Marijuana tax, Advocates of legalizing marijuana say taxing the weed could pump cash into cash-strapped state coffers while skeptics saying they're blowing smoke. Some lawmakers say a tax on legal marijuana could put significant dollars into budgets still hurting from the recession, Politico reported Thursday. A marijuana user displays up a pipe full of marijuana and a marijuana bud during a public consumption of marijuana rally on December 6, 2012 in Seattle. Despite the new law's ban on public marijuana use which is subject to a fine of about $50. In November, Washington state jumped into history becoming the first state along with Colorado to reject federal drug-control policy and legalize recreational marijuana use "I've seen some estimates in the high tens of millions, as much as $100 million for" Colorado, whose voters legalized recreational marijuana use, said Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., who's pushing for federal legalization of marijuana in C