A cannabis industry research and lobbying consultant is using Obama administration Department of Labor research to claim that legally supplying medical and recreational pot will lead American job growth, with a gain of 300,000 jobs over the next three years.
Washington DC-based New Frontier Data (NFD) raised an undisclosed amount of seed venture capital on October 22, 2015 as “an independent, data analytics company that provides real-time data solutions to trailblazers in the cannabis industry.”
Over the last 16 months, the company has produced at least 15 cannabis industry reports that analyze marijuana regulation and promote how the exploding American cannabis industry will lead America in job growth and solve public sector tax shortfalls.
According to their latest study, sponsored by M Jardin Premium Cannabis and titled “The State of Legal Marijuana Markets – 4th Edition,” New Frontier Data predicts that legal pot sales will grow at a 31 percent compounded rate, from $4.8 billion in 2014 to 22.6 billion in 2020.
The report’s authors claim the legal pot industry arose to provide medical marijuana after the U.S. federal government criminalized marijuana as the “Assassin of Youth.” But NFD sees the industry’s biggest growth coming from legalized adult recreational marijuana use in states like New York, Illinois and Maryland.
Beginning with Colorado offering the first adult recreational legalization of pot in 2014, NFD projects that legal recreation sales will account for 53 percent, or $12.1 billion, of legal pot sales by 2020.
To highlight the comparative economic development advantages of the 300,000 new legal marijuana jobs NFD predicts over the next three years, it refers to the 2015 Obama Labor Department’s 10-year employment forecast, which predicted American manufacturing jobs would actually shrink by 814,100 — from 12,188,300 in 2014 to 11,374,200 in 2024.
The NFD report is especially high on “cannatourism,” as residents from restricted states travel to legal states to purchase legal pot and presumably satisfy the munchies by consuming mass amounts of sugared and salty treats from all-night convenience stores.
NFD emphasizes that its latest report will “help industry participants better understand the rapidly evolving global landscape and be better prepared for the expanding worldwide opportunity of legal cannabis.”