US Cannabis Market Would Reach $41 Billion By 2028 If Legalised Country-Wide: Barclays


05/02/2019



According to a report by investment bank Barclays, if the US federal government and all of the states of the country legalize the use of marijuana, it would transform into a major industry sector overnight and would result in the governments at all levels getting revenues in the tens of billions of dollars.
 
“We estimate that the total US cannabis market, if legalized today, could be worth $28 billion, increasing to $41 billion by 2028 on a pre-tax basis,” Barclays analysts said in the research note to investors.
 
Analysts at Barclays said that if the cannabis trade in the US were taxed at the same level as tobacco, the cannabis market “could generate almost $28 billion of tax revenues across all levels of government”. The current market is valued at about $41 billion. Currently cannabis trading for recreational and medical purposes is legalized in three US states Colorado, Washington and Nevada, which formed the basis of the analysis of the experts at the investment bank. Examining the tax revenues generate din the threes aforesaid US states, the analysts noted that the revenues thus generated in all of the three states from marijuana was already more than the state governments generated form taxes on alcohol. The analysts also noted that the cannabis tax revenues were also greater than the tax revenues from tobacco in the case of Colorado.
 
“While no bonds backed by cannabis tax revenues have been placed thus far, if federal approval is granted, the cannabis muni bond market will likely flourish, amounting to billions if not tens of billions of dollars, in our view,” Barclays said.
 
A survey that was conducted back in 2017 also formed the basis for the national level estimation of the possible tax revenues from marijuana in the Barclays estimate. According to that survey, it was estimated that marijuana users numbered more than 26 million Americans above the age of 12 years which was almost 10 per cent of the total population of the country. Over the past 15 years and across all age groups, there has been a steady increase in the monthly cannabis use by Americans on the over all.
 
There is widespread expectation that marijuana would ultimately be legalized across the United States which has made a number of US based marijuana companies jockeying for a market position.
 
Major companies in the current marijuana market have already engaged in some major restructuring incident. In a deal that would involve a $950 million all-stock sale, cannabis company Cura Partners, which produces cannabis oils, was announced to be bought over last week by the largest American cannabis company by market value - Curaleaf Holdings. And that was preceded a couple weeks earlier by a $3.4 billion acquisition of Acreage Holdings by the Canadian marijuana giant Canopy Growth. However the latter deal would only happen if and when cannabis usage and trading is legalized in the U.S.
 
(Source:www.cnbc.com)