Posted on 02/23/2023 6:40:23 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
Legal pot sales in California shrank last year, falling 8% compared with 2021. This is the first time cannabis revenue has dropped since the sale of cannabis became legal in 2018.
Customers purchased $5.3 billion worth of legal pot products in 2022, according to data released Wednesday by the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration. That represents an 8% drop, or a decrease of $473 million, from what customers purchased in 2021.
The falling sales come as the legal cannabis industry faces multiple headwinds, including competition from a booming illegal market, crashing wholesale prices and yearslong licensing delays.
Hirsh Jain, a cannabis consultant at Ananda Strategy and the vice chair of the California Cannabis Chamber of Commerce, said in an email to SFGATE that the drop in sales is “a warning signal” that “the state's legal market is on the brink of collapse.”
Jain attributed the drop in sales to licensing problems with the local governments, which have been slow to give licenses to legal pot entrepreneurs. Jain estimated that 700 retail cannabis stores have been unable to open because they lack licenses from local governments.
The illegal cannabis market has also hampered California’s pot industry. Illegal cannabis farms have proliferated across the state, and San Diego officials said this month that cannabis tax revenue is expected to drop 23% due, in part, to illegal cannabis delivery services. Gov. Gavin Newsom and the California Department of Cannabis Control launched a new task force last year to try to crack down on illegal cannabis operations in the state.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Weed in california is not a “free market” by any means. Its heavily taxed, heavily regulated and licensed, and legal operations are limited to <1 acre, I believe.
The Asian gangs and cartels (as well as the potheads smoking it) have decided that unlicensed/untaxed weed is still a much better deal.
Gee. Just pass a law.
Wanna stop murder? Just outlaw guns.
Wanna stop illegal weed? Just pass a law.
“legalized” weed was always just another way for gubbernment to get into your wallet and take your $$. All the rest is just details.
Weed is extremely easy to grow, so high prices and high taxes were never going to sustain themselves.
And extremely easy to deliver. A doper has no need to go to a “dispensary” when they can stay stoned on their sofa, munch ho-hos and order their dope delivered by an uber for weed service.
I happened to bump into Dennis Hof, brothel owner and successful Republican district 36 assembly candidate, at a gas station in Pahrump.
Told him I could understand him running a legal business with willing service providers and willing customers at an agreed on price, but not why he would get involved in anything as dirty as politics.
He thought that hilarious, and said he was going to have to use that line in his speeches.
I don’t think he had the chance, he passed shortly thereafter, and was subsequently elected...
Why doesn’t California just pursue the cartels for non-payment of taxes?...
Consumption of alcohol in public is largely prohibited in this country, at least compared to places like the UK. I don’t know why the same wouldn’t be done for pot.
California is a cartel in many forms guess who made cannabis legal everyone gets to whack the money.
Because they don’t want to die?
Killjoy.
I see it and smell it everywhere.
California stinks.
Gee you mean illegal marijuana growers have figured out it’s easy to undercut heavily taxed, high overhead cartel prices?
LOL, saw this coming from miles away. Why would you pot-head spend extra $$$ buying from the local, approved store (with lots of taxes stacked on top of the purchase price) when they can pay less from the local dealers for the same stuff at no risk to them (as long as they hold to the limits one can have on their person). Crime profits, and the tax revenue promised fails.
Sales did not drop. The illegal drug cartel’s street seller’s price for weed undercut the state licensed weed stores. Buyers moved to the street sellers as the price was less. Plenty of weed is bought, but not that what CA hoped to tax and regulate.
I wonder what the situation is in Washington State. Their legalization scheme kept illegal the growing of marijuana for personal recreational use. It probably comes down to enforcement, and there probably isn’t much pressure.
Could it be? Is it possible? People are growing up and having lives? Or maybe...ORGAN CHORD! GASP!...Chong has finally had enough!?
This is not hard to figure out. Weed is illegal in its essence - making it “legal” doesn’t “make” it legal - it just signals a surrender of government on yet another front.
Illegal substances attract law breaking people. Law breaking people will lie and say, “Only in my home? Okay that sounds fair.” Then light up in front of you.
Colorado is learning its lesson about legalizing weed and the type of people doing that attracts.
Saying we will legalize weed so we can tax it is naïve in the extreme at best cynical at worst.
Notice no standards of intoxication from weed are found anywhere. So light up and drive your EV anywhere as you smoke. Pop a few cans of beer as you drive and you are going to go to jail if caught.
You can’t escape it anywhere. Hell. Standing at a crosswalk even. Cars go speeding by and you will be knocked over by the smell of pot. At chirch. Hospitals, day care, schools, on the lake in a boat. The overwhelming smell of pot is everywhere.
Sales Taxes on legal weed here in Commiefornia are in excess of 32%. That’s exactly why sales of it have gone down.
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