…about pot legalization is how it’s showering governments with a bonanza of tax revenues.
When lawmakers legalized marijuana last session, they also set aside tens of millions of tax dollars to subsidize the marijuana industry. The bill that legalized marijuana, HF 100, instructed the DEED commissioner to establish numerous programs that will provide loans or grants to individuals or organizations involved in the marijuana industry. […]
Spending on the marijuana industry does not end there, however. Last month, according to MinnPost, Minnesota agreed to spend tens of millions on a Missouri-based Cannabis company.
I truly wonder if this is true! I do not think that the federal Canadian government has realized a “Bonanza” of taxes. I think that most cannabis users are still using their friendly local drug dealer. However, I could be wrong.
I’ve often wondered myself. I had a plasterer do my ceiling couple years back… a weekend marijuana user apparently. When I asked him if he bought from the now legal brick and mortar establishments he replied “Hell no!!” preferring instead his dealer, citing good quality, same day delivery to his door and competitive prices as reasons.
Besides he said, and I don’t know if this is true, but he told me the stores want your name, address and other personal information. “That ain’t happenin”.
I don’t know if he’s the exception.
They were advertising a new government mental health number yesterday.
Yeah, I’m sure that would get you on all sorts of lists….
I went on a service call to a cannabis store to fix IT/internet stuff…. they not only wanted to eyeball my drivers licence for age -Im 53- they wanted to scan it into the “system”.
They let me in anyway after I told them to find a different tech.
That is what we hear in Vancouver too (I am not a user, so just read stuff).
The gubbermint plans are costly vs. the local drug dealer.
Who is paying for the free “safe” new heroin plan -that would be all BC/Canadian taxpayers.
https://mjbizdaily.com/canadian-cannabis-duty-tops-ca1-billion-since-2018/
This site claims they are making money. People who didn’t have a source before it was legalized go to pot shops now, a lot of regular users still go to the guys who provided it before, in an admirable act of loyalty.
Government licenced pot is very expensive, and as we can grow our own to a max of four plants, there isn’t much sense paying retail when four plants will provide you with enough high quality bud to last you for a year, until the next crop is available.
Still, all the pot shops seem to be thriving, so they must be making a profit. The pots shops don’t bother me because we have over 186 wineries and about a dozen craft breweries all pumping out their products.
The Okanagan is a great place to get drunk and stoned simultaneously while watching the sun set over the mountains..
As de guvvermint says in all their ads, drink,smoke and play responsibly. I’m sure we all do just that. We’re Canadians after all.
“I think that most cannabis users are still using their friendly local drug dealer. However, I could be wrong.”
No you are right. The price of street grass has dropped considerately.
Hey it’s a dog eat dog market right. It just proves that government can’t compete with private enterprise.
What price wouldn’t the government pay for “medicine”? Just ask Pfizer…
Now … about that Obamakkare slogan … “people not profits” …
I wonder how cannabis businesses can compete. They have to pay protection money to the government to be in business, have overhead and employee and pay taxes (municipal, provincial, etc). Meanwhile their competitors have none of these restrictions and sell it all on the street.
There seems to be enough customers to go around. There are about 500 brands of wine available, and they seem to be doing alright.
A lot of people us mj in edibles, cookies, brownies, etc. instead of smoking it.
apparently the canadian feds thought the boomers were going to jump to the new outlets. never happened
but to paraphrase obummer , if you like your dealer you can keep your dealer .
was no big change . and likely the old system already had a delivery system in place.
Only the government could lose money selling recreational drugs.
Like all other programs: job creation (never worked); green initiatives (net negative); housing strategies (doomed to fail); excessive immigration, including temporaries (overall fail, certainly recently, esp. refugees and criminals who should be deported with no expensive hearing by the IRSB); subsidies for favoured businesses (failed); national health care policies (dreadful, expensive and don’t work); recent weird policies on a tiny minority of people who prefer different sex stuff and child abuse of children who are not old enough to decide); unfair equalization payments; and now BC loves heroin abusers …
and add your favourites to the list
The black market can always undercut any government recognized product or monopoly product. That’s what it is designed to do. We saw this in the early Zeroes with the explosion of cigarette smuggling. It was a direct response to the huge increase in federal taxes. The only thing taxes on a product do is drive up the price that smugglers can charge and make it easier and more lucrative for new smugglers to enter the black market.
The black market only starts to fail when the safety consequences are too high and too common or the price advantage of the black market product is too trivial over the government sanctioned product or service to be worthwhile. None of this applies to cannabis.
Had a youtube ad yesterday for cheap tax free smokes, presumably from one of the first immigrant’s companies, offering to your door service… used to be you actually had to go get them
so long as the “Right” people got the money all is well. it would appear that the level of corruption in government has exceeded everyone’s wildest dreams.
I grew up in Maine, where I lived among people who would bend an elbow under extreme social pressure (I think the state single-handedly keeps Allen’s Coffee Brandy afloat). The state had a liquor monopoly by law, but still lost money. How, I have no idea – it’s like going broke selling water to parched desert travelers. Maine decided it was losing money because New Hampshire was undercutting them, so they spent many, many thousands detailing state troopers to hassle people crossing from New Hampshire to Maine in cars with Maine plates (don’t want to annoy the tourists, you know). If they had reduced prices by as much as they spent on enforcement the could have solved the problem – nobody wants to drive 40 miles for a bottle. They have privatized some – I haven’t lived there in years – but are still losing money.
Now the provinces and states are losing money selling marijuana. I knew some useless permanently stoned people who still managed to make a few bucks selling weed. I think North American governments, be they provincial, federal, or state, have an amazing ability to burn money. Other than that, I can’t think of anything they do well.
Loved your story, Foggy Trucker!
Sounds very familiar.
In BC, the staffing levels in BC Cannabis stores is way too high: they’d have 10 people working in a store that, if it were a BCLiquor store, would be staffed by 2, maybe 3 on a busy day. I know because I worked for the latter, and saw the staffing requirements for the former. I was shocked, but I knew right then why they were not doing nearly as well as was predicted.
Pot stores?.. Are rich kid start ups.. Think welfare for the rich.. Daaad, it’s hard enough living in the pool house without you crying for rent all the time.. Understand?..
There are two pot shops in town and neither seem very busy. I think a good chunk of their traffic is older folks hoping that gummies will help them get a better sleep, or a salve made from marijuana will cure their rheumatizzy.
The local taxis are sometimes outside … which probably means that welfare cases and the PTSD pension crew give them some business too. But I bet the amount of weed sold in those stores is a pathetically small fraction of the amount that gets puffed on a daily basis in the community.
Hope they’re saving those profits to pay for the damage.
Who am I kidding, of course they’re not.