I've been thinking lately about drug legalization and how it tends to transfer the wealth from selling drugs to the business owner class. I'm coming at this from having argued for years for across-the-board legalization of all drugs (with regulation for many drugs).
Where I live weed got legalized a few years ago. Before legalization there were lots of stores that sold weed, and they were all very chill, like more like a bodega vibe. After legalization it became very highly regulated, all those places closed, and now all the new weed stores feel like Apple Stores - obviously much more up front investment and a very different vibe.
This isn't a fully-formed thought, but I can't help but feel like this whole process starts with the poor having an easy way to make decent money then with decriminalization we have a slightly higher class of people making that money, and now with legalization it really is like the top 1% making this money.
None of this is an argument for putting people in cages for drugs, I'm just wondering if there's a better way than legalization? Or is the problem I'm seeing a regulation problem over a legalization problem?
Some of this has gotta be the latent effects of the War on Drugs in our psyche. I've noticed that every legal weed store near me goes way out of the way to appear sterile with bright liights and white countertops, unlike vape stores which tend to have mood lighting and dark wood furniture, and I'm 100% certain that that is a result of trying to sell to people who have been conditioned all their life to think of marijuana as dangerous by assuring them that everything's clean and high tech and safe. It also explains why the knee jerk reaction of legislatures is to regulate weed much harder than alcohol or tobacco, and why people writ large seem to be accepting of that status quo.
But small sellers getting pushed out of the market by sellers with more capital is exactly what's supposed to happen in this system, it's not just you.