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Cannabis Professional’s daily roundup of industry news. View archive here.

Today’s briefs brought to you by the state of California, where Weedmaps has agreed to drop illegal sellers of cannabis from its online marketplace, and where the government has lowered its expectation for revenues from the pot sector.

– Rob Gilroy

Online markeplace Weedmaps drops illicit businesses

The major U.S. online pot shop directory and cannabis marketplace Weedmaps said this week 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.

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.

Weedmaps, founded in 2008 and based in Irvine, is a go-to website for people looking to find a marijuana shop. With a few clicks on a cellphone, customers can find virtually any type of cannabis product, along with the fastest route to the place selling it and ratings from other consumers to help them decide what to buy. They can also order online through the site and even have their weed delivered. It said that “later this year” it would begin requiring U.S. advertisers to provide a state license number on their listing, and that it would restrict the use of its point-of-sale system, online orders, delivery logistics and other services to licensed businesses exclusively.

– Associated Press

California takes in few tax dollars from pot

California pulled in US$74-million in cannabis excise taxes between April and June, after the administration of Governor 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. State pot taxes include a 15-per-cent levy on purchases of all cannabis and cannabis products, including medical pot. Local governments are free to add taxes on sales and growing, which has created a confusing patchwork of rates around the state.2

- Associated Press

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