For every $1 consumers and patients spend at adult-use stores and dispensaries, an additional $1.80 will be injected into the economy, much of it on a local level.
Legal marijuana is becoming increasingly popular. New predictions suggest marijuana sales will make $33 billion by the end of 2022.
This prediction, made by the 2022 MJBusiness Factbook, was released Monday and it expects the industry to keep growing over the years. By 2025, the industry is expected to produce $52 billion in revenue from annual sales.
RELATED: Legal States Collected Nearly $4 Billion In Legal Marijuana Revenue In 2021
A growing marijuana industry can only mean more revenue for the states. “This means that for every $1 consumers and patients spend at adult-use stores and dispensaries, an additional $1.80 will be injected into the economy, much of it on a local level,” MJBiz Factbook editor, Jenel Stelton-Holtmeier, told Fortune.
Currently, there are 18 states with legal recreational marijuana, with 77% of the U.S. population residing in them. Thirty-seven states have laws for the drug’s medicinal purposes.
These past two weeks have seen great strides in legalizing marijuana on a federal level, with the U.S. House of Representatives passing two laws that could legalize it nationwide: the MORE Act and the Medical Marijuana Research Act. While many believe it unlikely that the laws will pass the senate, the growth of the industry suggests that things are headed in that direction.
While the current administration claims to be pro decriminalizing marijuana, throughout President Biden’s first year in office, marijuana has remained a very low priority. Still, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said that Biden’s administration believes marijuana laws must change from what they are right now.
RELATED: What Do Republicans Need In Cannabis Legalization Bill To Support It?
“As the president said during the campaign, our current marijuana laws are not working,” she said. “He agrees that we need to rethink our approach, including to address the racial disparities and systemic inequities in our criminal justice system, broaden research on the effects of marijuana and support the safe use of marijuana for medical purposes.” It’s not an endorsement of recreational marijuana and it’s not in line with what the majority of Americans are thinking, but it’s something.
Marijuana legislation is a thorny subject, something that, in politics, is focused mainly on optics. Politicians will delay it until they can’t. Meanwhile, the cannabis industry will continue to grow, create more jobs and make significant amounts of money.
