East Bay Express
From one angle, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s United Cannabis Enforcement Task Force has been effective. Last week it announced that in the task force’s first full calendar year of operations, the state has seized more than $312 million in unlicensed cannabis. That includes 190,000 pounds of illegal cannabis as well as 318,000 plants. Law enforcement also seized 119 illegally possessed firearms in 2023.
From another angle, though, it seems almost futile. In touting the numbers, the Department of Cannabis Control said one of the task force’s goals is to “advance the integrity of the licensed cannabis market,” and it noted that the illicit cannabis industry “undercuts the regulated cannabis market.”
Talk about an understatement. A better term than “undercuts” might be “dwarfs” or “overwhelms.” Or even “threatens the very existence of.” About two-thirds of all cannabis sales in California are illicit, a ludicrous situation in a state where pot has been legal for more than five years. The illicit market is hard to measure, but estimates put its size at roughly $10 billion; the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration estimates that the state racked up $5.2 billion in legal sales in 2023.
The disparity isn’t because illegally grown weed is superior. It’s almost entirely because, for most California cannabis consumers, the legal stuff is either not available or is too expensive. Prop. 64, which legalized pot in the state in 2016—legal sales began in 2018—was sold on the promise that legal weed would fill the state’s coffers with tax proceeds and that city and county governments would be allowed to ban cannabis operators from doing business in their communities.
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