At this point it’s no shocker that states have made lots of money from marijuana sales during the pandemic. It makes sense. With people stuck inside, they’re smoking more than ever before, even during the work day. This, in addition to astronomical tax rates in some population hubs in the state puts California in a prime position to make a killing off of the plant.
And so they have. Within the last fiscal year, California made $817 million in marijuana tax revenue. That’s a 55% increase from the year before.
Preliminary tally of 2020-21 cannabis tax revenue: $817 million. https://t.co/H7PAegOcwV pic.twitter.com/v3U0S1UHOb
— California Economy & Taxes (@LAOEconTax) August 23, 2021
From the looks of the graph, it seems this upward trend may have begun to plateau, but that’s a pretty nice place to be plateauing. Only recently, California surpassed the $1 billion mark in marijuana sales. Now, they’re coming up on that same milestone in just tax revenue. The next step is to make sure this money goes to the right places, such as social equity.