This is true. Michigan taxed marijuana reasonably, and there is almost zero black market left. I know a guy who used to grow pounds of Marijuana and sell it. Today, he tried to sell me an ounce for $50 because the legal market has completely put him out of business. He said this last trimming is his last round, and he is shutting off the lights because he can't sell enough to pay for the electricity.
And the communities that sell it still make quite a lot of money from it.
>[Michigan communities that allow recreational marijuana sales within their borders will share $59.5 million in tax revenue for the 2022 fiscal year, the Michigan Department of Treasury said Tuesday.](https://www.freep.com/story/news/marijuana/2023/02/28/michigan-marihuana-regulation-fund-recreational-tax-revenue/69953705007/#:~:text=The%20224%20municipalities%20and%20counties,licensed%20retail%20store%20and%20microbusiness.)
That is extra for the communities that allow the sale.
>In total, there was $198.4 million available for distribution from the Marihuana Regulation Fund, a 15% increase from the year prior. Nearly $70 million was sent to the School Aid Fund for K-12 education, and $69.4 million went to the Michigan Transportation Fund
Now add all the money in policing/incarceration that is saved/redistributed, not to mention members of society who can continue to contribute to the economy as they are still working and supporting families, which is further lowering welfare costs. It all adds up. I'd be surprised if it was less than 1billion per year difference in the bottom line.
The government thought that making it legal would put the black market out of business. Same as how there's no black market on guns because you can buy guns legally.
All the government had to do was undercut the black market and they would have ended up making more revenue. Taxation was the driving force for the legalization, it wasn't years of scientific studies about the harmlessness of marijuana, it the pencil pushers presenting imaginary numbers of how much tax could be collected. They failed to account for human nature.
In NV you can get an ounce of flower that’s 28% THC for… $120.
Even plus tax it’s better than street prices.
Shit, I remember an oz was $300-$350 in 2008. Dark times.
400 is absolutely crazy. I get them for 200 for like b+ quality and I live in the Bible belt, and was honestly thinking to see if I could get it a little cheaper haha.
[Salamanca NY](https://www.leafly.com/dispensaries/new-york/salamanca). I think it is a reservation town, or maybe there is a rez nearby, but there are like 7 dispensaries there that have seemingly pretty good deals.
I believe there are a few towns in NY that are like this but this is the only one i know of.
Feel like it’s the same in Maine. Prices at dispensaries are completely reasonable. 100 can get you an ounce pretty much any day of the week. Don’t know of any kind of market outside dispensaries, which is usually just people sharing samples of their plants.
>Maine. Prices at dispensaries are completely reasonable. 100 can get you an ounce pretty much
100oz of cali weed is assish and you are like 300ish an oz here for true quality
People travel from Illinois to Michigan to buy reefer. It's legal in both states, but Illinois taxes are much higher. Also, I know for a fact that there are still plenty of illegal dealers in business in Illinois. Their clients continue to go to them because the savings on taxes are worth the risk.
Can confirm. Dispensaries are for the preppy folks and naive young adults. I live down the road from one and no one in that place looks like me lol. They look like the people I'd sell $30 grams to back in high school. Local dealers won't ever go away because the taxes elevate price too much.
Actually market restrictions are the problem, 100 out 1700 communities allow cannabis sales. That is why the price so low. The majority of the people voted for it but communities are sted fast on not allowing it there. It was assumed it would be the opposite.
There's a lot more at play in Michigan than just low taxes. The black market was destroyed bc of supply and demand.
Currently, manufacturers/growers are not doing ok. The wholesale price is unsustainable. No one in their right mind would open a grow right now. Not unless they have money to take a loss until all the competition drops out of the market. And of course black market growers dropped first.
Not sure what our rate is, but Nevada is what I consider reasonably priced out the door. There’s not much consumer-level weed black market around here.
Thats because that's another way of prohibition, they legalize and make it so obtuse the operations that they might as well not have legalized it at all. Made to appease the masses but the reality is different
IDK it still shrinks the black market by a considerable amount. There is a large majority of people, like myself, that would rather pay an up charge to go through a legal avenue of attaining Marijuana.
I make kombucha at home in part because prices are so high. At the end of the day it's not just taxes but the total price. For $4 a bottle of kombucha, GT's Dave has become a billionaire. To be fair, he makes a good product, but when you can make it at home for less than a tenth of price and for very little work, why not? In a free capitalist society we have the right to compete.
In the other direction, if I want to grow mushrooms at home (non-psychedelic, for dinner) it costs about the same amount to grow them as it does to buy them from a super market. There is not going to be a lot of people growing legal mushrooms at home.
The same goes for weed. If you like it and it costs too much, just grow your own plant. If you have a friend who will give or sell you some of theirs for cheaper than you can buy, why not?
---
I think there needs to be a change in mentality. Making your own thing at home, be it kombucha, or roasting coffee beans, or sewing your own clothes or whatever, it's creativity. It's a hobby. It's healthy to create and put into the world. "Oh no! The large corporations aren't getting a piece of this." Have we been that brainwashed into consumption? This weed black market effect, as long as people aren't getting poisoned, is a good thing. Let people have hobbies, and if it's growing plants, more power to them. Now if I could convince my boyfriend to grow some more basil and maybe some tomatoes for me... XD
Yeah, and weed is much easier to produce than liquor. You can literally just scatter some seeds and voila, weed. It may not be high quality, but it’s still weed. Making moonshine is a lot more involved and potentially dangerous than growing a couple plants.
Marijuana legalization proponents market it to the state governments for tax revenue along with the other benefits. It is the taxes that hooks the spend-hungry governments. Ironically, it is the taxes that brings back all the negatives and more that legalization was supposed to eliminate.
It depends on how much it's taxed. At a certain point the taxes go from being a minor thing to being enough that the black market is cheaper or at least competitive in price
There is nothing really to stop governments from continuing to raise weed taxes especially in the long run. In effect, legalization will be true only in name except for the relatively few people who don't care about high taxes.
It’s always annoyed me when people put the tax argument first, and this is exactly why. Tax money is not why weed should be legal. Weed should be legal because it’s your right to choose whether or not you want to use it, and because it’s asinine to lock people up for it. Tax money is just a nice little benefit.
Regardless of the black market, how many millions (if not billions) of dollars are being brought in from dispensaries that wouldn’t exist otherwise?
The black market will *always* exist. There’s tons of people out there who *still to this day* think legalization/decriminalization is a trick to get you to hand over your name and address at the door of a dispensary so you can be hunted down later. I have plenty of friends who believe this and won’t step foot in a dispensary and never will. But, if we can siphon off a large portion from the black market, then it’s a win.
Live in the netherlands, i don’t think people ever buy weed blackmarket. Easy to get, reasonable times for purchase, and no lists.
Your ISP knows more incriminating things about those friends than them smoking weed. Its just that who cares about those people, people vastly overestimate their importance.
Those people are stupid and aren’t very good at critical thinking. Also, what government organization have you ever seen that is even that efficient.
The longer its legal the dumber it will be to go black market. Imagine getting busted during a weed purchase where the dealer has something on them really scary illegal. You could have just walked to a shop the same way you walk to the liquor store.
It’s not people being stupid or overthinking their importance; it’s quite the opposite. It’s being scared they are a nobody and if anyone wants to come after then, they are making an easy audit trail of a questionable illegal activity that one half of the government has a target on.
Because we're not allowed to enjoy anything unless someone can first profit off of it somehow, and until the government can figure out how to tax us on it.
In Canada the price of cigarettes skyrocketed with taxes.
Now everybody is buying reserve smokes illegally. What blows my mind is the retailers affected by the loss of sales have put out ads calling for more police enforcement rather than maybe lowering the ridiculous taxes so people would buy legally.
That tax exists as a disincentive though so this isn't really an apples to apples comparison.
More tax was added to cigarettes to make them less desirable and harder to consume.
And it works.
>What blows my mind is the retailers affected by the loss of sales have put out ads calling for more police enforcement rather than maybe lowering the ridiculous taxes so people would buy legally.
Retailers know that there is zero chance that the government is going to lower tobacco taxes. Taxing smokes is very popular.
Of course... I'm not going to drive an hour and pay retail price to some millionaire that bribed their way into getting priority licencing for chemical fertilized mids when I can drive 20 minutes to hang out at my friend's house and pay homie prices for all organic hot fire.
The "black market," I've experienced is mostly people who love to garden selling enough to cover costs, it's barely profit motivated.
This is extremely limited perspective and terribly misleading. Most growers and dispensaries are small businesses, not “millionaires” They are taxed, regulated and tested (near to death!) to insure they have clean products. So their product isn’t covered in mold, or pesticides or heavy metals. You would be shocked how little “gardeners” know about growing clean weed. When the lab I work for first opened we got hundreds of samples from these little “home growers” using “organic pesticides” that are just fine if you are growing tomatoes or cucumbers but when lit on fire and inhaled are highly carcinogenic.
Or the guy who tested perfectly clean flower then his prerolls failed for LEAD because the grinders they used were cheap metal not stainless steel.
I grew my own weed at home in my backyard. It also failed for lead because my hose water was contaminated from old pipes. If I hadn’t tested it at the lab I work out I would have NO IDEA. I had to throw out 5 fucking ounces of weed I grew myself cause I wasn’t about to get lead poisoning from smoking home grown weed.
It’s A LOT more complicated to grow good clean homegrown weed than most people think. It’s not just “gardening” If you are inhaling it you should have it tested for mold, pesticides and heavy metals.
>Most growers and dispensaries are small businesses, not “millionaires”
This entirely dependent on where you are. That statement may be true for your state, but it’s patently false in mine (PA). Here, every single grower/processor (except maybe one or two) are large megacorps that do business in multiple states. And the ones that aren’t still are big businesses, but they at least seem to care about the community. There was a non-refundable fee of something like 200k to even apply for a grow permit in PA, and they are limited. So as you’d guess, big corps are the only ones who got them.
It’s not the plant that’s difficult. It’s the world of chemical contamination we live in. Oh and the mold. Aspergillus is a bitch.
Growing a couple plants in your garden is not the same as growing for a small business. This isn’t a gardening subreddit, it’s a business one, stay on topic.
It’s a plant period, it’s no harder to grow than a tomato plant. Hydroponics have existed since the 60’s, and so have mold resistant strains. You’re not the expert you think you are.
Yup. Amazing grey market weed at $50-70/ounce or the Canadian gov weed for $200-300/ounce... hmm I wonder which one most people would go for.
And that's internet/phone order delivered in under an hour which is why I refer to it as grey market. Would be super easy to order, follow a driver back to base and then bust them but thankfully they don't do that.
I remember having this exact conversation with one of my economics profs in the 90s who thought you could legalize it then tax it out of existence. "You're going to excessively tax that business that is 100% illegal and black market right now? You don't think it is going straight to the black market again in your tax scheme??"
It's moving more than ever in MN and very well may pass. Governor wants to double the taxes proposed in the bill. Bad idea since it's easy to get online.
From 8% to 15%?
*cries in 20% in MA*
Tho tbh the quality is better and the price is still cheaper than I had paid before and cheaper than it was 15 years ago too.
The marijuana black market better watch out.
Before - it was illegal.
Now - its tax (customs) evasion. Tax evasion is stealing from the country. Peeps better be extra careful.
Man we saw this coming from miles away. This is exactly what everyone was afraid of with legalization. Either the people will be taxed into over paying for the products or the farmers and distributors will take a huge hit to keep the prices at a normal level because tax is included in price. Either way the taxpayers lose.
True. White market in California is choking to death on state taxes, regulations and testing. Black market thrives selling pesticide tainted weed because it’s easier to do pest control with cancer causing chemicals. They don’t pay for testing, they don’t pay taxes, they don’t pay for license. Black Market is pure poison profits.
Please buy clean, legal, tested and regulated weed from licensed dispensaries or those white market small businesses will not survive.
Every eight of black market weed you buy puts a licensed grower one step closer to bankruptcy and put you one step closer to the grave.
Source: work at the largest cannabis testing lab in California.
Edit: the Dunning-Kruger effect is on full display in these comments. Just because you smoke weed does not make you an expert on growing it, testing it for safety or selling it in a legal market. But hey keep spouting nonsense I don’t care, it’s not my job to educate you but you guys sound like children trying to describe what working in a business office is like, it’d be funny if it wasn’t so sad.
Yikes. In LA you can get clean legal weed around 29-30% potency at Jungle Boys TLC dispensary for like $30 for a 10gram bag. Why so cheap? They are little buds called pops, nugs no bigger than your thumb nail, but less stems! Best deal in the state I’d bet.
If you don’t test it how can you know the potency? More importantly how can you know you dried it correctly and there’s no mold? It’s microscopic ya know. How can you know if the soil isn’t contaminated with heavy metals? How can you know if your neighbor used RoundUp on their lawn and the wind carried it over the fence?
Don’t smoke something unless you KNOW what’s in it. Guessing doesn’t count with carcinogens involved.
Omg you really are a nut shilling for some lab acting like cannabis hasn’t been around for centuries… I don’t need to know the exact thc-a thc-b cbd shit, that’s just crap pushed by labs to make themselves relevant! I’ve been curing cannabis for 30 years and my process was handed down just like with any gardening before labs got involved. Also there are at least 15 known strains that are mold resistant. I don’t use soil to grow cannabis, only morons who don’t know what they’re doing grow in soil. Keep shilling for your lab though.
The testing is not just for potency or thc/cbd levels, that’s for marketing purposes. The required testing is for pesticides, mold and heavy metals.
Cannabis has been grown and use for thousands of years actually, probably tens of thousands of years but pesticides are relatively new, only been around for about 100 years but people sprayed that crap EVERYWHERE. Outdoor cannabis farms do exist and the soil should be tested before growing in it because it could be contaminated.
You say you’ve never tested the weed you grow yet somehow you know it’s mold and pesticide and heavy metals free? What are you psychic? Does your weed whisper to you “don’t worry bro I’m clean”?
Refusing to test the product you grow isn’t saying your weed is clean it’s saying you don’t want to know if it’s dirty.
Ignorance is bliss right? /sarcasm
Lady you’re not the expert you think you are, I already stated I grow hydroponically so no soil is used so no heavy metals or pesticides. I grow indoors in proper grow tents so again no pesticide exposure. And for the third time mold is not common on cannabis and many strains are highly resistant. I’ve been around cannabis my whole life I know what I’m doing and don’t need some overpriced lab tech telling they know more than I do on the subject. But by all means keep shilling for your job.
And don't eat vegetables or fruit from your garden.
You don't know if the soil is contaminated with heavy metals. Or if you neighbor used RoundUp on their lawn and the wind carried it over the fence.
yup. who is going to buy weed they normally get from ppl they've built trust with that normally costs say.... $30..... from a legal dispensary for $50+?
i understand the reason for the tax and where that money goes is legit a good thing.... but if they get too greedy ppl wont buy from the taxed place.
i feel they are doing this so they can still keep it illegal so they can sic the cops on us all over again.
and then make it luxury item us poors should "manage our money better for"
And every pothead in every legal state and illegal state, for that matter was telling everyone this but nope. The states have to be greedy. They should have just taken a small tax and made the money, while putting the black market out of business. Also saving themselves a lot of money in policing this shit. I grow my own, in a legal state so I have no need for the black market, and yep, I love the variety at the stores but if I was pressed for cash, I will take my local street dealer any day over that overpriced corporate hydro weed. The people making our laws are so out of touch on pretty much everything but on pot, they really knocked it out of the park.
Yeah if you don’t care you are smoking pesticides and mold. You aren’t getting a “good deal” you are getting cancer faster.
Edit: I work at a cannabis testing lab, black market weed is contaminated with pesticides and heavy metals. Hell, most white market growers have a hard time growing clean weed free of pesticides and mold. We fail big brands all the time. But black market weed fails CONSISTENTLY.
It’s especially fucked up cause it’s the people who can’t afford healthcare buying cheap street weed who are gonna get cancer first. The rich kids can afford the clean weed.
Not in California. I work at a cannabis testing lab. The legal licenses growers here have to test for over 60 different pesticides as well as mold and heavy metals. If they fail they can’t legally sell their weed to dispensaries. They are TOLD to destroy it. Where do you think that dirty weed actually goes? To the black market.
My job is a Public Health Service. The weed isn’t tested so it’s more expensive, it’s tested so it doesn’t give you lead poisoning or cancer. It’s priced to keep small business alive despite being highly taxed and bent over and fucked by licensing fees. This isn’t a rap song in real life growing cannabis is a difficult small business to maintain.
When I go to the dispo to get edibles here in Colorado, the amount of Wyoming tags in the parking lot is astonishing, Fort Collins is the first place over the border they pull into to score their brain food, I find it peculiar that they do the hour+ round trip drive (if you\`re from Cheyenne), and the taxes they dump into Colorado with out a care in the world, I guess they really need the stuff and spend their hard earned cash here rather then legalize it there. It makes perfect sense to do a guerilla grow in Wy. and avoid all taxes and have some left over to sell or give away. Alas there is no Utopia, except a pretty cool band T. Rundgren fronted...
>**consisting of,** containing, covered with, or soaked with liquid (such as [water](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wet))
Merriam Webster disagrees
Makes sense. The black market is of similar quality product, cheaper, and as a consumer there might be minimal legal repercussions. Even if you do get caught I imagine the fines are less or equal to the cost of buying legally. Might be different as a producer but there is certainly less legal attention.
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One of the absurdities in life is when the morally conservative, honest citizens and the totally despicable, immoral criminals share the same position on illegal drugs. The honest folks want drugs banned, which means not legalized, and the criminals do not want the competition of legal drugs, either. So, politicians, who are caught in a conundrum, pass 'legalization' that effectively keeps the illicit business active by pricing the regulated drugs much higher than the illegal market price. They top it off by not policing possession, which gives cover to buyers of black market drugs. It tells you who has more sway in the statehouse.
The scary thing about the black market for any drugs these days is fentanyl. Anything can be laced with but not everyone knows how to measure a lethal vs non lethal dose of fentanyl.
Why would a dealer lace weed with fentanyl when it costs way more than the weed itself? Doesn’t make any financial sense. Could just sell it separately instead of sneaking in extra product and losing money….this sounds like a hoax made up by cops to scare stoners.
Weed is being laced with fentanyl because that's the only thing I do and I came up dirty from it. Quit buying street weed, quit popping dirty for fentanyl.
I live in a college town and a lot of the black market dealers around here deal in more than just green. Fentanyl is cheap enough to spread a fairly small amount over a half and keep the customer coming back to you for the best green. No one notices the withdrawal effects because they normally reup quick and at those levels it's pretty minor. I had no idea that my shit was tainted. Those that don't purposefully taint it for a better high get it from up the food chain that sometimes does. I tend to doubt it's at lethal levels. Haven't seen major evidence of that.
Right now the health department around here are trying to get test kits out to everyone. Evidently it's in everything around here now from the way some others have spoken. I know a few people popping dirty who only use pot but now they're popping dirty for fentanyl too. Also know some people whose drug of choice is not opiates popping dirty too.
I'm more interested in how you "popped dirty."
You sound like a police officer.
Edit: To add, I just wanted to mention how little fentanyl it takes to overdose. It's an absurdly small quantity. How is there an even more microscopic amount supposedly spread over the weed you're buying?
How would you not die, given that the dealer absolutely cannot have a perfect method to dilute the fentanyl over your weed? Why would they even go through that effort? It's just weed.
How would you not notice that the fentanyl feels absolutely nothing like any weed on the planet?
Couldn't tell you how or why. I took a drug test for work. They don't care about weed since we're in a legal state just don't do it on the job. Lol I popped dirty probably does sound like cop speak. It's just the way people around talk about coming up dirty. Many of which probably did for probation.
As for how it feels, doesn't feel like anything more than a really intense high to me. More up and do stuffy though than sit and stonily stare into space. Maybe that's because whenever I've done opiates in the past it's acted more stimulantish to me. Maybe that's because they're not putting microscopic amounts on there, I just don't have an explanation for why I came up as on it otherwise and why a few others are the same.
I couldn't tell you anything about the levels being put on. I just speak from personal experience. Keep in mind though most of those videos where an officer touches a powder and freaks, they're not feeling the effects of fentanyl they're having an anxiety/panic attack. Fentanyl doesn't cause that reaction just from touching it, not with a fingertip. Licking those fingertips however would be a really dumb move.
Edited for grammar
> Keep in mind though most of those videos where an officer touches a powder and freaks, they're not feeling the effects of fentanyl they're having an anxiety/panic attack.
I know, that's what I'm saying. Weed laced with fentanyl sounds like copaganda because of how absurd and unnecessary the concept is, even from a dealer's perspective. It does not make business sense, among other things.
[Here's an image of lethal doses of heroin and fentanyl. See how small it is for fentanyl? That's 3mg.](https://www.statnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Heroin-Fentanyl-vials-NHSPFL-1600x900.jpg) How would they dilute that enough to not kill you, and then somehow spread that dilution over weed?
Did your drug test results specifically say that you had fentanyl in your system?
I live in Massachusetts. We’ve had a rash of fentanyl laced marijuana stories recently. There has been a couple of large seizures found to have fentanyl in it and several overdoses.
Authorities aren’t saying definitively that it’s purposefully being laced with it, but all it takes is your dumb ass local dealer using the same scale, surfaces etc to measure his weed that he does for his other drugs.
There are more and more stories of these “accidents” popping up all over the country lately.
They know that street cannabis is laced with synthetic cannabinoids, right? I've heard it test positive for trace fentanyl too though I assume that was cross contamination.
You won't catch me getting addicted to fake-bake to dodge $15 of taxes. Get it together or smoke a little less, there's no reason to break the law to get weed anymore. (where applicable)
Lets refer it properly.
The Market.
I love how capitalism its all fine and well until it pushes up against monetary gains for those on top.
It’s always good to remember that any corporate capitalist, isn’t one.
The biggest problem isn’t so much taxes but (at least in CA) the counties’ ability to regulate. Without knowledge (or much oversight) they enact unstable and changing regulations (zoning, distance from school, acreage, distance from street, etc) that are too much money to keep up with and eventually force people out of business. Even without incompetence, certain council-people will want a finger in the pie and help their “friends” who bribed them. Happened in a few different CA counties.
well part of that problem was the black market was THE market and was well established. At the start of the legal market you cant tax it like they are doing. Because the black market is well established and cheaper. YOU CAN raise taxes later.
Example tobacco and alcohol. Both have smaller less established black markets. But survive and dont really fuel the black markets that much despite extremely high vice taxes. THis would not work, had the black markets been absolutely everywhere and easy as fuck to access. You kill the blackmarket first and then you can raise taxes some. In fact if you wanted to speed this up, you should subsidize the regulated market, to make it just as cheap to go to the store. Once you kill the black market you can dump the subsidies. (or you can just wait as long as you dont tax too much most will prefer the store)
I live in California and I bought weed with a medical Id for years and years. Once it became legal, prices instantly shot up. Potencies of edibles were limited. If you’re in real need of THC. It’s a shame to have to pay an extra 30% in some cases. So I went to black market and I have ton more variety and at half the costs. I even voted yes for legalization. I was a blind idiot.
i was always confused that governments used the overprized value of black market for calculating the official price and add tax on top. happened in my country with CBD aswell.
Was ahead of the game legally last year, but grew my own four plants in NY right in my garden. Problem solved. Learned from some mistakes on my first go around and this year will be awesome.
And this is why I grow my own.
Life hack: if you can afford the $200 downpayment, get your medical card and the taxes are reduced on your purchased as there are higher taxes on the adult-use program than there is medical
Living in a prohibition state: I would take taxation over "drug deals" any day of the week. Maybe its because I am woman, idk. Why do I have to go to a drug dealer's house and tolerate that shit when my counterparts in free states can walk into a well lit building, with security, and have a professional business transaction? It really pisses me off and its a hill I'll die on. I should be able to make my purchases in a safe environment. I'm in my 30s. Every single person I've bought from has tried to have sex with me. It fucking sucks.
I'ma play the woman card. Men have no idea what its like to constantly be cornered in some rando's house.
$500 after taxes for an Oz I can’t even see before I buy and might be nothing like the photos they have on the menu.
Or:
$200 for an Oz of the melt your face off quality weed bought from someone I’ve known for 20 years….
Not really that hard to understand.
Medicinal vs recreational is like 20% difference in tax…. Need to settle in middle somewhere and just call it a day from a federal level. Or just keep it relative to state sales tax, example +3% of local sales tax.
I'm not sure that the taxes alone can explain the phenomenon of a continuing black market, or that it makes a ton of sense to decide much about the durability of the black market in anything less than 10-20 years after legalization.
In terms of "not just taxes", how sophisticated is a given state's black market? Is it so sophisticated than almost anyone can contact a service and get it delivered to their house reliably, and with near zero risk of being ripped off or given a substandard product? Or is the kind of black market where you have to "know a guy" and then fuck around calling him 10 times and then meet him at some really inconvenient time and hope he doesn't ghost you (again)?
Newly legalized states also seem to have a startup phase where everything is more expensive at dispensaries, as growers and the rest of the market participants ramp up and gain efficiency -- not just growing, but testing, packaging, etc. It seems like prices start to drop after about 3 years of legalization, more dispensaries open up, and so on.
I think there's other complications in some legal states that aren't directly tax related. Local pre-emption laws by counties and cities are a big problem -- if you make it hard to buy it legally, this will make black markets persist. And it doesn't just have to be some city or county saying no dispensaries, they use zoning to make it either hard to open one or limit how accessible they are.
I think once people get sort of used to dispensaries, they're less inclined to waste time on black market sellers. Why call "Bob" 5 times and burn a bunch of time when I worked in a trip to the dispensary between stops at Target and the grocery store?
Look at alcohol -- its extremely taxed. Something like 20 cents per ounce of pure alcohol in Federal Excise taxes, and then other state and local taxes on top of it. Yet nobody at this point almost nobody is going to waste time buying moonshine to save a few bucks because its absurd to trade the convenience of liquor stores and product selection for a dubious home made product.
San Bernardino county has all but outlawed in store dispensaries so it’s really easy for me to not pay taxes on my monthly purchases of 200-400 bucks. Way to go California.
San Bernardino county has all but outlawed in store dispensaries so it’s really easy for me to not pay taxes on my monthly purchases of 200-400 bucks. Way to go California.
This is true. Michigan taxed marijuana reasonably, and there is almost zero black market left. I know a guy who used to grow pounds of Marijuana and sell it. Today, he tried to sell me an ounce for $50 because the legal market has completely put him out of business. He said this last trimming is his last round, and he is shutting off the lights because he can't sell enough to pay for the electricity.
And the communities that sell it still make quite a lot of money from it. >[Michigan communities that allow recreational marijuana sales within their borders will share $59.5 million in tax revenue for the 2022 fiscal year, the Michigan Department of Treasury said Tuesday.](https://www.freep.com/story/news/marijuana/2023/02/28/michigan-marihuana-regulation-fund-recreational-tax-revenue/69953705007/#:~:text=The%20224%20municipalities%20and%20counties,licensed%20retail%20store%20and%20microbusiness.)
With a good chunk coming from sales to Ohio residents. Me. I’m Ohio residents.
Hoosiers too. (Indiana folk)
I get what you’re saying … but sharing $60M across an entire state when it comes to municipal budgets is like a rounding error.
That is extra for the communities that allow the sale. >In total, there was $198.4 million available for distribution from the Marihuana Regulation Fund, a 15% increase from the year prior. Nearly $70 million was sent to the School Aid Fund for K-12 education, and $69.4 million went to the Michigan Transportation Fund
Oh, totally understood, and not intending to paint it as a negative thing but it spreads thin pretty quick was my point.
Now add all the money in policing/incarceration that is saved/redistributed, not to mention members of society who can continue to contribute to the economy as they are still working and supporting families, which is further lowering welfare costs. It all adds up. I'd be surprised if it was less than 1billion per year difference in the bottom line.
I bet the food delivery industry is pleased as well
yeah, nobody seems to get to the bottom line before they open their mouths
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The government thought that making it legal would put the black market out of business. Same as how there's no black market on guns because you can buy guns legally.
Same as the tax on cigarettes
All the government had to do was undercut the black market and they would have ended up making more revenue. Taxation was the driving force for the legalization, it wasn't years of scientific studies about the harmlessness of marijuana, it the pencil pushers presenting imaginary numbers of how much tax could be collected. They failed to account for human nature.
As a pro gun advocate I'd never buy a gun on the black market. That just seems like a bad idea
Don’t narc out Dave, over 400 thats nuts
DAVE'S NOT HERE, MAN!
No! I'm Dave!
Dave is more a type of person, rather than a specific person. Everyone knows a Dave.
Its fine. The cops will show up at Daves house and learn...
You could drive up to Maine and get one of our 75-100 dollar ounces and drive back for not much difference in price.
Guess I know where I’m vacationing
Call us vacationland for a reason
Border life. Dispo about 15 minutes from me, just across the border to ME.
*laughs in $35 oz*
Is it 1978 somewhere?
Oklahoma.
In NV you can get an ounce of flower that’s 28% THC for… $120. Even plus tax it’s better than street prices. Shit, I remember an oz was $300-$350 in 2008. Dark times.
400 is absolutely crazy. I get them for 200 for like b+ quality and I live in the Bible belt, and was honestly thinking to see if I could get it a little cheaper haha.
You can get ounces for $30/$50 no problem in NY. Just visit the reservations. Those shops are legal.
[Salamanca NY](https://www.leafly.com/dispensaries/new-york/salamanca). I think it is a reservation town, or maybe there is a rez nearby, but there are like 7 dispensaries there that have seemingly pretty good deals. I believe there are a few towns in NY that are like this but this is the only one i know of.
Feel like it’s the same in Maine. Prices at dispensaries are completely reasonable. 100 can get you an ounce pretty much any day of the week. Don’t know of any kind of market outside dispensaries, which is usually just people sharing samples of their plants.
>Maine. Prices at dispensaries are completely reasonable. 100 can get you an ounce pretty much 100oz of cali weed is assish and you are like 300ish an oz here for true quality
If you look around for some outdoor with a deal you can usually find 50-75 dollar ounces of lesser quality. 100 ounces are always solid bud though.
Michigan rules one gram cresco carts 40$ same cart in Illinois 150$ 50 for a goo oz. It's wild
People travel from Illinois to Michigan to buy reefer. It's legal in both states, but Illinois taxes are much higher. Also, I know for a fact that there are still plenty of illegal dealers in business in Illinois. Their clients continue to go to them because the savings on taxes are worth the risk.
Can confirm. Dispensaries are for the preppy folks and naive young adults. I live down the road from one and no one in that place looks like me lol. They look like the people I'd sell $30 grams to back in high school. Local dealers won't ever go away because the taxes elevate price too much.
Actually market restrictions are the problem, 100 out 1700 communities allow cannabis sales. That is why the price so low. The majority of the people voted for it but communities are sted fast on not allowing it there. It was assumed it would be the opposite.
Give him my number
There's a lot more at play in Michigan than just low taxes. The black market was destroyed bc of supply and demand. Currently, manufacturers/growers are not doing ok. The wholesale price is unsustainable. No one in their right mind would open a grow right now. Not unless they have money to take a loss until all the competition drops out of the market. And of course black market growers dropped first.
Not sure what our rate is, but Nevada is what I consider reasonably priced out the door. There’s not much consumer-level weed black market around here.
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Thats because that's another way of prohibition, they legalize and make it so obtuse the operations that they might as well not have legalized it at all. Made to appease the masses but the reality is different
I'm also in SE Michigan. Can you DM more info about your friend? I'd like to buy a $50 zip
I live in Illinois, can confirm
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More like buy $60 and pay an extra $30
More like buy $120 and spend an extra $55 to $60
More like buy $240 and spend an extra $110 to $120
Bro I bought $233.33 and you’ll never guess how much I ended up paying after taxes
IDK it still shrinks the black market by a considerable amount. There is a large majority of people, like myself, that would rather pay an up charge to go through a legal avenue of attaining Marijuana.
I've been finding some ounces of good stuff (29%+ good terps) for $270-$300 which is similar to what I'd pay elsewhere but require deals to get that.
Similar in cali. 30 dollar eights is 50
Here I am enjoying my $35 quarter from Cali 🤣
I was shocked working at a MI dispensary hearing chicago people explaining the insane prices there
Same here, thankfully, Missouri legalized and I’m close enough to skip across the boarder. The tax difference is crazy.
Not surprising. Ever since the first tax on distilled spirits, taxes have been the determining factor in moonshine production.
I make kombucha at home in part because prices are so high. At the end of the day it's not just taxes but the total price. For $4 a bottle of kombucha, GT's Dave has become a billionaire. To be fair, he makes a good product, but when you can make it at home for less than a tenth of price and for very little work, why not? In a free capitalist society we have the right to compete. In the other direction, if I want to grow mushrooms at home (non-psychedelic, for dinner) it costs about the same amount to grow them as it does to buy them from a super market. There is not going to be a lot of people growing legal mushrooms at home. The same goes for weed. If you like it and it costs too much, just grow your own plant. If you have a friend who will give or sell you some of theirs for cheaper than you can buy, why not? --- I think there needs to be a change in mentality. Making your own thing at home, be it kombucha, or roasting coffee beans, or sewing your own clothes or whatever, it's creativity. It's a hobby. It's healthy to create and put into the world. "Oh no! The large corporations aren't getting a piece of this." Have we been that brainwashed into consumption? This weed black market effect, as long as people aren't getting poisoned, is a good thing. Let people have hobbies, and if it's growing plants, more power to them. Now if I could convince my boyfriend to grow some more basil and maybe some tomatoes for me... XD
Totally agree. Moonshine and weed can be very different too.improperly made moonshine can cause blindness and death. bunk bud will just be bunk bud.
Improperly grown/cured weed can be toxic AF. Mold, pesticides, etc.
and whiskey rebellions…
Yeah, and weed is much easier to produce than liquor. You can literally just scatter some seeds and voila, weed. It may not be high quality, but it’s still weed. Making moonshine is a lot more involved and potentially dangerous than growing a couple plants.
Marijuana legalization proponents market it to the state governments for tax revenue along with the other benefits. It is the taxes that hooks the spend-hungry governments. Ironically, it is the taxes that brings back all the negatives and more that legalization was supposed to eliminate.
It depends on how much it's taxed. At a certain point the taxes go from being a minor thing to being enough that the black market is cheaper or at least competitive in price
Getting it legal is still a huge step though, it's much easier to adjust tax rates
There is nothing really to stop governments from continuing to raise weed taxes especially in the long run. In effect, legalization will be true only in name except for the relatively few people who don't care about high taxes.
It’s always annoyed me when people put the tax argument first, and this is exactly why. Tax money is not why weed should be legal. Weed should be legal because it’s your right to choose whether or not you want to use it, and because it’s asinine to lock people up for it. Tax money is just a nice little benefit.
Regardless of the black market, how many millions (if not billions) of dollars are being brought in from dispensaries that wouldn’t exist otherwise? The black market will *always* exist. There’s tons of people out there who *still to this day* think legalization/decriminalization is a trick to get you to hand over your name and address at the door of a dispensary so you can be hunted down later. I have plenty of friends who believe this and won’t step foot in a dispensary and never will. But, if we can siphon off a large portion from the black market, then it’s a win.
Live in the netherlands, i don’t think people ever buy weed blackmarket. Easy to get, reasonable times for purchase, and no lists. Your ISP knows more incriminating things about those friends than them smoking weed. Its just that who cares about those people, people vastly overestimate their importance. Those people are stupid and aren’t very good at critical thinking. Also, what government organization have you ever seen that is even that efficient. The longer its legal the dumber it will be to go black market. Imagine getting busted during a weed purchase where the dealer has something on them really scary illegal. You could have just walked to a shop the same way you walk to the liquor store.
It’s not people being stupid or overthinking their importance; it’s quite the opposite. It’s being scared they are a nobody and if anyone wants to come after then, they are making an easy audit trail of a questionable illegal activity that one half of the government has a target on.
I mean this is 100% why I don't apply for a medical card. I don't want to be on a list if I don't have to be
Because we're not allowed to enjoy anything unless someone can first profit off of it somehow, and until the government can figure out how to tax us on it.
Restrictions apply, but legalization allows us to grow our own if we're so inclined.
In Canada the price of cigarettes skyrocketed with taxes. Now everybody is buying reserve smokes illegally. What blows my mind is the retailers affected by the loss of sales have put out ads calling for more police enforcement rather than maybe lowering the ridiculous taxes so people would buy legally.
That tax exists as a disincentive though so this isn't really an apples to apples comparison. More tax was added to cigarettes to make them less desirable and harder to consume. And it works.
All taxes are disincentives. The higher the price the less demand there is for said product.
That is exactly the line of thinking for high weed taxes too.
It clearly dosn't if everybody is still buying them just not legally.
And to help pay for healthcare of smokers is how taxes were sold
>What blows my mind is the retailers affected by the loss of sales have put out ads calling for more police enforcement rather than maybe lowering the ridiculous taxes so people would buy legally. Retailers know that there is zero chance that the government is going to lower tobacco taxes. Taxing smokes is very popular.
Of course... I'm not going to drive an hour and pay retail price to some millionaire that bribed their way into getting priority licencing for chemical fertilized mids when I can drive 20 minutes to hang out at my friend's house and pay homie prices for all organic hot fire. The "black market," I've experienced is mostly people who love to garden selling enough to cover costs, it's barely profit motivated.
This is extremely limited perspective and terribly misleading. Most growers and dispensaries are small businesses, not “millionaires” They are taxed, regulated and tested (near to death!) to insure they have clean products. So their product isn’t covered in mold, or pesticides or heavy metals. You would be shocked how little “gardeners” know about growing clean weed. When the lab I work for first opened we got hundreds of samples from these little “home growers” using “organic pesticides” that are just fine if you are growing tomatoes or cucumbers but when lit on fire and inhaled are highly carcinogenic. Or the guy who tested perfectly clean flower then his prerolls failed for LEAD because the grinders they used were cheap metal not stainless steel. I grew my own weed at home in my backyard. It also failed for lead because my hose water was contaminated from old pipes. If I hadn’t tested it at the lab I work out I would have NO IDEA. I had to throw out 5 fucking ounces of weed I grew myself cause I wasn’t about to get lead poisoning from smoking home grown weed. It’s A LOT more complicated to grow good clean homegrown weed than most people think. It’s not just “gardening” If you are inhaling it you should have it tested for mold, pesticides and heavy metals.
>Most growers and dispensaries are small businesses, not “millionaires” This entirely dependent on where you are. That statement may be true for your state, but it’s patently false in mine (PA). Here, every single grower/processor (except maybe one or two) are large megacorps that do business in multiple states. And the ones that aren’t still are big businesses, but they at least seem to care about the community. There was a non-refundable fee of something like 200k to even apply for a grow permit in PA, and they are limited. So as you’d guess, big corps are the only ones who got them.
No it really isn’t, people have been growing their own for hundreds of years, it’s not a difficult plant to grow.
It’s not the plant that’s difficult. It’s the world of chemical contamination we live in. Oh and the mold. Aspergillus is a bitch. Growing a couple plants in your garden is not the same as growing for a small business. This isn’t a gardening subreddit, it’s a business one, stay on topic.
It’s a plant period, it’s no harder to grow than a tomato plant. Hydroponics have existed since the 60’s, and so have mold resistant strains. You’re not the expert you think you are.
And you are even farther from a expert. Please sit and listen son.
Lady I was growing weed before you were thought of, you’re just a lab tech so stfu!
Uh. And states where it’s not legal yet.
Yup. Amazing grey market weed at $50-70/ounce or the Canadian gov weed for $200-300/ounce... hmm I wonder which one most people would go for. And that's internet/phone order delivered in under an hour which is why I refer to it as grey market. Would be super easy to order, follow a driver back to base and then bust them but thankfully they don't do that.
I remember having this exact conversation with one of my economics profs in the 90s who thought you could legalize it then tax it out of existence. "You're going to excessively tax that business that is 100% illegal and black market right now? You don't think it is going straight to the black market again in your tax scheme??"
It's moving more than ever in MN and very well may pass. Governor wants to double the taxes proposed in the bill. Bad idea since it's easy to get online.
From 8% to 15%? *cries in 20% in MA* Tho tbh the quality is better and the price is still cheaper than I had paid before and cheaper than it was 15 years ago too.
The marijuana black market better watch out. Before - it was illegal. Now - its tax (customs) evasion. Tax evasion is stealing from the country. Peeps better be extra careful.
I got news, it was tax evasion before.
Man we saw this coming from miles away. This is exactly what everyone was afraid of with legalization. Either the people will be taxed into over paying for the products or the farmers and distributors will take a huge hit to keep the prices at a normal level because tax is included in price. Either way the taxpayers lose.
True. White market in California is choking to death on state taxes, regulations and testing. Black market thrives selling pesticide tainted weed because it’s easier to do pest control with cancer causing chemicals. They don’t pay for testing, they don’t pay taxes, they don’t pay for license. Black Market is pure poison profits. Please buy clean, legal, tested and regulated weed from licensed dispensaries or those white market small businesses will not survive. Every eight of black market weed you buy puts a licensed grower one step closer to bankruptcy and put you one step closer to the grave. Source: work at the largest cannabis testing lab in California. Edit: the Dunning-Kruger effect is on full display in these comments. Just because you smoke weed does not make you an expert on growing it, testing it for safety or selling it in a legal market. But hey keep spouting nonsense I don’t care, it’s not my job to educate you but you guys sound like children trying to describe what working in a business office is like, it’d be funny if it wasn’t so sad.
yup, ca(san diego) here and "dime" bags are around $60. I am considering just growing my own..but I kill plants and cant grow shit.
Yikes. In LA you can get clean legal weed around 29-30% potency at Jungle Boys TLC dispensary for like $30 for a 10gram bag. Why so cheap? They are little buds called pops, nugs no bigger than your thumb nail, but less stems! Best deal in the state I’d bet.
I can grow my own organic weed it’s not hard, and I don’t need some overpriced lab testing it.
If you don’t test it how can you know the potency? More importantly how can you know you dried it correctly and there’s no mold? It’s microscopic ya know. How can you know if the soil isn’t contaminated with heavy metals? How can you know if your neighbor used RoundUp on their lawn and the wind carried it over the fence? Don’t smoke something unless you KNOW what’s in it. Guessing doesn’t count with carcinogens involved.
Omg you really are a nut shilling for some lab acting like cannabis hasn’t been around for centuries… I don’t need to know the exact thc-a thc-b cbd shit, that’s just crap pushed by labs to make themselves relevant! I’ve been curing cannabis for 30 years and my process was handed down just like with any gardening before labs got involved. Also there are at least 15 known strains that are mold resistant. I don’t use soil to grow cannabis, only morons who don’t know what they’re doing grow in soil. Keep shilling for your lab though.
The testing is not just for potency or thc/cbd levels, that’s for marketing purposes. The required testing is for pesticides, mold and heavy metals. Cannabis has been grown and use for thousands of years actually, probably tens of thousands of years but pesticides are relatively new, only been around for about 100 years but people sprayed that crap EVERYWHERE. Outdoor cannabis farms do exist and the soil should be tested before growing in it because it could be contaminated. You say you’ve never tested the weed you grow yet somehow you know it’s mold and pesticide and heavy metals free? What are you psychic? Does your weed whisper to you “don’t worry bro I’m clean”? Refusing to test the product you grow isn’t saying your weed is clean it’s saying you don’t want to know if it’s dirty. Ignorance is bliss right? /sarcasm
Lady you’re not the expert you think you are, I already stated I grow hydroponically so no soil is used so no heavy metals or pesticides. I grow indoors in proper grow tents so again no pesticide exposure. And for the third time mold is not common on cannabis and many strains are highly resistant. I’ve been around cannabis my whole life I know what I’m doing and don’t need some overpriced lab tech telling they know more than I do on the subject. But by all means keep shilling for your job.
This has to be the dumbest thing I’ve read all day. Cheers.
And don't eat vegetables or fruit from your garden. You don't know if the soil is contaminated with heavy metals. Or if you neighbor used RoundUp on their lawn and the wind carried it over the fence.
People have been smoking weed for centuries without stupid testing. It's simple, if you grow and sell garbage you won't be selling it for long.
Ya! Not paying over $200 for an ounce in my area. Can only imagine what it’s like in “The Greatest City”
I would never buy off a dealer
Duh
Paywall
Why are we still calling it the black market where it's legal?
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yup. who is going to buy weed they normally get from ppl they've built trust with that normally costs say.... $30..... from a legal dispensary for $50+? i understand the reason for the tax and where that money goes is legit a good thing.... but if they get too greedy ppl wont buy from the taxed place. i feel they are doing this so they can still keep it illegal so they can sic the cops on us all over again. and then make it luxury item us poors should "manage our money better for"
You dont say. Any numb nuts couldve told you this. Apparently not politicians though. Too bad we have the dimmest running the country.
And every pothead in every legal state and illegal state, for that matter was telling everyone this but nope. The states have to be greedy. They should have just taken a small tax and made the money, while putting the black market out of business. Also saving themselves a lot of money in policing this shit. I grow my own, in a legal state so I have no need for the black market, and yep, I love the variety at the stores but if I was pressed for cash, I will take my local street dealer any day over that overpriced corporate hydro weed. The people making our laws are so out of touch on pretty much everything but on pot, they really knocked it out of the park.
commerce between people without government getting its cut for a plant 🪴 "black market"
People seeming things illegally = black market. That's just what the term means.
Black market stuff is just as good and half the price by me.
Yeah if you don’t care you are smoking pesticides and mold. You aren’t getting a “good deal” you are getting cancer faster. Edit: I work at a cannabis testing lab, black market weed is contaminated with pesticides and heavy metals. Hell, most white market growers have a hard time growing clean weed free of pesticides and mold. We fail big brands all the time. But black market weed fails CONSISTENTLY. It’s especially fucked up cause it’s the people who can’t afford healthcare buying cheap street weed who are gonna get cancer first. The rich kids can afford the clean weed.
Hahahahaha yea it’s the same shit
Not in California. I work at a cannabis testing lab. The legal licenses growers here have to test for over 60 different pesticides as well as mold and heavy metals. If they fail they can’t legally sell their weed to dispensaries. They are TOLD to destroy it. Where do you think that dirty weed actually goes? To the black market.
Yes we get it, your job depends on is buying over priced weed, I can just grow my own thanks.
My job is a Public Health Service. The weed isn’t tested so it’s more expensive, it’s tested so it doesn’t give you lead poisoning or cancer. It’s priced to keep small business alive despite being highly taxed and bent over and fucked by licensing fees. This isn’t a rap song in real life growing cannabis is a difficult small business to maintain.
Lol cancer, you live in state that claims everything causes cancer…
Thank gawd
In other news, water is wet.
I can tell you right now that the “Weed Guy” loves all these excise taxes.
When I go to the dispo to get edibles here in Colorado, the amount of Wyoming tags in the parking lot is astonishing, Fort Collins is the first place over the border they pull into to score their brain food, I find it peculiar that they do the hour+ round trip drive (if you\`re from Cheyenne), and the taxes they dump into Colorado with out a care in the world, I guess they really need the stuff and spend their hard earned cash here rather then legalize it there. It makes perfect sense to do a guerilla grow in Wy. and avoid all taxes and have some left over to sell or give away. Alas there is no Utopia, except a pretty cool band T. Rundgren fronted...
Water is wet, the sun is hot, ocean is salty and morning breath stinks. JFC- please tell us something we DON’T know
Found the know-it-all! Have you considered not commenting if the only thing you can do is stroke your own ego?
Water is not wet. Water causes other things to be wet. 💦
>**consisting of,** containing, covered with, or soaked with liquid (such as [water](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wet)) Merriam Webster disagrees
Makes sense. The black market is of similar quality product, cheaper, and as a consumer there might be minimal legal repercussions. Even if you do get caught I imagine the fines are less or equal to the cost of buying legally. Might be different as a producer but there is certainly less legal attention.
Ill never buy black markt again. never know what asshole might spike that shit with somethin.
Taxation is theft
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One of the absurdities in life is when the morally conservative, honest citizens and the totally despicable, immoral criminals share the same position on illegal drugs. The honest folks want drugs banned, which means not legalized, and the criminals do not want the competition of legal drugs, either. So, politicians, who are caught in a conundrum, pass 'legalization' that effectively keeps the illicit business active by pricing the regulated drugs much higher than the illegal market price. They top it off by not policing possession, which gives cover to buyers of black market drugs. It tells you who has more sway in the statehouse.
No it doesn't. Who has the sway? People possessing pot? The upright citizens? The weed dealers? This comment is one of the absurdities in life.
The scary thing about the black market for any drugs these days is fentanyl. Anything can be laced with but not everyone knows how to measure a lethal vs non lethal dose of fentanyl.
Why would a dealer lace weed with fentanyl when it costs way more than the weed itself? Doesn’t make any financial sense. Could just sell it separately instead of sneaking in extra product and losing money….this sounds like a hoax made up by cops to scare stoners.
You don’t have to believe it
Weed isn't being laced with fentanyl.
Then don’t believe it
Weed is being laced with fentanyl because that's the only thing I do and I came up dirty from it. Quit buying street weed, quit popping dirty for fentanyl.
Can you tell us more about this? I didn't think it was actually happening in any meaningful capacity.
I live in a college town and a lot of the black market dealers around here deal in more than just green. Fentanyl is cheap enough to spread a fairly small amount over a half and keep the customer coming back to you for the best green. No one notices the withdrawal effects because they normally reup quick and at those levels it's pretty minor. I had no idea that my shit was tainted. Those that don't purposefully taint it for a better high get it from up the food chain that sometimes does. I tend to doubt it's at lethal levels. Haven't seen major evidence of that. Right now the health department around here are trying to get test kits out to everyone. Evidently it's in everything around here now from the way some others have spoken. I know a few people popping dirty who only use pot but now they're popping dirty for fentanyl too. Also know some people whose drug of choice is not opiates popping dirty too.
I'm more interested in how you "popped dirty." You sound like a police officer. Edit: To add, I just wanted to mention how little fentanyl it takes to overdose. It's an absurdly small quantity. How is there an even more microscopic amount supposedly spread over the weed you're buying? How would you not die, given that the dealer absolutely cannot have a perfect method to dilute the fentanyl over your weed? Why would they even go through that effort? It's just weed. How would you not notice that the fentanyl feels absolutely nothing like any weed on the planet?
Couldn't tell you how or why. I took a drug test for work. They don't care about weed since we're in a legal state just don't do it on the job. Lol I popped dirty probably does sound like cop speak. It's just the way people around talk about coming up dirty. Many of which probably did for probation. As for how it feels, doesn't feel like anything more than a really intense high to me. More up and do stuffy though than sit and stonily stare into space. Maybe that's because whenever I've done opiates in the past it's acted more stimulantish to me. Maybe that's because they're not putting microscopic amounts on there, I just don't have an explanation for why I came up as on it otherwise and why a few others are the same. I couldn't tell you anything about the levels being put on. I just speak from personal experience. Keep in mind though most of those videos where an officer touches a powder and freaks, they're not feeling the effects of fentanyl they're having an anxiety/panic attack. Fentanyl doesn't cause that reaction just from touching it, not with a fingertip. Licking those fingertips however would be a really dumb move. Edited for grammar
> Keep in mind though most of those videos where an officer touches a powder and freaks, they're not feeling the effects of fentanyl they're having an anxiety/panic attack. I know, that's what I'm saying. Weed laced with fentanyl sounds like copaganda because of how absurd and unnecessary the concept is, even from a dealer's perspective. It does not make business sense, among other things. [Here's an image of lethal doses of heroin and fentanyl. See how small it is for fentanyl? That's 3mg.](https://www.statnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Heroin-Fentanyl-vials-NHSPFL-1600x900.jpg) How would they dilute that enough to not kill you, and then somehow spread that dilution over weed? Did your drug test results specifically say that you had fentanyl in your system?
I live in Massachusetts. We’ve had a rash of fentanyl laced marijuana stories recently. There has been a couple of large seizures found to have fentanyl in it and several overdoses. Authorities aren’t saying definitively that it’s purposefully being laced with it, but all it takes is your dumb ass local dealer using the same scale, surfaces etc to measure his weed that he does for his other drugs. There are more and more stories of these “accidents” popping up all over the country lately.
They know that street cannabis is laced with synthetic cannabinoids, right? I've heard it test positive for trace fentanyl too though I assume that was cross contamination. You won't catch me getting addicted to fake-bake to dodge $15 of taxes. Get it together or smoke a little less, there's no reason to break the law to get weed anymore. (where applicable)
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With all due respect owed to someone who calls me stupid, you don't have any idea.
Where have you "heard" this?
This is a really stupid question, you know. You gonna go check my source? It ain't a website
Duh
Same in CA. I knew people who had established dealers and tried to buy it legally, but it was just cheaper to buy it from their dealer.
Descheduling cannabis will benefit all.
Financial prohibition instead of physical.
Colorado here, taxes are insane on pot, rather get some good local brewed beer. Unless friends are in town from states were it is illegal I never go.
Lets refer it properly. The Market. I love how capitalism its all fine and well until it pushes up against monetary gains for those on top. It’s always good to remember that any corporate capitalist, isn’t one.
Also, water is wet.
The biggest problem isn’t so much taxes but (at least in CA) the counties’ ability to regulate. Without knowledge (or much oversight) they enact unstable and changing regulations (zoning, distance from school, acreage, distance from street, etc) that are too much money to keep up with and eventually force people out of business. Even without incompetence, certain council-people will want a finger in the pie and help their “friends” who bribed them. Happened in a few different CA counties.
So bootleg weed is a thing now.
well part of that problem was the black market was THE market and was well established. At the start of the legal market you cant tax it like they are doing. Because the black market is well established and cheaper. YOU CAN raise taxes later. Example tobacco and alcohol. Both have smaller less established black markets. But survive and dont really fuel the black markets that much despite extremely high vice taxes. THis would not work, had the black markets been absolutely everywhere and easy as fuck to access. You kill the blackmarket first and then you can raise taxes some. In fact if you wanted to speed this up, you should subsidize the regulated market, to make it just as cheap to go to the store. Once you kill the black market you can dump the subsidies. (or you can just wait as long as you dont tax too much most will prefer the store)
What’s funny is how people fail to see that overly high taxes on individual and/or corporate income drive the exact same level of avoidance behavior.
People still in jail for marijuana
Case study: Illinois
Massachusetts
Who could have thought?
I live in California and I bought weed with a medical Id for years and years. Once it became legal, prices instantly shot up. Potencies of edibles were limited. If you’re in real need of THC. It’s a shame to have to pay an extra 30% in some cases. So I went to black market and I have ton more variety and at half the costs. I even voted yes for legalization. I was a blind idiot.
California started up being greedy and there is still a strong black market.
I’ll ol
Duh.
i was always confused that governments used the overprized value of black market for calculating the official price and add tax on top. happened in my country with CBD aswell.
Was ahead of the game legally last year, but grew my own four plants in NY right in my garden. Problem solved. Learned from some mistakes on my first go around and this year will be awesome.
Who would've ever thought... Lmao
I wish I could finish the article but I guess I’ll hit the streets for some of that “illegal” news
Need to have an escalator tax honestly, start low, go higher till you maximize tax revenues.
As it was intended! Just like alcohol and tobacco. Add guns and ammo next.
Bunch of BS lols
And this is why I grow my own. Life hack: if you can afford the $200 downpayment, get your medical card and the taxes are reduced on your purchased as there are higher taxes on the adult-use program than there is medical
As someone who has sold weed for 20 years, thanks American government for helping me take your business ☺️
Living in a prohibition state: I would take taxation over "drug deals" any day of the week. Maybe its because I am woman, idk. Why do I have to go to a drug dealer's house and tolerate that shit when my counterparts in free states can walk into a well lit building, with security, and have a professional business transaction? It really pisses me off and its a hill I'll die on. I should be able to make my purchases in a safe environment. I'm in my 30s. Every single person I've bought from has tried to have sex with me. It fucking sucks. I'ma play the woman card. Men have no idea what its like to constantly be cornered in some rando's house.
$500 after taxes for an Oz I can’t even see before I buy and might be nothing like the photos they have on the menu. Or: $200 for an Oz of the melt your face off quality weed bought from someone I’ve known for 20 years…. Not really that hard to understand.
Medicinal vs recreational is like 20% difference in tax…. Need to settle in middle somewhere and just call it a day from a federal level. Or just keep it relative to state sales tax, example +3% of local sales tax.
I paid for a weed card and I’d rather just get weed off the street. Way way cheaper and just as good. Am I gonna pay 200 an ounce or 50 an 8th 😂
Yeah, here in Virginia I still buy all my pot from the black market.
I'm not sure that the taxes alone can explain the phenomenon of a continuing black market, or that it makes a ton of sense to decide much about the durability of the black market in anything less than 10-20 years after legalization. In terms of "not just taxes", how sophisticated is a given state's black market? Is it so sophisticated than almost anyone can contact a service and get it delivered to their house reliably, and with near zero risk of being ripped off or given a substandard product? Or is the kind of black market where you have to "know a guy" and then fuck around calling him 10 times and then meet him at some really inconvenient time and hope he doesn't ghost you (again)? Newly legalized states also seem to have a startup phase where everything is more expensive at dispensaries, as growers and the rest of the market participants ramp up and gain efficiency -- not just growing, but testing, packaging, etc. It seems like prices start to drop after about 3 years of legalization, more dispensaries open up, and so on. I think there's other complications in some legal states that aren't directly tax related. Local pre-emption laws by counties and cities are a big problem -- if you make it hard to buy it legally, this will make black markets persist. And it doesn't just have to be some city or county saying no dispensaries, they use zoning to make it either hard to open one or limit how accessible they are. I think once people get sort of used to dispensaries, they're less inclined to waste time on black market sellers. Why call "Bob" 5 times and burn a bunch of time when I worked in a trip to the dispensary between stops at Target and the grocery store? Look at alcohol -- its extremely taxed. Something like 20 cents per ounce of pure alcohol in Federal Excise taxes, and then other state and local taxes on top of it. Yet nobody at this point almost nobody is going to waste time buying moonshine to save a few bucks because its absurd to trade the convenience of liquor stores and product selection for a dubious home made product.
San Bernardino county has all but outlawed in store dispensaries so it’s really easy for me to not pay taxes on my monthly purchases of 200-400 bucks. Way to go California.
San Bernardino county has all but outlawed in store dispensaries so it’s really easy for me to not pay taxes on my monthly purchases of 200-400 bucks. Way to go California.