The Congressional Research Service (CRS) has released a thirty five-page report examining the effects of the federal government implementing a wholesale excise tax on the production and sale of cannabis and cannabis-related products.
CRS’ analysis indicates that cannabis prices would fall to as low as $5 to $18 an ounce under a legalization model; they claim that today’s average prices of $200 to $300 an ounce are inflated due to prohibition. The report found that if cannabis were taxed at $50 an ounce, the nation would generate over $7 billion in taxes from an estimated $40 billion legal cannabis market.
“This CRS report on the prospects of the federal government taxing and regulating cannabis is another clear indication of the political saliency and fiscal appeal of ending cannabis prohibition at the state, and increasingly at the federal level (replacing the nearly eighty-year old failed federal policy with tax-n-regulate policies that are similar to alcohol and tobacco products)”, says Allen St. Pierre, Executive Director of NORML.
He continues; “With fours states and the District of Columbia since 2012 opting for legalizing cannabis, dozens of members of Congress from both major political parties—from states with legalization and those that pine for it—are getting serious about making sure the federal government does not lose out on hundreds of millions annually in tax revenue from the ever-growing cannabis industry in the United States.”
The full report can be found by clicking here.
– TheJointBlog
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