San Francisco - It's been less than a year since the Obama administration launched an aggressive crackdown on medical marijuana in California, and the government's actions have already taken a significant toll on the economy.
Since Department of Justice officials announced last October that they would be going after cannabis operations throughout the state, hundreds of dispensaries from San Diego to Yuba County have been forced to shut down. Thousands of employees at said businesses have lost their jobs as a result, and California is losing out on much-needed sales tax revenue.
"The average dispensary employs half a dozen to ten people and has gross revenues on the order of $500,000 to $1 million per year," Dale Gieringer, director of the California chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), told The Huffington Post. "Therefore we are talking about thousands of legal jobs and tens of millions in tax revenues lost."
Though the drug remains illegal under federal law, California became the first state to legalize cannabis for medicinal purposes when voters passed Proposition 215 in 1996. Recent figures released by Americans for Safe Access (ASA), a national coalition dedicated to promoting legal access to the plant, revealed that medical marijuana sales generate upwards of $100 million in annual tax revenues for the state.
California's coffers could certainly benefit from that money. State leaders are struggling to close a foreboding $16 billion budget deficit. Governor Jerry Brown has repeatedly warned that if voters fail to pass his plan to temporarily increase taxes in November, he will be forced to implement severe cuts to schools and public safety services.
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