Can legal weed ever beat the black market?

Even in Canada and some US states where marijuana is legal, the illegal market remains a tenacious competitor

One big reason to legalize cannabis is to wrest the market away from criminal enterprises and tax the proceeds. But in Canada and the US states where weed is legal, the illegal market has proven to be a tenacious competitor – and it’s likely to remain so for years.

Take California, the largest and most complex of the legal US markets. Here underground sales can be divided into two broad categories: the illegal or “black” market includes everyone growing and manufacturing products for export out of state, which is always against the law. The so-called “gray market” refers to companies that continue to operate in California even though they either can’t or don’t want to go through the time and expense to acquire licenses.

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2TH75tW