CAN LEGAL WEED WIN?

• Author: Sullum, Jacob
• Position: Robin Goldstein and Daniel Sumner's "Can Legal Weed Win?: The Blunt Realities of Cannabis Economics"

When California legalized recreational marijuana in 2016, the state had more than 3,000 weed shops. They ostensibly served the medical market, but the rules were so loose that pretty much anyone who wanted pot could buy it legally. Six years later, California had less than half as many licensed marijuana merchants, accounting for between a quarter and a third of total sales.

Something clearly has gone wrong "when you try to legalize weed and accidentally end up illegalizing it instead," note University of California, Davis, economists Robin Goldstein and Daniel Sumner. In their book Can Legal Weed Win?, they explain how burdensome licensing requirements, regulations, and taxes have frustrated plans to displace the black market.

"In many states that have fully 'legalized' weed," Goldstein and Sumner write, "there is now a relatively small legal weed market and a much larger illegal one." That's not surprising, since legal marijuana often costs substantially more than illegal...