Legal Pot Shops Crippled By Black Market, Medical Marijuana

[bobandtorey]

SEATTLE — A year into the nation's experiment with legal, taxed marijuana sales, Washington and Colorado find themselves wrestling not with the federal interference many feared, but with competition from medical marijuana or even outright black market sales.

In Washington, the black market has exploded since voters legalized marijuana in 2012, with scores of legally dubious medical dispensaries opening and some pot delivery services brazenly advertising that they sell outside the legal system.

Licensed shops say taxes are so onerous that they can't compete.

SEE ALSO: The young entrepreneurs modeling their weed farm like a startup

 

 

Colorado, which launched legal pot sales last New Year's Day, is facing a lawsuit from Nebraska and

 

Oklahoma alleging that they're being overrun with pot from the state.

 

Read more here

 

 

http://mashable.com/2015/01/03/washington-colorado-marijuana-challenges/

And the number of patients on Colorado's medical marijuana registry went up, not down, since 2012, meaning more marijuana users there can avoid paying the higher taxes that recreational pot carries.

 

Of

differential between medical and recreational weed without harming patients.

 

And in some cases, they are considering cracking down on the proliferating black market.

Edited January 4, 2015 by bobandtorey

[Wild Bill]

[Kingdiamond]

Really hard to feel sorry for the pot profiteers I watched Pot Barons last night and felt like puking it was all about making money   but then again its filmed in a recreational use state so its all fair game I guess .

[bobandtorey]

Nearly all of the nation’s banks refuse to take money from marijuana sales or offer basic checking or credit card services to the industry for fear they’ll be shut down by federal authorities, for whom marijuana remains an illegal narcotic. The banks won’t do business with growers, processors, retail shops and medical dispensaries, nor with their employees and contractors.

 

It’s the biggest problem we have,” said Taylor West, deputy director of the National Cannabis Industry Association, many of whose 800 members are awash in $5, $10 and $20 bills and change and no bank to put them in.

The abundance of cash makes the country’s 2,000 retail shops and medical dispensaries tantalizing targets for criminals. Without bank accounts, legal marijuana businesses have a hard time paying their employees and vendors. Relying solely on cash leads to a lack of transparency in accounting and auditing, and it complicates paying the taxes that states impose on cannabis.

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/05/marijuana-money_n_6416678.html