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"Be careful what you wish for...legalization will be followed by MASSIVE taxation, and the price will skyrocket, causing the same black market that exists today.

The difference will be that the price will undoubtedly rise (due to taxes), and the supply will continue to be mainly from illegal sources."

If it was really legalized, such that it could be produced on a grand scale like other agricultural products, the economy of scale what bring prices way down. Marijuana currently costs hundreds or even thousands of dollars a pound wholesale. It's grown and processed by hand on a relatively small scale scattered all over the place to avoid detection. Every year thousands of tons of it are destroyed by law enforcement in North America before the plants ever mature, and thousands of tons of finished product are seized in this country. Production, transport, and distribution costs are extremely high. Everything is done in such a fragmented small scale way, and the risks involved command such premium profits that the price to consumers ends up being artificially inflated many many times what it could actually be. Before taxes tobacco is only a few dollars a pound wholesale (a couple of years back I believe it was averaging $3 a pound), and marijuana can't be that much harder than tobacco to produce. I would not be surprised at all to see actual production costs drop to below ten dollars a pound on average if large scale commercial growing and processing were employed like we see with other agricultural products. Kick in all the regulatory costs, taxes and excises, insurance costs, etc., and it is still liable to be a good bit cheaper than it is today for end consumers.

You have to consider the fact that marijuana is already "taxed" to to a huge extent. I've handled thousands of pounds worth of "marijuana mule" cases over the years as a criminal defense attorney where people driving down the interstate have been caught with large loads of pot in their vehicles, and I've learned a little about the industry along the way. Mostly I'm just dealing with standard Mexican pot, the cheap stuff most prevalent on our streets. This stuff in large bulk purchases can be had for less than $50 a pound in Mexico. It would be a lot cheaper down there if it was legal. While they may be able to get away with larger grows than people get away with here, a big operation is only going to be a few acres worth grown in small plots scattered over a relatively large area. They'll bribe the locals, but they still have to try to be inconspicuous in their activities and still sometimes their crops are seized. These aren't big farms with plowed fields and tractors and all sorts of fancy modern technology. They tend to be little plots scattered in the woods that workers have to hike to and do all the work by hand. And while labor is cheap in Mexico, those working the pot fields tend to get paid a lot better than those employed on farms growing legal crops.

This $50 a pound stuff ends up costs $600 to $800 a pound where I live, and maybe $1,500 or more by the time it makes it to the Northeast. It changes hands so many times before it makes it's final destination and everybody wants a cut along the way. It costs a lot to smuggle it in this country in the first place. It costs a lot to store it in safe houses in Arizona and other Western states awaiting transport to other parts of the country. When it is transported it is sometimes transported in ton or more loads hidden in tractor trailer loads of of legal products, but most often it is probably being transported in personal vehicles in two or three hundred pound trunk loads. These drivers don't make a lot of money, but they are likely to get a couple of grand plus expenses for transporting a two or three hundred pound load. They're often making as much or more what a truck driver hauling a huge ninety thousand pound load of legal product might make for hauling his load. And the drivers aren't the only ones getting paid. Their handlers get paid. Those that recruit them get paid, and in many cases there is a clean vehicle traveling with the vehicle carrying the load to run interference and so that the higher ups will know if a car gets popped. They want to know right away because odds are the cops are going to try to push these drivers into making controlled deliveries where law enforcement will be following along to bust the people at the other end.

Anyway, the expense of transporting marijuana is so high and so many loads get seized along the way by the time a load of Mexican pot makes it to the Northeast the wholesale per pound price of the product is probably going to be at least be triple what it was from the time it left the safe houses in western states. That product had already increased in price several times what it cost the farmer in Mexico to grow it by the time it hit the safe house in Tucson, Arizona, or wherever, and after it reaches it final destination it's probably going to change hands a couple more times before it reaches the end consumer and be even more expensive then. When they legalize it and start growing it on a massive scale with modern methods and selling it at licensed retail facilities the production and distribution costs will drop through the floor compared to where they are today. Taxes on it will have to be several times the wholesale value of the product to keep prices at or near current levels.