As the United States continues to slog through its economic malaise, those who keep their ears to the ground have heard the earth shaking over the implementation of “medical marijuana” programs in certain states. Some will see it as a sign of progress, others as a sign of the Apocalypse, but economists have already noticed that it means one thing in the places where it exists: Robust growth, the likes of which all other industries would love to see.
This follows a great push for expansion of hemp as an industrial crop. From hand lotion to handbags to heating oil, hemp has long been a parked resource – in part because of lobbying efforts from the oil and timber industries to keep it that way. However successful they have been or will be, hemp advocates have helped shine some much-needed light on a subject that is seen more and more as a viable piece of our nation’s economic puzzle.
From the opening of dispensaries to the manufacture and sales of hydroponic growing equipment (including grow lights), cash registers are ringing as the laws that have for so long criminalized cannabis come off the books. Small businesses are opening and jobs are being created – other than a few narrow-minded stalwarts, the nation has come to understand that there is an outward flow of taxpayer dollars that is out of line with the realities of marijuana’s impact on society.
California, in particular, has seen its tax coffers swell in the wake of the state’s loosening of marijuana laws. Moreover, law enforcement surely has to understand that every plant that is produced, legally, under grow lights in America is a plant that doesn’t produce a profit for the drug cartels that rely on marijuana sales to fuel all of their other operations – including their heavy participation in the illegal weapons trade. It all adds up: Medical marijuana makes dollars, and more important, it makes sense.
