Lately lots of smart people are ringing an alarm that coverage by The New York Times could be making the cannabis problem a lot worse. One of the biggest critics is MJBiz Daily which just reprinted a hard-hitting article written by Chris Fontes (pictured below), co-founder and CEO of “High Spirits” about the problem.

Here’s some excerpts from Fontes story:  In a Feb. 9 editorial, The New York Times declared that America has a marijuana problem, a sweeping declaration eagerly amplified by the usual suspects who want a return to prohibition. On several points, they’re right. High-potency products have proliferated. THC-minded milligram one-upmanship distorts consumer behavior. Labeling can be inconsistent. Misleading health claims exist. Overconsumption is real. Those of us who have built businesses inside the existing state-regulated system know the challenges are not hypothetical.

But the prescription offered by the Times – higher taxes and heavier regulation – not only misdiagnoses the disease, but would make the problems worse.

As legal operators navigating a web of regulations know, the problem with cannabis is not too few rules. It’s fragmented oversight, structural inefficiencies, and a lack of consistent accountability.

Cannabis is already heavily regulated from seed to sale
Licensed marijuana markets are already among the most restrictive consumer product regimes in the country. Operators navigate multiple state and local layers of licensing, seed-to-sale tracking, opaque packaging mandates, marketing and advertising prohibitions, varying testing standards and THC limits on edibles and beverages.

To have the country’s leading newspaper conclude there is not enough regulation is not just frustrating to every operator in the industry. It’s detached from reality. The Times’ assertion that the cannabis industry should be taxed more is equally preposterous. Cannabis is already heavily taxed. In Colorado, where I live and have built a business, cannabis is taxed twice: a 15% state excise tax at the wholesale level, followed by nearly 28% in combined state and local taxes at checkout in cities like Denver.

Layer on federal 280E treatment, which disallows ordinary business deductions, and compliant operators face one of the heaviest effective tax burdens in consumer goods. In large part because of the heavy regulations and tax burdens that already exceed alcohol in many jurisdictions, illicit-market cannabis thrives. Not because there are too few rules, but because the legal channel is expensive, fragmented and often priced beyond what consumers are willing to pay.

When legal cannabis costs dramatically more than illicit alternatives, demand doesn’t disappear. It shifts. Higher cannabis taxes would make the problem worse. Authorities in California, one of the most regulated and (as Gov. Gavin Newsom acknowledged) overtaxed cannabis markets, seized a record amount of illicit cannabis in 2025 – the same year that legal sales dipped to a five-year low. It’s no accident sales plunged the same year the state hiked taxes.

The Times’ chief concern seems to be an increase in use. In justifying the call for higher taxes, the editorial board points to the tobacco industry, where  higher taxes have reduced use. But in addition to being vastly different substances with vastly different health effects, tobacco and cannabis operate in fundamentally different markets.

Tobacco products like cigarettes are federally regulated, subject to certain standards and difficult to substitute. Cannabis is easily grown at home. When cigarette taxes rise, consumers generally buy fewer cigarettes. When cannabis taxes rise too aggressively, consumers simply buy from someone else.

How to fix America’s real cannabis problem

If lawmakers want safer products and less youth exposure, they should make the regulated market competitive enough to win. Today’s dispensary model is structurally skewed toward high-frequency, high-tolerance consumers because they generate the revenue needed to survive in a heavily taxed system.

Lower-dose, ratioed and alternative cannabinoid products often struggle for shelf space. A narrow, premium-priced legal channel effectively hands occasional and price-sensitive consumers back to unregulated sellers. The real missing ingredients are education and harm reduction. Alcohol offers a better lesson than the one implied in the editorial.

How alcohol shows where cannabis should go

The model isn’t “tax until use declines.” It’s standardize products, label clearly, educate honestly, tax proportionally and enforce consistently. Cannabis should follow that framework: adult freedom paired with guardrails and transparent risk communication. Consumers deserve accurate information about impairment potential, dependency risk, cannabis hyperemesis syndrome and mental health considerations, not moral panic or punitive pricing.

The Times is correct to warn about profit incentives and deceptive marketing. That is precisely why accountability must extend beyond fragmented state bureaucracy. Cannabis needs credible, standards-based oversight that is audit-verified and insulated from commercial influence. If the federal government can’t regulate, the industry must.

In the hemp sector, organizations like the U.S. Hemp Authority have demonstrated how a true self-regulatory organization can set uniform standards, enforce compliance and restore trust. A similar framework in state-regulated marijuana markets would do more to curb deceptive practices than layering on additional taxes ever could.

America does not need to return to prohibition. And it does not need to regulate cannabis into an even more expensive and fragmented system that empowers illicit sellers.

The path forward is accountable access: strong standards, real enforcement, transparent education and tax policy that supports, rather than undermines, the legal market. Public health policy should reduce harm, not drive consumers into unregulated markets.

Chris Fontes is a cannabis and hemp policy leader and the cofounder and CEO of High Spirits, the first brand to successfully bring hemp-derived delta-9 THC to market at a national scale. 

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