The Black Market

Both medicinal and recreational uses of cannabis have been considered for legalisation, however is there a gap within the economy for it? Both recreational and medicinal use of marijuana should be legalised within Australia, as it will boost the economy and generate a new source of revenue. Even though it is frowned upon in modern society, personal bias must be extracted and look at the benefits from a monetary value. According to the Institute for Economic and Research, up to £900m could be raised annually through taxation of regulated cannabis market within the UK. Meanwhile the UK is currently spending £361 million every year on policing and treating users of illegally traded and consumed cannabis. Then, there is the job creation potential. In Colorado, which legalised marijuana at the beginning of 2014, 10,000 new jobs have been created for the marijuana industry: growing and harvesting crops, working in dispensaries, and even making and selling equipment. Crime has also fallen in the state: in the first three months after legalisation in Denver, the city experienced a 14.6 % drop in crime and specifically violent crime is down 2.4 %. Assaults were down by 3.7%. This reduction led to further savings and allowing stretched police forces to concentrate on more serious issues. Additionally, by removing criminal penalties for certain marijuana-related offenses, thousands of individuals will avoid the collateral consequences associated with a criminal record. The state is estimated to potentially save $12-40 million over the span of a year simply by ending arrests for marijuana possession. The government and legal system will benefit from this as the money used to prosecute marijuana offenders will be saved and possibly be invested into; infrastructure, health system or education system

This paper will look at the benefits and drawbacks to legalizing marijuana by looking in at Colorado.The state made forty million dollars by taxed marijuana in 2014 alone, also Colorado saved countless millions because of the extremely lower amounts of marijuana arrest and court cases. It is not clear how having new recreational marijuana stores opening will affect the cannabis market, or businesses expanding around them. Gov. John Hickenlooper says that the economy is thriving with record setting numbers of tourists (73.1 million). 49 percent of those tourist said that legal marijuana influenced their decisions to vacation in Colorado. The ER’s in Colorado have also seen a rise in numbers of marijuana related cases and those cases in non-residents have almost doubled. An unexpected situation that arose from legal cannabis was the amount of electricity that is being use to grow the drug. Some cannabusinesses have to go green with solar or wind power. There are many varying views on the effects of legal marijuana have developed in Colorado since marijuana became legal in 2014.

There has been an acute worry roaming about the United States concerning the Ebola Outbreak. Originally, Ebola had never touched the United States until September of 2014. (4) The disease was originated from and named after a river in the Democratic of Congo. Since discovered, there have been known cases in Africa. There have been many very deadly cases of Ebola - the fatality rate is estimated to from about fifty to ninety percent. (2) To the United States, there had never been any worry about the disease until September twentieth of 2014. A man by the name of Thomas Eric Duncan boarded flight 822 from Liberia to Dallas, Texas. Flight 822 was where it all began. Nobody had any

In late 2013, Ebola virus disease (EVD), a deadly and lethal disease, remerged in West Africa spreading to various countries in the region. In humans, the disease is spread through contact with infected bodily fluids leading to haemorrhagic fever (World Health Organization [WHO], 2015). Originating in 1976 in equatorial Africa, past outbreaks with a few hundred cases had been contained within rural, forested areas in Uganda and Congo (Piot, 2012). In 2014, a total of 20, 206 cases and 7,905 deaths were reported to have occurred in up to eight countries worldwide. Of all cases and deaths resulting from the disease, 99.8% occurred in three neighbouring West African countries - Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea (WHO, 2014). With a case fatality rate from about 50% to 90%, and the absence of preventative or curative therapies, the Ebola epidemic has led to overall global alarm and further elucidated existing global health disparities that perpetuated the epidemic with these West African countries.

How has the legalization of marijuana affected Colorado? The state has seen some pretty significant changes since the legalization of recreational marijuana. There have been major changes in the economy, job market, and traffic related injuries, but not all of these changes have been negative. There is a split in the public opinion about recreational marijuana use and if the state has benefited since its legalization. Some people think that the state is suffering and have been fighting to repeal the law since it was voted into place. Others have devoted all their money and time into the flourishing business and would be devastated if the law was repealed.

They hurt the economy by taking things out of its circulation. While usually money, it can also include things like people, like in Mexico’s immigration issue due to the cartels, to a country’s staple products being shipped out to other countries while not being paid its full dues, like in India. As a country relies of set amount of money being in circulation in order for everyone to have opportunity to receive it, the black market takes chunks of this money, leaving a lack of it to spread around. The practices deprive not only the country, but the people that rely on that money’s existence for their own survival. The black market steals from the people, not the tax

Observing the states in which the drug has already become legal provides one with numerous examples of the negative side effects associated with legalization, just a few of which Coleman points out. One of the most disturbing of these negative side effects I believe, is the obvious explosion of black market drug trade. While legalization laws in Colorado and Washington have only been in full implementation for two short years, it has become widely known that the black market trade of marijuana has begun to flourish in these states. Little effort is needed to link the source of this growth to the recently implemented marijuana laws. Taxes and regulations that accompany the now legal purchase of marijuana have served to propel prices for legal marijuana to a point where users now much prefer the riskier option of illicit black market obtainment, catapulting illegal drug sales to heights previously unseen. Simple assessment of these facts, I believe, should be enough to align anyone against legalization. The negative implications that are associated with black market drug trade are well documented and widely known, and its growth not only supports the determent of individuals, but also society as a whole. However, many people simply overlook these

There has been major news forming around the legalization of marijuana in Colorado. Medical marijuana has been effective in Colorado since 2000. Now marijuana is legal for recreational use for people 21 and up. Many rules and regulations follow the legalization of marijuana. Many people of Colorado fear this legalization, where others are totally for it and think it will help boost Colorado’s economy. I have found many

Colorado is one of the first two states in the U.S. to legalize marijuana. The legalization indicated a momentous shift in drug policy in the state, and nationally as well, since the federal government has yet to seek to override Colorado’s violation of federal drug policy. Beforehand, there were many predictions made on the economic and social impacts of the legalization if it occurred, and to date, many have not come true. Of course, with such a small data set to work with, and only a couple years of information so far, it is unwise to make broad generalizations about the effects of the drug being legal, as enjoyable as making those assertions may be for some people. Nonetheless, some data is in, and these paint a preliminary picture of post-legalization Colorado.

Researchers from the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser’s university have estimated B.C’s marijuana market would be worth more than $500 million annually. Unfortunately most of the revenue goes to criminal organizations. (Wood, Antweiler) This number is based on one province alone, think of how much this number would go up if the whole country were involved in their research. The profiting of criminal

Christopher Ingraham looks into marijuana’s first year as a business industry in “Colorado’s Legal Weed Market”. In Colorado’s first year of legalization, their recreational dispensaries brought in an estimated $700 million in sales and $63 million in tax revenue (Ingraham). Katie Rucke reports that nearly 10,000 new job opportunities have arisen in “Six Months In, How Has Marijuana Legalization Treated Colorado?” The state’s unemployment rate has dropped down to 6%, one of the lowest rates in the nation, and the lowest it has been in the state since the recession (Rucke). Many jobs created by the

This paper looks into the different types of underground economies and its effects on Canada, and argues that underground economy is destructive to the society and should be eliminated as much as possible. With evidence from Statistics Canada, it shows the percentage of how much the black market is affecting the GDP. It also discusses the main causes as to why some sellers choose to be in the underground economy and how they could benefit from it temporarily. Underground economies in a long run are invisible actions that creates very visible consequences, including the vicious cycle of low tax revenue, less quality and quantity in public goods, discourage in money circulation, drawbacks to GDP, lowered employment rate and a society that

Slavery began in America in 1619 when African slaves were brought to Jamestown, Virginia, to help in crop production. For two and a half more centuries, these people were exploited and mistreated for the success of the white man. In 1861, the long-fought conflict caused the Civil War, which ended in 1865 with the publication of the 13th Amendment. This was supposed to be the end of slavery in America, but if this were so, this essay wouldn’t exist. Instead of the outright exploitation of African-Americans, slavery has evolved into a $150 billion industry that takes people from their homes and forces them into unpaid or underpaid service anywhere around the world. Human trafficking comes in many forms and affects a variety of people, but no matter the situation, it’s still a crime that ruins lives.

Colorado is a great example of the benefits of legalization and the profit to be made for recreational use. A mature marijuana industry could generate up to $28 billion in tax revenues for federal, state, and local governments. The U.S. market for legal, recreational, cannabis is projected to more than triple between 2016 and 2025, with medical marijuana sales jumping from $4.7 billion to $13.2 billion during that period. In 2016, medical marijuana sales accounted for 71 percent of the cannabis market, but that share is expected to decline to 55 percent as the number of recreational users grows (Mantel, 612). This type of money happening across the states could help put a dent in the National debt, help fund medical research, fund schools, and rehab

As Adam Smith said, “the market is regulated by an invisible hand” this statement is as true with an illegal market product as with a legal market product. As was seen with the Prohibition, just because it was illegal to drink doesn’t mean that it didn’t