Pot taxes to fund police crackdown on illegal growers

DENVER — The first recreational pot market in the U.S. notched another marijuana first Thursday when Colorado started using marijuana taxes to fund police efforts to crack down on illegal growing operations.

A measure signed into law by Gov. John Hickenlooper sets aside nearly $6 million a year in Colorado marijuana tax revenue to reimburse police for investigating black-market marijuana activity that authorities say has increased since the state legalized recreational marijuana in 2012.

“We don’t want people to say they’re trying to grow for medical purposes, or licensed recreational uses, and instead they’re shipping it out of state,” Hickenlooper said.

The fund was backed by police groups who complain that marijuana legalization has attracted illicit marijuana growers along with legal ones.

The bill was also backed by Colorado’s nascent marijuana industry amid complaints that illegal growing operations undercut prices of pot grown legally and give legalization a bad name.

Oregon sets aside 20 percent of its pot taxes for “local law enforcement” in cities and counties, plus another 15 percent for state police. But Oregon does not direct police to use that money to investigate black-market pot operations.

Colorado’s fund is the first in any state designated to specifically combat the black market. Colorado gave law enforcement about $1.7 million last year for other marijuana-related enforcement activities, such as training officers to spot stoned drivers.

The black-market grants are aimed at rural communities, where there may be no pot dispensaries and no local tax benefit from legalization.

Rural communities have also attracted some high-profile illicit drug operators accused of trying to exploit Colorado’s pot law to produce marijuana for sale out of state. The small towns where this has happened have limited police resources, and their officials have said they cannot thoroughly investigate some sprawling marijuana growing operations.

The U.S. government allowed Colorado’s marijuana legalization experiment on the condition that state officials act to prevent marijuana from migrating to other states where it is still outlawed and ensure that criminal cartels are kept out of the growing business.