Hi Curtis, Illegal trade comes with buyer and seller costs, namely the risks of buying contaminated drugs and getting arrested. Hence, legalization and high taxation should be able to limit the use of illegal drugs if not eliminate their use. What we're doing isn't working. Taxes can vary by income. best, Larry
Surely, as an economist, you know that making drugs legal, but placing a tax on them high enough to discourage their use, is a certain receipe to perpetuate the illegal trade in such drugs. That's exactly what's happened in states that legalized Marijuana, but subject growers to taxes, and most of all- the beaurocracy of the administrative state. The continuing illegal trade has made legal trade unprofitable.
Hi Curtis, I think it’s the opposite. I live in Colorado, the first state to legalize marijuana. Since then states around us, New Mexico and Arizona, have also legalized and there is very little illegal traffic going south. Illegal dealers can’t make a living when dispensaries sell individual rolled cigarettes for well under $5 making it easily attainable to all that wish for it. And the amount of dispensaries is steadily decreasing from the beginning bonanza of entrepreneurs and through Covid times which many see as a good direction.
Hi Curtis, Illegal trade comes with buyer and seller costs, namely the risks of buying contaminated drugs and getting arrested. Hence, legalization and high taxation should be able to limit the use of illegal drugs if not eliminate their use. What we're doing isn't working. Taxes can vary by income. best, Larry
Surely, as an economist, you know that making drugs legal, but placing a tax on them high enough to discourage their use, is a certain receipe to perpetuate the illegal trade in such drugs. That's exactly what's happened in states that legalized Marijuana, but subject growers to taxes, and most of all- the beaurocracy of the administrative state. The continuing illegal trade has made legal trade unprofitable.
Hi Curtis, I think it’s the opposite. I live in Colorado, the first state to legalize marijuana. Since then states around us, New Mexico and Arizona, have also legalized and there is very little illegal traffic going south. Illegal dealers can’t make a living when dispensaries sell individual rolled cigarettes for well under $5 making it easily attainable to all that wish for it. And the amount of dispensaries is steadily decreasing from the beginning bonanza of entrepreneurs and through Covid times which many see as a good direction.