Although this article is based on US numbers, it could be applied to other countries
Cannabis legalization. Marijuana laws are different across the states in the US. Some states declared recreational marijuana legal and in others only medical marijuana. Both cases have proved to be very beneficial to fight the unemployment.
Though the law toward marijuana is relaxing in many places, other states still have very restrictive weed laws. Therefore, the way marijuana legal situation can affect your unemployment depends on the particular state where you live and work.
Three years after legalizing cannabis, Colorado has the lowest unemployment rate in the country. One of the most important factors in Colorado’s successful economy is undeniably the cannabis industry.
Last year, cannabis generated $1.3 billion in profit, which produced about $200 million in taxes that the state is using for different programs, like education, substance abuse and cannabis awareness programs for youth. In 2015, alone, the state’s cannabis industry created 18,000 new full-time jobs.
And according to the Washington Post: “These indirect impacts of marijuana legalization came from increased demand on local goods and services: growers rent warehouse space and purchase sophisticating lighting and irrigation equipment, for instance. Marijuana retailers similarly rely on other companies, like contractors, lawyers and book-keeping services, to conduct their own businesses.” And the economy keeps growing.
We have based this article in Colorado and other states. But, what is going on in some other countries from Europe? Countries with enormous unemployment rates. Greece, for example, has seen how its economy was being destroyed by the long ten years of deep crisis with unemployment topping 20 per cent every year since 2012. Now, the government thinks marijuana growers could help.
A project to cultivate, process and export medical marijuana in Veroia, in the north of the country, shows how Greece sees cannabis as a possible growth industry for the country, which has a similar to California.
The south of Spain (350.000 square kilometers) has the highest unemployment rate in the country. It is a warm area, very similar to California, where the people grow illegally weed since…God knows when. For whatever reason, the different Governments don’t want to hear a word about legalization.
Why? There are too many people in jails for growing weed and nobody pays taxes. It is high time to change this stupid mentality.
