This post is the foreword from the policy study: “The impact of California cannabis taxes on participation within the legal market.”
Back in the days before legal marijuana, I undertook to investigate how it might be legalized, taxed, and regulated. While I was partial to a free-market model (as opposed to a government monopoly,) it seemed apparent that marijuana should logically be taxed like other legal intoxicants such as alcohol and tobacco, both to cover the social costs of its abuse, and to offer non-using voters a solid reason to back legalization. There being no better data at the time, I
