Will Cannabis Legalization be Pushed Backed or Moved Up Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic?
States have declared dispensaries essential services while others say only medical dispensaries may stay open.
The coronavirus pandemic has ripped through the world and caused state officials to make some interesting decisions as far as marijuana dispensaries. California has said cannabis is an “essential item or service” and dispensaries may stay open. In Massachusetts, Governor Baker has said medical marijuana dispensaries may stay open as essential, but all recreational sales must stop, and recreational only dispensaries must close down. Ironically, state liquor and package stores have been deemed “essential services” and allowed to stay open to help society cope with the stress and anxiety of the COVID-19 virus. So recreationally, if you want beer and wine to cope with family lockdown, you are fine, if you want cannabis or to just smoke a joint for the same purpose, you are out of luck. Booze selling is fine to adults over 21, cannabis sales are forbidden unless you have a medical card. Could that decision have come down to the liquor and alcohol unions vs. the cannabis unions?
Will the coronavirus epidemic slow down state and possible future Federal legalization by a year or two as the world works through these more pressing problems. Most people feel that marijuana legalization is a minor league issue or problem since 38 states already have at least a medical marijuana program. Most minor issues will be pushed back up to a year or two as the country prepares for the coronavirus spikes and coming recession the US faces after the coronavirus peaks. Trillion-dollar funding laws are being discussed to keep the world out of not only a recession, but a depression like situation. In that sense, the world is absolutely right, pressing economic and life and death health decision will take precedent over marijuana legalization. While medicinal cannabis helps millions with a variety of afflictions, it is not considered essential in fighting the virus. States that have let dispensaries stay open are doing so to help people get OTHER medical conditions under control, in addition to the stress and anxiety caused by the pandemic.
While the pandemic will push legalization back, the recovery may actually push legalization forward for America. How can the pandemic at one point postpone all non-essential businesses, like Trump impeachment and cannabis, and at another, help legalize the plant?
Cannabis and the Recovery
One scenario being discussed in the cannabis world is how legalization could help in the multi-trillion-dollar recovery that starts when America, and maybe the world, hit a possible 30% unemployment rate and massive business bankruptcies. Once a recovery begins, or a better description, trying to keep the world out of a depression type situation, jobs will be key. The government will fund and loan trillions of dollars to businesses to get the economic machine known as the economy moving again. Those companies will be encouraged to use that money to create jobs, hire people, and begin getting paychecks back in people’s pockets. Those people then feel good again about having a job and go out and spend money, hence, helping the decimated service industry in areas like movies theater, restaurants, bars, and so on.
The key element is jobs. The world will need to create as many jobs as possible and to get people to fill those jobs as fast as possible. Now, legal cannabis jobs in the US before the coronavirus outbreak were around 250,000 give or take 15,000. The legal number was probably closer to 325,000 or so if you count all the under the table and contract works, for example, trimmers paid in weed and farm hands paid in plant products. If you add in the black market workers, people making a living by growing and selling cannabis without a state or Federal license (Canada) the job total is probably closer to 1,000,000 if you look at the whole supply chain.
While 1,000,000 jobs in the overall scheme of the GDP of America is not staggering, it is still big enough to get attention. Clearing the pathway to get the banking and financial hurdles removed for the cannabis industry will open up massive new investment and growth, growth that include jobs up and down the company structure. Budtenders, managers, packaging, shipping, website and TECH, accountants, and more will need to be hired.
If the world goes into a deep recession, every central bank and government will look for any and every way to create jobs. Cannabis legalization, while not getting the headlines like the airlines, car makers, and the travel industry, can help immensely if the plant is legalized federally and the SAFE BANKING ACT is passed. If unemployment in North America hits 15%, and cannabis has remained one of the items where people still spent money during the pandemic, it only makes sense that governments should look at legalization as a major consumer interest and job growth creator because with sales and demand, comes revenue and job growth.
The pandemic is not a friend or a foe of cannabis, it is virus. The timeline and the effects of the virus are the important part, not the virus itself. For the pandemic, all cannabis legalization is shelved for issues dealing with global survival and bringing order to society, but after that, in the massive rebuild that will be required on the economic and job front, COVID-19 may just be the Black Swan event that rushes cannabis legalization through worldwide governments in order to create jobs and make a voting population happy. Remember, the majority of voters on both sides of the aisle want to see cannabis legalized at record numbers, and that was before any pandemic.
Cannabis legalization as part of the rebuilding of world economies is a win-win for the people and the politicians.
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