Legal marijuana states benefit

Sometimes you buy an expensive pair of shoes and within a few hours you wish you hadn't. Buyer's remorse is the feeling of regret after making a purchase. This often involves purchasing an expensive item such as a vehicle or property. Looking back to 2023, it looks like legal marijuana states will benefit and have no buyer's remorse for legalizing marijuana. BDSA, a leading cannabis analytics firm, released 2023 numbers and the legal industry has grown to over $29.5 billion. Things would have been better without New York City. And the tax revenue was very helpful for the 24 constitutional states.

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Colorado and Washington approved measures for adult recreational use of marijuana in 2012. Alaska, Oregon and the District of Columbia followed in 2014. Since then, states have weighed the benefits and dangers of recreational weed. And the federal government was watching.

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Early on, there was a YouGov poll in which respondents could choose between five different answers: “Success only,” “More success than failure,” “More failure than success,” “Just failure,” or “Don’t know.” .” About a quarter of residents in Colorado, where voters approved recreational marijuana in 2012, called adult-use marijuana laws “just a success,” while 45% of them called the laws “more of a success than a failure.” . Slightly fewer than one in five Coloradans (17%) said recreational marijuana laws are “just a failure.”

But there are very practical reasons for states to be happy about it. The illegal marijuana economy is estimated to be worth around $30 billion to $40 billion. Recent research has shown that marijuana legalization reduces the violence and trafficking associated with the illegal drug trade, thereby reducing the power and wealth of cartels and drug gangs. This is a boom for law enforcement in the states as they can focus on other crimes.

Prison costs have also fallen. Private prisons are being phased out as fewer inmates are held for marijuana possession. This is another benefit for state budgets.

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A big advantage is the tax revenue. Missouri brought in $1 billion in legislative revenue, a pleasant surprise for state coffers. States with legal weed make more money from cannabis than from alcohol. And this despite the fact that alcohol generates more sales. California is the only state that seems to have a problem with taxation…but states like Maine and Colorado are leading examples of good governance.