Pubdate: Sat, 08 Nov 2014
Source: Alaska Dispatch News (AK)
Copyright: 2014 Alaska Dispatch Publishing
Contact:  http://www.adn.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/18
Note: Anchorage Daily News until July '14
Author: Patrik Jonsson,The Christian Science Monitor

HOW LEGAL MARIJUANA IS RESHAPING STATE ECONOMIES

Forget that post-graduation barista job. Given that four U.S. states 
have legalized marijuana, "budtender" is now one of the hottest 
retail jobs in America.

The legalization movement, which began when California voters 
approved medical marijuana in 1996, has long argued that one big 
reason to legalize marijuana is to stop sending adults to jail for 
using a drug that basically doesn't have fatal implications, unlike 
legal ones like alcohol and nicotine.

Yet the experiments in Colorado and Washington state, both of which 
legalized recreational marijuana in 2012 and where pot is now sold in 
shops, have begun to highlight an economic side to the issue. 
Residents in Oregon and Alaska will also soon see the impact of 
regulated marijuana sales.

Nearly a year after implementing its tax-and-regulation regime, 
Colorado now sports 18,000 state-certified, or "badged," pot industry 
workers eligible for jobs ranging from cultivation to trimmers, from 
"edibles creators" to retail budtenders.

"Think about it: You have to count all the people working at the 
counter, in a cultivation or testing facility, people who are working 
for packaging and labeling companies. It extends pretty broad," says 
Mason Tvert, a spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project in 
Washington, D.C., which lobbies for marijuana legalization.

To be sure, not everyone is bullish on the ability of pot to drive 
employment. For one, despite voter enthusiasm at the ballot box for 
legalized marijuana, pot-related stocks took a tumble this week 
probably an investor acknowledgment that the federal government still 
has the power to squash the market.

"Investors have learned that despite the hype with the populace, 
marijuana stocks remain risky and mostly something to avoid for now," 
writes USA Today's Matt Krantz.

Critics also worry that a commericalized marijuana industry will, 
like the tobacco and alcohol giants, target younger Americans in 
search of profits. Such concerns have in part led to a slide in the 
polls for marijuana legalization, from 58 percent support a year ago 
to 51 percent now, according to Gallup.

And Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron, a marijuana policy expert, 
argues that neither Colorado's GDP nor wages have so far risen 
notably because of legalization, saying "neither indicates any effect 
of the policy changes."

Nevertheless, it's clear that legalization is already to some extent 
transforming state economies and workplaces in Colorado and Washington state.

There's "a big influx of employment opportunities for those in areas 
where legalization is in full swing," writes Sam Becker in the 
Business Cheat Sheet.

Some examples of marijuana job market buzz:

The International Cannabis Business Conference in Portland, Oregon, 
last month was hopping. "Bullish is too weak a word" to describe the 
atmosphere, reported cannabis advocate Doug Fine for The Huffington Post.

Charlo Greene, the KTVA reporter in Alaska who used a profanity to 
quit her job on the air in September, is now devoting her time to 
work in marijuana advocacy. "Yes, I had an awesome job as a TV 
journalist, but it was just that - a job," she tells MTV.com.

And more than 3,500 jobs have been created through Colorado's 
cannabis industry from the beginning of 2013 through the first 
quarter of this year, according to the Colorado Department of Labor 
and Employment. A recent marijuana job fair in Denver brought out 
some 3,500 job-seekers eyeing 650 jobs. In the state, the average 
weekly wage of a marijuana industry worker is $555.

Most of the pot industry job-seekers are some of the same younger 
Americans who have gone to the polls to vote for legalization  a 
notable twist, given that the U.S. economy has otherwise been rather 
unkind to younger workers in recent years.

But some older workers, too, have made the shift into legal 
marijuana. In an interview with Bloomberg, 40-something Colorado 
resident Josh Cusack says he's making almost $20 an hour working in a 
medical marijuana dispensary.

That's good but not great money. But, said Mr. Cusack, the 
satisfaction of helping people makes up for any pay gap, and he's 
doing something he's "passionate about."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom