Still profitable, but not taxed

Someone is benefiting from the federal crackdown on medical-marijuana dispensaries: black-market pot growers and dealers.

According to a recent report by the Center for Investigative Reporting’s California Watch, prices for high-grade, outdoor-grown marijuana, after slumping precipitously in 2010, have risen by 20 to 40 percent since four U.S. attorneys began cracking down on medical-cannabis growers and dispensaries and threatening them with prosecution. For those growers willing to risk arrest by doing business on the black market, this is welcome news. Prices that were as low as $1,000 a pound have risen as high as $2,500 a pound, making business potentially much more profitable.

That’s good for these growers and dealers, as long as they don’t get caught. But for legitimate medical-marijuana suppliers and their customers, it’s a disaster. For the patients, it’s become harder and more expensive to obtain their medicine. And for the legitimate medical-marijuana growers, it’s a case of misplaced priorities that is destroying businesses and costing jobs.

If the goal was to force marijuana growing and sales back into full-blown criminality, it’s working. The real question is how well it’s working for the people of the state—and for the government coffers that aren’t earning any taxes on the sale and distribution of illegal cannabis.

We need common sense and consistency in our marijuana laws, and it’s past time for state lawmakers and officials to get involved. Contact your state representatives and urge them to take a stand on behalf of a sensible marijuana policy—one that keeps people out of jail and on the tax rolls.