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July 28, 2021

CT officials forecast $55M in annual cannabis tax revenue by FY '26

PHOTO | YEHYUN KIM/CTMIRROR.ORG A staff member at Rocky Hill-based medical cannabis grower CTPharma checks on the marijuana flowers.
By Sean Teehan

Connecticut's Office of Fiscal Analysis is projecting the state's cannabis industry will generate $20.4 million in tax revenue in its first full year of operation, and over $55 million in its fourth year.

Department of Consumer Protection Commissioner Michelle Seagull, who will serve as the primary regulator of the adult-use cannabis industry, has predicted Connecticut's retail cannabis market will go online by the end of the 2022 calendar year.

Researchers in the office predict the industry will generate $3.1 million in the 2022 fiscal year — which runs from July 1, 2021 through June 30, 2022 — when the market will still be strictly medical. In Fiscal 2022, OFA predicts that number will jump to $20.4 million. By the 2026 fiscal year, OFA predicts Connecticut will collect $55.2 million in taxes from the legal cannabis industry.

Massachusetts, which started retail adult-use cannabis sales at the end of 2018, collected more than $51 million in taxes from the cannabis industry in fiscal 2020, according to the nonprofit Tax Foundation. Oregon — whose 2019 population of 4.2 million is closer to Connecticut's 3.5 million — collected more than $133 million in taxes from the industry in fiscal 2022.

Connecticut regulators and others face a monumental task getting the recreational marijuana industry up and running after lawmakers passed a 300-page bill legalizing the drug.
 

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1 Comments

Anonymous
July 28, 2021

As is often the case with statements like those made here, analysts miss calculating NET IMPACTS. Here they measure gross revenues. There are studies that show the net impact of legalized recreational marijuana is NEGATIVE. For example, from the Foundation for a Drug Free America, "For every dollar gained in tax revenue, Coloradans spent approximately $4.50 to mitigate the effects of legalization". Connecticut is not seeing the forest through the trees!

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