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One year into legal pot sales California doesn’t have expected bustling industry

latimes.com

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Re: One year into legal pot sales California doesn’t have expected bustling industry

#11

Post by KingMachiavelli »

For perspective Colorado has 549 retail establishments and 574 medical establishments (although many overlap) while having ~3/20 the population of California. While obviously Colorado has had retail cannabis since 2012/13, both states have areas strongly for and strongly against legalization.

Considering that the cities that do allow rec cannabis include Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco and San Diego, the number of retail establishments seems very low even if they were limited to only these cities. Whats interesting is that California's licensing is done through their Food and Agriculture Department while Colorado's is done through the Department of Revenue.

Re: One year into legal pot sales California doesn’t have expected bustling industry

#12

Post by Rebelgecko »

Scoundreller wrote: post #5
itslennysfault wrote: post #3

Probably because it's been "legal" in CA for years. The "medical" cannabis was a joke. There were people on the beaches holding signs "$50 medical cannabis card". Being legal recreationally didn't really make it any more accessible. Anyone that wanted a medical card could get one in a few minutes.

Is the medical cannabis tax exempt?

I believe its exempt from sales tax but not the various excise taxes

Re: One year into legal pot sales California doesn’t have expected bustling industry

#14

Post by bcOpus »

nine_k wrote: post #10
aphextron wrote: post #4

It all comes down to local control of licensing. To even operate a 100% mobile business, you have to be licensed out of a specific city. This involves all the associated cronyism, NIMBYism, and the like which goes along with local politics, and grinds the whole system to a halt. We need to adopt a statewide system like Oregon or there will be no room for smaller distributors left and we will be stuck with monopolized…

Some may see high monopolized prices and having to jump through hoops as "fair": that is, cannabis use is not "good" and thus should not be made easy or cheap. See alcohol and tobacco. IDK if this mindset is widespread enough in California. But coincidentally such an approach does improve the bottom line of large / established sellers.

Then those people are actively seeking to maintain the supremacy of the black market, despite decades of evidence as to the inability of such measures to reduce consumption. Maybe people who have such ignorant and baseless beliefs shouldn’t be heeded.

Re: One year into legal pot sales California doesn’t have expected bustling industry

#15

Post by jngreenlee »

KingMachiavelli wrote: post #11

For perspective Colorado has 549 retail establishments and 574 medical establishments (although many overlap) while having ~3/20 the population of California. While obviously Colorado has had retail cannabis since 2012/13, both states have areas strongly for and strongly against legalization. Considering that the cities that do allow rec cannabis include Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco and San Diego, the number o…

Reporter from CO here. I think this is the crux of the matter. If the points about a strong underground market in the article are true, it's (IMO) due to a weakened attempt at decriminalization. Very much like bittorrents before netflix/prime were widely available with large catalogs.

Here in Sunny CO, the prop was a Constitutional Amendment, guaranteeing the right of each state citizen to grow and possess their own Marijuana, which lead to sales. -Only two cities (Colorado Springs and a mountain town IDK)- created local exemptions against retail sales. They are now suffering with badly damaged roads and limited tax revenues to fix them, compared to cities right next door that capture all the sales.

Hampered decriminalization does not rid us of the black market. The [THC] black market is _gone_ in CO because who needs it? Questionable products, limited availability, difficult logistics...no, you go to the local store and five minutes later can be higher than 5280'.

EDIT: As CP says, there were more than two cities banning sales. Actually a lot more than I knew. I'll stand by my conclusion though. The full list is here: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:11yRzRk...

Re: One year into legal pot sales California doesn’t have expected bustling industry

#16

Post by bcOpus »

Scoundreller wrote: post #6
justizin wrote: post #2

California has had the world's leading cannabis industry for decades, we're just now paying 38% tax.

38% tax when sold legally in the local market. Black-market local sales and exports still don’t raise much tax revenue.

And of course that black market is on average actually cheaper, often by 2x than the “legal” sources. Nobody gets taxed for growing a little on the side, or buying on the black market. As usual local greed is strangling an emerging market with the potential to net billions. As usual small operators are kept behind until the big boys (Altria et al) can dominate the market and slash prices and quality.

IMO that’s what this is about; a delaying game until federal laws change and the multi nations can take over.

Re: One year into legal pot sales California doesn’t have expected bustling industry

#17

Post by wpietri »

aphextron wrote: post #4

It all comes down to local control of licensing. To even operate a 100% mobile business, you have to be licensed out of a specific city. This involves all the associated cronyism, NIMBYism, and the like which goes along with local politics, and grinds the whole system to a halt. We need to adopt a statewide system like Oregon or there will be no room for smaller distributors left and we will be stuck with monopolized…

I'm personally fine with local control, and despite the negative tone of this article, it all sounds pretty normal to me.

I live in SF, where there are a variety of shops. The ones I walk by all seem clean, orderly, and well run. Certainly more so than some liquor stores I can think of. So I'm happy to have them as neighbors. That said, I understand why other cities would have been more reluctant to license. Not everybody needs or wants to be a pioneer.

If we're still having the same problems 5 years out, I'll be more concerned. But personally, I'm a big fan of subsidiarity, the principle that decisions should be made as low down in the power structure as possible. [1] That different people are deciding differently right now is how we'll learn the best ways to do it. There's no urgent problem here that requires a centralized solution.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity

Re: One year into legal pot sales California doesn’t have expected bustling industry

#18

Post by 0x4d464d48 »

Maybe this article overstated things and someone will clear it up in the comments but that was painful to read.

I live in Vancouver and weed's been officially legal throughout the Canada for several weeks now. It's still relatively new but nothing noticeable has changed aside from fewer people discussing such a frivilous and previously mishandled issue. It's not perfect but far, far, far better than strict prohibition with draconian sentencing laws.

What bothers me the most about this story is how marijuana is supposedly 'legal' yet some locals seem Hell-bent on treating it like an illegal and necessarily dangerous. Instead of vocferiously refusing shops to open in a municipality you'd think the free market would be enough to determine where there's not enough demand for a product.

I guess if some people prefer being judgemental and pious to actually getting a handle on social issues that's their prerogative. It's a frustrating position to reason against, in fact that almost never enters the equation, but it sure seems to resonate with a lot of people.

Re: One year into legal pot sales California doesn’t have expected bustling industry

#19

Post by jaxn »

itslennysfault wrote: post #3

Probably because it's been "legal" in CA for years. The "medical" cannabis was a joke. There were people on the beaches holding signs "$50 medical cannabis card". Being legal recreationally didn't really make it any more accessible. Anyone that wanted a medical card could get one in a few minutes.

Except that you had to have a California drivers license. Marijuana tourism seems to be a big thing in CO.

Re: One year into legal pot sales California doesn’t have expected bustling industry

#20

Post by jaggederest »

0x4d464d48 wrote: post #18

Maybe this article overstated things and someone will clear it up in the comments but that was painful to read. I live in Vancouver and weed's been officially legal throughout the Canada for several weeks now. It's still relatively new but nothing noticeable has changed aside from fewer people discussing such a frivilous and previously mishandled issue. It's not perfect but far, far, far better than strict prohibitio…

A lot of the concern is essentially about the precedent it sets. If you start questioning the logic of criminalizing cannabis, what's next on the list? That's the fear driving a lot of the reactionary opposition to a lot of things these days, and I think especially in the tech industry we have to remember that a lot of people don't have our appetite for risk.

Personally I think we as a society have demonstrated a considerable capacity for adaptation, so there's little to worry about, but my extended family certainly disagrees. There are a lot of other linked issues that operate similarly and it's a bit of a tragedy.

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