For the study, Seedo (an automatic cultivator device) began first by selecting 120 cities across the world, including locations where cannabis is currently legal, illegal and partially legal, and where marijuana consumption data is available. Then, they looked into the price of cannabis per gram in each city. To calculate how much potential tax a city could make through legalization, researchers investigated how much tax is paid on the most popular brand of cigarettes, “as this offers the closest comparison”. They then looked at what percentage marijuana is currently taxed in cities where it’s already legalized in the US.

“This study has revealed some incredible insights into the kind of tax revenue that legalising weed could generate.” says Uri Zeevi, CMO at Seedo. “Take New York City for instance, which has the highest consumption level in the study at 77.44 metric tons of cannabis per year. If they taxed marijuana at the average US cannabis tax level, the city could make $156.4 million in potential tax revenue per year. This is equivalent to providing nearly 3 months worth of free school meals to every single public school kid in New York City.”

The table below reveals a sample of the results for the 13 US cities featured in the study:

# City Legality Price per gram, US$ Total possible tax collection, if taxed at cigarette level, mil US$ Total possible tax collection, if taxed at average US marijuana taxes, mil US$ Total consumption in metric tons 1 Washington, DC Partial 18.08 47.51 20.96 6.18 2 Chicago Partial 11.46 119.61 52.77 24.54 3 Philadelphia Partial 11.30 68.37 30.16 14.22 4 Boston Legal 11.01 28.59 12.61 6.10 5 New York Partial 10.76 354.48 156.40 77.44 6 Dallas Partial 10.03 51.01 22.5 11.95 7 Houston Partial 10.03 89.13 39.32 20.89 8 Phoenix Partial 9.35 58.26 25.71 14.65 9 Miami Partial 9.27 16.24 7.16 4.12 10 San Francisco Legal 9.27 30.94 13.65 7.85 11 Los Angeles Legal 8.14 124.88 55.10 36.06 12 Denver Legal 7.79 20.53 9.06 6.20 13 Seattle Legal 7.58 20.59 9.08 6.39

The table below shows the top 10 most and least expensive cities for cannabis: