San Joaquin County is one of a dozen of California’s 57 counties where the market for legal cannabis is up from 2021 levels.

And it is only among a handful that have seen sales increase every year since storefront marijuana was legalized with not a single year in decline.

The California Department of Cannabis Control website notes legal sales in San Joaquin County reached $85.3 million in 2025, up from $66.9 million in 2021. That’s up roughly a third.

Legal cannabis sales were down to $108.3 million in Stanislaus County last year from a high of $198.9 million in 2021.

And the third county in the Northern San Joaquin Valley region — Merced County — went from $53 million in 2021 to $30.4 million in 2025.

Meanwhile, statewide legal cannabis sales dropped to $4.02 billion last year compared to $5.3 billion in 2021.

What brings this up is Gov. Gavin Newsom last week bragging state and local law enforcement during the past three months in California seized 63 pounds of illegal marijuana with a street value of $104 million.

That includes eradicating 9,000 cannabis plants, confiscating 17 firearms, and 24 arrests at illegal cannabis grow sites.

Newsom issued a press release stating since 2022, “the state has seized and destroyed more than 841,000 pounds of illicit cannabis valued at more than $1.3 billion.”

The release quoted Meghan Hertel who heads up California’s Fish and Wildlife Department who pointed out some of those plants were grown using toxic chemicals that “are harmful to fish and wildlife and the habitats they depend upon to survive and (the cannabis grown is) a threat to consumers.”

It was in 2016 that Newsom as lieutenant governor told voters legalizing marijuana would eliminate the black market.

Newsom doubled down in 2017 stating, “we moved towards legalization to get people into the daylight and into the sunshine of a regulated environment” and then declared “there is no more black market.”

Someone forgot to tell those thriving in the black market that it is dead.

Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office reported in 2025 local and state agencies raided 617 illegal grows. That’s nearly two a day.

A consultant for the state cannabis agency in 2024 estimated illegal cannabis growers produced 11.4 million pounds annually compared to the 1.4 million pounds by licensed cannabis operations.

Some of that illegal pot is sold on the streets in California at a price point lower than in cannabis dispensaries.

Most of it is exported to other states and nations where there are less permissive laws and the fact California cannabis has a reputation for high potency.

It also needs to be noted that only 56 percent of local jurisdictions in California allow legal marijuana sales meaning the potential legal market is full from being developed.

That’s important to note given the California Legislature in its infinite wisdom last year cut the tax on legal cannabis operations in the belief it would bolster the legal market and help reduce black market sales and production in the state.

Clearly, the California harvest is being smuggled to other states and even nations.

The perpetual lie that California can somehow eradicate the black market is being used by the state as justifying cutting back on taxes on legal pot that are supposed to underwrite programs that will transform the state and provide funding for law enforcement to go after illegal grows is so far off base it’s not even funny.

It is never going to be eradicated because Proposition 64 downgraded big illegal grows from being felonies to being — for all practical purposes — decriminalized.

Unless illegal growers are stupid enough to commit other crimes such as illegally possessing firearms and damaging the environment, the worst consequence they can face is up to six months in jail and up to a $500 fine.

Perhaps that is the real reason why illegal pot grows are flourishing in California as the risk, for all practical purposes, was eliminated by the state.

The legal market is substantial and is showing signs of leveling off this year in terms of its overall downward drop.

That’s because the market is down to consumers that like the convenience, physical safety, variety, and strict testing of the cannabis they can get at licenses dispensaries.

The black market — even exclusively of legal personal grows — is not going away.

But there are two distinct black markets.

One competes against legal dispensary sales in California.

The other feeds a thriving network of out-of-state black markets that are cashing in on the potency of California’s cannabis.

Until big illegal grows are restored to serious felonies and serious prison time, it is reefer madness for anyone in Sacramento — whether it is Newsom or the California Legislature — to assert the state can make a significant dent in the black market.