If it's too heavily taxed, I agree with you that many people will stick with black market.
However, there's a new group of people using cannabis and they are extremely interested in knowing how it was grown, how clean it is or isn't, and they want consistency of product as well as quality controls. That's just never going to happen even on the gray market.
I believe, but can't be certain without double-checking, that there was yet another addendum to the bills that encompass MMRSA and ostensibly one of these is supposed to make a place at this table for boutique growers. That said, many are still outright banned from doing their thing by local munis, as allowed by MMRSA.
Again look at the wine industry - how many wineries out there have just 1 or 2 people doing all the work? Even the smallest wineries and breweries still employ a considerable number of people and have a production rate far beyond any hobbyist.
Hobbyist level wine is when your front yard is a vineyard (quarter acre) and you sell to a vintner. I think. Maybe?
One of the biggest things holding the industry back is that growers are so damn fractured and we have no united front for anything, just look at the divide over AUMA. I have actually become fairly disgusted with some of these so-called activists who supposedly are fighting for our right to grow and consume cannabis. Many of them are so unrealistic, so pig headed and stubborn, and so unable to compromise on any level that they do as much damage to the cannabis industry and hold back the legalization movement as much as even the most hard line the prohibitionists do.
OMG, it's unbelievable how 'we' are with each other. We're supposed to be on the same team, for Christ's sakes! But the level of rudeness alone makes me shake my head and want to be uninvolved, I find it so disgusting the way folks will treat each other, even over this ONE issue. I think you've nailed it on the head, because the end result is still prohibition.
Good luck guys the first step will be them not letting you sell your weed to the dispensary, so for those who think they will be selling there home grown at any price is just not going to happen legally anyway.
That is correct. Now everyone has to be permitted and it's being treated like alcoholic beverages--no vertical integration, every step is separate and separated. If you wish to become a cultivator, you need your permits that also permit you to sell to a distributor.