William Stoner posted:

They can use marijuana to sit on the couch all day, but when I put a little mescaline in my coffee before work I'm suddenly part of everything and nothing at the same time.

Kind of a double standard, if you ask me.

Blue Train posted:

use the weed money to fund the schools

quote:

There’s no easy fix for the shortcomings in Colorado’s school financing system.

Since 2009, the state Legislature has taken liberties with the school funding formula mandated by the voter-approved Amendment 23, using the so-called “negative factor” to cut funding every year. The Legislature has relied on circuitous reasoning and intricate formulas to withhold crucial money from school districts across the state.

We’ve felt the impact of those cuts in the Cherry Creek School District. We’ve been underfunded by about $50 million annually. Since 2012, $380 million has been withheld from Cherry Creek. We’re facing a shortfall of more than $20 million for the 2017-2018 school year. These cuts have the potential to impact every facet of district operations, from recruiting new teachers to maintaining a reasonable class size.

It’s a crisis that’s tied to our fundamental priorities as Coloradans, one that won’t find an easy remedy from the state’s nascent marijuana industry. People keep asking me, ‘Where’s the pot money?’ The short answer is that the Cherry Creek School District hasn’t received any. The longer answer is about how the money actually is allocated.

The lead-up to the legalization of marijuana in 2012 brought plenty of rhetoric regarding the positive impact on public schools in Colorado. Voters were told that taxes on legal marijuana would prove to be a windfall for cash-strapped school districts; millions of dollars’ worth of education cuts from the state would be offset by new income from a new vice tax.

That’s not what happened. In the fiscal year 2014-15, for example, taxes from the sale of recreational marijuana in Colorado totaled $77.9 million, $66.1 million of which came from special sales and excise taxes.

For context, the state’s general fund is about $9.7 billion, and the total state budget is $26 billion. By state law, the first $40 million of the excise taxes from marijuana sales went toward capital improvements for poor and rural school districts, and the remainder went toward marijuana education, treatment and regulation and enforcement programs across the state.

The Cherry Creek School District saw none of that money, nor did most of the other large school districts in the Denver metro area.

Similarly, the Building Excellent Schools Today (BEST) grants allotted for the 2016-17 year by the State Board of Education will have no impact on Cherry Creek Schools. Funding for projects in Aurora Public Schools, Adams 14 and Westminster all carry the contingent of matching funds from the school districts, and the vast majority of the 31 awarded grants will go to rural districts far outside of the metro area.

But to be eligible for the grants, those school districts must pass a local bond issue first, or already have matching capital funds available.

So far, the only thing that the legalization of marijuana has brought to our schools has been marijuana.

This isn’t a new story. Taxes on alcohol and tobacco haven’t fixed the state’s quandary when it comes to funding public education, nor have revenues from lotteries or casinos.

The reality is that any fix will have to come from a much more complex and overarching effort. To offer our students the resources they need to learn, we need a much more profound change at the state level, one that comes down to real and lasting change. It comes down to spelling out our collective priorities as Coloradans, to urging our elected representatives to do the hard work and make sure that students in Colorado receive the funding spelled out by a voter-approved constitutional amendment.

That effort is much more complex than any easy fixes offered by legal marijuana.

dookifex_maximus posted:

you read the article reefailures, time to go back to the dark ages everybody get inside the Wickerman

jeff smisek posted:

Colorado sucks now thx to weed. gently caress u

Mariana Horchata posted:

whats it like getting baked in all that thin air??

Falun Bong Refugee posted:

I think you have to add salt to the weed or something to use it up there.

Foo Diddley posted:

It's p much the same as getting high anywhere else

Pryor on Fire posted:

Yeah I don't think weed matters much at altitude.

With alcohol the process by which your body breaks it down and removes it from the bloodstream requires oxygen as well, if you're coming from low altitude your blood is slightly underoxygenated and your body will be unable to remove the alcohol as quickly as you're used to. Even seasoned alcoholics are quickly surprised at how much drunker they feel six beers deep, the intake rate is the same but the removal rate goes down, sometimes quite drastically.

Everyone seems to think this is loving hilarious but really we just have a lot of tourists puking on sidewalks and more DUIs and poo poo, you'll find drunks get less and less OMG HILARIOUS as you get older.

Premeditated Toast posted:

I love the "Natives" who blame stoners for raising the cost of living while ignoring all the IT people who've moved into the state who the bullshit rent prices are actually targeted towards. Also lol at locals who call themselves "Natives". I guess you know how the Ute/Cheyenne/Arapahoe felt now when gold and silver-hungry white people moved into the state back in the 1800's.

F8L posted:

We're trying to keep that whole weed thing quiet because every time it's mentioned another million people that can't drive show up.

Premeditated Toast posted:

Like don't get me wrong I understand the frustration behind this influx of new people but we voted for this. It's like putting a "Free Blowjobs" sign on the front of your house and then being absolutely SHOCKED that bros are beating down your door.

Blue Train posted:

use the weed money to fund the schools

quote:

When Colorado voters passed the law that decriminalized marijuana, the voters approved using tax money generated from marijuana sales for schools, police, and drug education. However, the tax money might end up not being used for any of those programs. The Taxpayer's Bill of Rights restrains the state’s ability to tax and spend. As of April 2015, projections for marijuana tax revenue for Colorado are at $58 million. But that money might have to be returned to taxpayers, due to the provisions in the state’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights.

Premeditated Toast posted:

Like don't get me wrong I understand the frustration behind this influx of new people but we voted for this. It's like putting a "Free Blowjobs" sign on the front of your house and then being absolutely SHOCKED that bros are beating down your door.

jeff smisek posted:

Colorado sucks now thx to weed. gently caress u

Linux Pirate posted: