Additionally the taxes create operational overhead to stay compliant. Every product follows a chain of custody similar to pharmaceuticals. Even the scales used must be of the same spec used for gold weighing and cost roughly $1,500 each. It's not just the dispensaries but the wholesalers, processors, and cultivators need to buy these scales and register them once a year with the state for $100. Furthermore the batches sizes are too small for the cultivators and processors. In Oregon, it was 15lbs each. An outdoor harvest may bring 1,500lbs an acre. Each test costs roughly $50 plus the labor for a human measuring it. Even if it was all going to biomass processing (think isolates and distillates used for edibles and vapes), the same process applies.

Part of the reason to justify all of this regulation was to ensure that the blackmarket would update accordingly. Instead, rich investors took control of the cannabis market and the underground market thrived without enforcement pressures. Poor people who actually suffered the consequences of prohibition received none of the benefits of legalization. This issue is certainly economic and racial.

Now the legal cannabis market wants to expand but can't. Now it has to compete with a market thriving due to enforcement evaporating. One way is to reduce taxes. This would make it more profitable for the already rich existing investors in cannabis to make more money. Taxes are extreme and certainly need to be reduced but the real issue is supply chain and access to market.

It's really difficult to sell weed legally if you want to. More importantly, it's expensive. We should make it cheap to sell weed. You should be able to sell weed like alcohol. Alcohol licenses are much cheaper and with much larger quotas. Additionally alcohol is more standardized than cannabis while facing less supply chain inspections & requirements. There should be strong exceptions to small producers. Also, interstate sales should be allowed. Illicit markets serving out of state customers won't go legit if they can't ship across state lines. Especially to adjacent states with legalized cannabis. Isn't it crazy you can't ship weed from Oregon to Washington?

Lowering the barrier to market would have the additional benefit of enabling smaller market participants like the people who did it before it was legal. I actually have no problem with very high taxes on the larger companies. Maybe it'll fund building schools and hospitals in the places ravaged by the drug war. It's a great disgrace that our laws have prevented any reasonable path for going legit while demonizing them in the process.