Washington officials say legal pot economy is plateauing in the state

recreational-marijuana

After years of growth, Washington officials say the state’s legal marijuana economy is plateauing.

Since legalization, retail sales of marijuana have only gone up, with fiscal year 2015 sales reaching $260 million. A year later, that jumped to $786 million, and Fiscal Year 2017, they exceeded $1.3 billion. Tax receipts and license fees into state coffers followed a similar trajectory.

While forecasters still predict increases in tax revenue in the near future, they are very modest ones. The total state take on retail pot, in excise taxes and license fees, is expected to rise from $749 million in the two-year budget from July 2017 through June 2019, to $847 million in 2021-23 – a much slower pace of growth than previous years.

The Washington Economic and Revenue Forecast Council points to two primary reasons for a slowdown. The first is that most state licenses have been purchased, and the remaining ones tend to be in small, rural places. The other reason is that the migration of pot users onto the legal market is closer to complete all the time, with the relative ease and affordability of the retail stores.

Overall, marijuana revenue is small in the scheme of the state’s funding, with tax and license revenues totaling less than 2 percent of the overall state budget. (Spokesman Review)

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