There is no evidence to suggest your claim is accurate.
If only there was some historical example, some time in recent history where a popular luxury item was made illegal, spawned a thriving black market, was then legalized again, followed by the steady decline of said black market.....
How about that lucrative alcohol black market?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-01/wa-police-uncover-biggest-stash-of-sly-grog/8085180
Constable Lynden Ganzer, from the Kimberley Liquor Enforcement unit, said they found 300 litres of alcohol and a relatively sophisticated production set-up....
The patchwork of liquor restrictions in place across the Kimberley has spawned a lucrative black market, in which cartons of beer and bottles of spirits sell for as much as $150.
In recent years, police have stepped up vehicle searches and inspections of parks to try to stamp out the trade, which was usually based around the late night on-selling of alcohol purchased earlier at bottle shops.
Constable Ganzer said it was the first time they had encountered alcohol being produced specifically for illegal sale.
"This is the first one we've seen where it's a home-brew set-up, with someone taking the time to go into it and sort of set up their own business," he said.
"It's good to get it off the streets because alcohol is a big problem in the Kimberley and it's something we want to tackle and get a hold on."
This is Dec 2016, and it's the first time police there had encountered an illegal alcohol production operation. And the only reason it was potentially profitable? I'll give you 3 guesses.
I have provided links, perhaps you can offer something that supports your contention.
Any time regulation and taxation adds to the cost of a luxury item, the black market in those items thrives.
I don't see people making boutique cigarettes, maybe they do, but the illegal importation of cigarettes into highly taxed regions is well known.
You can spin that either way. You could say Taxes and regulation will make weed more expensive, so black market weed will be cheaper, and the black market thrives.
You could also say the black market now has to compete with the legal market, which can operate openly and own real estate and invest in infrastructure that drastically reduces costs while improving quality and quantity.
In every post you've mentioned this in, you've ignored the cost of production and the advantages to running a legal business as opposed to an illegal one. Address this and I will take your point seriously.
Cigarettes are ~10$ a pack here in RI, and blackmarket cigarettes are non-existent. Completely. You might find someone who drives down to one of the Carolinas to buy some cheap cartons and brings them back, but those are generally for personal use. Anyone caught selling packs without the tax stamp on the bottom gets hit with heavy fines. For all the leg work that has to be done, the extra money it isn't worth the risk. This is by design, capitalism, economics.
It's rather interesting to me to get all these replies to the posting of simple facts.
The weed smokers are certainly a touchy group of paranoid people. "Don't mess with my bud, dude".
I'm not messing with it, so the pot lobby here needs to chill out.
I don't care, I'm too old, so whatever fallout might occur won't have any impact on me.
I left that stuff behind decades ago because it sapped my ambition and ability to reach the goals I wanted to reach.
You turning my response into "don't mess with my bud dude" is basically a non-reply. For someone who doesn't care, you sure do embrace the false narrative and fabricated talking points that have become typical of prohibitionists.
You're links are the same tired old false narratives, using false equivalencies and exaggerating the importance of what is a very small percentage of people, all the while inferring that this justifies prohibition while the very same "crimes" are made with regards to other things and routinely ignored. Where ever someone can drive the stuff into a state where it's still illegal, people will take advantage and try to make some easy money. Without prohibition, those opportunities wouldn't exist. Maybe law enforcement could do something to try and address that problem, it's their job after all.
