Governor Jared Polis is asking the state legislature for several million dollars in cannabis business and tax initiatives in his proposed budget for the next fiscal year.
After years of annually increasing sales, Colorado's cannabis prices and sales started to recede in 2022. The state has since seen a 30 percent drop in the cannabis workforce from 2022 to 2023, while the number of licensed cultivations in Colorado hasfrom last January to October of this year. The industry decline has also affected the MED, which is largely funded by cannabis business licensing fees.
Because of the plant's federal prohibition, state-legal pot businesses are prohibited from federal tax deductions. "You can never get complacent, and we want to continue to be a leader in the legal cannabis market," Polis said on the podcast."Obviously, many other states have caught up with where we are from the basic legalization of commercial and medical . That's no longer as innovative as it was when the time that we did it."