Legislative budget writers have added $4.1 million to the state’s fiscal year 2024 spending plan to pay for Delaware’s recreational marijuana law bureaucracy.
The bulk of that total, $2.2 million, is expected to be an ongoing annual expense.
Looking at Colorado’s decadelong experience with legalized marijuana, I believe this new industry may make Delaware marginally richer but no better off.
Colorado’s revenue from recreational marijuana peaked in 2021 and has been sliding for the last 18 months. Even at its high-water mark, this money accounted for less than 1.2% of the state’s $36.5 billion budget.
Keep in mind that Colorado’s performance came with the advantage of having relative regional exclusivity in this niche market. Only one of its six bordering states, New Mexico, has also legalized recreational marijuana.
If Delaware were to earn 1.2% of its operating budget via marijuana, it would amount to about $60 million annually. This best-case scenario is unlikely, given that Maryland and New Jersey have already approved legalized sales and will enter the market before us.
According to the Colorado Division of Criminal Justice, since legalization, the Centennial State has experienced higher illicit marijuana sales and increases in marijuana-related hospitalizations, emergency room visits, poison control calls, DUIs and fatal crashes where cannabinoid use was a factor.
When weighing these detrimental financial and societal impacts against the relatively modest potential revenue gains, it is not hard to make the case that Delaware has struck a Faustian bargain that it will come to regret.
Rep. Charles Postles
R-Milford