FORT COLLINS – A recent study says Coloradans will consume 2.2 million ounces of marijuana next year.

The study, conducted by an arm of Colorado State University and released last month, aimed to help answer the question of how much tax revenue the state might collect by taxing marijuana, which the state legalized last fall. It also says an estimated 642,772 Colorado residents would use legal pot.

Some would be new users emboldened by the voters’ decision to legalize pot, while some current users will stop because marijuana has lost its “forbidden-fruit” draw, said the study by CSU’s Denver-based Colorado Futures Center.

The study concluded that while existing and proposed taxes on newly legal marijuana will bring in about $130 million annually, that’s not enough to solve Colorado’s state budget problems, in large part because it will cost the state so much to regulate the industry. The price for pot, the study said, likely will drop to about $185 an ounce, or nearly $3,000 per pound.

For obvious reasons, we couldn’t get our hands on 2.2 million ounces – about 142,000 pounds – of marijuana. But what we could look at was 3.5 ounces, which is what the experts say the typical marijuana user would consume in one year.

Even under Colorado’s newly relaxed laws, it’s illegal to buy that much pot at one time. At an estimated cost of $647.50 by the CSU study’s logic, it also would be expensive. Instead, most people buy marijuana in “eighth” increments – one-eighth of an ounce. An eighth is the marijuana equivalent of a six-pack of beer, and how long it takes to consume either depends almost entirely on the user.

Proponents of legal marijuana long have argued that legalizing pot would allow governments to collect taxes on sales, in much the same way that taxes were collected on alcohol after the 21st Amendment ended Prohibition.

As for beer, Coloradans consume 33 gallons of beer per capita each year.

The Beer Institute, which calculated Colorado’s beer consumption, says per-capita consumption in some other states is much higher. Topping the list is Nevada at 44 gallons per person. Colorado’s per-capita consumption also is less than that of New Hampshire, North Dakota and Montana.

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