Pennsylvania Cannabis Statistics 2024-2023
- $1.1 billion generated by medical cannabis farming
- 91% of adults want to legalize marijuana
- Legal cannabis often sells for 2 times the street price
- More than 12 million cannabis products have been sold in Pennsylvania
- Pennsylvania could earn as much as $1 billion in marijuana taxes
- FDA received 2,362 calls related to delta-8 cannabinoid
- 62% of Pennsylvania voters favor legal marijuana
- Cultivating a marijuana plant has a 2.5-5 year prison sentence
Pennsylvania Medical Marijuana Statistics 2024-2022
The medical cannabis farming industry is a growing sector in agriculture across the United States, including the state of Pennsylvania. Currently, more than $1.1 billion dollars in revenue are generated by medical cannabis growers, and that figure stands to increase dramatically as more states permit both recreational and medical cannabis usage. Farmers in Pennsylvania have an opportunity to expand their businesses by embracing growing cannabis for medical purposes. In order to make cannabis farming a more attractive and lucrative option, it’s necessary for Pennsylvania to further define and smooth out its regulations touching on medical cannabis farming.
Right now, 91% of surveyed adults indicate that they support the legalization of marijuana. In the scope of American politics, it’s almost unprecedented to find that level of agreement across the political spectrum. At this point, the public has made itself abundantly clear that marijuana ought to be legalized in some form. Breaking that 91% figure down, 61% of adults support recreational marijuana, while an additional 31% oppose recreational but support medicinal marijuana. Quite simply, any state blocking the legalization of at least medicinal cannabis is standing in the way of the wishes of its citizens. This is certainly true for the state of Pennsylvania, whose citizens have been polled numerous times, always indicated a strong majority in favor of legal marijuana, both medical and recreational.
The price of an eighth of legal cannabis in the state of Colorado was $64.90, while that same quantity could be purchased for half the price on the black market. This highlights one of the issues that Pennsylvania will face when implementing a framework for legal marijuana. Two factors tend to push the price of legal cannabis up. The first is state taxes levied on legal marijuana. The second is regulations and restrictions that condense the supply to only a few massive conglomerates. Pennsylvania can learn from the experiences of states like Colorado who were at the forefront of legalized marijuana. While the overall experience has been positive, there are certainly some issues with current implementations in other states, areas where Pennsylvania can improve when they figure out their regulations.
Pennsylvania Medical Cannabis Facts 2022-2021
The state of Pennsylvania authorized the sale of medical marijuana to authorized dispensaries in February of 2018. Since that time, there have been more than 12 million cannabis products sold state-wide. This clearly demonstrates a significant demand on the part of the public for medical cannabis. With 80 dispensary sites open and operational, that’s an average of 150,000 products sold per site, although the distribution of sales is far from uniform across all 80 dispensaries.
According to an estimate by the Independent Fiscal Office, the state of Pennsylvania could earn from $400 million to $1 billion in taxes on the purchase of marijuana by adult users. This would represent a massive boost in revenue to a state sometimes struggling with its budget on a number of fronts. The funds from marijuana taxes could be allocated in any of multiple areas, from bolstering public school systems to funding drug recovery programs to infrastructure. The legislature could also choose to pass this along in the form of a decrease in other taxes levied on its citizens. This remains a theoretical exercise for now, given the fact that recreational cannabis is not permitted in the state at present.
Currently, the state of Pennsylvania doesn’t allow for the purchase of recreational marijuana. This has left potential customers turning to other products like cannabinoids like delta-8. While in the vast majority of cases, these products are completely harmless, this is a largely unregulated market. As a result, quality control and oversight over the contents of products is low. As a result, the Food and Drug Administration reported receiving 2,362 calls on the topic of delta-8. Many of these calls relate to accidental exposure or to a pediatric patient. As long as recreational marijuana is forbidden in Pennsylvania, consumers will turn to alternative products like delta-8. And these products lack certain safety guarantees, while a well-regulated marijuana market would not.
In a 2020 poll, likely voters in the state of Pennsylvania overwhelmingly supported legal recreational marijuana for adults aged 21 or older. With 62% of respondents indicating that they favor legalizing recreational marijuana, it’s quite clear that nearly any significant demographic within the state supports allowing recreational marijuana use. Given legal marijuana’s widespread popularity with voters, the only question remaining is what is the impediment to changing Pennsylvania’s laws to permit recreational marijuana.
According to current Pennsylvania statutes, cultivating any quantity of marijuana plants (even a single one) is a felony carrying a potential sentence of 2.5 to 5 years in prison. That’s in addition to up to $15,000 in fines. This means that growing cannabis in any quantity is something that can destroy the life of any Pennsylvania citizen if they’re caught and prosecuted. This kind of draconian legal code is a byproduct of a different time, and has very little place in modern society.