Welcome back to the Ten Blocks podcast. This is Brian Anderson, the editor of City Journal.

Joining me on today's show, Steve Melanga, who Anderson, the editor of City Journal. Joining me on today's show,

Steve Melanga, he's the senior editor of City Journal and the George Yeager Fellow at the Manhattan Institute,

and Charles Lehman, contributing editor to City Journal as well, and a fellow at MI. Each has been

following the public policy issues posed by the legalization of marijuana,

and each has been writing about it for the CJ website recently.

So Steve and Charles, thanks very much for joining.

Thank you.

Thanks having us.

Steve, let me start with you.

Your recent piece for us looks at what's going on in California and Oregon with regards

to the legalization of pot.

So shortly after legalizing the drug for recreational use, both of these states saw their

black markets absolutely explode.

Now, this was contrary to what the advocates of pot legalization had predicted.

We were told in the run-up to legalization that legal weed would kill off the black market and generate

enormous sums of money in tax revenue for various governments, local and state.

Now those same advocates are saying, well, now the black market is persisting only because not every state has

legalized the drug so that we need legalization across the board. So I wonder, you know,

what you what your take is on the black market in these states and if there's any merit to that

counter argument by legalization advocates?

Yeah, well, the first thing that occurred actually when a legalization, and we're talking about a legalization of recreational use, which 19 states now have,

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