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There was a Planet Money story[0] about how legal growers are struggling because there is too much competition from not enough buyers. Maybe black market compet

There was a Planet Money story[0] about how legal growers are struggling because there is too much competition from not enough buyers. Maybe black market competition is to blame, but I would love to see some hard numbers on where the majority of purchases are made. My knee jerk reaction is to believe that most people are lazy and will pay for the convenience of a brightly lit store front instead of locating their local dealer. Choice quote from the article: There are just over four million people in Oregon, and so far this year, farmers have grown 8.8 million pounds of weed. Which means there's nearly a pound of dried, smokable weed for every single person in the state of Oregon. As a result, the sales price for legal marijuana in the last couple of years has plummeted. [0] https://www.npr.org/2023/11/29/1197955821/marijuana-state-federal-laws-trade https://www.npr.org/2023/11/29/1197955821/marijuana-state-fe...

o11c 3y ago
Maybe it's also that, now that there's no longer a taboo, more people are realizing how outright obnoxious smoking weed is? It seems worse than tobacco ever was, but that's probably a result of poor memory.
- hackernewds 3y ago
  seems very unlikely. ease of access proliferates use especially of addictive behaviors and vices, not the prohibitive-ness
Arch485 3y ago
The cannabis black market in Canada is actually _more_ convenient than the legalized stores. Not far from where I live, there are _tons_ of illegal/unregulated dispensaries. In many cases, the only tipoff you get that these aren't regulated is the low prices. They outperform legal dispensaries in every way: no purchase limits, lower prices, you can buy your cigs + vape pens + cannabis all in one place, they basically never ID people, etc. People who use cannabis are strongly incentivised to buy the illegal stuff, because the regulated market is too draconian and expensive.

o11c 3y ago

Maybe it's also that, now that there's no longer a taboo, more people are realizing how outright obnoxious smoking weed is? It seems worse than tobacco ever was, but that's probably a result of poor memory.

hackernewds 3y ago
seems very unlikely. ease of access proliferates use especially of addictive behaviors and vices, not the prohibitive-ness

Arch485 3y ago

The cannabis black market in Canada is actually _more_ convenient than the legalized stores. Not far from where I live, there are _tons_ of illegal/unregulated dispensaries. In many cases, the only tipoff you get that these aren't regulated is the low prices. They outperform legal dispensaries in every way: no purchase limits, lower prices, you can buy your cigs + vape pens + cannabis all in one place, they basically never ID people, etc. People who use cannabis are strongly incentivised to buy the illegal stuff, because the regulated market is too draconian and expensive.