rockinkt
Master Poster
- Joined
- May 20, 2008
- Messages
- 2,342
But there it has resulted in tons of actual cannabis businesses. There's like a pot shop on every block in Vancouver. They aren't all losing money.
23 Legal shops total. The rest are illegal. Most of the legal shops are less than a year old.
The funding of many of the legal shops has so far been subsidized from the years of illegal business they have done openly with no tax on their illegal supplies of weed. My sources suggest that a lot of the ongoing sales are also a way to wash cash from the illegal wholesale of their illegal cannabis grow-ops.
Also, the huge amount of money raised by the wildly speculative stock market in many cannabis companies has given them a huge cash reserve to fund losses for a long time hoping for something to change in their retail outlets.
Edited to add: I am in favor of legalization of most drugs that are illegal now. I just think that Canada has really made a mistake trying to cash in on a perceived potential windfall through taxation. Reducing police costs and harm reduction is enough to balance the books heavily in favor of legalization. IMHO.
(Former cop speaking)
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