Legalizing pot didn’t kill the black market, it created a marketing department for it

The marijuana legalization movement sold Americans a simple promise: legalize cannabis, regulate it, tax it, and the black market would disappear.

That promise has failed spectacularly.

Today, illegal marijuana dealers remain active across California and throughout the nation. Meanwhile, the "legal" marijuana industry — the very industry that was supposed to replace them — is struggling with declining sales, shrinking profits, surrendered licenses, and falling tax revenues and investment loses.