A major benefit to permitting a regulated cannabis industry to operate is the legal industry’s ability to generate taxes and fees. Those taxes and fees can then, in turn, be used for public efforts that support all members of society, not just cannabis consumers.
Missouri is a state that has legalized adult-use cannabis sales, and in April 2024 alone Missouri’s legal cannabis sales totaled $120.10 million. The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services recently transferred $15,229,302 in funds generated by Missouri’s recreational cannabis industry to agencies as outlined in Missouri’s Constitution. Below is a breakdown of the revenue dispersal via original reporting by KTTN:
- Missouri Veterans Commission ($5,076,434): for use exclusively for health care and other services for military veterans and their dependent families.
- Missouri State Public Defender ($5,076,434): to be used only for legal assistance for low-income Missourians.
- DHSS ($5,076,434): to operate a grant program for subrecipients to increase access to evidence-based, low-barrier drug addiction treatment, prioritizing medically proven treatment and overdose prevention and reversal methods, and public or private treatment options with an emphasis on reintegrating recipients into their local communities. The funds will also support overdose prevention education, and job placement, housing, and counseling for those with substance use disorders.
Missouri voted to legalize adult-use cannabis sales in 2022. Recreational cannabis products are taxed at 6%. Previously, on Election Day 2018, voters in Missouri approved Amendment 2, a medical cannabis legalization measure, with 65.5% support. In October 2020, the first legal sales of medical cannabis in the state of Missouri occurred between a Missouri-licensed dispensary and qualified patients and caregivers.
Legal adult-use cannabis sales launched in Missouri in February 2023, and in less than 30 days Missouri’s then nearly 200 dispensaries made roughly $72 million in sales. Missouri’s medical cannabis sales added an addition $31 million to the total amount of legal sales in Missouri during the period.
Missouri’s legal cannabis industry has continued to grow over the last year. According to cannabis industry data company Headset, “The total sales for March 2024 reached $124.08 million, with over 4 million units sold.”
Per original reporting by Marijuana Moment, during the first year of legal adult-use sales Missouri “sold more than $1.4 billion worth of legal cannabis,” of which roughly $1.13 billion was from adult-use purchases and another $280 million was from medical cannabis transactions.
Total legal cannabis sales in the United States are expected to reach $31.4 billion in 2024 according to a recent analysis by Whitney Economics. Additionally, leading cannabis jobs platform Vangst, in conjunction with Whitney Economics, estimates that the legal cannabis industry now supports 440,445 full time-equivalent cannabis jobs in the United States.
Whitney Economics also projects the following legal cannabis sales figures in the United States for the coming years:
- 2024: $31.4 billion (9.1% growth from 2023)
- 2025: $35.2 billion (12.1% growth from 2024)
- 2030: $67.2 billion
- 2035: $87.0 billion
The emerging legal cannabis industry in the United States is projected to add roughly $112 billion to the nation’s economy in 2024 according to a newly released analysis by MJBiz Daily. The projection is part of the company’s 2024 MJBiz Factbook.
“The total U.S. economic impact generated by regulated marijuana sales could top $112.4 billion in 2024, about 12% more than last year,” MJBiz stated in its initial reporting.
The United States adult-use cannabis industry has generated over $20 billion in total tax revenue since the first legal recreational cannabis purchase was made in Colorado on January 1st, 2014 according to a new report by the Marijuana Policy Project.
“Through the first quarter of 2024, states have reported a combined total of more than $20 billion in tax revenue from legal, adult-use cannabis sales. In 2023 alone, legalization states generated more than $4 billion in cannabis tax revenue from adult-use sales, which is the most revenue generated by cannabis sales in a single year.” the Marijuana Policy project stated in a press release.