystal Lasiter dishes out marijuana; not as a recreational drug, but as a dose of medicine.
The medical marijuana system has been in place for over a decade in Denver and the state of Colorado.
You have to have a medical problem or concern and a red card certificate to prove you're a patient.
Roughly 500 marijuana dispensaries exist in Colorado, accounting for thousands of sales and $7 million in sales tax going straight into state coffers over the past two years.
And the options aren't limited to bud for smoking bowls, but lotions, lip balms and edibles.
Aside from sales, those behind the counter say the biggest payoff is the positive impact on patients.
"A lot of our patients have come in and said their doctors had them on all sorts of medications that would make them sick or make them unable to function move and its been an amazing alternative for most of them," Lasiter says.
While there are those who try to skirt the system, Lasiter thinks seeing people happier and healthier means a bad bud in the bowl doesn't ruin the whole batch.
"Yes, you have the people who come and you know yeah -- they probably don't necessarily need it for pain," she says. "Just seeing them be able to function on a daily basis without being in pain, that's worth it."
