The Greens will present draft legislation within the next two months to legalise cannabis, Crikey can reveal.
Senator David Shoebridge, who recently received a cost analysis from the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) estimating that legalisation could generate $28 billion in revenue over a decade, said the legislation would be circulated for consultation and that the party’s goal was to convince the Labor government it is time to take cannabis off the black market.
“We’re genuinely excited by the breadth of the support for the campaign and the lack of any rational opposition to it,” Shoebridge told Crikey.
The Greens commissioned the PBO to calculate how much money Australia could make by legalising cannabis for adults.
Shoebridge said a combination of GST, company tax and a 15% cannabis sales tax would add up to more than $28 billion in government revenue in the first decade after legalisation.
If the cannabis tax was set at 25% instead, the revenue would be more than $36 billion.
The PBO’s analysis, seen by Crikey, also said the pre-taxed price of cannabis, which is currently estimated at $13.40 per gram, would fall to $6.50 within a decade.
It also said that the experience in Canada, where weed is legal, showed that more than half of recreational users would begin buying from legal sources within a few years.
Within a decade, the proportion of users buying legally would rise to 95%.
Shoebridge said this meant the black market would shrink markedly.
“One you legalise, you take out all the external profits that happen when bikie gangs and organised crime are involved,” he said.
“That will see the retail price drop significantly and will largely squeeze out black market operators.”
The PBO advice also said about 10% of estimated users would be from abroad.
Shoebridge said he believed tourist operators would welcome any increase in visitors, even from people who visit in order to smoke pot.
“I think having some people come here, to chill out in a legal market that’s well-regulated, and have yet another reason to spend their money in Australia, is only a good thing,” he said.
As for concerns that more Australians would start using the drug if it was legal, Shoebridge said it wasn’t a major risk.
“The modeling says it would move from about 10% of the population to 14%, but a significant part of that would be from tourists,” he said.
“So the domestic increase in consumption in Australia is very, very modest.”
Senator Shoebridge may be excited buy the lack of rational opposition. but has he factored in dealing with the irrational type?
excited by
buyI’d reckon he’s aware of that.
After all look at what SSM dragged out of the woodwork. Now with The Voice not only are the cockroaches coming out of the woodwork but the nematodes are rising out of the depths of Mother Earth.
And it only takes someone to fart in church and the LNP and Murdoch media are screaming from the rooftops. Moreso if that someone is Labor. 😉
Let’s hope this gets through.
It should ween us off the corrupting US influence that initially plagued Howard’s tenure as PM and still hangs over our Society
Meanwhile in the US, as of January 2023, the Marijuana Policy Project reports that 31 states and the District of Columbia have decriminalized low-level marijuana possession offenses,
Having another read of this, there appears to be a “Sydney Tax” on the stuff at the moment.
“…which is currently estimated at $13.40 per gram…” at 28.35g/oz = say $380 an ounce.
I have heard “on the street” that up in the New England Region it goes for $259 – 350/oz. 😉
A great initiative
Might give Limited News something else to obsess about besides Harry & the Missus 7 The Kardashawatzitz.
Great idea..so with implementation what are the ‘businesses’ reliant on illegal weed to do?
Bikie gangs and others may choose to protect their business model..
Thieving crops of weed may be more effective than growing in vacant houses ..
I can’t imagine it would be any more profitable than any other kind of theft, once the product is commoditised.
Nicking the stuff is probably too much work. If it wasn’t they’d already be purloining all the legal opium poppies grown in Tassie and Victoria. With it legal, and taxed, there will be two possible markets. Black market, untaxed weed could be sold cheaper than the legal stuff, just as happens now with tobacco. This will be a lower margin operation than current illegal growing.
Alternatively get out of weed altogether. More profit in meth, coke, and smack so concentrate on those, in which such organisations already have a pretty firm foothold anyway. I suspect this is the more likely.
Which will then give the “anti-drugs” groups more ammunition. “See legal weed lead to increased amounts of all these other drugs. Time to ban it again”.
What is actually needed is an even wider generalised decriminalisation of recreational chemicals, along the Portuguese model. Otherwise I fear there may be the dreaded “unintended consequences”.