I was talking with the dispensary owner yesterday about this story. He say's he's embarrassed to be charging $35 1/8th but has no choice with overhead, but he laughs at what government retail is wanting for inferior product. I picked up 5g of locally made black hash for $50...very impressed. A pipe full at 4 am was a great start to my day!
Many saw legalization of marijuana as a huge economic opportunity, but the reality is its potential isn’t fully realized. An underground economy is cutting into the profits of legal businesses. New Frontier Data, a Denver-based company that studies cannabis trends, estimates there are $70 billion in illegal sales nationally — seven times the size of the legal market. This means the legal market is “capturing only a fraction of total demand,” the company said in a summary of U.S. cannabis demand trends released this month.
In California, early projections anticipated annual cannabis tax receipts of more than $1 billion by 2018. But those predictions were far off, with $345 million actually collected last year, according to the state’s legislative analyst’s office and tax records. The black market is widely cited as a major reason for the lower numbers. https://www.cnbc.com/video/2019/07/12/black-market-for-weed-shows-the-huge-threat-to-legal-businesses.html
Cannabis investors banking on profitability in the second half of the year may have another thing coming: More losses at best, and maybe a surprise stack of writedowns.
THEY"RE BLEEDing and ITS AWESOME TO SEE.
LOSE time