Marijuana Inc. on CNBC last night, report on 'billion dollar industry' in America

Photo by Kay Ebeling

"Marijuana has become a booming cash crop." CNBC reports in previews on its program Jan 22, Marijuana Inc. a report on the cable business channel will reveal "the inner workings of this secretive industry, focusing on Northern California's 'Emerald Triangle.'

The industry in California is only secretive because of federal intervention by DEA agents, who have raided dispensaries and growers recklessly in the past eight years, representing some of the meaner sides of the last eight years of Bush.  Picture at right shows two posters that were at the Inauguration Day party at the marijuana dispensary yesterday in LA, as reported here last post.  Tens of billions of dollars nationwide are generatd by the marijuana industry, according to promos for tonight's CNBC show. 

Watch the CNBC promo at http://www.cnbc.com/id/28281668 

"The marijuana industry is thriving like never before," says the CNBC website for the show, "raking in what is estimated to be tens of billions of dollars nationwide.

Meanwhile in California, Sales tax flows from marijuana dispensaries to the California economy, at a time when California state budget is faltering.  NORML and Americans for Safe Access both conducted surveys and estimates of money generated in California in sales tax from the dispensaries.  Both groups used different techniques to make the estimate, and came up with the same number. 

A hundred million dollars generated in California state sales tax in 2007 from marijuana dispensaries.

Americans for Safe Access estimates "More than one hundred million dollars in sales tax" is generated in California from the hundreds of dispensaries around the state.   Read about the current state of medical marijuana in California at http://www.safeaccessnow.org/

Read more at LA City Buzz about medical marijuana as an industry.