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With a majority of Iowans supporting legalizing marijuana for adult recreational use, and neighboring states having already legalized it, it’s time for Iowa to do the same.
Legalizing marijuana for adult use will ensure product safety, stop our tax dollars from going to neighboring states, improve the quality of life for Iowans suffering from chronic illnesses, and stop wasting state resources to unfairly punish Iowans.
Here is how we do it:
- Regulate a safe product that Iowans already use: According to the American Addiction Centers, unregulated marijuana can be laced with a multitude of psychoactive drugs with varied effects. Legalizing the use of recreational marijuana for adult use allows the state to regulate who grows and manufactures the product, thus keeping it safer for Iowans to use.
- Use new tax revenue to invest in education and our local communities: As neighboring states are moving toward legalization, and with ballot initiatives underway in Missouri and South Dakota, Iowa is going to lose out on tax revenue that will now go to neighboring states. We’re not talking a small amount of change, either. In 2021 alone, Colorado’s marijuana industry generated $423 million in tax revenue. More than $12 billion in marijuana has been sold since legalization in 2014, with the state collecting over $2 billion in taxes.
- Stop wasting taxpayer dollars and unfairly punishing Iowans: With Iowa’s correctional facilities over capacity by 17.1% with 55% of drug arrests due to marijuana, it’s time to stop wasting money and unfairly punishing Iowans.
- Fix Iowa’s broken medicinal cannabis law: For years Iowans have been advocating for relief from their chronic pain, and for years we’ve seen Republican lawmakers turn them away, telling them that their pain should be managed with addictive opioids. We need a medical cannabis law that works for Iowans.
This argument seems based mostly on tax revenue. Talk to law enforcement in liberal states like Colorado, and you may realize this is NOT the best idea.
Medical use and cannabis oil can be handle separately. To legalize marijuana is a step I would hope Iowa will not take.