[ad_1]
In the dead of night last April, state drug agents in Oklahoma intercepted an 18-wheeler rumbling east toward the Arkansas border smuggling 7,000 pounds of marijuana hidden in security camera boxes.
The weed was from licensed farms in Oklahoma, according to the State Bureau of Narcotics. But the driver was heading to New York, where his cargo could fetch millions of dollars among legacy street dealers and new, rogue dispensaries that make up the illicit market, officials said.
The episode, which was part of a broader crackdown on Oklahoma’s rogue operators, offered a glimpse of a troubling trend that has emerged from the nation’s patchwork approach to legalization. New York, like other states, has legalized marijuana but has been very slow to allow licensed retail outlets to open and licensed producers to expand. As a result, many states with a surplus of legal weed, like Oklahoma, have found a lucrative market for their products on the streets and in unlicensed dispensaries in New York.
It is a paradox of legalization: What was intended to weaken the illicit trade has instead helped to bolster illegal sales that undercut the tax revenues and job creation that legalization has promised.
[ad_2]
Source link
