| Nick Bhardwaj/The Fiscal Times |
In a development that should come as absolutely no surprise to anyone with even a passing familiarity with drug policy and its effects, black-market marijuana growers and dealers are profiting greatly from the federal crackdown on legal medicinal cannabis dispensaries.
It’s Economics 101, after all: When the market demand exceeds the legal supply, people turn to illegal sources of a desired product. And there aren’t many products more desired than cannabis, both by patients who need the stuff for quality of life issues, to the recreational tokers who want their albums to sound as good as possible.
According to a recent report from California Watch, a division of the Center for Investigative Reporting, prices for black-market, high-grade, outdoor-grown Cali weed — after plummeting in 2010 — have risen by 20 to 40 percent since the state’s four U.S. Attorneys announced a crackdown on medical marijuana growers and dispensaries, reports the Chico News Review.