White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer shocked the cannabis industry recently. Spicer's stated that he is expecting the Department of Justice will enforce more federal laws prohibiting recreational marijuana. These laws, if passed, will also be applied to the states where marijuana is already legal.

According to CNN, this announcement is a complete reversal from Obama administration's point-of-view. Before the federal government was not allowed to interfere in the states where recreational use of marijuana is legal.

Till date, eight states have legalized recreational cannabis for adults. They include Alaska, Colorado, California, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington.

"When you see something like the opioid addiction crisis blossoming in so many states around this country, the last thing we should be doing is encouraging people," CNN quoted Spicer. "There is still a federal law that we need to abide by when it comes to recreational marijuana and drugs of that nature."

Forbes, however, stated that the legal cannabis industry has pointed out the benefits of recreational Marijuana legalization. The very first benefit that comes to mind is from law and order point of view.

Legalizing marijuana resulted in reduced criminal activity that involves drug cartels and gangs. This, in turn, means less court, prison and police spending.

When a state legalizes Marijuana, it is tested, labeled and packaged in child-proof containers before selling. This is definitely safer than acquiring cannabis illegally.

Another proof using marijuana over opioids are that the side effects are fewer and it's not addictive. Also, an overdose of marijuana does not block the respiratory cells and then death, unlike opioids.

Hundreds of millions of dollars are raised in tax revenue because of marijuana taxing. And lastly, there is a key benefit of job creation. Over 100,000 have been employed so far for legal marijuana cultivation and so forth procedure. Cannabis has become the third largest cash crop in Washington.

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