Massachusetts’ Addiction to Regulation Keeps Most Pot Sales on the Black Market
Excerpt: Since Massachusetts residents passed a 2016 referendum legalizing recreational cannabis, the fate of the industry has largely been in the hands of the state’s Cannabis Control Commission. Having licensed 23 pot stores across the state, and set rules for individual growers, the commission is now drafting rules for marijuana delivery services. You may be chuckling right now at the possibility of a stereotypical stoner’s dream to never leave his home coming true, or because Massachusetts, never coy about heavy-handed regulations, has created something called the Cannabis Control Commission. (...) The result is that every black market pot transaction is a lost opportunity for a consumer to park blocks away from a licensed store, wait in line an hour or more, and give state and local governments 20 percent of the cut. Viewed through this lens, Massachusetts has not legalized cannabis products so much as entered the drug market via a handful of chosen franchisees, with the extra competitive advantage that you could be fined or jailed if you buy from the competition. [Although I do not use marijuana in any form, I voted to legalize it and urged others to do the same. My reasoning was that it would deprive the drug gangs of their most lucrative product. Surely this would result in fewer illegal sales and likely, lower prices. Wrong. Unmentioned in the article is that contrary to the expectations of almost everyone, the street price has remained relatively steady rather than going down. The taxes proposed in the authorizing referendum were specifically chosen to undercut the street prices; so of course, the first thing the elected politicos did was to raise the taxes in crafting the authorizing legislation. What will eventually bite the pols on the butt is that every individual is allowed to cultivate up to eight plants of their own–which THEY ARE THEN FORBIDDEN TO SELL, BUT THEY MAY GIVE AWAY FOR FREE. So, while cash may not openly change hands, I expect a lot of “I’ll mow your lawn for an ounce” sort of non-cash transactions that are inherently untraceable and nearly impossible to prove. So, at some future point, street prices will drop as availability goes up. The lesson here is that “control minded politicians” will cooperate among themselves to make life as difficult as possible for everyone else. ADDED: The actual tax paid is higher than the 20% mentioned, it's closer to 30%, but a lot of it is 'included in the shelf price.". Ron P.]
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