Business Gets Wise to the Economic Potential of Medical Marijuana

Thanks to a reader who pointed out Saturday's item in the New York Times discussing the growing interest of the business world in the economic potential of medical marijuana. Dan Mitchell notes that despite the legal uncertainty in this area, "a full-fledged industry has blossomed, taking in about $2 billion a year and generating $100 million in state sales taxes."

It's worth remembering that the cash value of the annual California marijuana harvest destroyed by law enforcement (in other words, not even taking into account the marijuana that was not destroyed) has been estimated at $11.6 billion, a figure that makes marijuana easily the state's largest agricultural commodity. That value is dramatically inflated because of the criminal regime around marijuana and would presumably be considerably lower if a non-criminal model were more firmly in place. Nevertheless, it's clear that there is quite a bit of potential for regulatory changes to open up legitimate business opportunities.

The NYT piece links to Jane Wells' CNBC "Funny Business" blog, which has some additional interesting commentary on this issue. It also has a poll on medical marijuana, the results of which look like this as of the time I'm publishing this post: