Why Legalization Matters?

ECONOMIC BENEFITS OF LEGALIZING MARIJUANA

People have been campaigning for the full legalization of marijuana for decades. It has not happened yet, and the majority of the states have legalized marijuana medically or recreationally already. As time has passed, we have been able to see the benefits of legalization. Let’s take a look at the economic benefits some of the states have been experiencing.

The first states to have fully legalized marijuana were Washington and California in 2012. Since then, they have seen an incredible influx in revenue. Washington’s first month of legalization “resulted in $3.8 million in sales and about $1 million in tax revenue. The Washington State Liquor Control Board, in charge of the program, estimates two-year marijuana tax revenue for the 2015-17 biennium will be $122,459,893; for the 2017-19 biennium it will be $336,898,396,” says the Tax Foundation. This past year the Washington State Treasurer reported, “a total of $559.5 million in legal marijuana income and license fees in the fiscal year 2021, including $4.1 million in cannabis license fees.”

Colorado had a similar outcome as Washington with a huge influx of funds. The Colorado Department of Revenue reported $67,594,323 in 2014, from February to December.

As of this July of this year, Colorado has accumulated $198,276,879. The total revenue to date is $2,217,209,883. Colorado has grown year by year in revenue collected, in fact, in 2021 it was a record year. They tweeted, “n 2021, Colorado collected over $423 million in revenue from marijuana sales (compared to the previous record of over $387 million in 2020). Colorado also surpassed $2B in tax and fee revenue and $12B in marijuana sales to date.” The state has also seen population growth in recent years.

Another early legalization state was Arkansas in 2016, but they only have medical marijuana legalized. Even though they are not fully legalized they still saw a lot of cash coming into their state. Fox in Little Rock Arkansas reported that as of January 1st of 2021, there has been “$50M in tax collections from the state’s medical marijuana industry as around $47M has been collected since the industry launched in 2019. Over half that amount of $47M was collected in just 2021 with $23M collected since Jan. 1, 2021.” Since then, in the first six months of 2022, they have collected $15 million in tax revenue. Although this is not as much as recreational states, this is still quite a bit of new income for the state. For recreational states, you have to account for visitors coming to purchase from states without any cannabis laws.

One of the most recent states that have either medical or recreational legalization was Mississippi, they only have medical marijuana as of now but they had an incredible voter turnout to pass the bill. Since Mississippi’s legalization of medical marijuana only this year, there is no full rundown of how much money has come into the state, however, the plans on how much taxes will be taken out from each sale, there will be a promising influx in funds to the state. As of now, they plan on 7% coming from each sale, and

It is estimated that if marijuana was federally legalized, we would see a huge increase in tax revenue come into each state, this has been proven by all the other states who have legalized marijuana in some form. According to Forbes, while there will be a lot of money coming into the United States, there are a lot of issues that go into making marijuana federally legal. Lewis Koski, a cannabis-focused writer, explained, “ On one hand, the conflicted status of cannabis in America makes policymaking challenging for state and local governments, and oftentimes can put an undue burden on patients and consumers. On the other hand, federal legalization could disrupt existing state frameworks and leave local and tribal concerns unresolved. Until the federal government provides a clear stance on cannabis, the gap in policy will continue to complicate legalized state programs.”

One of the issues with legalization is that there are tons of people who are still in prison for cannabis usage, many states don’t want to let all those incarcerated folks free as they provide money to the state.

As of 2022, nearly 40 states have medical or recreational marijuana and two-thirds of the United States feel that marijuana should be federally legalized. Paper Magazine reported in 2019 that

“The entire legal marijuana industry in the U.S. was valued at $10.4 billion last year, and states have been raking in tax money. Colorado has seen a steady increase in state marijuana taxes year over year, reaping over $266 million in taxes in 2018. California, meanwhile, is anticipated to have collected around $471 million in taxes in the same time period, although this number falls significantly short of the original projection of $630 million.”

While there are a number of factors that influenced the tax collection in California that is still a huge amount the state was able to produce. It has been estimated that, if federally legalized, “a federal excise tax on cannabis could generate an additional $500 million annually for the federal government.” With how in debt the United States currently is, an extra $500 million or more each year wouldn’t hurt.

If you’re reading this magazine, you probably feel that marijuana should be legalized and I agree with you. For now, all we need to do is to hope for the best and to use our voices to amplify the need for legalization. As more and more states begin to legalize medical or recreational marijuana we will more than likely end up forcing the federal government to do something if all 50 states and some territories have laws on the issue. By the time I’m 60, I do not doubt that we will see the federal legalization of marijuana.