Indopedia All Things Marijuana
Last month, New Zealand joined the rising ranks of medical cannabis-friendly countries by permitting doctors to prescribe CBD oil to patients with certain medical conditions. The decision was a small, yet pivotal step towards full-scale legalization for pot-loving Kiwis, and could potentially jumpstart a greater movement throughout the country.
In order to show how much the southwestern Pacific Ocean island region could prosper from a recreational system, the popular New Zealand news website Stuff recently commissioned the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER) to estimate how much tax revenue the government would collect from legalization. The findings suggest that cannabis would generate about $40m in tax revenue and $30 million from the Goods and Services Tax, coming out to an annual amount of $70 million.
To reach this figure, the research group had to make a number of educated assumptions on the number of consumers, the tax rate, as well as how price changes and taxes would impact the final price of the product. The NZIER team, headed by economist Peter Wilson, gathered data from the Ministry of Health’s latest survey on drug use. This allowed the…
