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Australia is Punting Away $250 Million a Year in Tax Revenue by Not Legalizing Cannabis Says New Study
Australia could see more than $250 million a year in new tax revenue by legalizing marijuana.
Australia Is Missing Out On At Least $250 Million Each Year That Cannabis Isn’t Legalized, Says New Report
Canada and Uruguay have long legalized marijuana.
Is Australia next?
Unfortunately, Australia seems to be delaying cannabis legalization and each year that they don’t they are losing out on $250 million. As of now, legislation has been introduced by the Greens to parliament with the hopes of legalizing pot around the country. The legislation is still out for public consultation though should it be given the green light, it would allow cannabis to be sold and regulated for adult use throughout the countries. In doing so, it would join the many US states who have done so successfully, as well as several other nations.
According to a new report released by the University of Western Australia, the state alone could see profits upward of $243 each year in the first five years cannabis is legalized. The revenue was quantified by calculating incomes made from legalizing pot, taking into consideration the frequency and form that marijuana is consumed plus the costs incurred by enforcing laws. The report, entitled “An Economic Case to Legalise Cannabis in Western Australia”, was put together also using data from several sources including the Australian Crime Commission, the Australian National Drug Strategy Survey, the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre of the University of NSW, and the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission.
“We wanted to find out the actual truth on this, and we commissioned this not expecting any particular result,” explains Dr. Brian Walker, leader of the Legalise Cannabis WA Party, who authorized the report. “This is the first time anyone has shown their working, and set out exactly how their figures were arrived at,” he told ABC Radio Perth’s Nadia Mitsopoulos.
“On the spending side we’ve got stuff like your police – for chasing a cannabis crime – the courts and the corrective services for managing that. Altogether, that’s about $100 million per year,” he adds.
Additionally, they considered estimated figures to see potential income from taxes conservatively. The researchers state that it could be safe to assume a 25% tax on recreational cannabis, resulting in a cool $137 million of direct tax revenue in WA alone, should annual sales reach around $686 million. Then there is also the income from licensing fees from businesses who want to sell marijuana, which could inject some $5.6 million annually.
The State Of Cannabis In Australia Now
As of the time of writing, it’s illegal to grow, possess, sell, or consume marijuana. However, just like in the United States, the law is different from one territory and state to another.
Depending on the location in Australia, there are fines for various amounts of cannabis found in possession. The only exception is in the Australian Capital Territory, where residents can legally own as much as 50g of cannabis for adult-use without the need for a prescription. Everywhere else, cannabis possession without a doctor’s prescription can set you back on a fine anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars, and the risk of going to jail.
But since 2016, medicinal cannabis has been legal. Registered doctors are allowed to prescribe cannabis in several different forms to treat many health conditions. Opponents of legalization in Australia feel that it’s actually far too easy to get your hands on medical marijuana, and that the situation has become far too liberal.
And according to 2019 data, there were around 600,000 Australians who were already consuming medical cannabis. These figures come from a report conducted by the Lambert Initiative, though these numbers have already increased significantly especially given the quantity of doctors who have been lining up to register and prescribe pot.
“There’s been a dramatic increase in the number of prescriptions issued for medicinal cannabis in the past two years,” explains Professor Iain McGregor, the Lambert Initiative for Cannabinoid Therapeutics’ Academic Director, as per a University of Sydney article . “But we have good evidence that the number of people using cannabis to treat ailments is substantially higher than this,” he adds.
Medicinal cannabis is one thing, and adult-use is another. The cannabis legalization bill of the Greens could “provide for the registration of cannabis strains, the regulation of cannabis and the establishment of the Cannabis Australia National Agency.” A national cannabis licensing scheme as well as a regulator would be established, both of whom would play important roles in overseeing grow operations and sales around the country.
Furthermore, the bill would make it legal to grow a maximum of 6 cannabis plants at home. Businesses can also sell pot to licensed businesses, such as cafes or dispensaries. Much of it will be similar to the model already in place in Canada.
It isn’t enough to legalize just medicinal use cannabis, and just like we have observed in other countries, it’s causing more harm than good. “Law enforcement is spending billions of public dollars failing to police cannabis, and the opportunity here is to turn that all on its head by legalizing it,” said Greens Senator, David Shoebridge.
Conclusion
It’s clear that economically and politically speaking, decriminalization of cannabis is the way to go. This is what is working for other countries, and even the public thinks so. Keeping cannabis illegal has proven to be harmful for the community – and expensive for law enforcement. Nobody wins. It’s high time that Australia legalizes adult-use cannabis already.
New Mexico regulators fined a cannabis operator nearly $300,000 and revoked its license after the company allegedly created fake reports in the state’s traceability software.
The New Mexico Cannabis Control Division (CCD) accused marijuana manufacturer and retailer Golden Roots of 11 violations, according to Albuquerque Business First.
Golden Roots operates the The Cannabis Revolution Dispensary.
The majority of the violations are related to the Albuquerque company’s improper use of BioTrack, which has been New Mexico’s track-and-trace vendor since 2015.
The CCD alleges Golden Roots reported marijuana production only two months after it had received its vertically integrated license, according to Albuquerque Business First.
Because cannabis takes longer than two months to be cultivated, the CCD was suspicious of the report.
After inspecting the company’s premises, the CCD alleged Golden Roots reported cultivation, transportation and sales in BioTrack but wasn’t able to provide officers who inspected the site evidence that the operator was cultivating cannabis.
In April, the CCD revoked Golden Roots’ license and issued a $10,000 fine, according to the news outlet.
The company requested a hearing, which the regulator scheduled for Sept. 1.
At the hearing, the CCD testified that the company’s dried-cannabis weights in BioTrack were suspicious because they didn’t seem to accurately reflect how much weight marijuana loses as it dries.
Company employees also poorly accounted for why they were making adjustments in the system of up to 24 pounds of cannabis, making comments such as “bad” or “mistake” in the software, Albuquerque Business First reported.
Golden Roots was fined $298,972.05 – the amount regulators allege the company made selling products that weren’t properly accounted for in BioTrack.
The CCD has been cracking down on cannabis operators accused of selling products procured from out-of-state or not grown legally:
- Regulators alleged in August that Albuquerque dispensary Sawmill Sweet Leaf sold out-of-state products and didn’t have a license for extraction.
- Paradise Exotics Distro lost its license in July after regulators alleged the company sold products made in California.
Golden Roots was the first alleged rulebreaker in New Mexico to be asked to pay a large fine.
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/new-mexico-cannabis-operator-fined-loses-license-for-alleged-biotrack-fraud/
Four marijuana companies, including a multistate operator, have filed a lawsuit against U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in which they allege the federal MJ prohibition under the Controlled Substances Act is no longer constitutional.
According to the complaint, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, retailer Canna Provisions, Treevit delivery service CEO Gyasi Sellers, cultivator Wiseacre Farm and MSO Verano Holdings Corp. are all harmed by “the federal government’s unconstitutional ban on cultivating, manufacturing, distributing, or possessing intrastate marijuana.”
Verano is headquartered in Chicago but has operations in Massachusetts; the other three operators are based in Massachusetts.
The lawsuit seeks a ruling that the “Controlled Substances Act is unconstitutional as applied to the intrastate cultivation, manufacture, possession, and distribution of marijuana pursuant to state law.”
The companies want the case to go before the U.S. Supreme Court.
They hired prominent law firm Boies Schiller Flexner to represent them.
The New York-based firm’s principal is David Boies, whose former clients include Microsoft, former presidential candidate Al Gore and Elizabeth Holmes’ disgraced startup Theranos.
Similar challenges to the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) have failed.
One such challenge led to a landmark Supreme Court decision in 2005.
In Gonzalez vs. Raich, the highest court in the United States ruled in a 6-3 decision that the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution gave Congress the power to outlaw marijuana federally, even though state laws allow the cultivation and sale of cannabis.
In the 18 years since that ruling, 23 states and the District of Columbia have legalized adult-use marijuana and the federal government has allowed a multibillion-dollar cannabis industry to thrive.
Since both Congress and the U.S. Department of Justice, currently headed by Garland, have declined to intervene in state-licensed marijuana markets, the key facts that led to the Supreme Court’s 2005 ruling “no longer apply,” Boies said in a statement Thursday.
“The Supreme Court has since made clear that the federal government lacks the authority to regulate purely intrastate commerce,” Boies said.
“Moreover, the facts on which those precedents are based are no longer true.”
Verano President Darren Weiss said in a statement the company is “prepared to bring this case all the way to the Supreme Court in order to align federal law with how Congress has acted for years.”
While the Biden administration’s push to reschedule marijuana would help solve marijuana operators’ federal tax woes, neither rescheduling nor modest Congressional reforms such as the SAFER Banking Act “solve the fundamental issue,” Weiss added.
“The application of the CSA to lawful state-run cannabis business is an unconstitutional overreach on state sovereignty that has led to decades of harm, failed businesses, lost jobs, and unsafe working conditions.”
Alabama regulators are targeting Dec. 1 to award the first batch of medical cannabis business licenses after the agency’s first two attempts were scrapped because of scoring errors and litigation.
The first licenses will be awarded to individual cultivators, delivery providers, processors, dispensaries and state testing labs, according to the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission (AMCC).
Then, on Dec. 12, the AMCC will award licenses for vertically integrated operations, a designation set primarily for multistate operators.
Licenses are expected to be handed out 28 days after they have been awarded, so MMJ production could begin in early January, according to the Alabama Daily News.
That means MMJ products could be available for patients around early March, an AMCC spokesperson told the media outlet.
Regulators initially awarded 21 business licenses in June, only to void them after applicants alleged inconsistencies with how the applications were scored.
Then, in August, the state awarded 24 different licenses – 19 went to June recipients – only to reverse themselves again and scratch those licenses after spurned applicants filed lawsuits.
A state judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by Chicago-based MSO Verano Holdings Corp., but another lawsuit is pending.
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/alabama-plans-to-award-medical-cannabis-licenses-dec-1/
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