>if legal marijuana is priced low enough to make black market dealers less common,
It never is. The overhead from running a lawful business is way higher even before you start accounting for all the weed specific cost of compliance stuff.
It never is. The overhead from running a lawful business is way higher even before you start accounting for all the weed specific cost of compliance stuff.
I live in MI and weed is really, really cheap here. I don't smoke, but I partake in edibles (I have MS and nerve pain that meds can't do much about). I can get 2000mg of edibles for 40 bucks. And that's without price comparing: That's just going to the closest dispensary near my house. And lots of places do penny/free joints with a very low/no minimum purchase.
Example: instead of buying meat at a formal (as in, legal business that pays taxes, has the proper sanitary reviews, etc) butcher shop, its buying from a small producer who kills their own animals, or from some shady figure who kills other producer’s animals.
Another example is alcohol and cigarettes that are bought at duty free shops by mules and then sold tax free in street markets.
The edge of the black market over lawful business ranges from small to huge depending mostly on how regulated the lawful business is and the costs of a physical location (think street sales of snacks right across from a shop that also sells snacks but also has to pay rent, utilities, taxes, etc).
That is a very marginal case. The vast majority of revenue in the meat business goes through the big corporations.
"Another example is alcohol and cigarettes that are bought at duty free shops by mules and then sold tax free in street markets."
Oh yeah, if you burden the legal producers with extraordinary, punitive taxes, the black market unburdened with them can flourish.
That's exactly what most states, though apparently not Washington, do with weed.