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Comment by mjthrowaway1 | Hacker News Reader

Aggressive taxes create a black market for goods. To protect the tax revenue the govt must be aggressive about prosecuting unlicensed operators who do not pay taxes. This is counter to the social politics of wanting to end the war on drugs.

As a compromise the govt heavily taxes legal businesses while allowing the black market to thrive with minimal punishment. C’est la vie.

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This isn't a uniform truth about taxes, even aggressive ones: the evidence so far around marijuana legalization has been than consumers have been more than happy to pay high taxes, because the net cost of marijuana is still similar to or lower than the pre-legal cost.

We might eventually see a variant of tax stamp fraud for marijuana, the way some states do for cigarettes. But that's just the nature of these things, like you said, and I think the general trend is a "win," in terms of eliminating WoD policies.

In California the estimate is that 25% of consumers are buying from licensed retailers.

>As a compromise the govt heavily taxes legal businesses while allowing the black market to thrive with minimal punishment. C’est la vie.

And meanwhile billions were taken out of the black market, and the government increased tax receipts.

Don't let perfect be the enemy of good (or in the case, 'better').

Marijuana has been legal-and-regulated in Canada for years. I assure you that the sky hasn't fallen.

As compared to now, with a thriving black market, and aggressive prosecution of all parties?

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