Experts Debate Revenues From Taxing Marijuana

People are already accustomed to buying on the black market

A federal marijuana tax could potentially pump millions of dollars into struggling state economies, say two US congressmen who have introduced legislation that would create such a tax and also protect state regulation policies. …

The inherent problem in calculating how much revenue a tax would raise is that it is all conjecture, Ms. Liccardo Pacula told Politico. "You have to know more about the structure of the demand curve, which we don't have any data on because this is black-market," she said.

Polis said he understood the potential risk of taxing marijuana too much: It could drive buyers to the illegal market if the legal price is too expensive.