Colorado Lawmakers Turn Down Plan To Use $5 Million Of Cannabis Tax To Purchase Hemp Fibre Processing Capital Equipment

Colorado Lawmakers Turn Down Plan To Use Million Of Cannabis Tax To Purchase Hemp Fibre Processing Capital Equipment
CANNANNEW REPORT

MJ Biz report A Colorado proposal to use $5 million in marijuana tax collections to help buy machines to process hemp fibers failed. The idea from the Colorado Department of Agriculture aimed to help one of the oldest chicken-or-egg dilemmas facing the young hemp industry: a lack of processing capacity. Because so few U.S. facilities can remove hemp fibers from the plant’s woody core – a process called decortication – farmers have limited options for selling fiber varieties of the plant, spurring them to stick with cannabinoid-heavy varieties. Colorado has only one decortication facility, agriculture officials say. One machine costs $600,000 to $3 million. The proposal would have taken $5 million from Colorado’s Marijuana Tax Cash Fund, which includes sales and excise taxes from medical and adult-use marijuana sales, according to Denver alt-weekly Westword. But lawmakers failed to add the money to the state’s final budget, the newspaper reported. Read more. https://mjbizdaily.com/5-million-dollar-plan-to-use-marijuana-taxes-for-hemp-processing-fails-in-colorado/