link-localSo, the taxes and regulations on weed in California are so onerous that most growers, sellers and smokers are still using the black market. So instead of making them less onerous, this moron is going to spend millions more going after the black market.
Mayor Eric Garcetti said Wednesday that Los Angeles is considering a major crackdown on illegal marijuana shops that have been bedeviling the city’s legal marketplace.
The move that could pump tens of millions of dollars into police enforcement comes as legal shops struggle to turn a profit while hundreds of illicit storefronts enjoy brisk sales, thanks to their typically cheaper, tax-free prices.
The legal shops “can’t get undercut every single day by everybody else that’s out there,” the mayor told reporters at City Hall.
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California kicked off broad legal pot sales in January 2018, but the state’s effort to transform its longstanding illegal and medicinal marijuana markets into a unified, multibillion-dollar industry remains a work in progress.
The rollout of licenses has been slow. Many communities have banned marijuana sales or not created rules for the legal market to operate. A promised state tax windfall has yet to arrive, while businesses complain about hefty state and local tax rates that together can approach 50 percent in some communities.
