Protecting kids means protecting the legal cannabis market

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OPINION – Jim Keddy, executive director of Youth Forward, wants to protect California’s children from cannabis. So does every licensed cannabis operator in this state. That shared goal is real.

Which is why the policy prescription embedded in his recent Capitol Weekly op-ed deserves serious scrutiny, because if implemented, it would make children less safe, not more.

Licensed dispensaries in California require government-issued ID at the point of sale. Their products are tested for potency and contaminants by state-approved labs. Their packaging meets child-resistance standards. State regulators track their ownership, supply chains and transactions.

The illicit market has none of this. No age checks. No testing. No accountability. No one to call when something goes wrong.

When a child in California accesses cannabis, it is almost certainly not through a licensed retailer. It’s through the illicit market that continues to operate at roughly eight times the scale of the legal one.

The op-ed frames the 2025 excise tax adjustment as a diversion of funds away from children. The mechanics tell a different story. California’s legal cannabis market has been in sustained decline since 2021, with taxable sales down 19% and excise tax revenue down 13%.

Maintaining a higher tax rate on a shrinking base doesn’t increase revenue. It accelerates the contraction. The Legislature didn’t reduce the excise tax to defund children’s programs. It reduced it because the alternative, watching the taxable market collapse while the untaxed illicit market expands, produces less revenue, not more.

Proposition 64’s stated intent was to “take marijuana production and sales out of the hands of the illegal market” and “tax the growth and sale of marijuana in a way that drives out the illicit market.” The tax rate is a tool in service of that goal. When the tool becomes counterproductive, adjusting it is a matter of fidelity to voter intent, not a betrayal of it.

The op-ed cites a 469% increase in poison control calls among children five and under since legalization. This figure does not appear in any peer-reviewed study, National Poison Data System report, or California Department of Public Health dataset that we have identified. Before it drives policy affecting thousands of licensed businesses and tens of thousands of workers, two questions need to be answered: What is the actual source? And critically, do those calls involve products purchased from licensed dispensaries or from the illicit market?

The op-ed suggests the solution is to restore higher tax rates and tighten regulations on the legal industry. Set aside the revenue math for a moment and follow the market logic. Higher taxes and more compliance costs on licensed operators accelerate the business closures already underway.

More than 10,000 cannabis licenses are now inactive or surrendered in California, exceeding the number of active licenses statewide. Each closure is a point of age-verified, tested, regulated access that disappears, replaced by nothing except more illicit market share. If the goal is to protect children, the math runs in exactly the opposite direction of what the op-ed proposes.

What do we actually agree on? That product standards matter. Packaging clarity matters. Marketing that could appeal to youth is a legitimate policy concern. CaCOA’s own analysis, “The Packaging Problem,” identified specific areas where standards should be strengthened.

That work is part of our ongoing advocacy. We’re calling for oversight grounded in evidence, applied in ways that don’t inadvertently hand market share to illicit operators who answer to no one. Youth advocates and licensed cannabis operators want the same California: one where regulated products are the norm, unregulated products are the exception, and a functioning enforcement infrastructure protects children.

That outcome requires a legal market strong enough actually to survive.

Amy O’Gorman Jenkins is the executive director of the California Cannabis Operators Association.