FILE - In this April 15, 2019, file photo, a vendor makes change for a marijuana customer at a cannabis marketplace in Los Angeles. An unwelcome trend is emerging in California, as the nation's most populous state enters its fifth year of broad legal marijuana sales. Industry experts say a growing number of license holders are secretly operating in the illegal market — working both sides of the economy to make ends meet.
Industry insiders say the practice of working simultaneously in the legal and illicit markets is all too commonplace, a financial reality brought on by the difficulties and costs of doing business with a product they call the most heavily regulated in America. Today, most Americans live in states with at least some access to legal legal marijuana — 18 states have broad legal sales for those 21 and older, similar to alcohol laws, while more than two-thirds of states provide access through medicinal programs.
But California’s legalization push faced challenges from the start. The state’s illegal market had flourished for decades, anchored in the storied “Emerald Triangle” in the northern end of the state. Not since the end of Prohibition in 1933 had an attempt been made to reshape such a vast illegal economy into a legal one.
No state is claiming to have eliminated illegal operators. U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, an Oregon Democrat who co-chairs the Congressional Cannabis Caucus, said he saw little prospect for undercutting illegal markets without federal legalization, which has been stalled in Congress despite having Democrats in control of Congress and the White House.
“Licensed players are the good guys. Yet it just never feels like we’re being treated like we’re on the right side of history,” Knoblich Palmer said.
legal weed is good. legal weed that people can't afford is bad.
If Marijuana is legalized in Kenya, I guess not hustlers will benefit but political elite.
I just grow my own. I’m not paying insane prices plus and insanely high tax
More dying now than when Trump was President. BIDEN FAILED.
It should all be legal and then there would be no hazy lines. Politicians and a greedy tax hungry government create this blur to bleed Americans dry of income in order to line the pockets of political ally’s. End the war on drugs and problem solved.
It’s better than opioids or alcohol is that why they don’t want to make legal . Jails could go empty? Liquor sales will fall who invested in these ? In my opinion I see no good reason except pharmacy might lose business also. In my opinion it’s old $
Amazing. Once again, the state has created a black market.
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