'The state-licensed cannabis industry added over 23,000 new jobs in 2023
and now employs over 440,000 full-time workers, according to data
compiled by Vangst and Whitney Economics.
Job growth increased more than five percent between 2022 and 2023, while retail cannabis sales grew over ten percent to $28.8 billion, authors reported. Year-over-year growth was especially strong in Michigan and more nascent adult-use markets such as Missouri, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Rhode Island.'
Job growth increased more than five percent between 2022 and 2023, while retail cannabis sales grew over ten percent to $28.8 billion, authors reported. Year-over-year growth was especially strong in Michigan and more nascent adult-use markets such as Missouri, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Rhode Island.'
- NORML
'Job growth in the cannabis industry will be fueled by sustained sales
growth and the launch of new state markets, especially on the
recreational side of the business.
According to analysis from the 2021 MJBizFactbook, the marijuana industry will employ 340,000-415,000 full-time equivalent workers across the United States in 2021 and grow to 545,000-600,000 by 2025.
These figures account for workers directly employed by cannabis businesses, including budtenders and extraction technicians, as well as employees of ancillary companies that support the marijuana industry such as consultants and lawyers.'
According to analysis from the 2021 MJBizFactbook, the marijuana industry will employ 340,000-415,000 full-time equivalent workers across the United States in 2021 and grow to 545,000-600,000 by 2025.
These figures account for workers directly employed by cannabis businesses, including budtenders and extraction technicians, as well as employees of ancillary companies that support the marijuana industry such as consultants and lawyers.'
- MJ BizDaily
'No feats of heroism are needed to bring about the greatest and most important changes in the life of humanity; neither the arming of millions of men, nor the construction of new railways and machines, nor the organization of exhibitions or trade unions, nor revolutions, nor barricades, nor dynamite outrages, nor the perfection of aerial navigation, and so forth. All that is necessary is a change of public opinion.
And for that change no effort of thought is demanded, no refutation of any existing thing, and no planning of anything new and extraordinary. All that is necessary is to cease acquiescing in the public opinion of the past, now false and already defunct and only artificially induced by governments. It is only necessary for each individual to say what he really thinks and feels or at least refrain from saying what he does not think.
If only men - even a few - would do that, the out-worn public opinion would at once and of itself fall away and a new, real, and vital opinion would manifest itself. And with this change of public opinion all that inner fabric of men's lives which oppresses and torments them would change of its own accord. One is ashamed to say how little is needed to deliver all men from the calamities which now oppress them. It is only necessary to give up lying! Only let men reject the lie which is imposed upon them; only let them stop saying what they neither think nor feel, and at once such a change of the whole structure of our life will be accomplished as the revolutionaries would not achieve in centuries even if all the power were in their hands.' - Leo Tolstoy - The Kingdom of God and Peace Essays
And for that change no effort of thought is demanded, no refutation of any existing thing, and no planning of anything new and extraordinary. All that is necessary is to cease acquiescing in the public opinion of the past, now false and already defunct and only artificially induced by governments. It is only necessary for each individual to say what he really thinks and feels or at least refrain from saying what he does not think.
If only men - even a few - would do that, the out-worn public opinion would at once and of itself fall away and a new, real, and vital opinion would manifest itself. And with this change of public opinion all that inner fabric of men's lives which oppresses and torments them would change of its own accord. One is ashamed to say how little is needed to deliver all men from the calamities which now oppress them. It is only necessary to give up lying! Only let men reject the lie which is imposed upon them; only let them stop saying what they neither think nor feel, and at once such a change of the whole structure of our life will be accomplished as the revolutionaries would not achieve in centuries even if all the power were in their hands.' - Leo Tolstoy - The Kingdom of God and Peace Essays
Cannabis is all about sustainable economics. It is about doing things smarter, simpler, and in an environmentally sustainable manner. It is about working with a natural plant and developing sustainable businesses and processes around it. It is a way of life, tried and tested, and found to be viable over thousands of years. That is why cannabis is the most widely consumed herb for recreational purposes, wrongly called a drug, besides its industrial and medical uses.
Currently, the state of cannabis economics is terrible, to put it mildly. The plant is prohibited and illegal (yes, humans have decided to prohibit a plant that nature created when man was a primate living in the trees, how about that?). If a farmer cultivates cannabis, and is discovered, the plant is destroyed and the farmer is imprisoned. Any person caught selling the natural herb is likely to spend long periods of time in prison. Vast amounts of taxpayers' money are spent on setting up and funding law enforcement bodies and policies that prevent the growth, distribution and usage of the plant. Millions are imprisoned for associating with the plant, and vast amounts of public money is spent on judicial trials and prison sentences that are known to run for decades. It is often persons of poor economic backgrounds, indigenous communities and racial minorities who are sent to prison. The state spends vast amounts of money to maintain this status quo. Persons incarcerated find it difficult to be subsequently gainfully employed, and add to the burden of the state, or get involved in serious criminal activities due to the unjust experiences with the system and life in prison in the company of hardened and unscrupulous criminals. Meanwhile, the illegal trade of the plant continues, and the black money flows into strengthening and funding criminal networks that rapidly expand into much more dangerous illegal activities. The money through the illegal trade is lost to the legal economic system and is a drain on the taxpayer and the state, flowing into the pockets of the unscrupulous elements behind this whole farce.
On a social level, due of lack of legal access to recreational cannabis, individuals are indulging in freely available, and much more dangerous, synthetic substances like heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, synthetic cannabinoids, novel psychotropic substances, illegal pharmaceutical drugs, besides alcohol and tobacco. The damage that this causes to their health is a burden borne by the healthcare system, which is again, largely supported by taxpayers money.
In the absence of cannabis, many unsustainable industries have grown to monstrous proportions, such as pharmaceuticals, petrochemicals, pesticides and fertilizers, medical, timber-based paper, etc., and now destroy the planet at multiple levels through their product life cycles of manufacture, usage and disposal. These industries consume vast amounts of precious natural raw material during manufacture, use highly polluting agents during processing, and finally create products that end up in non-biodegradable form in our environment. These industries are major sources of planetary contamination, loss of biodiversity and climate change. The economic costs of this damage are too high to put a figure on, though their effects are increasingly evident for all to see.
In terms of agriculture, tobacco and cotton are actively promoted despite the damage done to the soil ad the need for large amounts of water, chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Paddy is encouraged even in areas that are not conducive to their cultivation. The cultivation of crops for palm oil, as well as opium for drugs, often in fertile land are other examples of poor agriculture.
The above are just a few examples of why the criminalization and prohibition of cannabis is
one of the worst forms of economics devised by the modern human, in a journey of increasing disconnect with nature and apathy towards it.
The legalization of cannabis, on the other hand, is one of the most potent sustainable economic paths that lie before us, even as other paths disappear rapidly before the looming calamities that our actions have created.
The legalization of cannabis, on the other hand, is one of the most potent sustainable economic paths that lie before us, even as other paths disappear rapidly before the looming calamities that our actions have created.
With legalization of cannabis, the farmer, especially the poorest small farmer, can grow his crop which can be taxed. Cannabis is one of the most versatile, sustainable crops that can grow in diverse conditions, including adverse ones. It is much more sustainable than paddy, cotton or sugarcane. It offers the farmer a significant source of income as a cash crop, besides enriching soil fertility, providing nutrition for bees and birds, increasing cross pollination, and sequestering more carbon than even tropical forests of comparable areas. Multiple sustainable industries associated with the plant can be developed and taxed such as textiles, construction, animal feed, fiber, paper, etc. Money, spent currently on funding law enforcement activities related to cannabis prohibition, can be saved and put to better use addressing real crime, besides money spent on the trial and imprisonment or rehabilitation of innocent cannabis users. Persons with an interest in cannabis can be employed in the legal cannabis system, thus contributing to the economy and paying their taxes, instead of wasting their lives in prison supported by taxpayer money, or working in criminal networks. The illegal black market of cannabis, estimated to be in the range of hundreds of billions of dollars, can be turned into a legal tax paying entity, in addition to curbing funding for dangerous criminal and terrorist activities. Individuals can have a relatively safer, traditional, medicinal, recreational drug, and not damage their health or kill themselves, as is increasingly the case with the dangerous synthetic alternatives available, in addition to alcohol and tobacco.. The improved health of individuals is a saving to the economy. The reduced use of synthetic pharmaceutical drugs, through home growing of cannabis, will result in its reduced manufacture, which is a saving for the economy, for people's health and the environment. So too with the reduced usage of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, non-biodegradable plastics, textiles and synthetic materials, as cannabis and cannabis biodegradable based products can reduce their usage and the usage of unsustainable raw materials from which they are manufactured.
Sustainable economics through cannabis is not the pipe dream of a stoner but the reality that we are seeing on the ground. Already, states in the US that have legalized cannabis are seeing significant revenue through taxation and redirection of law enforcement efforts. Job creation is one of the key areas of growth, besides new cannabis related industries, and new roles in the cannabis industry.This money is being spent on education, improving public infrastructure, health, supporting economically challenged communities, and those unjustly victimized by the war on cannabis. Estimates by the Cato Institute, in July 2018, peg the revenue through redirection of law enforcement activities, from the war on drugs alone, as approximately $107 billion, and that is for just the US. European Union estimates of revenue through cannabis legalization is pegged at approximately $110 billion. The cannabis industry is expected to make significant inroads into the more than $500 billion alcohol, tobacco, food and beverage and pharmaceutical industries. If global legalization of cannabis is achieved, we could be talking of trillions of dollars of revenue and its associated taxes, that can be put to good economic use. Countries can switch to the sustainable trade of cannabis and its derivatives, instead of the toxic synthetic products that they currently trade in pursuit of economic growth. The economics of global trade in cannabis is a massive unknown at the moment but the sheer potential of it is mind boggling. The gains to the environment, from eco-friendly industries and products , gains in health from natural cannabis as medicine, gains for society from moving away from synthetic drugs, alcohol and tobacco, etc are yet to be fully quantified. Environmental gains are too priceless to put a price tag on.
Sustainable economics through cannabis is not the pipe dream of a stoner but the reality that we are seeing on the ground. Already, states in the US that have legalized cannabis are seeing significant revenue through taxation and redirection of law enforcement efforts. Job creation is one of the key areas of growth, besides new cannabis related industries, and new roles in the cannabis industry.This money is being spent on education, improving public infrastructure, health, supporting economically challenged communities, and those unjustly victimized by the war on cannabis. Estimates by the Cato Institute, in July 2018, peg the revenue through redirection of law enforcement activities, from the war on drugs alone, as approximately $107 billion, and that is for just the US. European Union estimates of revenue through cannabis legalization is pegged at approximately $110 billion. The cannabis industry is expected to make significant inroads into the more than $500 billion alcohol, tobacco, food and beverage and pharmaceutical industries. If global legalization of cannabis is achieved, we could be talking of trillions of dollars of revenue and its associated taxes, that can be put to good economic use. Countries can switch to the sustainable trade of cannabis and its derivatives, instead of the toxic synthetic products that they currently trade in pursuit of economic growth. The economics of global trade in cannabis is a massive unknown at the moment but the sheer potential of it is mind boggling. The gains to the environment, from eco-friendly industries and products , gains in health from natural cannabis as medicine, gains for society from moving away from synthetic drugs, alcohol and tobacco, etc are yet to be fully quantified. Environmental gains are too priceless to put a price tag on.
According to MJBizDaily - 'The total U.S. economic impact from marijuana sales in 2021 is expected to reach $92 billion – up more than 30% from last year – and upwards of $160 billion in 2025' . This is in a country where only 23 out of 50 states have legalized cannabis for recreational adult-use. In a fully legalized US, with legalization at the federal level, I estimate the economic impact to be upward to $300 billion, with interstate sales, international exports, tourism, widespread industrial applications, shrinkage of the black market, redirection of law and drug enforcement resources, etc., kicking in. That would make the economic impact in India, the land of ganja with a market easily four times that of the US, in the range of $1.2 trillion. Looking at the total global impact then, would it be an exaggeration to say that the total economic impact of cannabis legalization on the world could be in the range of $25 trillion? And this is sustainable economics we are talking about, economics that can save the world from man-made climate catastrophe.
Cannabis is the new greenback, with the potential to make the world wealthy in the true economic sense, which is wealthy in terms of health, environment and sustainability. We need to shift our focus from the pieces of paper that we are so obsessed with and addicted to, and reconnect with the nature that sustains all life, and the cannabis plant is the bridge that provides us with the way to heal. For that all entities, including governments, policy makers, businesses and individuals, need to recognize the complete non-viability of the current path of economic development and put sustainable economics at the center of development. Cannabis is right at the center of sustainable economics and there is an urgent need to recognize it as such and embrace it wholeheartedly. The time has come to pursue all options for survival. We cannot afford to ignore any naturally available option because of our misunderstanding, selfish interests and the stubborn refusal to see the science and evidence, especially not one as significant as cannabis.
Related articles
The following set of articles that appeared in various news media and journals speaks about the economics of cannabis at a high level. This is just scratching the surface of an industry that is in its infancy and the picture will become clearer with time.Words in italics are yours truly's thoughts and comments at the time of reading the respective article.
The total U.S. economic impact generated by regulated marijuana sales could top $112.4 billion in 2024, about 12% more than last year, according to analysis from the newly released MJBiz Factbook.
While the industry has experienced sales declines – especially in mature western markets – the expansion of new recreational and medical marijuana facilities in states such as Maryland, Missouri and New York continue to foster growth.
With more new cannabis markets on the horizon, the industry will add upward of $200 billion in additional spending to the U.S. economy by 2030.
The projections do not take into account any action from the U.S. government such as federal rescheduling or legalization, though each could increase revenue and economic impact.
The economic multiplier paints a picture of the cannabis industry's impact on the broader economy.
This means that for every $1 that consumers and patients spend at adult-use stores and MMJ dispensaries, an additional $2.50 will be injected into the economy - much of it at the local level.
https://mjbizdaily.com/marijuana-industry-will-add-112-4-billion-to-us-economy-in-2024-mjbiz-factbook/
The state-licensed cannabis industry added over 23,000 new jobs in 2023 and now employs over 440,000 full-time workers, according to data compiled by Vangst and Whitney Economics.
Job growth increased more than five percent between 2022 and 2023, while retail cannabis sales grew over ten percent to $28.8 billion, authors reported. Year-over-year growth was especially strong in Michigan and more nascent adult-use markets such as Missouri, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Rhode Island.
By contrast, ten states experienced negative growth during the past year. The report’s authors suggested that market saturation and waning demands for cannabis tourism likely played a role in those markets’ contraction.
“Now more than ever, America’s cannabis industry is a state-by-state, region-by-region job market,” the study’s authors concluded. “Young markets in recently legalized states continue to expand and create employment opportunities, while labor demand in mature markets contracts along with revenue and profit margins.”
https://norml.org/news/2024/04/18/report-cannabis-industry-employs-over-440000-full-time-workers/
While the industry has experienced sales declines – especially in mature western markets – the expansion of new recreational and medical marijuana facilities in states such as Maryland, Missouri and New York continue to foster growth.
With more new cannabis markets on the horizon, the industry will add upward of $200 billion in additional spending to the U.S. economy by 2030.
The projections do not take into account any action from the U.S. government such as federal rescheduling or legalization, though each could increase revenue and economic impact.
The economic multiplier paints a picture of the cannabis industry's impact on the broader economy.
This means that for every $1 that consumers and patients spend at adult-use stores and MMJ dispensaries, an additional $2.50 will be injected into the economy - much of it at the local level.
https://mjbizdaily.com/marijuana-industry-will-add-112-4-billion-to-us-economy-in-2024-mjbiz-factbook/
The state-licensed cannabis industry added over 23,000 new jobs in 2023 and now employs over 440,000 full-time workers, according to data compiled by Vangst and Whitney Economics.
Job growth increased more than five percent between 2022 and 2023, while retail cannabis sales grew over ten percent to $28.8 billion, authors reported. Year-over-year growth was especially strong in Michigan and more nascent adult-use markets such as Missouri, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Rhode Island.
By contrast, ten states experienced negative growth during the past year. The report’s authors suggested that market saturation and waning demands for cannabis tourism likely played a role in those markets’ contraction.
“Now more than ever, America’s cannabis industry is a state-by-state, region-by-region job market,” the study’s authors concluded. “Young markets in recently legalized states continue to expand and create employment opportunities, while labor demand in mature markets contracts along with revenue and profit margins.”
https://norml.org/news/2024/04/18/report-cannabis-industry-employs-over-440000-full-time-workers/
'Tax revenues derived from licensed retail sales of state-legal, adult-use cannabis products totaled approximately $3.8 billion last year – according to an analysis provided by the Marijuana Policy Project.
MPP’s figures do not include revenues derived from the sales of medical cannabis products and/or the collection of state-imposed regulatory fees.
Adult-use sales generated the greatest amount of revenue in California (roughly $1.1 billion), followed by Illinois, Washington, Michigan, and Colorado.
Since 2014, retail sales of adult-use cannabis products have generated $15.1 billion dollars.
“States that have made the decision to legalize and regulate cannabis are benefiting from hundreds of millions in tax revenue each year,” said Toi Hutchinson, President of MPP. “These new streams of revenue are helping to fund crucial social services and programs across the country, such as education, alcohol and drug treatment, veterans’ services, job training, and reinvestment in communities that have been disproportionately affected by the war on cannabis.”'
https://norml.org/news/2023/05/04/analysis-adult-use-cannabis-sales-have-generated-over-15-billion-in-state-tax-revenue/
MPP’s figures do not include revenues derived from the sales of medical cannabis products and/or the collection of state-imposed regulatory fees.
Adult-use sales generated the greatest amount of revenue in California (roughly $1.1 billion), followed by Illinois, Washington, Michigan, and Colorado.
Since 2014, retail sales of adult-use cannabis products have generated $15.1 billion dollars.
“States that have made the decision to legalize and regulate cannabis are benefiting from hundreds of millions in tax revenue each year,” said Toi Hutchinson, President of MPP. “These new streams of revenue are helping to fund crucial social services and programs across the country, such as education, alcohol and drug treatment, veterans’ services, job training, and reinvestment in communities that have been disproportionately affected by the war on cannabis.”'
https://norml.org/news/2023/05/04/analysis-adult-use-cannabis-sales-have-generated-over-15-billion-in-state-tax-revenue/
'The total U.S. economic impact generated by cannabis sales is expected to top $100 billion in 2023, up more than 12% from last year, according to a fresh analysis from the newly published MJBiz Factbook.
Looking ahead, upward of $160 billion in additional spending will be added to the U.S economy in 2027, thanks to the opening and/or expansion of new recreational and medical markets in states such as New York, Maryland, Missouri and Kentucky.'
https://mjbizdaily.com/cannabis-industry-will-add-100-billion-to-us-economy-in-2023/
Looking ahead, upward of $160 billion in additional spending will be added to the U.S economy in 2027, thanks to the opening and/or expansion of new recreational and medical markets in states such as New York, Maryland, Missouri and Kentucky.'
https://mjbizdaily.com/cannabis-industry-will-add-100-billion-to-us-economy-in-2023/
Cannabis cultivated in 2021 for the state-legal adult-use market possessed a wholesale harvest cash value of more than $5 billion, making it the nation’s sixth most valuable cash crop, according to an analysis provided today by Leafly.com and Whitney Economics. Only corn, soybeans, hay, wheat, and cotton bring in more money on a wholesale basis.
In three states – Alaska, Massachusetts, and New Jersey – cannabis grown for the legal marketplace is the “single most valuable crop.
https://norml.org/blog/2022/11/01/report-legal-cannabis-once-again-ranks-among-nations-most-valuable-crops/
In three states – Alaska, Massachusetts, and New Jersey – cannabis grown for the legal marketplace is the “single most valuable crop.
https://norml.org/blog/2022/11/01/report-legal-cannabis-once-again-ranks-among-nations-most-valuable-crops/
Even if all the nations of the world legalized cannabis for all purposes - medicinal, intoxicant, food and industrial purposes - TODAY, a feat not impossible as all it takes is for the UN to change global drug laws and every nation to follow suit by changing their individual national drug laws with the same alacrity that all showed in embracing the fake pandemic Covid, it would still take at least a decade for cannabis to become truly pervasive significantly reducing the footprint of the following industries: the synthetic pharmaceutical drug industry for medicine; the global synthetic recreational drug industry, alcohol and tobacco for intoxicant; unsustainable rice, wheat and cotton as agricultural crops on current scales; the chemical fertilizer industry through organic farming of climate resistant cannabis; the petrochemical based non-biodegradable plastics and synthetics industries as industrial sources of raw materials. Even then much of the damage may be irrepairable, such as the omnipresent microplastics, and the contamination of land, water and air by synthetic pharmaceuticals, chemical fertilizers, fossil fuels and petrochemicals. But there is a chance that we could at least slow this down or even stall it. However, these industries - petrochemicals, synthetic pharmaceuticals, chemical fertilizers, alcohol and tobacco are the biggest industries in the world today. The world's rich to whom these industries belong, and the governments that they own and fund, will do all they can to prevent this, including the use of the arms industry who fear a peaceful world of cannabis as a threat to their existence as much as the rich and the governments. This means that what could take a decade if all are fully committed will most likely take much more time. The two years lost to the fake pandemic Covid were accelerated steps in the opposite direction to that which we should have been taking. Do we have that much time to change course? Will nature and human insanity give us the time? Today, all global leaders are floundering helplessly and aimlessly, with what is being proposed as solutions to the catastrophic problem being nothing more than cosmetic makeovers, while they work to consolidate their own positions and the rich strive to get richer. At a time when all possible options must be considered, no, pursued with great urgency, even then it may not be enough, we find humanity moving with determination like zombies towards the sixth extinction...What is overwhelmingly evident is the human delusion that man is the master of nature and an insane stubbornness to pursue natural ways...
'An estimated 321,000 people now work in the legal cannabis industry in the U.S. That’s a 32% increase over last year, making it one of the fastest-growing sectors in the country.
The U.S. cannabis workforce now outnumbers dentists, paramedics and electrical engineers.
The marijuana industry is one of the very few sectors of the economy that has continued to grow amid the pandemic. As dispensaries and cultivation facilities were deemed as “essential,” the industry became a refuge for workers who had been laid off or furloughed.
Most of them came from the retail and restaurant industries, which are still struggling to get them back, even with adding various benefits upon the sign-up.
Even as the pandemic eased, cannabis jobs have continued to grow, adding nearly 80,000 jobs in 2020, more than double what it did the year before.'
https://safehaven.com/news/Breaking-News/The-Cannabis-Industry-Is-Looking-To-Fill-The-Employment-Gap.html
The U.S. cannabis workforce now outnumbers dentists, paramedics and electrical engineers.
The marijuana industry is one of the very few sectors of the economy that has continued to grow amid the pandemic. As dispensaries and cultivation facilities were deemed as “essential,” the industry became a refuge for workers who had been laid off or furloughed.
Most of them came from the retail and restaurant industries, which are still struggling to get them back, even with adding various benefits upon the sign-up.
Even as the pandemic eased, cannabis jobs have continued to grow, adding nearly 80,000 jobs in 2020, more than double what it did the year before.'
https://safehaven.com/news/Breaking-News/The-Cannabis-Industry-Is-Looking-To-Fill-The-Employment-Gap.html
'Among the report’s key takeaways were:
- Given that $415 billion in global sales, “Cannabis already represents a market of global consequence,” the report says. Also, this sales figure is the “floor,” not the “ceiling,” the report says.
- Worldwide, one-third of nations have passed some form of legalization, but most programs are too restrictive to be considered operational high-THC markets.
- More than 4.4 million patients globally are registered in medical programs, with that number forecast to reach 7 million by 2025 despite limited physician education.
- “North America will remain the global epicenter of legal cannabis for the foreseeable future.”'
https://www.greenentrepreneur.com/article/387636
'But nowhere is cannabis's promise greater — or the change it could forge as impactful — than in social equity, criminal justice, job creation and economic development.
Once considered a direct road to incarceration, especially for people of color, cannabis should be considered a viable path to the middle class. Where it once decimated communities and destroyed families, cannabis can be a reliable generator of tax revenue to fund social and public health programs. Cannabis used to put people in jail. Now it puts people to work.
Legal cannabis has already added about 340,000 new jobs to the nation's economy, according to New Frontier Data. If cannabis was legal in all 50 states and at the federal level, New Frontier estimates 1.46 million jobs would be created and as much as $175.8 billion in tax revenue could be generated.
As every other indicator moves forward at warp speed, state and local social equity programs, decriminalization efforts and criminal record expungement, and the creation of free and open local markets drag at a snail's pace. The people who laid the foundation for the legal industry (and went to jail for it) and the communities that were disproportionately (and negatively) impacted by the "war on drugs" will just suffer again. People (predominantly men of color) are confined in overcrowded prisons for doing in the past what corporate cannabis is praised for doing today. Local and state coffers, wiped out by COVID, miss out on tax revenue, job creation and economic development opportunities due to racist local control ordinances, arbitrary license caps and ridiculous "Not-in-my-backyard"-ism. '
https://thehill.com/changing-america/opinion/574321-america-is-changing-cannabis-tells-the-story
- Given that $415 billion in global sales, “Cannabis already represents a market of global consequence,” the report says. Also, this sales figure is the “floor,” not the “ceiling,” the report says.
- Worldwide, one-third of nations have passed some form of legalization, but most programs are too restrictive to be considered operational high-THC markets.
- More than 4.4 million patients globally are registered in medical programs, with that number forecast to reach 7 million by 2025 despite limited physician education.
- “North America will remain the global epicenter of legal cannabis for the foreseeable future.”'
https://www.greenentrepreneur.com/article/387636
'But nowhere is cannabis's promise greater — or the change it could forge as impactful — than in social equity, criminal justice, job creation and economic development.
Once considered a direct road to incarceration, especially for people of color, cannabis should be considered a viable path to the middle class. Where it once decimated communities and destroyed families, cannabis can be a reliable generator of tax revenue to fund social and public health programs. Cannabis used to put people in jail. Now it puts people to work.
Legal cannabis has already added about 340,000 new jobs to the nation's economy, according to New Frontier Data. If cannabis was legal in all 50 states and at the federal level, New Frontier estimates 1.46 million jobs would be created and as much as $175.8 billion in tax revenue could be generated.
As every other indicator moves forward at warp speed, state and local social equity programs, decriminalization efforts and criminal record expungement, and the creation of free and open local markets drag at a snail's pace. The people who laid the foundation for the legal industry (and went to jail for it) and the communities that were disproportionately (and negatively) impacted by the "war on drugs" will just suffer again. People (predominantly men of color) are confined in overcrowded prisons for doing in the past what corporate cannabis is praised for doing today. Local and state coffers, wiped out by COVID, miss out on tax revenue, job creation and economic development opportunities due to racist local control ordinances, arbitrary license caps and ridiculous "Not-in-my-backyard"-ism. '
https://thehill.com/changing-america/opinion/574321-america-is-changing-cannabis-tells-the-story
'Annual global legal sales of adult-use cannabis are projected to double those of legal medical sales by 2025, despite the higher number of medical markets globally.
While 10 countries in the world have approved cannabis for adult use, only six have adopted systems for regulated distribution of high-THC cannabis products. The Netherlands and Spain have each adopted a decriminalized club/social-use model, and others (e.g., South Africa and Jamaica) have decriminalized cannabis for adult use but only through restricted access for certain demographics or religions (e.g., the Rastafarian community), or legalized adult-use programs but without frameworks for distribution to consumers.
During calendar year 2020, there were a total of four legally operating adult-use cannabis markets with regulated retail sales, dominated by the U.S. and Canada. Uruguay, the world’s first country to fully legalize and regulate adult-use cannabis, sold roughly 1,700 kg of high-THC cannabis to registered adults, while the Netherlands sold an estimated $104 million worth of high-THC cannabis through its network of retail coffee shops.'
https://newfrontierdata.com/cannabis-insights/catching-up-for-lost-time-legal-cannabis-markets-project-to-top-51-billion-globally-by-2025/
While 10 countries in the world have approved cannabis for adult use, only six have adopted systems for regulated distribution of high-THC cannabis products. The Netherlands and Spain have each adopted a decriminalized club/social-use model, and others (e.g., South Africa and Jamaica) have decriminalized cannabis for adult use but only through restricted access for certain demographics or religions (e.g., the Rastafarian community), or legalized adult-use programs but without frameworks for distribution to consumers.
During calendar year 2020, there were a total of four legally operating adult-use cannabis markets with regulated retail sales, dominated by the U.S. and Canada. Uruguay, the world’s first country to fully legalize and regulate adult-use cannabis, sold roughly 1,700 kg of high-THC cannabis to registered adults, while the Netherlands sold an estimated $104 million worth of high-THC cannabis through its network of retail coffee shops.'
https://newfrontierdata.com/cannabis-insights/catching-up-for-lost-time-legal-cannabis-markets-project-to-top-51-billion-globally-by-2025/
'When we look at other disruptive industries in the U.S. throughout history, almost all legislative change came after private enterprise exerted pressure on the federal government to acknowledge and accommodate their interests.
From oil and gas to electric vehicles to cryptocurrencies to gambling, the interest of big business catalyzes change. We are seeing a similar pattern emerge in cannabis.
Federal legalization is important to the future of the industry and something many Americans are eager for.
But the independent political movements in Washington DC should be less of a signal of what is to come than the movements of big business.
Know where to focus your attention. Legalization is coming.'
https://mjbizdaily.com/wheels-of-capitalism-not-congress-are-driving-marijuana-legislation/
From oil and gas to electric vehicles to cryptocurrencies to gambling, the interest of big business catalyzes change. We are seeing a similar pattern emerge in cannabis.
Federal legalization is important to the future of the industry and something many Americans are eager for.
But the independent political movements in Washington DC should be less of a signal of what is to come than the movements of big business.
Know where to focus your attention. Legalization is coming.'
https://mjbizdaily.com/wheels-of-capitalism-not-congress-are-driving-marijuana-legislation/
'Director Robert Mujica Jr., state analysts said that New York stands to generate about $20 million in revenue from adult-use cannabis business license fees next year. And as the market matures, marijuana tax revenue and license fees are expected to generate $245 million by fiscal year 2025.
At the same time, cigarette tax revenue is expected to continue to decline, dropping from $972 million in the 2022 fiscal year to $852 million in 2025.
The state said that “along with the second year of license fees, the State’s THC-based and retail excise taxes on the sale of adult-use cannabis products are projected to generate $115 million,” and those increases “are partially offset by a continued decline in taxable cigarette consumption.”
In other words, New York is seeing the same trend that’s playing out nationally. People are smoking fewer cigarettes while more adults are trying cannabis. And creating a regulated market for marijuana is helping to create an alternative revenue source for states that legalize.
Part of the reason behind that trend seems to be public perception. A 2018 Gallup poll found that 96 percent of Americans view cigarettes as either “very harmful” or “somewhat harmful,” compared to only 56 percent of respondents said the same about cannabis.'
https://www.marijuanamoment.net/new-york-officials-say-marijuana-tax-revenue-will-help-fill-budget-gap-from-declining-cigarette-sales/
At the same time, cigarette tax revenue is expected to continue to decline, dropping from $972 million in the 2022 fiscal year to $852 million in 2025.
The state said that “along with the second year of license fees, the State’s THC-based and retail excise taxes on the sale of adult-use cannabis products are projected to generate $115 million,” and those increases “are partially offset by a continued decline in taxable cigarette consumption.”
In other words, New York is seeing the same trend that’s playing out nationally. People are smoking fewer cigarettes while more adults are trying cannabis. And creating a regulated market for marijuana is helping to create an alternative revenue source for states that legalize.
Part of the reason behind that trend seems to be public perception. A 2018 Gallup poll found that 96 percent of Americans view cigarettes as either “very harmful” or “somewhat harmful,” compared to only 56 percent of respondents said the same about cannabis.'
https://www.marijuanamoment.net/new-york-officials-say-marijuana-tax-revenue-will-help-fill-budget-gap-from-declining-cigarette-sales/
'The estimated $415 billion in total sales during 2020 reflects the floor, not the ceiling, for cannabis’ long-term market opportunity. Beyond the transition of current spending from illicit to legal markets, there will be additional market growth as scientific research establishes new therapeutic applications for cannabis-derived compounds. Innovation and commercialization will introduce product forms to improve each the product quality, convenience, dosing, and consumer experience for customers. Advancements in industrial applications for cannabis biomass will create new revenue potential among non-ingestible applications for the plant. While much of the global demand would be traditionally classified as recreational, expansion and adoption of medical and industrial applications will expand the total market opportunity well beyond its current reach.
With more than 268 million cannabis consumers globally, further social acceptance and normalization of cannabis use will draw a massive consumer group with corresponding buying potential. As New Frontier Data’s cannabis consumer research has shown, consumption use spans the spectrum of demographic and socioeconomic strata. Far from being monolithic, cannabis consumers represent a highly diverse and richly varied cross-section of society. The emergence of cannabis consumers as a stand-alone market segment, combined with deepening understanding about where each consumer fits within the broader economy, will be key to building products, brands, and experiences aligned with the consequential but often misunderstood consumer group.'
https://newfrontierdata.com/cannabis-insights/cannabis-reforms-worldwide-aim-to-expand-legal-sales-beyond-50-billion-in-2025/
With more than 268 million cannabis consumers globally, further social acceptance and normalization of cannabis use will draw a massive consumer group with corresponding buying potential. As New Frontier Data’s cannabis consumer research has shown, consumption use spans the spectrum of demographic and socioeconomic strata. Far from being monolithic, cannabis consumers represent a highly diverse and richly varied cross-section of society. The emergence of cannabis consumers as a stand-alone market segment, combined with deepening understanding about where each consumer fits within the broader economy, will be key to building products, brands, and experiences aligned with the consequential but often misunderstood consumer group.'
https://newfrontierdata.com/cannabis-insights/cannabis-reforms-worldwide-aim-to-expand-legal-sales-beyond-50-billion-in-2025/
'Hemp can capture atmospheric carbon twice as effectively as forests while providing carbon-negative biomaterials for architects and designers, according to Cambridge University researcher Darshil Shah.
"Numerous studies estimate that hemp is one of the best CO2-to-biomass converters," said Shah, who is senior researcher at the Centre for Natural Material Innovation at Cambridge.
"It's even more effective than trees," he said. "Industrial hemp absorbs between 8 to 15 tonnes of CO2 per hectare of cultivation."
"In comparison, forests typically capture 2 to 6 tonnes of CO2 per hectare per year depending on the number of years of growth, the climatic region, the type of trees etc."'
https://www.dezeen.com/2021/06/30/carbon-sequestering-hemp-darshil-shah-interview/
"Numerous studies estimate that hemp is one of the best CO2-to-biomass converters," said Shah, who is senior researcher at the Centre for Natural Material Innovation at Cambridge.
"It's even more effective than trees," he said. "Industrial hemp absorbs between 8 to 15 tonnes of CO2 per hectare of cultivation."
"In comparison, forests typically capture 2 to 6 tonnes of CO2 per hectare per year depending on the number of years of growth, the climatic region, the type of trees etc."'
https://www.dezeen.com/2021/06/30/carbon-sequestering-hemp-darshil-shah-interview/
'Job growth in the cannabis industry will be fueled by sustained sales growth and the launch of new state markets, especially on the recreational side of the business.
According to analysis from the 2021 MJBizFactbook, the marijuana industry will employ 340,000-415,000 full-time equivalent workers across the United States in 2021 and grow to 545,000-600,000 by 2025.
These figures account for workers directly employed by cannabis businesses, including budtenders and extraction technicians, as well as employees of ancillary companies that support the marijuana industry such as consultants and lawyers.
The retail sector constitutes most of the jobs in the cannabis industry, driven by requirements in nearly all states to sell marijuana – both adult use and medical – in distinct physical locations.'
https://mjbizdaily.com/cannabis-job-growth-fueled-by-sales-and-new-markets/
According to analysis from the 2021 MJBizFactbook, the marijuana industry will employ 340,000-415,000 full-time equivalent workers across the United States in 2021 and grow to 545,000-600,000 by 2025.
These figures account for workers directly employed by cannabis businesses, including budtenders and extraction technicians, as well as employees of ancillary companies that support the marijuana industry such as consultants and lawyers.
The retail sector constitutes most of the jobs in the cannabis industry, driven by requirements in nearly all states to sell marijuana – both adult use and medical – in distinct physical locations.'
https://mjbizdaily.com/cannabis-job-growth-fueled-by-sales-and-new-markets/
'Adult-use marijuana programs are generating billions of dollars in tax revenues for state governments each year – bolstering the economic and equity case for legalization in other markets across the country as well as at the federal level.
The economic argument might particularly resonate among reluctant Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill, experts say.
States with legal adult-use marijuana markets in operation already have generated nearly $8 billion in tax revenue combined since 2014, including $2.7 billion in 2020, according to a new report by Washington DC-based Marijuana Policy Project (MPP).
California leads the way, generating an estimated $1 billion in tax revenue in 2020 alone, while Washington state has produced the most since 2014 ($2.6 billion).'
https://mjbizdaily.com/marijuana-legalization-efforts-get-boost-from-billions-in-mj-tax-dollars/
'From jobs to tax revenue to commercial real estate, the marijuana industry has a large – and growing – impact on the broader economy in the United States.
The total U.S. economic impact from marijuana sales in 2021 is expected to reach $92 billion – up more than 30% from last year – and upwards of $160 billion in 2025, according to analysis from the newly published MJBizFactbook.
To measure the industry’s economic impact, MJBizDaily analyzed similar industries and applied a standard multiplier of 3.5 on projected recreational and medical marijuana retail sales.'
https://mjbizdaily.com/marijuana-industry-expected-to-add-92-billion-to-us-economy-in-2021/
The economic argument might particularly resonate among reluctant Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill, experts say.
States with legal adult-use marijuana markets in operation already have generated nearly $8 billion in tax revenue combined since 2014, including $2.7 billion in 2020, according to a new report by Washington DC-based Marijuana Policy Project (MPP).
California leads the way, generating an estimated $1 billion in tax revenue in 2020 alone, while Washington state has produced the most since 2014 ($2.6 billion).'
https://mjbizdaily.com/marijuana-legalization-efforts-get-boost-from-billions-in-mj-tax-dollars/
'From jobs to tax revenue to commercial real estate, the marijuana industry has a large – and growing – impact on the broader economy in the United States.
The total U.S. economic impact from marijuana sales in 2021 is expected to reach $92 billion – up more than 30% from last year – and upwards of $160 billion in 2025, according to analysis from the newly published MJBizFactbook.
To measure the industry’s economic impact, MJBizDaily analyzed similar industries and applied a standard multiplier of 3.5 on projected recreational and medical marijuana retail sales.'
https://mjbizdaily.com/marijuana-industry-expected-to-add-92-billion-to-us-economy-in-2021/
'There's some legitimate research behind the push to bring hemp into the forefront, though. It's no perfect crop, but there's starting to be good reason, and research, behind the argument that hemp might help save the planet. On Earth Day, perhaps there's no better plant to look to than this. Here are two ways cannabis can help you limit your negative footprint on our environment.'
https://www.inlander.com/spokane/compared-with-some-alternatives-hemp-soaks-up-carbon-and-merely-sips-water/Content?oid=21530888
https://www.inlander.com/spokane/compared-with-some-alternatives-hemp-soaks-up-carbon-and-merely-sips-water/Content?oid=21530888
'In 2020 the cannabis industry was the fastest-growing industry in the U.S., despite the crippling economic effects of pandemic-related closures and quarantines. According to the Leafly 2021 Jobs Report, the cannabis industry added more than 77,000 jobs, marking a 32% increase from 2019. Astonishingly, cannabis workers now outnumber dentists, EMTs, and electrical engineers in the U.S., and cannabis sales are providing a valuable and consistent source of new tax revenue to struggling state and local economies.
Last spring, state and local governments across the nation deemed cannabis operators “essential” or “critical” businesses, authorizing them to remain open throughout the pandemic as long as they followed physical distancing and other public health guidelines. The “essential” designation was both a welcome lifeline for an industry frequently deprived of many of the benefits and resources enjoyed by other legal businesses, such as banking, insurance, and small business loans, and a milestone in the fight to destigmatize the industry.'
https://www.denverpost.com/2021/04/20/marijuana-businesses-essential-4-20-cannabis-colorado/
'The marijuana industry added more than 77,000 jobs over the past year—a 32 percent increase that makes the sector the fastest in job creation compared to any other American industry, according to a new report from the cannabis company Leafly.
In total, there are now approximately 321,000 full-time jobs in the marijuana sector across 37 states that have legalized the plant in some form. The data bolsters one of the common, bipartisan arguments in favor of reform: legalizing and regulating cannabis is an economic plus.'
https://www.marijuanamoment.net/marijuana-industry-sees-record-jobs-gains-in-2020-despite-pandemic-new-report-shows/
'In short, legalizing both medical and recreational cannabis in every state is looking more and more like a slam dunk. These new states will be bringing billions of earnings into state coffers, and millions more in state revenue.
Cannabis, and the tax revenue it provides, could be just the shot in the arm that this country needs for solid economic recovery in 2021 and beyond.'
https://www.laweekly.com/stimulus-checks-and-economic-rebound-courtesy-of-cannabis/
' - In 2019 the U.S. legal cannabis industry generated an estimated $13.2 billion in sales across all medical and adult-use state markets.
- In 2020, despite socioeconomic disruptions amid the COVID-19 pandemic, total legal cannabis sales are projected beyond $19 billion.
- Projecting a compound average growth rate (CAGR) of 18% over the next five years, by 2025 total annual U.S. legal sales should exceed $35 billion.
- Between 2020-2025, the total combined U.S. market opportunity for legal cannabis sales is estimated at $172 billion.
- Projecting that 18% CAGR, annual medical cannabis sales are estimated to nearly triple from $5.8 billion in 2019 to $16 billion in 2025.
- Meantime, annual legal adult-use sales are projected to grow at a 17% CAGR, from $7.4 billion in 2019 to $19 billion in 2025.
- Conversely, illicit market sales will slow due to legal markets: New Frontier Data estimates that 17% of all 2019 U.S. cannabis sales were legal; in 2025 more than one-third (34%) of total annual demand will be met through legal markets.
- Legal cannabis industry expansion is fueled both by new markets as more states adopt legalization, and from sustained demand growth as consumers transition from illicit to legal markets.'
https://newfrontierdata.com/cannabis-insights/growth-of-the-u-s-legal-cannabis-industry/
'Analysed through the lens of the Sustainable Development Goals, the comparison of villages affected and not affected by illicit opium cultivation suggests that different development factors drive farmers to engage in illicit cultivation. For example, in 2017, in Afghanistan, the development gap was particularly acute with regard to the Sustainable Development Goals related to security and access to health and education services, while in Myanmar (Shan State) it was mostly associated with the Sustainable Development Goals related to infrastructure and natural resources. In the same year, in Colombia, a comparison among 6,000 households, located in 12 departments of the country, showed that households cultivating coca had less access to public services such as electricity and drinking water than households not cultivating coca. The development gap and inequality of opportunities differ not only between countries but also between specific locations within a country; for example, in 2017, in North Shan State in Myanmar, they were largely related to water, sanitation and energy, while in South Shan State, to deteriorating natural resources. Therefore, generalizations about the drivers of illicit cultivation and the specific gaps and inequalities of opportunities that alternative development may be aimed at reducing could be deceptive.'
- United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020,
https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_6.pdf
Last spring, state and local governments across the nation deemed cannabis operators “essential” or “critical” businesses, authorizing them to remain open throughout the pandemic as long as they followed physical distancing and other public health guidelines. The “essential” designation was both a welcome lifeline for an industry frequently deprived of many of the benefits and resources enjoyed by other legal businesses, such as banking, insurance, and small business loans, and a milestone in the fight to destigmatize the industry.'
https://www.denverpost.com/2021/04/20/marijuana-businesses-essential-4-20-cannabis-colorado/
'The marijuana industry added more than 77,000 jobs over the past year—a 32 percent increase that makes the sector the fastest in job creation compared to any other American industry, according to a new report from the cannabis company Leafly.
In total, there are now approximately 321,000 full-time jobs in the marijuana sector across 37 states that have legalized the plant in some form. The data bolsters one of the common, bipartisan arguments in favor of reform: legalizing and regulating cannabis is an economic plus.'
https://www.marijuanamoment.net/marijuana-industry-sees-record-jobs-gains-in-2020-despite-pandemic-new-report-shows/
'In short, legalizing both medical and recreational cannabis in every state is looking more and more like a slam dunk. These new states will be bringing billions of earnings into state coffers, and millions more in state revenue.
Cannabis, and the tax revenue it provides, could be just the shot in the arm that this country needs for solid economic recovery in 2021 and beyond.'
https://www.laweekly.com/stimulus-checks-and-economic-rebound-courtesy-of-cannabis/
' - In 2019 the U.S. legal cannabis industry generated an estimated $13.2 billion in sales across all medical and adult-use state markets.
- In 2020, despite socioeconomic disruptions amid the COVID-19 pandemic, total legal cannabis sales are projected beyond $19 billion.
- Projecting a compound average growth rate (CAGR) of 18% over the next five years, by 2025 total annual U.S. legal sales should exceed $35 billion.
- Between 2020-2025, the total combined U.S. market opportunity for legal cannabis sales is estimated at $172 billion.
- Projecting that 18% CAGR, annual medical cannabis sales are estimated to nearly triple from $5.8 billion in 2019 to $16 billion in 2025.
- Meantime, annual legal adult-use sales are projected to grow at a 17% CAGR, from $7.4 billion in 2019 to $19 billion in 2025.
- Conversely, illicit market sales will slow due to legal markets: New Frontier Data estimates that 17% of all 2019 U.S. cannabis sales were legal; in 2025 more than one-third (34%) of total annual demand will be met through legal markets.
- Legal cannabis industry expansion is fueled both by new markets as more states adopt legalization, and from sustained demand growth as consumers transition from illicit to legal markets.'
https://newfrontierdata.com/cannabis-insights/growth-of-the-u-s-legal-cannabis-industry/
'Analysed through the lens of the Sustainable Development Goals, the comparison of villages affected and not affected by illicit opium cultivation suggests that different development factors drive farmers to engage in illicit cultivation. For example, in 2017, in Afghanistan, the development gap was particularly acute with regard to the Sustainable Development Goals related to security and access to health and education services, while in Myanmar (Shan State) it was mostly associated with the Sustainable Development Goals related to infrastructure and natural resources. In the same year, in Colombia, a comparison among 6,000 households, located in 12 departments of the country, showed that households cultivating coca had less access to public services such as electricity and drinking water than households not cultivating coca. The development gap and inequality of opportunities differ not only between countries but also between specific locations within a country; for example, in 2017, in North Shan State in Myanmar, they were largely related to water, sanitation and energy, while in South Shan State, to deteriorating natural resources. Therefore, generalizations about the drivers of illicit cultivation and the specific gaps and inequalities of opportunities that alternative development may be aimed at reducing could be deceptive.'
- United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020,
https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_6.pdf
'The number of people working in the U.S. cannabis industry is expected to jump to 240,000-295,000 by the end of 2020, slightly higher than the number of computer programmers employed in the United States.
The anticipated rise in cannabis employment represents a nearly 50% increase over 2019 levels, which was estimated at 165,000-210,000 in the newly released Marijuana Business Factbook.
Cannabis employees include people directly working in the sector, such as budtenders and extraction technicians, as well as employees of ancillary companies – think consultants and lawyers – who support the marijuana industry.'
https://mjbizdaily.com/chart-us-cannabis-employment-could-climb-nearly-50-in-2020-surpassing-computer-programmers/
The anticipated rise in cannabis employment represents a nearly 50% increase over 2019 levels, which was estimated at 165,000-210,000 in the newly released Marijuana Business Factbook.
Cannabis employees include people directly working in the sector, such as budtenders and extraction technicians, as well as employees of ancillary companies – think consultants and lawyers – who support the marijuana industry.'
https://mjbizdaily.com/chart-us-cannabis-employment-could-climb-nearly-50-in-2020-surpassing-computer-programmers/
'There is still very limited awareness of the nature of the threat. This is an era of specialists, each of whom sees his own problem and is unaware or intolerant of the larger frame into which it fits. It is also an era dominated by industry, in which the right to make a dollar at whatever cost is seldom challenged. When the public protests, confronted with some obvious evidence of damaging results of pesticide applications, it is fed little tranquilizing pills of half truth. We urgently need an end to these false assurances, to the sugar coating of unpalatable facts. It is the public that is being asked to assume the risks that the insect controllers calculate. The public must decide whether it wishes to continue on the present road, and it can only do so when it is in full possesion of the facts. In the words of Jean Rostand, 'The obligation to endure gives us the right to know.' - Silent Spring, Rachel Carson, 1962
So governments, the pharmaceutical industry and the medical industry cut off the supply of natural intoxicants like cannabis, opium, coca and palm toddy. They create refined and much more potent extracts from these natural materials. They control the supply and stock of these chemical drugs. They use the doctor-pharmacist route to administer these drugs to the public legally and the peddler-narcotics agent-rehabilitation center route to administer these drugs illegally. The individual is not allowed to grow or procure these intoxicants from nature. He must rely on the system to get his intoxicant and pay the maximum price for it. To realize more and more profits the system creates more and more potent chemical intoxicants moving further and further away from natural territory into synthetic chemically constructed territory. As the toxicity and addictive power of these drugs increase, the public gets addicted to an even greater extent and pays even more for any available intoxicant. Profits rise and fuel the growth of the system tremendously. The individual pays for the system, pays for the synthetic drug, pays for the treatment which is further synthetic drugs and eventually pays with his life for the synthetic intoxicant. Legalize all natural drugs - opium, coca, cannabis and toddy to name a few. Most importantly, legalize cannabis, the universal drug of the world...
So governments, the pharmaceutical industry and the medical industry cut off the supply of natural intoxicants like cannabis, opium, coca and palm toddy. They create refined and much more potent extracts from these natural materials. They control the supply and stock of these chemical drugs. They use the doctor-pharmacist route to administer these drugs to the public legally and the peddler-narcotics agent-rehabilitation center route to administer these drugs illegally. The individual is not allowed to grow or procure these intoxicants from nature. He must rely on the system to get his intoxicant and pay the maximum price for it. To realize more and more profits the system creates more and more potent chemical intoxicants moving further and further away from natural territory into synthetic chemically constructed territory. As the toxicity and addictive power of these drugs increase, the public gets addicted to an even greater extent and pays even more for any available intoxicant. Profits rise and fuel the growth of the system tremendously. The individual pays for the system, pays for the synthetic drug, pays for the treatment which is further synthetic drugs and eventually pays with his life for the synthetic intoxicant. Legalize all natural drugs - opium, coca, cannabis and toddy to name a few. Most importantly, legalize cannabis, the universal drug of the world...
- 'Passage of the 2018 Farm Bill sparked both sharp nationwide increases in licensing and explosive sales growth for 2019.
- The issuance of U.S. hemp-cultivation licenses saw a year-over-year, nationwide increase of 364% (from 3,546 in 2018 to 16,462 in 2019).
- Small family farms’ entry to the space drove licensing booms in some states, while other states saw the arrival of Big Agriculture interests in their markets.
- In 2019, Tennessee led the trend with 3,200 new licenses, marking more than a 13x increase over its 226 in 2018. Conversely, Montana’s comparatively low 277 licenses in 2019 represent nearly 40,000 acres, averaging a Big Ag-style footprint of more than 144 acres apiece.
- Traditional hemp states Colorado, Kentucky, and Oregon continue to lead in cultivation as the nation overall shows a projected 225,000 acres harvested in 2019, more than a 180% increase beyond 78,176 in 2018.'
'Those who own large estates and fortunes, or who receive large incomes drawn from working people who go short even of necessities; and those who, like tradesmen, doctors, artists, clerks, scientists, cooks, writers, valets, and lawyers, live by serving those rich people like to believe that the advantages they enjoy result not from violence, but from an absolutely free and proper exchange of services. They like to believe that their advantages - far from being gained by beatings and murders such as took place in Orel and in many parts of Russia this summer, and that occur continually all over Europe and America - have no connexion with such violence. They like to believe that their privileges exist of themselves, and result from voluntary agreements among people, and that the violence enacted also exists of itself, and results from some general, higher judicial, political, or economic laws. They try not to see that they enjoy their advantages as a result of the very thing which forces the peasants who have tended the wood and are in great need of the timber to yield it up to a wealthy landowner, who took no part in tending it during its growth and is in no need of it - that is, the knowledge that if they do not give it up they will be flogged or killed.' - Leo Tolstoy - The Kingdom of God and Peace Essays
'The overall displacement or cannibalization of tobacco by cannabis products in California alone amounted to $84.5 million overall from 2017-2018 (not including 2017 e-cigarettes, figures for which were not available). The shifts amounted to $33.8 million for cigarettes, $8.3 million for non-cigarette tobacco, and $42.6 million for e-cigarettes (in 2018 only).
Across the U.S. overall, the 2018 spending shifts amounted to $4.3 billion for alcohol: (1.54% of that market), $1.3 billion for pharmaceuticals (1.10%), and $219 million (0.22%) for tobacco.'
https://newfrontierdata.com/marijuana-insights/altria-pmi-merger-confirms-longtime-predictions-marks-industry-progression/
'There is little industry-wide consensus on cultivation best practice. Some outdoor growers might divert streams to water crops, whereas others pursue dry farming, which uses no irrigation. Indoors, growers sometimes choose cooler, light-emitting diode (LED) lights to substantially decrease water use. Meanwhile, others simply expand small, energy-intense facilities into larger operations. “There is a wide range of energy efficiency,” Smith says. “Outdoor crops planted from seeds might have a zero footprint, while old-style indoor cultivation can be 500 times more energy intensive.”'
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02526-3
'For years, the popular image of cannabis growers has been scruffy hippies getting high on their own supply in a disorganized underground economy, rather than shiny white industrial agriculture facilities. Even larger-scale operations involved minimal quality control or lacked formal record keeping.
But as legal medical — and increasingly, recreational — cannabis becomes more widespread, the cannabis industry is becoming more professional. By adopting the methods and rigour of plant science and analytical chemistry, it is ensuring that it can produce safe, consistent and high-quality products for a fast-growing and lucrative market.'
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02527-2
'The overall displacement or cannibalization of tobacco by cannabis products in California alone amounted to $84.5 million overall from 2017-2018 (not including 2017 e-cigarettes, figures for which were not available). The shifts amounted to $33.8 million for cigarettes, $8.3 million for non-cigarette tobacco, and $42.6 million for e-cigarettes (in 2018 only).
Across the U.S. overall, the 2018 spending shifts amounted to $4.3 billion for alcohol: (1.54% of that market), $1.3 billion for pharmaceuticals (1.10%), and $219 million (0.22%) for tobacco.'
https://newfrontierdata.com/marijuana-insights/altria-pmi-merger-confirms-longtime-predictions-marks-industry-progression/
'There is little industry-wide consensus on cultivation best practice. Some outdoor growers might divert streams to water crops, whereas others pursue dry farming, which uses no irrigation. Indoors, growers sometimes choose cooler, light-emitting diode (LED) lights to substantially decrease water use. Meanwhile, others simply expand small, energy-intense facilities into larger operations. “There is a wide range of energy efficiency,” Smith says. “Outdoor crops planted from seeds might have a zero footprint, while old-style indoor cultivation can be 500 times more energy intensive.”'
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02526-3
'For years, the popular image of cannabis growers has been scruffy hippies getting high on their own supply in a disorganized underground economy, rather than shiny white industrial agriculture facilities. Even larger-scale operations involved minimal quality control or lacked formal record keeping.
But as legal medical — and increasingly, recreational — cannabis becomes more widespread, the cannabis industry is becoming more professional. By adopting the methods and rigour of plant science and analytical chemistry, it is ensuring that it can produce safe, consistent and high-quality products for a fast-growing and lucrative market.'
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02527-2
'The fisheries of fresh and salt water are a resource of great importance, involving the interests and the welfare of a very large number of people. That they are now seriously threatened by the chemicals entering our waters can no longer be doubted. If we could divert to constructive research even a small fraction of the money spent each year on the development of even more toxic sprays, we could find ways to use less dangerous materials and to keep poisons out of our waterways. When will the public become sufficiently aware of the facts to demand such action? - Silent Spring, Rachel Carson, 1962
'And, it’s only fair according to DeAngelo. “The cannabis industry currently pays the federal government over $5 billion in taxes each year,” he said, “and it deserves to get the benefits all other business have access to, namely safe banking.”'
https://www.forbes.com/sites/julieweed/2019/09/27/cannabis-executives-cheer-congress-approval-of-pot-business-banking/
'The social equity program in California is designed to help people or communities disproportionately impacted by cannabis criminalization by providing funding for assistance and services to local equity applicants and licensees.'
https://mjbizdaily.com/california-awards-cities-10-million-in-social-equity-marijuana-grants/
'And, it’s only fair according to DeAngelo. “The cannabis industry currently pays the federal government over $5 billion in taxes each year,” he said, “and it deserves to get the benefits all other business have access to, namely safe banking.”'
https://www.forbes.com/sites/julieweed/2019/09/27/cannabis-executives-cheer-congress-approval-of-pot-business-banking/
'The social equity program in California is designed to help people or communities disproportionately impacted by cannabis criminalization by providing funding for assistance and services to local equity applicants and licensees.'
https://mjbizdaily.com/california-awards-cities-10-million-in-social-equity-marijuana-grants/
'There is only one kind of help possible - the abolition of that terrible cone of violence which enables the person or persons who succeed in seizing the apex to have power over all the rest, and to hold that power the more firmly the more cruel and inhuman they are, as we see, by the cases of the Napoleons, Nicholas I, Bismarck, Chamberlain, Rhodes, and our Russian Dictators who rule the people in the Tsar's name.
There is only one way to destroy the binding together of this cone - it is by shaking off the hypnotism of patriotism.
Understand that you yourselves cause all the evils from which you suffer, by yielding to the suggestions by which emperors, kings, members of Parliament, governors, officers, capitalists, priests, authors, artists, and all who need this fraud of patriotism in order to live upon your labour, deceive you!
Whoever you may be - Frenchman, Russian, Pole, Englishman, Irishman, or Bohemian - understand that all your real human interests, whatever they may be - agricultural, industrial, commercial, artistic, or scientific - as well as your pleasures and joys, in no way run counter to the interests of other peoples or States, and that you are united with the folk of other lands by mutual co-operation, by interchange of services, by the joy of wide brotherly intercourse, and by the interchange not merely of goods but also - of thoughts and feelings.' - Leo Tolstoy - The Kingdom of God and Peace Essays
So we contaminate our environment, food and water with dangerous man-made chemicals in the pursuit of quick money. These chemicals cause cancers in our bodies. To treat these cancers we make dangerous synthetic drugs, in the pursuit of quick money, that not only fail to treat the cancers, but also result in a collapse of most other body systems. This leads to a weakening and collapse of humans on increasingly larger scales as time goes by. But we do nothing to stop the contamination and weakening of our bodies that evolved over hundreds of millions of years and the contamination of our environment, food and water. Instead we continue searching for more powerful man made chemicals, to make more money faster, in the name of medicine for our environment, bodies and minds believing that we are masters of nature or, if not that, smarter than nature, whom we can fool like our gullible fellow men...but nature is not looking to make more money faster..she only deals in life and death...
There is only one way to destroy the binding together of this cone - it is by shaking off the hypnotism of patriotism.
Understand that you yourselves cause all the evils from which you suffer, by yielding to the suggestions by which emperors, kings, members of Parliament, governors, officers, capitalists, priests, authors, artists, and all who need this fraud of patriotism in order to live upon your labour, deceive you!
Whoever you may be - Frenchman, Russian, Pole, Englishman, Irishman, or Bohemian - understand that all your real human interests, whatever they may be - agricultural, industrial, commercial, artistic, or scientific - as well as your pleasures and joys, in no way run counter to the interests of other peoples or States, and that you are united with the folk of other lands by mutual co-operation, by interchange of services, by the joy of wide brotherly intercourse, and by the interchange not merely of goods but also - of thoughts and feelings.' - Leo Tolstoy - The Kingdom of God and Peace Essays
So we contaminate our environment, food and water with dangerous man-made chemicals in the pursuit of quick money. These chemicals cause cancers in our bodies. To treat these cancers we make dangerous synthetic drugs, in the pursuit of quick money, that not only fail to treat the cancers, but also result in a collapse of most other body systems. This leads to a weakening and collapse of humans on increasingly larger scales as time goes by. But we do nothing to stop the contamination and weakening of our bodies that evolved over hundreds of millions of years and the contamination of our environment, food and water. Instead we continue searching for more powerful man made chemicals, to make more money faster, in the name of medicine for our environment, bodies and minds believing that we are masters of nature or, if not that, smarter than nature, whom we can fool like our gullible fellow men...but nature is not looking to make more money faster..she only deals in life and death...
'If only free men would not rely on what has no power and is never free, that is, external force, but would trust in what is always powerful and free, that is, the truth and its expression!
If only men would boldly and clearly express the truth already manifest to them (of the brotherhood of all nations and the crime of exclusive devotion to one's own) that defunct, false, public opinion on which rests the power of governments and all the evil they produce, would slough off by itself like a dead skin and reveal that new, living, public opinion which now only awaits the shedding of the old husk that has confined it, in order to announce its demands clearly and powerfully and establish new forms of existence in conformity with the conscience of mankind.' - Leo Tolstoy - The Kingdom of God and Peace Essays
Hey junkie, this dope is not against you. Of course he believes that his dope is a much better intoxicant, more versatile medicine and more useful to the planet than your junk but that doesn't mean he intends to ban your junk in retribution for you helping to get his dope banned. What he does want, however, is that you start growing your own plant at home like him. In this way, you source your junk directly from the plant instead of putting money in the pockets of chemists who increasingly make more and more toxic stuff that destroy you, me and the planet. Your money is making the chemist pay the government to arm itself and protect him while pushing you and me closer to death. Growing your own plant will give you organic healthy junk in the best possible way, directly from the plant, like how it used to be for thousands of years, making you sustainable and the planet sustainable..yes, you can go green too..don't remain snowblind..we need your eyes too, to steer the planet away from man-made chemical disaster...
'The main characteristic and comparative advantage of darknet markets is their perceived anonymity, in particular the physical anonymity of those who do business on such markets. Purchasing drugs on those markets does not necessarily require physical contact, which reduces the inhibitions of some customers who might otherwise be reticent to interact personally with drug dealers. In addition, the customer does not have to go to dangerous places to buy drugs. Darknet trafficking also overcomes the challenge of sellers and buyers having to be in the same location; thus, organizations that traffic drugs over the darknet do not need to have the critical mass of customers necessary to sustain a local market.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'Murphy acknowledged that New Jersey – like every other state – is facing a serious budget shortfall because of the coronavirus crisis and the resulting recession, but the Democrat said legalizing marijuana could help bridge the financial gap.
Though Murphy tried to persuade state lawmakers to legalize rec marijuana, the Legislature couldn’t agree on a plan and punted to the voters.
So adult-use marijuana will be on the ballot in New Jersey in November.
A 2016 report from the New Jersey Policy Perspective estimated that legalizing marijuana could bring in more than $300 million annually to the state in tax revenues, and a recent poll found that roughly six in 10 voters back legalization, NJ.com reported.'
https://mjbizdaily.com/new-jersey-governor-touts-benefits-of-marijuana-legalization-amid-recession/
'In addition to the continued and “dramatic” capital inflow into the cannabis industry, Kagia noted a “dramatic reassessment of cannabis's place in society and the escalation of the legalization debate in capitals and local communities across the country.” Although legislative roadblocks still hobble some states, such as New York and New Jersey, from moving ahead with legalization, public support and pressure notwithstanding, right now, the issue has assumed great importance in the political landscape. Nearly every Democratic presidential candidate “has affirmed support for some measure of federal cannabis policy reform, adding to the likelihood of a substantial policy debate during the 2020 election cycle," added Kagia. With a majority of Americans supporting legalization, according to the latest Gallup poll, and “support among younger voters being dramatically higher than that of older voters, the trend toward a more accepting view of cannabis will be generational.”'
https://www.forbes.com/sites/irisdorbian/2019/09/24/new-cannabis-report-predicts-legal-sales-to-reach-nearly-30-billion-by-2025/
'All the injustice and cruelties customary in present-day life have become habitual only because there are men always ready to carry out these injustices and cruelties. If it were not for them there would not only be no one to wreak violence on those immense masses of oppressed people, but those who issued the orders would never venture to do so, and would not even dare to dream of the sentences they now confidently pass.
Were it not for these men ready to torture or kill anyone they are commanded to, no one would dare to claim what is confidently claimed by all the non-working landowners, namely that land surrounded by men who are suffering for lack of land, is the property of a man who does not work on it, or that stores of grain collected by trickery ought to be preserved untouched in the midst of a population dying of hunger, because the merchant wants to make a profit. But for the existence of these people, ready at the will of the authorities to torture and kill anyone they are told to, it could never enter the head of a landowner to deprive the peasants of a wood they had grown, or of the officials to consider it proper to receive salaries taken from the famishing people for oppressing them, not to mention executing, imprisoning, or evicting people for exposing falsehood and preaching the truth. In fact all this is demanded and done only because the authorities are all fully convinced that they have always at hand servile people ready to carry out all their demands by means of tortures and killings.' - Leo Tolstoy - The Kingdom of God and Peace Essays
'How would legal cannabis companies hold up in a severe downturn? Fairly well, said several industry experts.
And alcohol sales might be a good barometer.
Industry experts note that most cannabis consumers are wedded just as closely to marijuana as they are to other essentials, ranging from pharmaceutical medicines to toilet paper and – perhaps a closer industry parallel – alcohol.'
https://mjbizdaily.com/is-marijuana-recession-proof-industry-experts-say-yes-to-a-point-and-alcohol-may-be-guide/
Legalize the ganja world wide, especially its home growing and recreational use, to eliminate the black market and reduce the demand for other, much more dangerous drugs...we need to recognize that members of the richest governments worldwide are part of these criminal gangs...
'The “war on drugs” is harming the most vulnerable and criminalising poverty. It is not a war on drugs – despite decades of prohibition, drug production and consumption is on the increase globally – it is a war on the poor. Prohibition damages people and the planet. It is also a staggering waste of money. The cost of enforcing the war on drugs is in excess of $100bn (£77bn) a year. This rivals the size of the global aid budget (about $146bn). If redirected, that money could help provide healthcare, education and clean water to people across the world.'
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/jan/22/take-power-away-criminal-gangs-legalise-drugs
Were it not for these men ready to torture or kill anyone they are commanded to, no one would dare to claim what is confidently claimed by all the non-working landowners, namely that land surrounded by men who are suffering for lack of land, is the property of a man who does not work on it, or that stores of grain collected by trickery ought to be preserved untouched in the midst of a population dying of hunger, because the merchant wants to make a profit. But for the existence of these people, ready at the will of the authorities to torture and kill anyone they are told to, it could never enter the head of a landowner to deprive the peasants of a wood they had grown, or of the officials to consider it proper to receive salaries taken from the famishing people for oppressing them, not to mention executing, imprisoning, or evicting people for exposing falsehood and preaching the truth. In fact all this is demanded and done only because the authorities are all fully convinced that they have always at hand servile people ready to carry out all their demands by means of tortures and killings.' - Leo Tolstoy - The Kingdom of God and Peace Essays
'How would legal cannabis companies hold up in a severe downturn? Fairly well, said several industry experts.
And alcohol sales might be a good barometer.
Industry experts note that most cannabis consumers are wedded just as closely to marijuana as they are to other essentials, ranging from pharmaceutical medicines to toilet paper and – perhaps a closer industry parallel – alcohol.'
https://mjbizdaily.com/is-marijuana-recession-proof-industry-experts-say-yes-to-a-point-and-alcohol-may-be-guide/
- 'A majority (58%) felt that the legal cannabis industry will be impacted less severely than other economic sectors.
- Turbulence in the industry is not deterring investors; on average, eight among 10 reported that their industry-related investments would either increase (59%) or stay the same (21%).
- Coupled with a strong investment outlook for the sector, confidence that the cannabis industry is favorably positioned to survive COVID-19 suggests significant forthcoming interest from stakeholders in other sectors seeking relatively recession-proof industries despite a broader economic downturn'
Legalize the ganja world wide, especially its home growing and recreational use, to eliminate the black market and reduce the demand for other, much more dangerous drugs...we need to recognize that members of the richest governments worldwide are part of these criminal gangs...
'The “war on drugs” is harming the most vulnerable and criminalising poverty. It is not a war on drugs – despite decades of prohibition, drug production and consumption is on the increase globally – it is a war on the poor. Prohibition damages people and the planet. It is also a staggering waste of money. The cost of enforcing the war on drugs is in excess of $100bn (£77bn) a year. This rivals the size of the global aid budget (about $146bn). If redirected, that money could help provide healthcare, education and clean water to people across the world.'
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/jan/22/take-power-away-criminal-gangs-legalise-drugs
'But yet in these apparently unimportant actions - in our indicating to the extent of our powers the unreasonableness of what we clearly see to be irrational and refraining from taking part in it - lies our great and irresistible power: the power which constitutes that unconquerable force which makes up real genuine public opinion - that opinion which with its own advance moves all humanity. Governments know this. They tremble before that force and strive in every possible way to counteract and overcome it.
They know that strength lies not in force but in the action of the mind and in the clear expression. And they fear that expression of independent thought more than an army. So they establish censorship, bribe newspapers, and seize control of the Churches and schools. But the spiritual force which moves the world eludes them. It is not in a book or a newspaper: it cannot be trapped but is always free, for it lies in the depth's of man's consciousness. This most powerful, elusive, and free force shows itself in a man's soul when he is alone and reflects on the phenomena of the world and then involuntarily expresses his thoughts to his wife, his brother, his friend, and to all whom he accounts it a sin to conceal what he considers to be the truth. No milliards of rubles, or millions of troops, or any institutions, or wars, or revolutions, can or will produce what a free man can produce by the simple expression of what he considers right, independently of what exists and what is impressed upon him.' - Leo Tolstoy - The Kingdom of God and Peace Essays
'Marijuana Business Daily estimates total sales of medical cannabis in Europe in 2019 ranged from 230 million to 250 million euros, with the report noting that accurate estimates are complex because of a lack of official data in several of the main markets and no harmonized definitions of medical cannabis across the continent.'
https://mjbizdaily.com/european-cannabis-market-worth-240-million-euros-in-2019/
They know that strength lies not in force but in the action of the mind and in the clear expression. And they fear that expression of independent thought more than an army. So they establish censorship, bribe newspapers, and seize control of the Churches and schools. But the spiritual force which moves the world eludes them. It is not in a book or a newspaper: it cannot be trapped but is always free, for it lies in the depth's of man's consciousness. This most powerful, elusive, and free force shows itself in a man's soul when he is alone and reflects on the phenomena of the world and then involuntarily expresses his thoughts to his wife, his brother, his friend, and to all whom he accounts it a sin to conceal what he considers to be the truth. No milliards of rubles, or millions of troops, or any institutions, or wars, or revolutions, can or will produce what a free man can produce by the simple expression of what he considers right, independently of what exists and what is impressed upon him.' - Leo Tolstoy - The Kingdom of God and Peace Essays
'Marijuana Business Daily estimates total sales of medical cannabis in Europe in 2019 ranged from 230 million to 250 million euros, with the report noting that accurate estimates are complex because of a lack of official data in several of the main markets and no harmonized definitions of medical cannabis across the continent.'
https://mjbizdaily.com/european-cannabis-market-worth-240-million-euros-in-2019/
'In short the Department of Agriculture embarked on its program without even elementary investigation of what was already known about the chemical to be used - or if it investigated, it ignored the findings. It must also have failed to do the preliminary research to discover the minimum amount of the chemical that would accomplish its purpose. After three years of heavy dosages, it abruptly reduced the rate of application of heptachlor from 2 pounds to 1 and 1/4 pounds per acre in 1959; later on to 1/2 pound per acre, applied in two treatments of 1/4 pound each, 3 to 6 months apart. An official of the Department explained that 'an aggressive methods improvement program' showed the lower rate to be effective. Had this information been acquired before the program was launched, a vast amount of damage could have been avoided and the taxpayers could have been saved a great deal of money.' - Silent Spring, Rachel Carson, 1962
'The lessons from alcohol prohibition and the role of its repeal in helping the country dig out of the Great Depression are very much applicable to the position we find ourselves in today. If the nation is going to implement a comprehensive strategy to recover from the pandemic induced economic downturn, ending marijuana prohibition should be an important and prominent part of our country’s political agenda.'
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kriskrane/2020/05/26/cannabis-legalization-is-key-to-economic-recovery-much-like-ending-alcohol-prohibition-helped-us-out-of-the-great-depression/
'A study by New Frontier Data reflects that national legalization could result in an estimated $128.8 billion in tax revenue, and roughly 1.6 million in new employment. Relative data from states with legal, essential cannabis during this crisis help to further verify these figures. Despite the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression, cannabis sales have peaked record highs, proving to be a rather wealthy “cash crop” in legal states.
Ending alcohol prohibition wasn’t just the means to the end of an era of unlawful oppression, it also provided a substantial portion of the money needed for crucial projects — like Roosevelt’s “New Deal”, that put millions of Americans back to work during the unprecedented times of the Great Depression. In 1934, the first year following the repeal of alcohol prohibition, the federal government collected more than 258 million in taxes on alcohol sales alone. As the nation continues to heal, states continue to deal with the current economic destruction COVID-19 has left in its wake.
This could mean that various states are likely candidates to further look into legalization and medicinal programs as a means to repair financial gaps in the economy. So, will we learn from history as we push forward to rebuild our damaged economy, and could sweeping cannabis legalization be a part of our “new normal”?'
https://theweedblog.com/policy/federal-legalization-cannabis-stimulate-economy
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kriskrane/2020/05/26/cannabis-legalization-is-key-to-economic-recovery-much-like-ending-alcohol-prohibition-helped-us-out-of-the-great-depression/
'A study by New Frontier Data reflects that national legalization could result in an estimated $128.8 billion in tax revenue, and roughly 1.6 million in new employment. Relative data from states with legal, essential cannabis during this crisis help to further verify these figures. Despite the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression, cannabis sales have peaked record highs, proving to be a rather wealthy “cash crop” in legal states.
Ending alcohol prohibition wasn’t just the means to the end of an era of unlawful oppression, it also provided a substantial portion of the money needed for crucial projects — like Roosevelt’s “New Deal”, that put millions of Americans back to work during the unprecedented times of the Great Depression. In 1934, the first year following the repeal of alcohol prohibition, the federal government collected more than 258 million in taxes on alcohol sales alone. As the nation continues to heal, states continue to deal with the current economic destruction COVID-19 has left in its wake.
This could mean that various states are likely candidates to further look into legalization and medicinal programs as a means to repair financial gaps in the economy. So, will we learn from history as we push forward to rebuild our damaged economy, and could sweeping cannabis legalization be a part of our “new normal”?'
https://theweedblog.com/policy/federal-legalization-cannabis-stimulate-economy
'From the very simplest, lowest, and most worldly point of view it is already clear that it is madness to remain in a building which cannot sustain the weight of its roof. It is obvious that we must leave it. Indeed it is difficult to imagine a position more wretched than that in which the Christian world now is, with its nations armed one against the other, with the ever-growing taxes for the maintenance of its ever increasing armaments, with the growing hatred of the working classes for the rich, and with war hanging over us all like a sword of Damocles, threatening to fall at any moment and certain to do so sooner or later.
A revolution can hardly be more disastrous for the great mass of people than the existing order or rather disorder of our life, with is habitual sacrifices to unnatural toil, poverty, drunkenness, and debauchery, and with all the horrors of impending war, which will devour in a year more victims than all the revolutions of a century.' - Leo Tolstoy - The Kingdom of God and Peace Essays
'Unlike other plant-based drugs, for which cultivation and production is concentrated in only a limited number of countries, cannabis is produced in almost all countries worldwide. The cultivation of cannabis plants was reported by 151 countries in the period 2010–2018 – countries home to 96 per cent of the global population – and was reported through either direct indicators (such as the cultivation or eradication of cannabis plants and the eradication of cannabis-producing sites) or indirect indicators (such as seizures of cannabis plants and the origin of cannabis seizures reported by other Member States).' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'Most countries do not have a comprehensive system in place for monitoring areas under illicit cannabis cultivation. At present, the information available is insufficient to produce scientifically accurate global estimates of the area under illicit cannabis cultivation. In addition, most of the estimates of the areas under illicit cannabis cultivation reported to UNODC do not generally meet scientific standards.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'Globally, outdoor cannabis cultivation continues to be more widespread geographically than is indoor cannabis cultivation. Overall, 88 countries reported outdoor cannabis cultivation, law enforcement activities linked to outdoor cannabis cultivation (eradication, seizures of cannabis plants, seizures of cannabis-producing sites) or trends related to outdoor cannabis cultivation over the period 2012–2018, while only 64 countries reported data for those activities as linked to indoor cultivation. Some countries reported both indoor and outdoor cannabis cultivation.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
A revolution can hardly be more disastrous for the great mass of people than the existing order or rather disorder of our life, with is habitual sacrifices to unnatural toil, poverty, drunkenness, and debauchery, and with all the horrors of impending war, which will devour in a year more victims than all the revolutions of a century.' - Leo Tolstoy - The Kingdom of God and Peace Essays
'Unlike other plant-based drugs, for which cultivation and production is concentrated in only a limited number of countries, cannabis is produced in almost all countries worldwide. The cultivation of cannabis plants was reported by 151 countries in the period 2010–2018 – countries home to 96 per cent of the global population – and was reported through either direct indicators (such as the cultivation or eradication of cannabis plants and the eradication of cannabis-producing sites) or indirect indicators (such as seizures of cannabis plants and the origin of cannabis seizures reported by other Member States).' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'Most countries do not have a comprehensive system in place for monitoring areas under illicit cannabis cultivation. At present, the information available is insufficient to produce scientifically accurate global estimates of the area under illicit cannabis cultivation. In addition, most of the estimates of the areas under illicit cannabis cultivation reported to UNODC do not generally meet scientific standards.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'Globally, outdoor cannabis cultivation continues to be more widespread geographically than is indoor cannabis cultivation. Overall, 88 countries reported outdoor cannabis cultivation, law enforcement activities linked to outdoor cannabis cultivation (eradication, seizures of cannabis plants, seizures of cannabis-producing sites) or trends related to outdoor cannabis cultivation over the period 2012–2018, while only 64 countries reported data for those activities as linked to indoor cultivation. Some countries reported both indoor and outdoor cannabis cultivation.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'And before we have time to look around the usual ominous and senseless proclamation will appear in the columns of the press: "We, by the grace of God autocratic Emperor of all the Russias, King of Poland, Grand Duke of Finland, & c., &c., announce to all our faithful subjects that for the good of our beloved people entrusted to us by God we have deemed it our duty before God to send them to the slaughter. May God be with them." - and so on.
The bells will peal and long-haired men will dress themselves in gold-embroidered sacks and begin to pray on behalf of murder. The familiar, age-old, horrible businesses will recommence. The editors of newspapers will set to work to arouse hatred and murder under the guise of patriotism and will be delighted to double their sales. Manufacturers, merchants, and contractors of army-stores, will hurry about joyfully in expectation of doubled profits. Officials of all sorts will busy themselves in the hope of being able to steal more than usual. Army commanders will bustle here and there, drawing double pay and rations and hoping to receive various trinkets, ribbons, crosses, stripes, and stars, for murdering people. Idle ladies and gentlemen will fuss about, entering their names in advance for the Red Cross and getting ready to bandage those whom their husbands and brothers are setting out to kill - imagining that they will be doing a most Christian work thereby.
And hundreds of thousands of simple kindly folk, torn from their wives, mothers, and children, and with murderous weapons in their hands, will trudge wherever they may be driven, stifling the despair in their souls by songs, debauchery, and vodka. They will march, freeze, suffer from hunger, and fall ill. Some will die of disease, and some will at last come to the place where men will kill them by the thousand. And they too, without themselves knowing why, will murder thousands of others whom they had never before seen, and who had neither done nor could do them any wrong.' - Leo Tolstoy - The Kingdom of God and Peace Essays
'The quantity of cannabis herb seized in 2018 declined by 16 per cent compared with a year earlier, falling to 4,303 tons, the lowest level since 1999. As compared with 2010, the quantity seized fell by 34 per cent at the global level, largely due to decreases reported in North America (-84 per cent), with marked declines being reported by Mexico, the United States and Canada. Discussions and policies aimed at liberalizing the cannabis markets, including changes in the drug’s legislation in Canada and some jurisdictions of the United States, legalizing the production, distribution and the recreational use of cannabis, seem to have played a key role in this respect. By contrast, the quantities of cannabis herb seized almost doubled in the rest of the world over the period 2010–2018 (South America: +194 per cent; Oceania: +94 per cent; Europe: +73 per cent; Asia: +71 per cent; Africa: +53 per cent). The global cannabis herb trafficking index, based on qualitative information reported by Member States on trends in cannabis herb trafficking, also increased over the same period, although the trend appeared to be stabilizing in 2018.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
Afghanistan and Mexico source the heroin and morphine. Mexico, Thailand, Myanmar and China source the methamphetamine. The Middle East and Eastern Europe sources the amphetamine. The US consumes heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine. Europe consumes heroin, morphine, methamphetamine and amphetamine. Asia consumes heroin, morphine and methamphetamine. Australia consumes methamphetamine. The Middle East consumes heroin and amphetamine. West Asia consumes heroin and methamphetamine. All countries grow and consume cannabis. Opioids, methamphetamine and amphetamines kill the most in terms of drug deaths, cannabis kills none. Who are the leading opponents to cannabis legalization and leading enforcers of global anti-cannabis policy? The countries involved the most in heroin, morphine, amphetamines and methamphetamines. They put on a mask of concern about harms from drugs, produce, sell and consume the most dangerous synthetic drugs and vehemently oppose cannabis legalization worldwide while clandestinely feeding their habits and protecting their sources. They use arms and armies to protect and promote their synthetic drug habits, and drug money to fund and wage a war on cannabis everywhere, pushing man and planet ever closer to death on massive scales and away from the safe, healing cannabis herb...
Jul 10, 2020, 1:14 PM
'In the middle of a global pandemic and one of the worst unemployment crises in American history, Illinois marijuana retailers saw their busiest month on record in June, racking up more than $47.6 million in total sales.
No matter how you slice the data, released by the state on Tuesday, recreational cannabis sales last month shattered existing records in the state, which began legal sales to adults on January 1 of this year. Stores in Illinois sold nearly a million (994,545) cannabis items in June—5,000 more than any previous month—and brought in record sums from in-state residents ($35.3 million) and out-of-state visitors ($12.4 million) alike.'
https://www.marijuanamoment.net/illinois-saw-record-breaking-marijuana-sales-in-june-including-from-out-of-state-visitors/
The bells will peal and long-haired men will dress themselves in gold-embroidered sacks and begin to pray on behalf of murder. The familiar, age-old, horrible businesses will recommence. The editors of newspapers will set to work to arouse hatred and murder under the guise of patriotism and will be delighted to double their sales. Manufacturers, merchants, and contractors of army-stores, will hurry about joyfully in expectation of doubled profits. Officials of all sorts will busy themselves in the hope of being able to steal more than usual. Army commanders will bustle here and there, drawing double pay and rations and hoping to receive various trinkets, ribbons, crosses, stripes, and stars, for murdering people. Idle ladies and gentlemen will fuss about, entering their names in advance for the Red Cross and getting ready to bandage those whom their husbands and brothers are setting out to kill - imagining that they will be doing a most Christian work thereby.
And hundreds of thousands of simple kindly folk, torn from their wives, mothers, and children, and with murderous weapons in their hands, will trudge wherever they may be driven, stifling the despair in their souls by songs, debauchery, and vodka. They will march, freeze, suffer from hunger, and fall ill. Some will die of disease, and some will at last come to the place where men will kill them by the thousand. And they too, without themselves knowing why, will murder thousands of others whom they had never before seen, and who had neither done nor could do them any wrong.' - Leo Tolstoy - The Kingdom of God and Peace Essays
'The quantity of cannabis herb seized in 2018 declined by 16 per cent compared with a year earlier, falling to 4,303 tons, the lowest level since 1999. As compared with 2010, the quantity seized fell by 34 per cent at the global level, largely due to decreases reported in North America (-84 per cent), with marked declines being reported by Mexico, the United States and Canada. Discussions and policies aimed at liberalizing the cannabis markets, including changes in the drug’s legislation in Canada and some jurisdictions of the United States, legalizing the production, distribution and the recreational use of cannabis, seem to have played a key role in this respect. By contrast, the quantities of cannabis herb seized almost doubled in the rest of the world over the period 2010–2018 (South America: +194 per cent; Oceania: +94 per cent; Europe: +73 per cent; Asia: +71 per cent; Africa: +53 per cent). The global cannabis herb trafficking index, based on qualitative information reported by Member States on trends in cannabis herb trafficking, also increased over the same period, although the trend appeared to be stabilizing in 2018.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
Afghanistan and Mexico source the heroin and morphine. Mexico, Thailand, Myanmar and China source the methamphetamine. The Middle East and Eastern Europe sources the amphetamine. The US consumes heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine. Europe consumes heroin, morphine, methamphetamine and amphetamine. Asia consumes heroin, morphine and methamphetamine. Australia consumes methamphetamine. The Middle East consumes heroin and amphetamine. West Asia consumes heroin and methamphetamine. All countries grow and consume cannabis. Opioids, methamphetamine and amphetamines kill the most in terms of drug deaths, cannabis kills none. Who are the leading opponents to cannabis legalization and leading enforcers of global anti-cannabis policy? The countries involved the most in heroin, morphine, amphetamines and methamphetamines. They put on a mask of concern about harms from drugs, produce, sell and consume the most dangerous synthetic drugs and vehemently oppose cannabis legalization worldwide while clandestinely feeding their habits and protecting their sources. They use arms and armies to protect and promote their synthetic drug habits, and drug money to fund and wage a war on cannabis everywhere, pushing man and planet ever closer to death on massive scales and away from the safe, healing cannabis herb...
Jul 10, 2020, 1:14 PM
'In the middle of a global pandemic and one of the worst unemployment crises in American history, Illinois marijuana retailers saw their busiest month on record in June, racking up more than $47.6 million in total sales.
No matter how you slice the data, released by the state on Tuesday, recreational cannabis sales last month shattered existing records in the state, which began legal sales to adults on January 1 of this year. Stores in Illinois sold nearly a million (994,545) cannabis items in June—5,000 more than any previous month—and brought in record sums from in-state residents ($35.3 million) and out-of-state visitors ($12.4 million) alike.'
https://www.marijuanamoment.net/illinois-saw-record-breaking-marijuana-sales-in-june-including-from-out-of-state-visitors/
'As ground and surface waters are contaminated with pesticides and other chemicals, there is danger that not only poisonous but also cancer-producing substances are being introduced into public water supplies. Dr. W. C. Hueper of the National Cancer Institute has warned that 'the danger of cancer hazards from the consumption of contaminated drinking water will grow considerably within the foreseeable future.' And indeed a study made in Holland in the early 1950s provides support for the view that polluted waterways may carry a cancer hazard. Cities recieving their drinking water from rivers had a higher death rate from cancer than did those whose water came from sources presumably less susceptible to pollution such as wells.' - Silent Spring, Rachel Carson, 1962
'Medical and recreational cannabis sales in the United States are on track to exceed $15 billion this year, a jump of 40% over 2019, according to the new Marijuana Business Factbook.
Moreover, total U.S. sales could reach as high as $37 billion by 2024.'
https://mjbizdaily.com/week-in-review-us-cannabis-sales-to-top-15b-illinois-licensing-delays-nj-at-forefront-of-legalization-more/
'Medical and recreational cannabis sales in the United States are on track to exceed $15 billion this year, a jump of 40% over 2019, according to the new Marijuana Business Factbook.
Moreover, total U.S. sales could reach as high as $37 billion by 2024.'
https://mjbizdaily.com/week-in-review-us-cannabis-sales-to-top-15b-illinois-licensing-delays-nj-at-forefront-of-legalization-more/
'By whatever names we dignify ourselves, in whatever apparel we attire ourselves, by whatever and before whatever priest we may be smeared with oil, however many millions we possess, however many special guards are stationed along our route, however many policemen guard our wealth, however many so-called miscreant-revolutionaries and anarchists we may execute, whatever exploits we may ourselves perform, whatever States we may found, whatever fortresses and towers we may erect - from the Tower of Babel to that of Eiffel - we are always all of us confronted by two inevitable conditions of life which destroy its whole meaning. There is first of all death, which may at any moment overtake any of us, and there is the transitoriness of all that we do and that is so quickly destroyed leaving no trace. Whatever we may do - found kingdoms, build palaces and monuments, compose poems and romances - everything is transitory, and soon passes leaving no trace. And therefore, however we may conceal it from ourselves, we cannot help seeing that the meaning of our life can be neither in our personal physical existence, subject to unavoidable sufferings and inevitable death, nor in any worldly institution or organization.
Whoever you may be who read these lines, consider your position and your duties - not the position of landowner, merchant, judge, emperor, president, minister, priest, or soldiers, temporarily attributed to you by men, nor those imaginary duties imposed on you by that position - but your real position in eternity as a creature who by Someone's will has been called out of unconsciousness after an eternity of nonexistence, to which by the same will you may at any moment be recalled. Think of your duties - not your imaginary duties as a landowner to your estate, as a merchant to your capital, as an emperor, minister, official to the State - but those real duties which follow from your real position as a being called to life and endowed with reason and love.' - Leo Tolstoy - The Kingdom of God and Peace Essays
'Here's the crux: legalizing marijuana no longer exposes pot companies to 280E and its high effective tax rate, but it also doesn't generate nearly as much taxable income for the federal government, even if a federal tax is added to legal weed sales. Keep in mind that adding yet another tax to legal marijuana would mean that some consumers will shift their buying habits away from legal channels and toward the black market due to cost.
In other words, the status quo of marijuana being illegal at the federal level with more and more states legalizing has become highly profitable for the federal government. That's a big reason there's a reluctance to legalize.'
https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/06/29/the-surprising-reason-the-us-may-be-reluctant-to-l.aspx
'Results and conclusion: Through a detailed analysis of the available resources about the origins of C. sativa we found that its use by ancient civilizations as a source of food and textile fibers dates back over 10,000 years, while its therapeutic applications have been improved over the centuries, from the ancient East medicine of the 2nd and 1st millennium B.C. to the more recent introduction in the Western world after the 1st century A.D. In the 20th and 21th centuries, Cannabis and its derivatives have been considered as a menace and banned throughout the world, but nowadays they are still the most widely consumed illicit drugs all over the world. Its legalization in some jurisdictions has been accompanied by new lines of research to investigate its possible applications for medical and therapeutic purposes.'
https://www.eurekaselect.com/182145/article
'The shift away from purely hierarchically organized crime groups, characterized by an extensive division of labour within such organizations, also entails the emergence of new groups engaged in specific activities, covering only limited aspects of drug manufacture and logistics or specific areas such as money-laundering and the investment of drug proceeds. Moreover, a number of new groups have emerged in recent years, bypassing many of the traditional actors, purchasing and selling drugs online through the darknet to end users. They make use of private or public postal services to transport drugs to anonymous post office boxes from which they are collected by the end users. The payment is made in parallel by means of cryptocurrency transactions on the darknet' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
Whoever you may be who read these lines, consider your position and your duties - not the position of landowner, merchant, judge, emperor, president, minister, priest, or soldiers, temporarily attributed to you by men, nor those imaginary duties imposed on you by that position - but your real position in eternity as a creature who by Someone's will has been called out of unconsciousness after an eternity of nonexistence, to which by the same will you may at any moment be recalled. Think of your duties - not your imaginary duties as a landowner to your estate, as a merchant to your capital, as an emperor, minister, official to the State - but those real duties which follow from your real position as a being called to life and endowed with reason and love.' - Leo Tolstoy - The Kingdom of God and Peace Essays
'Here's the crux: legalizing marijuana no longer exposes pot companies to 280E and its high effective tax rate, but it also doesn't generate nearly as much taxable income for the federal government, even if a federal tax is added to legal weed sales. Keep in mind that adding yet another tax to legal marijuana would mean that some consumers will shift their buying habits away from legal channels and toward the black market due to cost.
In other words, the status quo of marijuana being illegal at the federal level with more and more states legalizing has become highly profitable for the federal government. That's a big reason there's a reluctance to legalize.'
https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/06/29/the-surprising-reason-the-us-may-be-reluctant-to-l.aspx
'Results and conclusion: Through a detailed analysis of the available resources about the origins of C. sativa we found that its use by ancient civilizations as a source of food and textile fibers dates back over 10,000 years, while its therapeutic applications have been improved over the centuries, from the ancient East medicine of the 2nd and 1st millennium B.C. to the more recent introduction in the Western world after the 1st century A.D. In the 20th and 21th centuries, Cannabis and its derivatives have been considered as a menace and banned throughout the world, but nowadays they are still the most widely consumed illicit drugs all over the world. Its legalization in some jurisdictions has been accompanied by new lines of research to investigate its possible applications for medical and therapeutic purposes.'
https://www.eurekaselect.com/182145/article
'The shift away from purely hierarchically organized crime groups, characterized by an extensive division of labour within such organizations, also entails the emergence of new groups engaged in specific activities, covering only limited aspects of drug manufacture and logistics or specific areas such as money-laundering and the investment of drug proceeds. Moreover, a number of new groups have emerged in recent years, bypassing many of the traditional actors, purchasing and selling drugs online through the darknet to end users. They make use of private or public postal services to transport drugs to anonymous post office boxes from which they are collected by the end users. The payment is made in parallel by means of cryptocurrency transactions on the darknet' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'The victim is always and ever the deceived, foolish, working folk - those who with blistered hands have built all those ships, fortresses, arsenals, barracks, cannon, harbours, steamers, and moles, and all these palaces, halls, platforms, and triumphal arches; who have set up and printed all these newspapers and pamphlets, and have procured and brought all these pheasants and ortolans, oysters, and wines that are consumed by the men who are fed, brought up, and kept by them, and who are deceiving them and preparing the most fearful calamities for them. It is always the same kindly, foolish folk, who stand open-mouthed like children, showing their healthy white teeth, naively delighted by dressed-up admirals and presidents with flags waving above them, and by fireworks and bands of music; and for whom, before they have time to look around, there will be neither admirals nor presidents nor flags nor bands, but only a desolate battlefield, cold, hunger, and anguish - before them murderous enemies and behind them relentless officers preventing their escape - blood, wounds, suffering, putrefying corpses, and a senseless unnecessary death.' - Leo Tolstoy - The Kingdom of God and Peace Essays
'The way drug trafficking organizations operate has been influenced by the growth of licit international trade and by the emergence of new ways of transporting goods. Notably, the use of containers has increased, and GPS devices have helped to retrieve the drug cargo within the multitude of containers. In a few cases, organized crime groups have even succeeded in hacking the computers of shipping companies to have containers redirected to locations where the drugs could be more easily removed from the container. In parallel, technological innovation has also enabled drug trafficking groups to acquire semi-submersibles to transport drugs, such as cocaine, from South America to Central and North America and, more recently, even to Europe, without being easily detectable. Moreover, drones are being used by drug trafficking groups to assist them in the shipment of drugs across borders. Another technological advance that has facilitated the connection of criminal groups is the emergence of encrypted messaging applications for mobile telephones, which have helped drug dealers to stay connected while maintaining a high degree of anonymity' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'The way drug trafficking organizations operate has been influenced by the growth of licit international trade and by the emergence of new ways of transporting goods. Notably, the use of containers has increased, and GPS devices have helped to retrieve the drug cargo within the multitude of containers. In a few cases, organized crime groups have even succeeded in hacking the computers of shipping companies to have containers redirected to locations where the drugs could be more easily removed from the container. In parallel, technological innovation has also enabled drug trafficking groups to acquire semi-submersibles to transport drugs, such as cocaine, from South America to Central and North America and, more recently, even to Europe, without being easily detectable. Moreover, drones are being used by drug trafficking groups to assist them in the shipment of drugs across borders. Another technological advance that has facilitated the connection of criminal groups is the emergence of encrypted messaging applications for mobile telephones, which have helped drug dealers to stay connected while maintaining a high degree of anonymity' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
Nations worldwide spend many times more on the war machine than on education, health, the environment, arts and sports then end up with fiscal deficits in their economic budgets - use the marijuana money to bring a better balance to our world...
2018 Cannabis Highlights by Numbers (Source: New Frontier Data)
- Nearly $2 billion - With CBD sales in the U.S. are expected to reach $534 million in 2018, growing to nearly $2 billion by 2022.
- More Than 30 Countries - The global cannabis market is expanding rapidly, with Canada having joined Uruguay as the first countries to legalize adult-use markets; more than 30 countries have some form of legal cannabis.
- 259K Jobs - In 2018, the number of plant-touching jobs in cannabis (not including hemp) reached 259,000 – on pace to surpass 500,000 jobs by 2022.
- $26.3 Billion - Total U.S. sales of legalized adult-use and medical cannabis is expected to reach $10.4 billion in 2018, and reach $26.3 billion by 2025.
- $10.1 Billion - Investment in the North American cannabis industry during 2018 reached $10.1 billion before cigarette-maker Altria Group’s $1.8 billion buy-in this month for Canada-based Cronos Group.
- 47 Countries - Hemp is being cultivated for commercial purposes or research in nearly four dozen countries.
- +13%, -11% - With $15.5 billion being spent in the U.S. throughout 2018 for prescription drugs to address chronic pain, pain medication spending is expected to increase by 13% from 2016-2019, versus an 11% decrease in spending by U.S. medical cannabis markets compared to non-legal markets.
- -15.05% - Despite winners among individual companies, 2018 saw a -15.05% overall decline in U.S. cannabis stocks (Source: WeedEx U.S. Market Tracker, from Jan. 1-Dec. 7, 2018).
'People may not bethink themselves, might not confess their faith in the Gospel, till the delusion of violence had reached its utmost limits as it has done in our day, but such faith has now become inevitable. Men can no longer fail to bethink themselves and confess their belief in the Gospel, when each of them is called upon not to pour oblations to pagan gods, as was the case of old, but to take part in the most horrible and cruel homicides after a preliminary announcement of the possibility and necessity of patricide. General conscription is the last stone laid on a wall with a crooked base, and will cause the collapse of the whole edifice of social violence which rests on shaky foundations.
And that edifice is collapsing not because the economic weight laid upon it by armaments is too great to be borne; not because the expected wars are too awful; and not because the calamities chanted by Ravachol are so dreadful. It is collapsing because the demand presented to men as the crown of the social structure - military conscription - is so contrary to the Christian teaching which has entered into men's consciousness, that they cannot fail to understand from these demands the whole falsity of the social structure in which they have lived and the full truth of the teaching which for nineteen hundred years has been rejected.' - Leo Tolstoy - The Kingdom of God and Peace Essays
CannaBit from New Frontier Data:
These figures are for the US. You can gauge from this what the figures would be for a country the size of India...
'Drawing on the most recent available data, this bulletin estimates the fiscal windfall that would be achieved through drug legalization. All told, drug legalization could generate up to $106.7 billion in annual budgetary gains for federal, state, and local governments. Those gains would come from two primary sources: decreases in drug enforcement spending and increases in tax revenue. This bulletin estimates that state and local governments spend $29 billion on drug prohibition annually, while the federal government spends an additional $18 billion. Meanwhile, full drug legalization would yield $19 billion in state and local tax revenue and $39 billion in federal tax revenue.' - The Budgetary Effects of Ending Drug Prohibition By Jeffrey Miron - a July 2018 Cato Institute report
https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/tbb-83.pdf
- Continued dramatic growth is expected for the legal cannabis industry in 2019.
- As of January 1, now 33 states plus the District of Columbia (D.C.) have legalized cannabis for medicinal use, with 10 states and D.C. permitting adult use.
- Medical-use sales are slated to begin in four states (Arkansas, Louisiana, North Dakota, and Ohio).
- Per the November 2018 midterm elections, plans proceed for medical-use sales starting by early 2020 in Missouri and Utah, along with adult-use sales in Michigan.
- U.S. sales of medical- and adult-use cannabis in 2019 are expected to reach $5.9 billion and $7.0 billion, respectively, up 28% (from $4.6 billion) and 21% (from $5.8 billion) from 2018.
- In 2019, the total number of registered U.S. medical cannabis patients is projected to reach 2.4 million, up 26% from 1.9 million patients in 2018.
These figures are for the US. You can gauge from this what the figures would be for a country the size of India...
'Drawing on the most recent available data, this bulletin estimates the fiscal windfall that would be achieved through drug legalization. All told, drug legalization could generate up to $106.7 billion in annual budgetary gains for federal, state, and local governments. Those gains would come from two primary sources: decreases in drug enforcement spending and increases in tax revenue. This bulletin estimates that state and local governments spend $29 billion on drug prohibition annually, while the federal government spends an additional $18 billion. Meanwhile, full drug legalization would yield $19 billion in state and local tax revenue and $39 billion in federal tax revenue.' - The Budgetary Effects of Ending Drug Prohibition By Jeffrey Miron - a July 2018 Cato Institute report
https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/tbb-83.pdf
'What would be more insensate and painful than the position in which the European peoples now live, spending a great part of their wealth on preparations to annihilate their neighbours and from whom nothing divides them and with whom they live in close spiritual intercourse? What could be more terrible than that which always awaits European nations, when at any moment in an unlucky hour some madman calling himself a potentate may say something displeasing to another such madman? What could be more terrible than all these newly devised and still to be devised means of destruction: cannon, shells, bombs, rockets with smokeless powder, torpedoes and other instruments of death? Yet everybody acquiesces in this state of affairs. Tomorrow a war may begin, and men driven like cattle to the slaughter, will go where they are sent and perish unprotestingly, and destroy other men without even asking themselves why they do it. And not only will they feel no remorse about it, they will even swagger and be proud of the geegaws they are allowed to wear for their skill in killing people, and they will exalt those unhappy or wicked men who placed them in such a position, and erect monuments to them.' - Leo Tolstoy - The Kingdom of God and Peace Essays
'“Cannabis legalization and decriminalization has not only occurred in nearly 60% of the United States; it is now being explored or adopted in over 60 nations around the world,” said Giadha Aguirre de Carcer, New Frontier Data’s founder and CEO. “Our data shows how full federal legalization, specifically in the U.S., will drive material gains across key economic sectors, including federal revenue generation and national job creation while reducing government health-care spending and crime rates.”
Among New Frontier Data’s updated projections and findings:
'“Cannabis legalization and decriminalization has not only occurred in nearly 60% of the United States; it is now being explored or adopted in over 60 nations around the world,” said Giadha Aguirre de Carcer, New Frontier Data’s founder and CEO. “Our data shows how full federal legalization, specifically in the U.S., will drive material gains across key economic sectors, including federal revenue generation and national job creation while reducing government health-care spending and crime rates.”
Among New Frontier Data’s updated projections and findings:
- There are an estimated 272 million cannabis consumers globally, equivalent to 4% of the world‘s population;
- Each year, those consumers collectively spend approximately $356 billion on cannabis across both legal and illicit markets;
- In the U.S., more than 24 million (9.9% of adults aged 18+) consume cannabis regularly, and 115 million (48.2%) report consuming it in their lifetimes;
- Government pain medication spending drops 11% in U.S. medical cannabis markets vs. non-legal markets;
- There were 2.4 million U.S. medical marijuana patients in 2018, up 71% from 2014;
- Legal cannabis supported 259,000 plant-touching jobs in 2018.'
- New Frontier Data’s latest U.S. cannabis market forecast shows currently legal medical and adult markets growing from $12.9 billion in 2019 to $20.4 billion in 2022.
- Nationwide spending on illicit cannabis will grow from $27 billion to $28.1 billion (based on the growth trend of American cannabis consumers).
- Adult-use sales in the 10 currently legal states will grow to nearly half (49%) of the legal market, and 1/5 of the total market (21%), as those consumers continue migrating from illicit markets to legal ones.
- Wider choices for products available in regulated markets — with surging demand for higher-priced, non-flower products (e.g., concentrates, edibles, topicals, etc.) — have added to higher spending per consumer in legal markets than in illicit markets.
- Thus, as more states legalize, and demand for non-flower products continues to surge, the total potential for a fully legal U.S. market is higher yet than the combined $48.5 billion spending forecast for 2022 under the current regulatory system.'
'These insecticides are not selective poisons; they do not single out the one species of which we desire to be rid. Each of them is used for the simple reason that it is a deadly poison. It therefore poisons all life with which it comes in contact: the cat beloved of some family, the farmer's cattle, the rabbit in the field, and the horned lark out of the sky. These creatures are innocent of any harm to man. Indeed by their very existence they and their fellows make his life more pleasant. Yet he rewards them with a death that is not only sudden but horrible.' - Silent Spring, Rachel Carson, 1962
'Just how much growth can we expect out of the U.S. and global hemp industry? According to a first-of-its-kind report from data analytics firm New Frontier Data, "The Global State of Hemp: 2019 Industry Outlook," global hemp retail sales totaled $3.7 billion in 2018 and are on track to grow to $5.7 billion by 2020.
On a more individual level, China led all countries in 2018 with almost $1.2 billion in hemp sales, followed by the U.S. at $1 billion, all of Europe at $980 million, and the combination of Central and South America at $220 million.
However, by 2022, New Frontier Data's report estimates U.S. hemp sales will have jumped to $2.6 billion, representing a compound annual growth rate of 27%. Of this $2.6 billion in hemp sales, half ($1.3 billion) will be generated from hemp-derived CBD products.'
https://www.fool.com/investing/2019/02/17/us-hemp-revenue-to-grow-27-annually-hit-26-billion.aspx
'Just how much growth can we expect out of the U.S. and global hemp industry? According to a first-of-its-kind report from data analytics firm New Frontier Data, "The Global State of Hemp: 2019 Industry Outlook," global hemp retail sales totaled $3.7 billion in 2018 and are on track to grow to $5.7 billion by 2020.
On a more individual level, China led all countries in 2018 with almost $1.2 billion in hemp sales, followed by the U.S. at $1 billion, all of Europe at $980 million, and the combination of Central and South America at $220 million.
However, by 2022, New Frontier Data's report estimates U.S. hemp sales will have jumped to $2.6 billion, representing a compound annual growth rate of 27%. Of this $2.6 billion in hemp sales, half ($1.3 billion) will be generated from hemp-derived CBD products.'
https://www.fool.com/investing/2019/02/17/us-hemp-revenue-to-grow-27-annually-hit-26-billion.aspx
'Divide up what you possess with others, do not gather riches, do not exalt yourself, do not steal, do not cause suffering, do not kill anyone, do not do to another what you would not have done to yourself, was said not only nineteen hundred years ago but five thousand years ago. And there can be no doubt of the truth of this law, and but for hypocrisy it would be impossible for men - even if they themselves did not conform to it - to fail to recognize at least its necessity, and that he who does not do these things is doing wrong.
But you say that there is a public welfare for the sake of which these rules may and should be infringed: for the public good it is permissible to kill, torture, and rob. You say, as Caiaphas did, that it is better for one man to perish than the whole nation, and you sign the death sentence of a first, a second, and a third man, load your rifles against this man who is to perish for the public welfare, put him in prison, and take his possessions. You say that you do these cruel things because as a member of society and of the State you feel that it is your duty to serve them: as a landowner, judge, emperor, or military man to conform to their laws. But besides belonging to a certain State and having duties arising from that position, you belong also to eternity and to God and have duties arising from that.' - Leo Tolstoy - The Kingdom of God and Peace Essays
Governments, policy makers, business men, medical researchers - fyi. Speaking purely on monetary terms for the lovers of money, legal cannabis sales in the United States is estimated to touch $24 billion by 2024 from the $6.6 billion in 2016 and cannabis tax revenues to grow to $2.3 billion by 2020 from the $745 million for 2017. This is for a country with a population that is approx 1/4th that of India. Legalize it India.
But you say that there is a public welfare for the sake of which these rules may and should be infringed: for the public good it is permissible to kill, torture, and rob. You say, as Caiaphas did, that it is better for one man to perish than the whole nation, and you sign the death sentence of a first, a second, and a third man, load your rifles against this man who is to perish for the public welfare, put him in prison, and take his possessions. You say that you do these cruel things because as a member of society and of the State you feel that it is your duty to serve them: as a landowner, judge, emperor, or military man to conform to their laws. But besides belonging to a certain State and having duties arising from that position, you belong also to eternity and to God and have duties arising from that.' - Leo Tolstoy - The Kingdom of God and Peace Essays
Governments, policy makers, business men, medical researchers - fyi. Speaking purely on monetary terms for the lovers of money, legal cannabis sales in the United States is estimated to touch $24 billion by 2024 from the $6.6 billion in 2016 and cannabis tax revenues to grow to $2.3 billion by 2020 from the $745 million for 2017. This is for a country with a population that is approx 1/4th that of India. Legalize it India.
'In each of these situations one turns away to ponder the question: Who has made the decision that sets in motion these chains of poisonings, this ever-widening wave of death that spreads out, like ripples when a pebble is dropped into a still pond? Who has placed in one pan of the scales the leaves that might have been eaten by the beetles and in the other the pitiful heaps of many-hued feathers, the lifeless remains of the birds that fell before the unselective bludgeon of insecticidal poisons? Who has decided - who has the right to decide - for the countless legions of people who were not consulted that the supreme value is a world without insects, even though it be also a sterile world ungraced by the curving wing of a bird in flight? The decision is that of the authoritarian temporarily entrusted with power; he has made it during a period of inattention by millions to whom beauty and the ordered world of nature still have a meaning that is deep and imperative.' - Silent Spring, Rachel Carson, 1962
'If people tell you that all this is necessary for the maintenance of the existing order of life and that this social order, with its destitution, hunger, prisons, executions, armies and wars, is necessary for society, that still more miseries will ensue were that organization infringed; all that is said only by those who profit by such an organization. Those who suffer from it - and they are ten times as numerous - all think and say the contrary. And in the depth of your soul you yourself know it is untrue, you know that the existing organization of life has outlived its time and must inevitably be reconstructed on new principles, and that therefore there is no need to sacrifice all human feeling to maintain it.' - Leo Tolstoy - The Kingdom of God and Peace Essays
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