“Legalizing and regulating cannabis provides for more job opportunities, greater tax revenues, and safe access to high quality products at increasingly affordable prices,” NORML’s State Policy Manager Jax James said. “This economic data shows once again why legalization is a preferable policy option over criminal prohibition.”
The report estimates, “States with roughly 20 to 40 legal regulated stores per 100,000 residents, in general, have captured 80 percent to 90 percent of all cannabis sales in the legal market.”
The cannabis industry created an average of 280 new jobs per day in 2021. That represents a 33 percent year-over-year increase, and it marks the fifth year in a row of annual jobs growth greater than 27 percent.
“In the United States there are more legal cannabis workers than electrical engineers. There are more legal cannabis workers than EMTs and paramedics. There are more than twice as many legal cannabis workers as dentists.”
“Customers purchased an estimated $17.9 billion in cannabis products from legal retailers in 2020 – up from $10.7 billion in 2019.”
The state-licensed cannabis industry gained over 64,000 new employees in 2018, and now employs over 200,000 full-time workers, according to data compiled by Whitney Economics and the online content provider Leafly.com.