Now that medical marijuana care centers in Cannafornia and Cannarado have served an insatiable public several years running, we can mine actual MMC pricing data — and make more meaningful inferences about the readiness of The World’s Most Promising Commodity to assume its rightful place as a consistent producer of government revenue.

Consider a world in which marijuana products are available at the country’s gas stations, convenience stores, supermarkets, big box retailers, and anywhere alcohol and tobacco are currently sold, including concerts and sporting events.

So far, we’ve heard from perhaps the world’s most cautious economist, a poteconomist who plows the middle ground, and a phenom bullish about marijuana futures. In this section, we’ll sum up their commonalities and differences. We’ll identify sources we haven’t heard from – that could fill in the blanks. Then we’ll reveal our best guesstimate of all the cannatax in the USA.

If politicians currently sitting on the fence had a dollar number representing their jurisdiction’s portion of marijuana taxes — an amount that could keep existing programs running and fund urgent needs in the imminent future — convincing their constituencies that legalization is in their best interests would be a lot simpler.

When you’re Dr. Jon Gettman, PhD, chronicler of the “bulk folk,” you wonder how many metric tons of marijuana people consume in a year. Hopefully, that amount balances with how much ganja growers are producing. It’s helpful knowing what an average joint weighs, how much an average “user” consumes, and how much “demanders” are willing to compensate “suppliers” for preferred rations.

The senior thesis of a graduating economics major at Brown named Max Chaiken found that “a legally taxed and regulated marijuana market could generate upwards of $200 billion annually in excise tax revenues for the federal government … [which] would be enough to fund Medicaid.”