A new report finds that legalizing and taxing marijuana boosts revenue for state and local governments — but not by much.
The credit rating agency Moody’s Investor Service says in a study released Tuesday that legalizing recreational use of marijuana brings governments more money than it costs to regulate it.
Despite high taxes on the legal sales of the drug, the revenue accounts for a small portion of government budgets. In Colorado, the first state to legalize recreational use, a marijuana tax brings in the equivalent of about 2 percent of the state budget.
In Washington state, gross revenue from marijuana legalization equaled 1.2 percent of general fund revenue in the 2015-17 state budget.
Most of the states that have legalized marijuana earmark the revenue for law enforcement, drug treatment and other specific programs, which doesn’t help the states’ financial flexibility.