Business stories about the newly legal marijuana industry portray the sector as both booming and imperiled, depending on the U.S. state or country. The New York Times, for example, reports from Toronto that pot shops are flourishing in several areas of the city, thanks to loosened regulations that were first implemented during the pandemic and have been allowed to continue. In 2020, just 12 retail stores existed in the city of 2.8 million, but today there are 430 with another 88 in the approval process. On one street, there are more than 13 shops along a 2-mile stretch, which are changing the character of an iconic neighborhood. Unlike other provinces, the Ontario government favored unbridled competition, introducing just one simple restriction on shops: they must be located no closer than 150 meters to a school. In only three years, sales of legal marijuana in Ontario boosted the economy by an estimated $10.6 billion and today, more Canadians consume the drug than ever before—including 25 percent of people 16 and up. While sales are booming, there’s no mention in the story about health impacts.
Meanwhile, things are not going so well in California’s legal market, according to the Los Angeles Business Journal. When the state legalized weed in 2016, there were promises of a great retail surge and the elimination of the black market. However, legal marijuana sales are slumping and the illicit market is going gung ho; today, there are roughly 850 licensed dispensaries statewide, a staggering drop of nearly 90 percent over just five years. In fact, retailers say they’re in a struggle for survival, due to high taxes and stringent regulations. And contrary to popular belief, the black market isn’t only the stereotypical drug dealer on the street corner, but hundreds of shops that look like licensed dispensaries but don’t pay taxes or comply with regulations—yet another example of how rushing to legalize marijuana has led to a poor business model and potential harm to consumers.
And finally, New York City Mayor Eric Adams has come up with an unusual idea now that the state is about to implement its marijuana legalization law: set up cannabis greenhouses on the rooftops of public housing buildings. This would not only increase the supply of pot in a city with little space for agriculture, the mayor believes, but also provide jobs for residents, part of the state’s efforts to use legalization as a way to help communities disproportionately harmed by the war on drugs. Several complications here: one is that marijuana remains illegal under federal law, and the NYC public housing authority—known as NYCHA—receives half of its annual subsidies from the federal government. Equally important, marijuana is still illegal in public housing. And, nobody has apparently asked residents if they want marijuana growing up on the roof.