It's pretty clear now that the decades of action on this front was more about legalizing cannabis under the pretence of creating a government revenue stream and capturing billions of dollars worth of transactions for taxation. The black market is far too advanced and entrenched to be stopped overnight.
That's right. And it's yet to be seen if it can be stamped out altogether.
It's very hard to compare to any other product/service.
Of course that will not stop me from trying.
What about prostitution? If the government regulated and set standards etc. would people just turn exclusively to legal, licensed brothels/sex workers?
We have licensed gaming, but it's quite unclear how much money is still bet offshore especially at sports bets. I'm not sure many people are playing foreign private lottery games.
What about babysitting? That is almost exclusively an underground economy, except daycares.
A lot of home repair/upkeep is carried out by friends, neighbours and family, or sometimes strangers, for those that cannot manage the job.
And then I guess we could look at other drugs. Lots of informal trade occurs among people that have access to prescription drugs.
Edited by Victoria Watcher, 29 November 2021 - 09:40 AM.