A full year into Connecticut's legalization of adult-use cannabis, the state has yet to reap a single tax dollar from sales of recreational marijuana.
But while the rollout has been slightly bumpy, with the General Assembly passing a law this year to halt informal, untaxed sales of cannabis that had emerged from the underground, the state is on-track to begin retails sales by the end of the calendar year with dozens of new businesses owned by people from neighborhoods that for generations had been targets in the failed war on drugs.
By the end of the 2020s, direct and indirect revenue generated from cannabis sales and associated revenues could push over a billion dollars while creating hundreds of jobs in the industry and hundreds of millions in new tax revenue annually, once the rollout evolves into a mature market.
Until then, though, Connecticut residents will slip over the border into southern Massachusetts for their cannabis supplies, bringing their revenue to the northern neighbor and nearby towns including Springfield, Boston, Easthampton, Northampton, Great Barrington and Pittsfield.
"Over the next six months, the department will continue to review and approve medical marijuana preservation plans and provisional license applications, as well as conduct additional lottery rounds," said Michelle Seagull, commissioner of the state Department of Consumer Protection. "At the same time, the Social Equity Council will be reviewing applications submitted by social equity applicants and work force development plans submitted by medical marijuana producers and dispensaries applying to convert to the recreational program. We expect adult use sales to commence around the end of 2022." [Read more at The Middletown Press]
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