What are the economic and health benefits of marijuana?

I smoked for the first time back in high school but in college, I really really smoked and I understood why people smoke weed.

It’s a drug it has benefits but like anything we can abuse it. In my opinion if you have to do any drug you should do weed, I think its the best options better than alcohol but is not socially accepted.

Weed helps me with stress and to think. I remember many occasions where it has helped me. I remember in one occasion where I was working as a financial advisor and we where setting up my reoccurring payments for my mutual fund and the other financial advisors my supervisor, he was struggling to process the application for like 20-30 minutes. So much that I excuse myself to the restroom where I took a hit of my wax pen. I after the hit, It calmed down down because we where frustrated with application. We were inputting $75 as the value for the reoccurring payment in the computer and I wouldn’t allow it to continue. After I hit the pen, I told my self just tell him to input $80, I did and the system go it and we where able to complete my application. Why didn’t I think about that earlier and why didn’t my supervisor see minimum amount but after hit I was able to get us out that pickle. That’s just one simple example it helped me out in a finance situation.

The number one superpower is benefiting from marijuana in the design and financially. This article is going to answer the following questions:

Who are the artists the use of marijuana? What is the history? What is financial impact it has for the current legal markets in United States? And the most important part saved for last, What are the health benefits?

Marijuana Influencing Art /Design

Cannabis has influenced art in so many ways. There are different types of art forms such as music, paintings, and even the creation of films. Cannabis enhances one’s creativity. It is like a stimulant or drives for creativity. William Shakespeare was known to consume cannabis to inspire his literary work.

Louie Armstrong

The famed trumpet player was one of the first musicians to openly admit his admiration for the plant, and he stated in his autobiography that gage (as he used to call pot), was “a thousand times better than whiskey … it’s an assistant — a friend”.

Brian Wilson (of Beach Boys)

“Marijuana helped me write Pet Sounds.” (which is #2 best album of all times on the list of Rolling Stone magazine)

Bob Marley

“Music and herb go together. It’s been a long time now I smoke herb. From the 1960s, when I first start singing.”

Bill Hicks

“See, I think drugs have done some good things for us, I really do. And if you don’t believe drugs have done good things for us, do me a favor: go home tonight and take all your albums, all your tapes, and all your CDs and burn ‘em. ‘Cause you know what? The musicians who made all that great music that’s enhanced your lives throughout the years… Real f****** high on drugs.”

Lady Gaga

“I smoke a lot of pot when I write music.”

Justin Timberlake

“Some people are just better high.”

Alanis Morissette

“As an artist, there’s a sweet jump-starting quality to marijuana for me. I’ve often felt telepathic and receptive to inexplicable messages my whole life. I can stave those off when I’m not high. When I’m high… well, they come in and there’s less of a veil, so to speak. So if ever I need some clarity… or a quantum leap in terms of writing something, it’s a quick way for me to get to it.”

Steve Jobs

“The best way I would describe the effect of the marijuana and the hashish is that it would make me relaxed and creative.”

Even though he wasn’t an artist in the full sense of the word, we can most definitely include him in this list of creative people.

So in conclusion, if you’re looking for a substance to elevate your thought process and make you think of something original and inspiring (and you don’t want to go too crazy with it), talk a walk on the green side, you surely won’t regret it.

Just remember to grab a piece of paper (or hit record on your phone if you’re playing an instrument), so the high ideas don’t have anywhere to run off to.

Cannabis has been helping artists create new and exciting pieces for hundreds of years. Many legendary figures have consumed cannabis to influence their work, too. William Shakespeare used to consume cannabis for inspiration in his playwriting as did Pablo Picasso to fuel his unique style of abstract painting.

History

Marijuana has roots as far back as 2737 B.C. It has been referenced in ancient Chinese medicine, and soon spread from China to India, North Africa, and Europe by 500 A.D. Historically reported medicinal uses included treating rheumatism, gout, and malaria.

Recreational use became popular in India and among the Muslim population, leading to the development and popularization of hashish(concentrated psychoactive resins from the cannabis plant).

In 1545, Spanish explorers brought the plant to North America. By 1611, it was introduced in Jamestown and it quickly became a staple commercial crop. By 1890, cotton replaced hemp (marijuana) as the major cash crop, and marijuana effectively fell off the market.

When alcohol was outlawed in the 1920s, there was a big resurgence in marijuana use. At the time, smoking marijuana was legal and not considered a social threat. Marijuana clubs began popping up in major cities.

It was even listed in the United States Pharmacopeia from 1850 until 1942, used to treat a wide variety of ailments, including labor pains, nausea, and rheumatism.

Regulation and the “War on Drugs”

In the 1930’s, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Narcotics (now the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs) began a campaign to reframe the image of marijuana from a recreational fun and medicinal substance to that of an irresistible, addicting one that would lead straight into narcotics addiction.

Beat poets in the 1950s and college rebel “hippies” in the 1960s were the image of marijuana users during their eras.

In the United States, marijuana wasn’t widely used for recreational purposes until the early 1900s. Immigrants from Mexico to the United States during the tumultuous years of the Mexican Revolutionintroduced the recreational practice of smoking marijuana to American culture.

In 1970, the Controlled Substances Act designated marijuana as a Schedule I drug, meaning that it has:

• The highest potential for abuse.
• No accepted medical use.

The Reagan and Bush administrations also maintained a “zero tolerance” policy on marijuana use and possession—now known as the “war on drugs.”

Finance

Impact on Tax Revenue 

Sales of marijuana in 2019, Colorado collected more than $302 million in taxes and fees on medical and recreational marijuana. Sales in the state totaled over $1.7 billion.

Sales in the U.S were $12.2 billion, in 2019, and is projected to increase to $31.1 billion by 2024, according to a report from Arcview Market Research and BDS Analytics.

Local research supports this view as well; a report from the Colorado State University-Pueblo’s Institute of Cannabis Research recently found that the legal cannabis industry has contributed more than $80.8 million to the local economy in 2017, primarily through taxes and other fees.

Should marijuana become legal on a federal level, the benefits to the economy could be exceptional: a report from cannabis analytics company New Frontier suggests that federally legal pot could generate an additional $105.6 billion in aggregate federal tax revenue by 2025.8

That is the carrot that dangled before many states. In December 2019, it was reported that since January 2018, California’s cannabis sales had generated 411.3 million in excise tax, $98.9 million in cultivation tax, and $335.1 million in sales tax.

The Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission reported in November 2019 that in the first year of opening marijuana retailers, $393.7 million was generated in gross sales.10 (See also: What Will Jeff Sessions Mean for the Marijuana Industry?)

Income and Jobs 

• The number of people working in the U.S. cannabis industry is expected to jump to 240,000-295,000 by the end of 2020, slightly higher than the number of computer programmers employed in the United States.”Marijuana Business Daily, “U.S. cannabis industry employment estimates: 2019-2024,” July 28, 2020
• “One unanticipated effect of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the growth acceleration of legal cannabis markets (and erosion of illicit markets) in those states which have activated both medical and adult-use sales. … Through higher sales and increased patient participation in medical-only markets, the second quarter of 2020 saw surging patient counts in medical markets – particularly in those having 1) lower barriers to entry (i.e., less restrictive qualification requirements), and 2) more accessible markets (i.e., greater density among dispensaries). … Oregon saw record-setting sales in March, April, and May (the latter seeing the state generate $100 million in cannabis sales for the single-highest monthly total since the program’s launch). For its part, Colorado (with the country’s most mature adult-use market) saw record sales in May, which neared $200 million for the first time in its program’s history. … Analyzing retail data from 24 legal cannabis markets, New Frontier Data found that average consumer monthly spending rose to record highs in April and May, reaching $290 and $296, respectively.”“States’ legal cannabis markets see strong growth amid COVID-19 disruptions,” NewFrontierData.com, July 19, 2020

Setting up marijuana nurseries and dispensaries would be the first step for the states that voted in favor of medical marijuana. These would not only create jobs but also set the ball rolling for economic activity in the pot industry in these areas. In the case of states like California and Nevada where such infrastructure already exists, the economic impact has become more quantifiable as the sector has matured.

A 2016 RCG Economics and Marijuana Policy Group study on Nevada says that legalizing recreational marijuana in the state could support over 41,000 jobs till 2024 and generate over $1.7 billion in labor income.

The ICF study estimates at least 81,000 additional direct, indirect and induced jobs in California as a result of legalized marijuana sales. It also projects an increase in total labor income by at least $3.5 billion.12

When considering the economic benefits of legal marijuana, it’s important to think of the money that might be saved as well as revenue that could be generated through such a process.

Currently, federal marijuana enforcement costs several billion dollars per year. A 2013 report by the American Civil Liberties Union found that the costs at that time were approximately $3.6 billion per year.

The more states that legalize cannabis, the lower the cost of enforcement would likely be; if marijuana were to be legalized on a national level, these costs would likely drop considerably. If marijuana were removed from the list of controlled substances, far fewer court cases involving the substance would go to trial, resulting in fewer incarcerations.

Health Benefits

Marijuana, Ganja, Weed, Hemp, THC, CBD, the devils lettuces, and many more nicknames. It’s a lifestyle that is beneficial but it can also be harming like anything else. What are the latest health benefits for marijuana?