This December, the United States federal government will discuss passing the MORE Act. Should this Act pass, it will remove cannabis from the US Federal Government’s Controlled Substance Act. This would help America turn over a new leaf and start to put amends to the failed past of cannabis prohibition and the War on Drugs. Removing cannabis from the United States Controlled Substance Act would open doors that have previously been bolted shut. These doors could stand to have a significant positive economic and environmental impact on America. Let’s take a quick look at six areas that would be positively impacted if cannabis were to become legalized throughout all of the United States.
One of the most significant positive changes from cannabis legalization on a federal level would be favorable reform to existing cannabis laws. If the federal government were to remove cannabis from its current position as a Schedule 1 drug, a regulated market could be more easily developed. It would also stand to lower taxes for cannabis businesses bringing them into the bracket as other businesses that are similar to them.
Favorable cannabis reform laws could open up interstate sales that would help create a substantial economic gain. Imagine being able to legally try some of that California fire living in Tennessee or Oklahoma. The same can be said about many states as a lot of them out there have strains unique to them. Favorable cannabis reform laws would also lead to things like businesses accepting charitable contributions, the banking industry seeing a massive surge in their customer base, and more.
Legalizing cannabis in the United States federally would also help many industries in the country as well. When jobs are becoming scarce, creating a demand for hundreds of thousands of jobs would only seem like the smart thing to do. If cannabis were legalized, it could help employ many various sectors of the job market. Contrary to what people believe, it’s not only budtenders and farmers that make the cannabis industry succeed. The success of the legal industry for cannabis is carried by a multitude of industry professionals that never even touch the plant from compliance specialists, engineers, and architects all the way to HVAC workers, plumbers, electricians, interior design specialists, and more.
If hemp processing regulations were to change alone, the number of jobs that could be offered through this industry could help strengthen America’s workforce substantially. The industry also could stand to grow on a global level as the global cannabis trade community is cultivated. Tens of thousands of products can be made from cannabis. Cannabis has the ability to produce food, medicine, fuel, and building materials. Federal legalization of cannabis would allow all of these areas of the industry to begin to thrive.
Finances are one of the biggest attractions to legalizing cannabis for our political leaders. Sadly, the health of the American people does not seem to be the major driving force here. The sad truth is that it is economic progress driving cannabis legalization. This is evident in the cannabis industry being one of the heaviest taxed industries in America.
Obviously, legalizing cannabis can generate billions of dollars. If the United States of America were to enter into the global cannabis trade market, those numbers could reach hundreds of billions in no time at all. The potential for the import and export of cannabis and cannabis products is not just something that might happen. It is something that is already happening. As it is right now, the U.S. is missing out on this budding global industry.
Farmers across our nation could find hope in the cultivation of cannabis. There are many different strains of cannabis that grow in all types of environments. Farmers could use cannabis as a rotation crop, and sometimes they could even manage to get two or three cannabis crops in comparison to one normal season of a crop they usually manage, such as corn, wheat, or soy.
The agricultural market in the United States also has the issue of poisoning the ground to the point where it is unusable. This is because many of the agricultural aspects used today involve monocropping that relies on the heavy use of herbicides and pesticides. This kind of farming obliterates the topsoil rendering it useless over time. Cannabis does not require herbicides and pesticides as other crops do and can actually be used to remediate the barren topsoil caused by monocropping. The agricultural impacts that cannabis legalization could make stand to be substantial in benefiting America’s farming community.
People across America having the right to enjoy the same freedoms as their neighbors should be a principle of the United States of America. Otherwise, we should call it the Divided States of America. Currently, there are only five states that have no legal access to any form of cannabis. This just isn’t fair to citizens of those states. Prohibition was a campaign born out of racism, corruption, and greed. It has reached out, crippling communities of color for decades now.
If and when the federal government removes cannabis from the Controlled Substance Act, the United States of America will truly begin to experience equality that it hasn’t seen. The War on Drugs has been proven to be an ultimate failure because, as we’ve all learned, waging war against an idea never goes anywhere. It’s time for a different approach, and legalizing cannabis in the United States of America is a great start to turning over a new leaf in the right direction of undoing the wrongdoings of our past.
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