Washington voters approve legalized marijuana

Re:Washington voters approve legalized marijuana by nyargh on Wednesday November 07, 2012 @10:44AM (#4753741)

Some historical context may be helpful here: For a very long time Washington state had a highly regulated, tiered program for selling liquor. Very recently, this was privatized. The marijuana legislation that passed, I-502, very closely apes this structure - which kept financial interest in the production, distribution and retail of liquor separate - hence the separate taxation at each "tier".

The explanation here could best be summed up as "the devil you know".

Further, as with liquor, this decriminalizes personal possession without requiring tax stamps. This tax structure is in place to regulate and generate revenue from the production, distribution an retail of marijuana - not necessarily the consumption.

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Re:Washington voters approve legalized marijuana by isleyaardvark on Wednesday November 07, 2012 @11:52AM (#4754035)

This article puts the increase in liquor costs at 10-30% due to fees. 25% is not terribly far from that, and if you've accepted sin taxes there's no reason marijuana should be exempt. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/04/washington-state-li...)

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