California pot taxes tick up but miss initial projections

LOS ANGELES — When it comes to tax money from marijuana sales, California is living with diminished expectations.

The state pulled in $74 million in cannabis excise taxes between April and June, after the administration of Gov. Gavin Newsom sharply scaled back projected tax dollars from the shaky legal market.

Government analysts once projected that California would be flooded with tax money from the legal pot economy — $1 billion annually within a few years of launching the world’s largest market in 2018.

But multiple problems conspired to depress early sales, including a shortage of licensed places to buy it, a wobbly supply chain and the perseverance of a tax-free, illicit marketplace.

In May, the state slashed the target for what it expected to collect through June 2020 — in all, a $223 million cut from projections four months earlier.

At that time, Newsom said it was likely to take five to seven years for the legal market to reach its potential, a point that he has made repeatedly in the past. He also pointed a finger at communities that have been resistant to legal sales and growing. [Read More @ The Washington Post]