The legalization of marijuana in Pennsylvania has been a debatable topic for some time now. However, the potential to finance economic relief should not be debated as if it’s rocket science. Marijuana can be a legal way to get Pennsylvania’s revenue “high.”
Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, Pennsylvania has lost over 400,000 jobs. Recreational cannabis is estimated to bring in $580 million in tax revenue. According to the American Community Survey, eleven states, including Washington, Massachusetts, Hawaii, Alaska, and California, are among the top ten US states with the most income. These states have already legalized the recreational use of marijuana.
Furthermore, the century-long prohibition of marijuana has exponentially increased racial prejudice. These inequalities continue today despite many states going to lengths to change laws to combat this problem. For example, when Philadelphia decriminalized cannabis in 2014, Black people represented 80% of cannabis charge arrests. Legalization removes marijuana convictions and authorizes system reforms, which will ensure whatever measures are placed on legal cannabis are applied fairly.
Marijuana can offer some positive effects on your body and social life. Marijuana helps you to grow closer to your peers. With rapid industrialization and the development of technology, people often find themselves alienated from society in today’s world. Marijuana has been proven to foster relationships and bonding among peers in social situations. Marijuana helps individuals connect with their emotions, allowing them to open up and relax more. Marijuana has also been shown to foster creativity and motivate its users.
Pennsylvania is in a better situation to make a swift conversion to legal recreational use, as the state has already legalized the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes. This means much of the infrastructural reforms needed to facilitate the traditional selling of marijuana are already established.
“You have growers and processors who can expand their production, labs who could expand their testing, dispensaries which could expand their sales, fairly quickly, to provide adult-use marijuana to Pennsylvanians. This is a very good framework to be utilized in a way that could get this done quickly and efficiently if people wanted to,” said Seth Goldberg, a partner at the Philadelphia-based law firm, Duane Morris.
Simply put, legalizing marijuana in Pennsylvania has too many benefits for the state to ignore.
