For instance, state tax revenues from recreational marijuana once were predicted to top $100 million in the current fiscal year. They’re on pace for a little more than half that. And, aside from the dollars constitutionally mandated to go to school construction, state officials haven’t seen the revenue as a budgetary windfall. They’ve instead proposed the money all go toward marijuana-related issues.
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In 2014, police said marijuana legalization would cost more for them to enforce than marijuana prohibition. Employers tightened their drug-testing policies, even though it was legal for their employees to use marijuana. More people became registered medical marijuana patients, despite the presence of a less-restrictive recreational market.
“The big assumption here was that human behavior is a light switch,” said Skyler McKinley, Freedman’s deputy, “that you legalize marijuana and everything changes overnight.”
That resiliency of old ways proved a boon to state regulators trying to implement legalization. Because Colorado already had a robust medical marijuana industry — and because the recreational marijuana industry initially was restricted to people who already owned a dispensary — the transition into legal sales was more of an evolution than a revolution.
Freedman said Colorado’s years-long struggle to develop effective regulations for medical marijuana ended up being “pre-turbulence” for the roll-out of the recreational industry. Washington state, which didn’t have a well-defined medical marijuana industry, has seen a much bumpier start to recreational sales.
But Colorado had its notable problems in 2014 — issues over the packaging and potency of edible marijuana products were especially unforeseen. But for supporters of legalization, the lack of drama locally over the opening of new marijuana businesses is Colorado’s greatest success.
“We can’t say the state has gone to hell in a handbasket,” said Brian Vicente, one of the leaders of the legalization campaign in Colorado.
“The number of I-told-you-sos that I have had to do,” said Mason Tvert, another legalization leader, “has been remarkable.”
That is not to say that things haven’t changed.
Toni Savage, the owner of 3D Cannabis Center, said the most she ever grossed in a single year operating a medical marijuana dispensary was $400,000.
This year, she’s on track to top $3.5 million in sales — with more than half of those coming from out-of-state tourists.
But bigger sales means bigger tax bills. Not only is she paying nearly $100,000 a month in state and local taxes, she also expects to have a $500,000 federal tax bill because she can’t deduct business expenses in the same way that stores that aren’t illegal under federal law can.
“I made a ton of money,” she said, “but I owe more than I have.”
The situation could get even tougher in 2015 because the state has started to allow newcomers into the recreational marijuana business. Savage said stores fear a glut of marijuana, which could drive down prices that have budged only slightly since the beginning of 2014.
“If you’re in the business, it’s going to get really ugly,” she said.
It’s the change in the amount of attention Colorado has received from outside the state that defines the first year of legal marijuana sales. This was the year a New York Times columnist got stoned in a Denver hotel room, hallucinated that she had died, then wrote about the whole experience. Snoop Dogg recorded a theme song for a Colorado gubernatorial candidate, and Bill O’Reilly, upset over legalization, mused about running for the same office.
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It was a sign of things to come that, on opening day, one of the first people in line behind Azzariti at 3D Cannabis Center was a documentary filmmaker.
Azzariti said the interest has given him opportunities around the country to talk about using marijuana to treat post-traumatic stress disorder.
But, befitting the transition the nation finds itself in over marijuana, he’s also discovered the attention goes only so far.
It turns out, Azzariti never smoked what he bought on Jan. 1. Instead, he’s hoping he can donate it to a museum.
“I even called the Smithsonian,” he said. “But I don’t think they thought I was serious. They were like, ‘Yeaaah, we’ll get back to you.’ “
John Ingold: 303-954-1068, jingold@denverpost.com or twitter.com/johningold
