How can we measure the size of Australia’s illegal cannabis market - and the billions in taxes that might flow from legalising it?

Legalisation aims to redirect profits away from organised crime, safeguard people aged under 18, and protect public health through strict safety and quality regulations..

Australias Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) estimates a legalised market would deliver a USD 28 billion windfall for the public purse in the first decade...

All up, we estimate that a new legalised market could attract 3.4 million cannabis users in its first year...

To solve this problem, the Parliamentary Budget Office followed the approach of its Canadian equivalent and used survey data from US think tank RAND, which presented survey respondents with images of different quantities of cannabis to help them estimate their personal use accurately..

At this price, and using our market size estimate of 441 tonnes, our ballpark figure for the tax revenue generated in the first ten years of legalisation is around USD 13 billion..