Despite what some of the truest of believers might contend, legalization of marijuana would come with costs to Ohioans.
The following article was originally published in the Ohio Capital Journal and published on News5Cleveland.com under a content-sharing agreement.
A study by Columbus-based Scioto Analysis attempts to identify the pluses and minuses that would come with such a move in a state where medical marijuana is already legal. “Tax revenue on its own is not a social benefit, but rather a transfer from taxpayers to the public sector that is then used to pay for goods and services purchased by the government,” it says. “Thus, benefits are only generated when goods and services purchased by governments have positive spillovers.”
There also would be benefits for recreational weed users themselves. The study estimates that by creating a legitimate recreational market, Issue 2 would allow that group to pay $98 million a year less for marijuana than they otherwise would be willing to pay. It added, “Using data from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report on the number of cannabis-related arrests in Ohio, we estimate that there would be about 4,400 fewer arrests per year if recreational cannabis were legalized. Adding up the cost of those arrests, and assuming that 6% of those people would have been convicted of felonies, this amounts to over $38 million in savings for Ohio.”
“One study from 2017 found that across four industries average productivity per worker fell by just over 1% in states that legalized recreational cannabis,” the report said. “Monetized, this equates to roughly $900 of lost productivity per worker for Ohio.”
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