There is a new Rocky Mountain high in Colorado – marijuana sales.
As the Huffington Post reports, marijuana sales in Colorado soared from January through October of this year, breaking the $1 billion mark for the first time ever.
The Colorado Department of Revenue released figures Monday showing that dispensaries in the state sold just over $720 million dollars of recreational marijuana and over $371 million of medicinal marijuana between January and October, for a total of almost 1.1 billion dollars.
The mile-high sales translates into close to $150 million in taxes, about one-third of which will be used for public school construction projects, with most of the remaining funds going to the state’s public school fund and a handful of other proceeds going to substance abuse treatment and prevention, law enforcement and health care programs.
Industry experts told the Denver Post’s Cannabist blog that next year's marijuana sales are projected to top $1.3 billion dollars. Gov John Hickenlooper told the Denver Post last month that he hopes to use some of the sales tax proceeds from that to help curb homelessness in the state.
