New Yorkers Smoke More Pot Than Any Other City in the World, by a Large Margin: Study

New Yorkers consumed more pot last year than any other city in the world, a new study finds. And the competition isn't even close.

According to research by Seedo, a company that makes marijuana-growing systems and advocates for it to be legalized, New Yorkers used 77.44 tons of marijuana in 2017. That's equivalent to the weight of 13 average-sized African elephants.

The study saw New Yorkers using almost double the amount of the second largest weed-smoking city in the world: Karachi in Pakistan. In Karachi, where marijuana is illegal, about 41.95 tons of the drug were consumed last year. The second most pot-loving city in the States was Los Angeles, with 36.6 tons consumed last year.

The study crunched the numbers in the United Nations World Drug Report 2017, along with the most recent population data available, and worked on the assumption that the average joint weighs 0.66 grams.

It also attempted to show how much states could make if they made marijuana legal and taxed it. It found that, second to Cairo, Egypt, New York had the most to earn from taxing the drug, if tax was collected at cigarette-levels. If New York legalized and taxed, it would have earned itself $354.5 million extra last year, the study said.

In his 2018 budget plan, Gov. Andrew Cuomo proposed a study that would look at the impacts of legalizing marijuana for recreational use in New York State.