The cannabis it is (the real) economic engine of the United States. I'm in the last 3 years, it has generated almost 9 billion of dollars of taxes.
To spread the data is the Census Bureau: agency that has been monitoring the country's green industry since mid-2021.
And with more than $2 billion in tax revenue, it is the California driving the growth of the legal cannabis sector. Followed by Washington State, with $1.3 billion. Colorado, with $898 million. And Michigan, with $698 million.
However, the data may be incomplete and, most likely, $8.7 billion is one underestimate of taxes actually collected. In fact, as the document states, we recommend "not relying on them to estimate the total cannabis sales tax collected for the United States."
Over 20 billion in taxes from legal cannabis
As highlighted by a report by Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), which has exclusively considered recreational use of cannabis, since 2014: the year legal sales began in Colorado, states have recorded a total of over 20 billion dollars of tax revenue.
“It is important to note though that the financial impact it's only one of the many advantages of cannabis legalization for adult use", underline the authors.
In fact, in addition to generating thousands of jobs every year, the earnings deriving from the green industry are partly used for finance socially useful initiatives for citizens. How:
- support education and healthcare
- build houses for the homeless
- provide scholarships
- create information campaigns on drugs
- and many other initiatives
"The legalization of cannabis for adult use also has displaced the criminal market and freed up law enforcement resources to focus on serious crimes,” the report said.
As confirmed by several studies, in fact, in countries where cannabis is legalized the police solves more violent crimes.
