So basically taxing something created an illegal (and unsafe) market (again). We've never seen this happen.
Buy an ounce at the illegal dispensary across the street from the legal club, and it will come in one bag, you get to inspect the product before you buy to see how fresh it is and its quality, and it will be cheaper and sold tax free.
Seems like another lie, cartels can now launder product and expand reach.
I say all this as someone who does not care what people inhale or ingest. But look at it from the point of view of the teetotalers and bureaucracy.
It looks like a fucking mess and now we are being told that we should do the same for heroin to reduce fentenal deaths...
I don't have a solution but I am not sure more of the same is gonna help at all.
Yes. That's pretty much what I said. A lot of those using it as a selling point didn't actually care that much about the benefits to the state of a new taxation stream.
That said, I'm willing to believe that a lot of people assumed that people were willing to pay a lot more to go with a vetted legal source (or would only go with a vetted legal source) than has, in fact turned out to be the case.
There's at least some evidence I've read that suggests legalization hasn't led to a lot of increased use. If that's the case, it's reasonable to assume a lot of users already knew how to acquire pot in the black market and don't see a lot of reason to start spending more to go legal.
That is interesting if legalization has not increased use by much, I would have thought there would be an increase. Any trend on underage use? Kids no longer think it's cool due to parents?
I hope that the effort for federal legalization succeeds but I think there are people looking at this and seeing that the negatives are not being negated but instead amplified.
Uncoolness has been suggested with medical marijuana possibly even further accentuating a shift.
I guess, to the degree that usage hasn't gone up all that much, one can imagine a number of explanations. Regular users already had their sources. Sure, there are older, probably wealthier, people who don't mind a sometimes smoke or edible but also weren't willing to risk buying it illegally. But I imagine this group are mostly pretty light users.
A normal sales tax should be the only tax on any legal product. Essentially equality in taxation. Sales taxes should only be used to raise money to run the government — it shouldn’t be used to manipulate markets or purchases habits. That isn’t what freedom is.
But when you open a legal market with 30% tax in competition with an existing, much more expansive market with an automatic 30% discount, of course it is going to fail.