Comment by toraway

  > The result is that the illegal market dwarfs the legal market. The legal suppliers simply can't compete with efficient and untaxed illegal or grey market sellers.

Source for this? I mean consumer buying habits not illegal grow ops in general (which are selling a lot of their product out-of-state).

Even with California taxes an 1/8th of flower is often less than half what I’d typically pay back in 2008 or so, even without adjusting for inflation.

Also, I suspect middle class buying preference in the last decade or so has heavily shifted to gummies/edibles and vape carts which are much sketchier in the black market vs relatively interchangeable flower.

The idea of smoking a literal bowl to get high wouldn’t even be in the first like 5 methods among the people I know. It’s not super appealing in your 30s-40s while living in apartments/not wanting to reek of weed in the office. So buying off the black market just isn’t attractive even if possible cheaper.