CNN Money (HT: TaxProf Blog) has published a 50-state ranking of the potential tax revenues from legalizing and taxing marijuana. It is based on state-by-state marijuana consumption from Jeffrey Miron’s Budgetary Implications of Marijuana Prohibition:
| Projected marijuana tax revenues* | |
| State | Tax Revenue (in millions) |
| Alabama | 8.9 |
| Alaska | 2.8 |
| Arizona | 13.0 |
| Arkansas | 6.7 |
| California | 105.4 |
| Colorado | 17.6 |
| Connecticut | 9.8 |
| Delaware | 2.4 |
| District of Columbia | 2.8 |
| Florida | 48.2 |
| Georgia | 19.3 |
| Hawaii | 4.0 |
| Idaho | 3.3 |
| Illinois | 31.6 |
| Indiana | 17.8 |
| Iowa | 6.2 |
| Kansas | 6.6 |
| Kentucky | 10.2 |
| Louisiana | 13.0 |
| Maine | 4.1 |
| Maryland | 13.9 |
| Massachusetts | 18.4 |
| Michigan | 32.4 |
| Minnesota | 14.3 |
| Mississippi | 6.6 |
| Missouri | 15.6 |
| Montana | 3.6 |
| Nebraska | 5.0 |
| Nevada | 7.9 |
| New Hampshire | 5.6 |
| New Jersey | 19.3 |
| New Mexico | 4.9 |
| New York | 65.5 |
| North Carolina | 20.6 |
| North Dakota | 1.6 |
| Ohio | 34.8 |
| Oklahoma | 8.3 |
| Oregon | 14.1 |
| Pennsylvania | 30.5 |
| Rhode Island | 4.6 |
| South Carolina | 9.1 |
| South Dakota | 2.0 |
| Tennessee | 12.2 |
| Texas | 46.6 |
| Utah | 4.7 |
| Vermont | 2.8 |
| Virginia | 20.9 |
| Washington | 22.0 |
| West Virginia | 4.1 |
| Wisconsin | 13.4 |
| Wyoming | 1.2 |
| * Revenues based on state-by-state marijuana consumption, assuming pot were legalized. Source: Prof. Jeffrey Miron, “Budgetary Implications of Marijuana Prohibitions,” June 2005. | |
Miron concludes:
Revenue from taxation of marijuana sales would range from $2.4 billion per year if marijuana were taxed like ordinary consumer goods to $6.2 billion if it were taxed like alcohol or tobacco.
…Replacing marijuana prohibition with a system of legal regulation would save approximately $7.7 billion in government expenditures on prohibition enforcement — $2.4 billion at the federal level and $5.3 billion at the state and local levels.
Posted by Ariel Goldring 
