Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has promised to legalize marijuana for recreational use, reports globalpost.com. The plan could generate up to 5 billion dollars’ worth of Canadian tax revenue, a study says. Canada’s capital of Ottawa and its provincial governments have been facing revenue crunches in the wake of falling commodity prices. So Trudeau decided to explore how much revenue could be generated from legalizing pot.
The new study tried to pinpoint the size of the Canadian market for cannabis. But given that marijuana has to this point been illegal, hard data is lacking. However, the study noted that in Colorado the size of the market had been underestimated.
If the same is true in our neighbor to the north, the market for cannabis in Canada could be worth as much as 10 billion Canadian. Still, other reports have estimated the size of the Canadian market at half that number.