MEDICAL-MARIJUANA SALES TAX NETS $2.2 MILLION FOR COLORADO THIS YEAR

Medical-marijuana dispensaries are now putting hundreds of thousands
of dollars a month into state and city treasuries in Colorado.

So far this year, the state has collected more than $2.2 million in
sales tax from dispensaries. In Denver, which has more dispensaries
than any other city in Colorado, the businesses have also paid more
than $2.2 million this year in local sales tax. Colorado Springs has
collected about $380,000 in local sales tax.

"It's just another excellent example that shows that medical marijuana
isn't just amazing for patients but it's also productive for
non-patients - for neighborhoods and cities," said Betty Aldworth, the
executive director of the pro-dispensary industry group Coloradans for
Medical Marijuana Regulation.

The money is certainly welcomed in government budget offices across
Colorado, which have struggled to keep the books balanced during the
recession. But, in the overall budget picture, the infusion is little
more than a speck. Colorado, for instance, took in more than $1.8
billion in sales-tax money during the fiscal year that closed at the
end of June, according to the governor's Office of State Planning and
Budgeting.

In Colorado Springs, dispensaries represented 0.5 percent of the
city's October sales-tax revenue. In Denver, they are on pace to be
about 0.7 percent of the city's projected $417 million in sales-tax
revenues this year. By comparison, restaurants - the city's sales tax
champs - bring in about $6 million per month, city budget director Ed
Scholz said.

"So it's not a significant amount of money," Scholz
said.

Still, medical-marijuana advocates said the revenues show that their
industry deserves a place in local economies.

In Denver, for instance, monthly marijuana-related sales-tax receipts
since March have stabilized around $265,000, which Norton Arbelaez,
the owner of the River Rock Wellness dispensary, said shows
medical-marijuana businesses can provide a consistent revenue stream.
He also said sales-tax receipts should nudge upward if Colorado's
medical-marijuana patient registry - now at about 115,000 people,
according to the state Department of Public Health and Environment -
continues to grow.

Arbelaez - who is also the chairman of the board of the Medical
Marijuana Industry Group, a statewide trade organization - said the
revenue is an argument for the continued legitimization of the
dispensary system.

"This isn't new money," Arbelaez said. "Patients, before we had
medical marijuana in Colorado, were spending this money in the black
market. ... This is money that the city and state get a piece of as
well."

State Attorney General John Suthers - who authored an opinion that
medical-marijuana sales in Colorado should be taxed but who has also
contended dispensaries are beyond what state voters intended when they
legalized medical marijuana - said through a spokesman that the new
revenue stream doesn't change his opinion of dispensaries.

Suthers also said focusing just on revenue ignores other impacts
dispensaries may have on the community.

He noted a report by Education News Colorado showing that drug-related
suspensions at schools in the state are up by nearly a third,
something some attribute to the more open availability of marijuana.

Aldworth, with Coloradans for Medical Marijuana Regulation, conceded
that the revenue numbers probably won't persuade cities that have
banned dispensaries to reconsider.

"People don't get excited about medical marijuana because of the tax
revenues," she said. "That's just another bonus. People get excited
about medical marijuana when they see its effects on the patients."