When low-limit riverboat casinos opened in April 1991 in Iowa, it caught the country’s attention on national television. Six months later, neighboring Illinois opened high-limit riverboat casinos to its residents. Five after that, 25 states had legalized true casinos, in part, as an effort to keep gambling tax dollars from traveling across state lines. 

Now, in 2021, the cannabis industry is experiencing a parallel to that domino effect. As Arizona, Montana, New Jersey and South Dakota voters passed adult-use legalization initiatives in November, they joined the growing market of 11 states that have opened additional revenue streams by taxing cannabis sales. 

The push for adult-use legalization is now taking hold nationwide, as governors, state representatives and citizen coalitions are realizing they don’t want to be left behind in the multi-billion-dollar industry. As Senior Digital Editor Melissa Schiller wrote earlier this month, more than 15 states are already considering cannabis legalization bills this year. 

Earlier this week, Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont unveiled an adult-use legalization proposal in his budget request, specifically pointing out that dispensaries in neighboring Massachusetts “are advertising extensively here in Connecticut. And rather than surrender this market to out-of-staters, or worse, to the unregulated underground market, our budget provides for the legalization of recreational marijuana.”

And although some states are still fighting legalization efforts, like Idaho, which has $600 million of rainy-day funds stashed away in an emergency account, it's still difficult to ignore what’s happening next door in Ontario, Ore. A city of 11,000, Ontario’s dispensaries are booming on the state line with Idaho, with $91.7 million in cannabis sales from 2020, in large part to their retail operations’ proximity to Boise residents. 

-Tony Lange, Associate Editor