In the United States there are some states that have their own state regulated marijuana industry. Though these states have decided the production, distribution, and consumption of these cannabis products are legal, the federal government still holds restrictions on marijuana use and it production. This causes the few states that are allowed to use marijuana to be in a small minority, but also gives them an advantage. These advantages can be seen as a result of the state regulated marijuana industry in place. The most noteworthy advantage a state regulated recreational marijuana industry would create is the vast economic growth that would occur in the United States. Individual states and the federal government can both produce revenue through cannabis legalization due to the increase in tax revenue from the sales of marijuana, and the major law enforcement spending cuts that would come as a result of legalization. In addition to the obvious economic benefits provided through taxation, and law enforcement spending cuts; marijuana is a much healthier alternative to tobacco and alcohol, which are both legally produced and consumed. Even though marijuana does have some health ramifications, they are not near as vast or detrimental to ones health as the risks present with tobacco and alcohol. This can also be an economic benefit as the cost of health care could decrease with people turning to state regulated marijuana instead of alcohol or tobacco (Volkow). Finally, marijuana can be a much safer medical alternative than many prescription drugs such as opioids, which are prescribed to Americans on a vast scale. Though there are many people opposed to legalization it can be seen through these benefits that legalization would be advantageous for many states economically. Also it is evident that these advantages from legalization far outweigh the consequences.

The legalizing of recreational marijuana could be extremely beneficial for both state and federal governments. This is partially due to the amount of tax revenue that would be generated from marijuana legalization. According to Ranjit Dighe of the Huffington Post, the influx of tax dollars generated through the production and sales of marijuana would be one of the larger benefits of enforcing a state regulated marijuana industry. This can be seen very clearly through Jonathan Caulkins book Considering Marijuana Legalization : Insights for Vermont and Other Jurisdictions. This book was in fact a report requested by the governor of Vermont to display the consequences of legalizing marijuana. To establish a nonbiased viewpoint, the author claims, “the report does not make a recommendation about whether Vermont should change its marijuana laws”(Caulkins 1). Though this report does not take a stance on the issue of legalization, it displays multiple facts that could sway people to believe marijuana legalization would be primarily beneficial. It is believed that the revenue from taxes provided by a state regulated marijuana industry would be quite large though Caulkins states that the margin of revenue would vary from state to state as there are differences in each states overall supply architecture for legalization in addition to tax and regulatory parameters. This shows that there are high tax revenues to be generated through legalizing marijuana, but that there is some variance depending on the states specific tax code and other outside forces.

Due to the ability for states revenue from legalizing marijuana to vary according to the system in place, it is beneficial to look at specific states and their means of running a state regulated marijuana industry. Roger Roffman’s, Legalization of cannabis in Washington state: how is it going? is yet another report issued by a state to weigh the pros and cons of marijuana legalization, this time though it was issued by Washington state as opposed to Vermont. In addition to simply weighing the benefits and consequences of legalizing cannabis, this report looks at different methods in which to tax and regulate the distribution and production of marijuana. This was helpful as the report was able to provide many different variations of a state regulated marijuana industry so that the state of Washington could pick the system that best suited the state and it’s economic needs. In addition to Roffman’s report, Philip Wallach also was also writing a report for Washington State to inform the state on methods in which to approach legalization. The primary difference between these reports would be that Roffman was primarily focused on just the state of Washington and possible improvements for the states marijuana industry, whereas Wallach inspected other state regulated marijuana industries already in place, such as the system in Colorado or Uruguay. He observes the regulations and laws in place in these other states and assesses whether they would work in the state of Washington. He then discusses a unique aspect to the way in which Washington State went about legalizing marijuana. This difference between other systems in place and the one in Washington state is that the state of Washington’s state regulated marijuana industry is not just focused on creating potential revenue for the state or providing patients with proper medicine. They also will be utilizing some of the money made through taxation and other regulations in the industry to further study the most effective means to run a state regulated marijuana industry. This is very important as the industry is constantly changing and therefore regulations and tax codes need to be adapting with it.

For a more specific case for the revenues caused by state regulated marijuana industries one can look at Katie Rucke’s story showing how legalizing marijuana effected the state of Colorado in its first six months of legalization. She provides a brief summary on the state regulated marijuana system in place in Colorado. Though it is thought that six months is not a long enough period of time to assess the success or failure of a policy, there are prevalent legalization impacts that can be seen just from six months of implementation. Through this she was able to show that the state of Colorado has already produced about $20 million in tax revenue and other fees through their state regulated marijuana industry. This profit margin is undeniable as the millions of dollars in tax revenue could be allocated to a plethora of different government functions, such as education or public health. 

Instead of looking at only specific states and their personal approaches and benefits of the marijuana industry, Dan Schneider explores potential revenue and benefits for the US economy as a whole. Schneider states that in the United States it is estimated that 24 million people use marijuana on a semi-regular basis. If marijuana were to be legalized recreationally in the United States those 24 million potential customers would not have to rely on the black market. This could result in the US producing an estimated $10 to $40 billion in tax revenue yearly. He also declares that there would be numerous economic benefits present through legalization that have nothing to do with THC. For example, the cannabis plant produces a material called hemp that could be traded and create even more economic growth in the US. This displays that there is too much money being poured into the black market for a substance that could be legalized and taxed producing astronomical amounts of revenue.

In addition to tax revenue and other fees that would benefit the economy, a state regulated marijuana industry would also cut down crime so considerably that major, but safe, spending cuts could be made to law enforcement in the United States. Dighe makes the point that there would be major spending cuts in law enforcement throughout the country as a result of marijuana legalization. This is possible due to the large decrease in the number of cases and criminals for the justice system would have to account for. Rucke also mentions in her article that just six months after legalization in Colorado the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report showed that overall crime had dropped roughly 10%. Because of this drop in crime there would be a much smaller number of inmates in prisons. This could result in tens of millions of dollars to be saved or allocated to something else for the state of Colorado. With the amount of crimes in the US that marijuana accounts for, its decriminalization would create more money for the government to use elsewhere that is potentially more important than pumping more money into prisons and courthouses.

In addition to the economic benefits, as well as the health advantages, it could be extremely advantageous to public health. The addition of medicinal marijuana to the possible treatment of certain illnesses, primarily those that cause immense pain, would help a large number of Americans that are suffering due to these illnesses. For example, thirty percent of epilepsy victims in the United States still have uncontrollable seizures even while medicated on drugs that are approved by the Food and Drug Administration. This has caused many of these people suffering from severe epilepsy to seek out other treatment options to create a higher quality of life for the patient. One alternative many people have found very useful in treating epilepsy is medicinal marijuana. According to studies at Texas A&M, one of the two major active components in marijuana plants, cannabidiol (CBD), has been largely successful in treating severe seizures and helping many of those suffering from epilepsy. Many other terrible diseases, including Parkinson’s Disease, have also been treated with CBD. Cannabidiol additionally is not a psychoactive component, like THC, and does not cause someone using it for treatment to become addicted.

Though there are obviously great public health advantages available through marijuana use, there is still a huge backlash against its legalization. There have been many advertisements and other pushes to keep marijuana illegal in many states that have began considering legalization, such as the case in Arizona. One may wonder why there would be this large backlash against the legalization movement and think its funded by strong conservatives, concerned parents, or other figures that typically are against substance use, but this is not the case. According to Alfonso Serrano of The Guardian, in the state of Arizona there has been a huge campaign to keep marijuana illegal and the primary funders of this campaign, and others around the nation, are actually large pharmaceutical companies. This could confuse many people as pharmaceutical companies are seen as a good thing because they create and sell treatments for many diseases and illnesses. The reasoning for big pharmaceutical companies to be against the legalization of marijuana is that many drugs that these companies produce could be substituted or completely replaces a product that the company produces and wants to sell on a large scale. For a more specific example of this one could look at the state of Arizona. There is an exorbitant amount of money being spent on advertising campaigns to scare people about the ramifications of marijuana legalization. The largest donor to this campaign against cannabis in Arizona is a large pharmaceutical company called Insys Therapeutics. They funded this anti marijuana movement by donating $500,000 to create ads that utilize scare tactics. The ads mention that other states that have legalized marijuana and were promised an increase in education funding from the revenue of the state’s marijuana industry, but instead there kids are eating marijuana edibles that look like candy. This is obviously a ploy to scare parents into thinking there child will be more widely exposed to marijuana products, thus harming the child. In reality though, Insys Therapeutics did not spend $500,000 to alert parents of the dangers of marijuana and concern for their children’s safety. Instead they did this because they produce and sell a prescription drug called Subsys. This is a painkiller derived from fentanyl, which is a synthetic opioid that is considered to be 100 times more powerful than morphine. This strong, and highly addictive, painkiller is prescribed to cancer patients in severe pain that have a high tolerance to other non-synthetic opiates. This can be a dangerous drug to take as it is very powerful and addicting, but it is widely prescribed to cancer patients anyways. If marijuana were to be legalized many cancer patients with a high opioid tolerance that would be prescribed Subsys, instead may choose a safer and healthier alternative to pain relief in medicinal marijuana. Because of this fear in a loss of sales and dropping market share value, Insys Therapeutics and many other pharmaceutical companies have pushed against marijuana legalization. This is a major cause for concern as Americans due to the ever-increasing opioid epidemic sweeping across America. 

According to the New York Times, over 33,000 Americans died of an opioid overdose in 2015. While heroin is largely responsible for this, the large pharmaceutical companies creating prescription painkillers are also very much to blame. They create opium-based painkillers, which then are prescribed extremely regularly to anyone that has severe pain. Because these drugs are so widely prescribed and easy to obtain it causes many Americans to become hopelessly dependent, leading to either intense drug addiction or overdose. These painkillers have become a cash cow for big pharmaceutical companies and are killing Americans by the day. Marijuana can sometimes be a replacement for the prescription painkiller, which could correlate with lower opiate abuse in America for the future, as well as taking money away from pharmaceutical companies that push doctors to prescribe the opioids like they are candy.

In conclusion, a state regulated marijuana industry could be a huge advantage to Americans. The economic benefits, including an increase in jobs as well as a considerable increase in tax revenue, could be extremely beneficial to states as they could use the extra revenue for funding education, repairing infrastructure, public health care, or many other important issues paid for by the state. This would stimulate the economy in a huge way as millions of dollars in extra revenue would be able to be utilized that was not present prior to marijuana legalization. In addition to the economic benefits, it is a much healthier and safer alternative to other recreational substances such as alcohol and tobacco. Both of these substances are much more addicting and dangerous as they have been linked to cancer and other illnesses such as liver failure. Finally, marijuana can be an amazing alternative medicine to those who are not getting the full treatment they truly need from prescription drugs alone. This could also act as a substitute for dangerous painkillers that can lead to addiction and overdose, as well as may other side effects. Through legalization the United States can stimulate the economy, increase overall public health, and hopefully, with time, slow down or possibly end the terrible opioid epidemic plaguing the country currently.
