News » CATO Study Says Cannabis Sales Could Mean $17B in Savings and Tax Revenue





The CATO Institute in Washington, a non-partisan, free market think tank, issued a study titled The Budgetary Impact of Ending Drug Prohibition, detailing the economic impacts of legalizing marijuana as well as all illicit drugs.

The report’s authors, Dr. Jeffrey A. Miron, PhD and Katherine Waldock, a PhD candidate, look at legalization’s two impacts: the reduced expenditures due to the ending of the War on Drugs and the increases in tax revenue at all levels from legalizes sales.

The report estimates that $41.3 billion per year would be saved in government expenditures on drug prohibition enforcement with $25.7 billion being at the state level and another $15.6 billion at the federal level. About $8.7 billion of that would be from marijuana alone.

The report further estimates that tax revenues of $46.7 billion annually would be seen if these drugs were taxed in a way similar to alcohol and tobacco. About $8.7 billion would come from marijuana again and the rest from other drugs.

The full report is free to download from CATO’s website (link below).

[source CATO]

Tags: drugs, legalization, marijuana