Making marijuana legal in Arizona would result in an influx of tax revenue, the exceeding estimates of the past. This data was released in a recent analysis from the Grand Canyon Institute (GCI). If voters in Arizona were to legalize recreational marijuana in a ballot that is planning to be held in 2016, the state was originally said to make $64 million dollars in tax revenue; now, the estimate is $72 million. Recent predictions released by the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol found that legalizing pot would real in about $40 million through 15% sales tax.
If recreational marijuana was made legal in Arizona after the ballot in 2016, Arizona would raise over $72 million in revenue every year starting in 2019. This prediction was posted by the GCI on their website. Supporters of the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol said on August 19th that the plans for their ballot would raise over $40,000,000 for schools yearly. This campaign has rounded up about 65,000 signatures towards voting to be done in November; this campaign is also sponsored by the Marijuana Policy Project.
The institute “finds that the revenue projections were conservative as proponents claimed,” according to the GCI report. “If the initiative were to make the ballot and be passed by voters. The GCI expects 2019 to be the first year with a full rollout of retailers and at that point, due to inflation and population growth, the expected totals would be $72 million: with almost $29 million each to K-12 education and helping fund all-day Kindergarten, plus $14 million to the Dept. of Health Services.”
The report began by stating that the GCI neither supports nor opposes marijuana legalization. CGI is led by a 12-member board of directors composed of local leaders on both wings in their political affiliations.
“Our estimate was done conservatively so, if anything, it understates [total] revenue a bit — enough to give some wiggle room for administrative costs,” Dave Wells – GCI director of research and writer of the report – tells New Times.
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