The major online pot shop directory and cannabis marketplace Weedmaps announced Wednesday that it will no longer allow black-market businesses to advertise on its site, a decision that could boost California's efforts to rein in its vast illegal market.
State regulators and licensed businesses had been pressuring the company to ban unlicensed businesses. Allowing untaxed, unregulated product on the site alongside the taxed marijuana of licensed and regulated stores undercut the legal market, they said.
"That is a huge win," said Ryan Kunkel, whose Have A Heart dispensary chain operates in Washington, Oregon and California. "Our biggest competitor in every jurisdiction in California is black-market Weedmaps. It's not the tax rates, it's not the regulations - it's Weedmaps' efforts to prop up unlicensed operators."
Jerred Kiloh, a licensed dispensary owner in Los Angeles who heads the United Cannabis Business Association, an industry group, projected that half of California's illegal operations could dry up once they are denied access to Weedmaps ads.
He credited state regulators with pressuring the company to reverse course, along with pending legislation aimed at ending the practice.
"Illegal operators are going to have to go back to the underground," Kiloh said. "That's not going to give them the kind of business they had."
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Boooooo! Support your local
Boooooo! Support your local dealer!