“Guess what? They’re not going away. If they’re making money hand over fist selling it when it’s illegal then why would they stop when it’s legal? They’re going to easily be able to undercut commercial pot.”
Exactly, just like all the illegal tobacco folks buy all the time instead of the commercial stuff... (rolls eyes) Don’t tell me there’s not enough money in it, with a pack of cigarettes going for over $10 a lot of places these days.
The fact is that the only extra cost legit growers face is taxation, but they don’t have the cost of mitigating law enforcement, or transporting the product from outside the country. It’s also likely that legally grown pot is higher quality and not coated in insecticide...or paraquat (remember that?).
Another thing for you to chew on is that in most states where it’s been legalized, it’s allowed to just grow it yourself. That pretty well takes care of any cost related argument you might make...
That doesn't change the fact that it's nearly impossible to have an illegal, untaxed tobacco farm that can put out a large volume of product. The government LONG ago made this impractical. Legal tobacco farmers turn in those who try to game the system. There isn't large scale illegal tobacco production EXACTLY because the government makes it unprofitable, illegal and nearly impossible to gain any type of market share. The BATF goes even goes heavy against those who try to game the system by buying cheap cigarettes in one state and trying to resell them in another. There's a GOOD case to be made that the BATF (ALCOHOL, TOBACCO and FIREARMS) was setup specifically to protect these products LEGALLY and make it impossible for large scale illegal production.