The potential opportunity that the marijuana industry represents to Canada is a topic that the government and citizens of Canada should closely examine. Presently 37,359 citizens in Canada are legally approved by Health Canada to use medicinal marijuana. This number is projected to rise to 450,000 by 2024. The increase in the number of marijuana users in Canada provides colossal potential for significant revenue generation, some estimates putting this at $1.3 billion by the year 2024.

The Marijuana Industry in Canada

These estimates, conducted by Federal projections, are one of the reasons the expansion of the medicinal marijuana industry is so tempting. By expanding the growth and production of medicinal marijuana, officials are also hoping this will help to drop the demand for marijuana on the black market. This expansion will help to decrease the price of marijuana to $7.60/gram from $10.00/gram, which is the current selling rate of marijuana on the black market. This decrease in price of legalized marijuana will result in increased demand for legal marijuana thereby decreasing the demand for illegal marijuana. The RCMP is hoping that this marijuana policy will lower the 50,000 annual drug arrests which occur in Canada due to marijuana use. They also hope it will lower the $500 million a year spent fighting the drug trade.

Video:
The Marijuana Industry in America

Sources Cited

http://winnipeg.ctvnews.ca/licences-to-grow-marijuana-at-home-soon-to-go-up-in-smoke-1.1476011

http://globalnews.ca/news/870996/birth-of-a-billion-dollar-marijuana-industry/

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/1-3b-medical-marijuana-free-market-coming-to-canada-1.1872652

http://medicalmarijuana.ca/news/0/65

http://www.macleans.ca/article.jsp?content=20041122_93410_93410

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/legal-marijuana-how-could-it-work-1.1391130