After 10 months of research, the Liquor Control Board in Washington adopted the state’s marijuana rules into law on Wednesday. Passed in a unanimous vote, the law will go into effect November 16. Now, the state will go about licensing 334 retail stores for selling pot, according to the Seattle Times.
This is sure to spark some Thanksgiving conversation with your cousin at liberal arts school — I’m moving to Seattle as soon as I graduate, man — but more than anything, the move bodes well for the economy. When state lawmakers pushed for Initiative 502, as the law is technically called, they said opening the market could bring in as much as $2 billion in five years, according to an August story in The New Republic.
It’s unclear if legalized weed will really be that large an industry. But it will certainly transfer many jobs from the informal drug market to the formal economy, which means a larger tax base for the state and, potentially, improved unemployment numbers. There will also be an uptick in hotel rooms and aggregate spending from the weed tourism industry.
And this doesn’t only mean jobs for the dudes working at your local dispensary. It’s a dynamic economy with a wide range of job opportunities, both in and out of the knowledge economy. Last week, for instance, a Business Insider article found that Colorado growers are hiring recent grads from agricultural schools at their facilities.
Colorado, California and Washington are at the front lines of marijuana legalization, and it will be fascinating to see how big it is for both city and state economies and job markets. If it’s as successful as some envision, the federal government will eventually have to consider following suit.
The Equity Factor is made possible with the support of the Surdna Foundation.
Bill Bradley is a writer and reporter living in Brooklyn. His work has appeared in Deadspin, GQ, and Vanity Fair, among others.
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