By Katie Kuntz | Rocky Mountain PBS
Voters in Oregon, Alaska, and Washington, D.C., will decide Tuesday whether to legalize the sale of recreational marijuana. But any new pot shops that voters approve may not be able to survive a drug war-era tax code that already threatens many businesses in Colorado and Washington state.
Under this tax code the federal government stands to make more money from the sale of marijuana than those legally selling it. And that could be enough to shut down many shops.
“It’s almost like they want us to fail,” said Mitch Woolhiser, while walking through his store called Northern Lights Cannabis Co. in Edgewater, Colo. “Everything I do is aimed at keeping us in business because if I don’t, then (the feds) win. And I’m not going to let them win.”
