FDS Insight Newsletter Oct-Dec 2020

24 based Harvest Health & Recreation (HRVSF) and firms such as Curaleaf (CURLF) and Cresco Labs (CRLBF), which have cultivation and retail operations in Arizona’s medical cannabis industry. Still in staunch opposition are Governor Doug Ducey, the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Smart Approaches to Marijuana, a national organization that opposes the legalization and commercialization of cannabis. Marijuana plants sit in the Harvest grow operation in Camp Verde, Arizona, on Feb. 7, 2018. Harvest is one of the largest cannabis companies in the United States and a large financial contributor of efforts to legalize recreational cannabis in Arizona. For the most part, Proposition 207 is structured similarly to 2016’s measure. It would allow adults 21 years and older to possess, consume or transfer up to 1 ounce of cannabis and create a regulatory system for the products’ cultivation and sale. Some key differences with the new measure include the addition of social equity provisions and criminal justice reforms such as record expungement. According to estimates from industry publication Marijuana Business Daily, recreational sales in Arizona could total $700 million to $760 million by 2024. New Jersey When Governor Phil Murphy was elected in 2017, he vowed to deliver on a campaign trail promise to legalize cannabis. At the time, he told the New Jersey Star-Ledger that legalization could be a $300 million boon to state coffers but that the biggest reasons for legalization would be for social justice purposes – overhauling old drug laws that disproportionately criminalized people of color. Heather Randazzo, a grow employee at Compassionate Care Foundation’s medical marijuana dispensary, trims leaves off marijuana plants in the company’s grow house in Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey. A ballot initiative to legalize recreational cannabis is going before New Jersey voters this November. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez) However, legislative efforts to legalize failed to drum up enough support. Lawmakers ultimately decided to go another route and put the measure before voters. If approved, Public Question No. 1 would legalize cannabis for adults 21 and older. The program will be regulated by the same commission that oversees New Jersey’s medical cannabis businesses, and the recreational cannabis products would be subject to the state sales tax (currently 6.625%).