Legalisation could bring in $240m revenue, says economist
A New Zealand referendum on cannabis law reform in 2020 could open the floodgates on a new multimillion-dollar industry.
On Tuesday the Justice Minister said the Government will hold a referendum on personal cannabis use at the 2020 general election – and it will be binding, meaning the result must be acted upon or implemented.
Should Kiwis give legal marijuana a green tick a whole new weed economy will emerge.
Research, commissioned by the New Zealand Drug Foundation and carried out by Sense Partners economist Shamubeel Eaqub, concluded that New Zealand could be $86 million a year better off in ‘‘societal gains’’ if cannabis was legalised.
The research, which looked at a range of possible scenarios towards drug decriminalisation, found the legal growing and selling of cannabis would generate tax revenues of $185m to $240m per year and save the justice sector $6m to $13m as fewer people went to court and prison for cannabis possession and supply offences. The regulatory costs of licensing and monitoring the sale and supply of cannabis would be about $5m a year, paid for from licence fees for approved retailers and manufacturers, it said. Legalisation of cannabis alone would result in a gain of about $10m a year, excluding tax and licensing revenue of $191m a year.
But when accompanied by a proposed $150m health package (needed for treatment in the community rather than in prison), societal gains were $86m a year, the research said.
A $150m health package would be more than offset by the tax revenue and would effectively double what New Zealand currently spent providing access to about 51,000 people who used drugs and alcohol, the research concluded.