The purpose of this policy memo is to examine the issues regarding decriminalization and the use of revenue generated by governments from Marijuana. Moreover, the policy memo attempts to identify some of the policy options decision-makers need to consider as they deal with the control of medicinal Marijuana. Colorado requires vertical integration for all medical dispensaries and requires this for retail i.e., for adult use as well. Given that, most centers have a cultivation facility of their own and have built them to maintain medical sales. They usually are not big enough to handle all of the record sales, which leads to the wholesale marijuana market, which just had 2015 numbers released as $ 160 million and above in wholesale rec sales. Normalizing marijuana laws so that the drug would be regulated like any other substance capable of abuse would have a positive effect ( Hu & Yang, 2016). The ridiculously high cost of black-market marijuana would eventually level out to a reasonable price based on the low cost of growing weed, and the government would collect taxes instead of seeing the money go to an unhealthy black market, thus strengthening the country’s GDP. Legalizing the Marijuana trade presents an enormous threat to the current crop of drug companies and their profits. Weed is cheap, prevalent, and has many medical uses. It also has far fewer side effects than most significant drugs. Trump campaigned on the promise of leaving cannabis up to states. But so far, he has not acted on that promise, which most people see as a vulnerability if he does not do it by the end of 2020 ( Lewis, 2017). This means that changing before the 2020 election at 25%—and Trump will not be elected without it because he cannot take Florida with strong opposition from felons that have recently gotten back voting rights. States are leading the way and realize that regulating the marijuana trade is a far better way of dealing with cannabis than criminalizing it ( Ghosh et al., 2015). However, it is meaningless for the states to decriminalize since there are federal statutes are enforceable and will be enforced against the wishes of state and local jurisdictions ( Kim & Monte, 2016). Thus to have meaningful decriminalization, it needs to happen at the federal level. The main stakeholder in controlling the Marijuana trade is the US Federal Government. Other stakeholders include the private sector i.e., Human Rights Activists. Governments in the US are moving toward legalization ( Wang et al., 2019). Obama ensured that federal drug authorities did not interfere with states that decided to legalize cannabis—a policy continued by Trump. Future researchers will need to relate empirical evidence with findings derived from previous clinical research about the effects of Marijuana trade, use, and cultivation to help decision-makers and policymakers reach an appropriate decision. Future researchers will also need to deliberate on the perjury and ulterior motive behind Marijuana prohibition.
Conclusion
The Federal government still views the consumption and sale of these goods as illegal. As a result, many of the normal startup/operating business expenditures are not tax delectable by the IRS. This can severely impact the financial viability of the business. Some of these risks/ liabilities can be mitigated, but trading in the product will still need to adjust for these factors.
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References
Hu, Y., & Yang, S. (2016, June). The competition situation analysis of environmental service industry in China: Based on Porter's Five Forces Model. In Service Systems and Service Management (ICSSSM), 2016 13th International Conference on (pp. 1-5). IEEE.
Lewis, R. (2017). Porter's Five Forces of competitive advantage. University College, Launceston,
Kim, H. S., & Monte, A. A. (2016). Colorado cannabis legalization and its effect on emergency care. Annals of emergency medicine, 68 (1), 71.
Ghosh, T. S., Van Dyke, M., Maffey, A., Whitley, E., Erpelding, D., & Wolk, L. (2015). Medical marijuana's public health lessons—implications for retail marijuana in Colorado. New England Journal of Medicine, 372 (11), 991-993.
Wang, G. S., Hoyte, C., Roosevelt, G., & Heard, K. (2019). The continued impact of marijuana legalization on unintentional pediatric exposures in Colorado. Clinical Pediatrics , 58 (1), 114-116.
