In recent weeks, California’s $5 billion legal cannabis industry has engaged in an all-out blitz to convince state lawmakers to eliminate taxes on growers and suspend certain retail taxes at the expense of public health — particularly youth.

The industry’s story is more fiction than fact; their “legislative prescription” is driven by profit-seeking, not economic necessity.

Proposition 64 promised to allow legal access to cannabis while protecting youth and using new tax revenues to build healthier communities. But if industry has its way, much of this incipient progress will evaporate like a puff of smoke.

California’s legal cannabis industry is prospering and continues to grow rapidly. Retail sales have tripled since 2018, and the number of storefronts grew 31% between late 2019 and 2021. The legal cannabis industry isn’t being “clobbered” by high taxes or burdensome regulations, an argument used by dominant corporations in virtually every industry to expand their profits.

Contrary to claims that 68% of localities have completely banned cannabis, 2019 research by the Public Health Institute (PHI) published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that grossly overstates the number. Moreover, 57% of Californians lived in a city or county where cannabis sales were allowed, and acceptance has continued to grow since. Possession, personal cultivation and use, of course, continue legal everywhere.

Neither the real and deeply challenging problem of the illicit market, nor the significant challenges faced by small cannabis growers, will be solved by blanket tax cuts. Eliminating or suspending taxes, as industry has proposed, will certainly increase profits, but the more significant driver of the illicit market is vast overproduction.

We cannot and should not solve the problem of the illicit market with strategies that will inevitably push California’s youth and adults to consume more cannabis because it is cheaper and omnipresent. More targeted, nuanced policies to help small growers and avoid large-scale corporatization are needed.

A key factor in Proposition 64’s passage was the promise that new revenues would serve the public good. These taxes currently fund childcare and urgently needed support for our most vulnerable youth — many now suffering from mental health challenges caused by the pandemic — and substance-use prevention, environmental restoration and economic equity. Lawmakers should reject calls to slash this revenue, including the small cut proposed recently by Gov. Gavin Newsom, and channel those resources toward their intended purposes.

The PHI research found that California state and local policies have allowed cannabis businesses to employ myriad tobacco-industry tactics, many strictly limited or even banned for tobacco products. Examples include aggressive marketing, the widespread sale of the same kind of flavored products that made Juul wildly successful in hooking millions of teens on tobacco, and the sale of products with exorbitantly high concentrations of THC. High concentration of THC is linked to dependency, cannabis-induced psychosis and other mental health issues.

A smarter approach to reform would include:

• Limiting sale of more-harmful high-potency products and of flavored products known to attract youth.
• Restricting aggressive cannabis marketing, especially where visible to children.
• Making sure the cannabis retail infrastructure is not excessive or near homes or schools.
• Requiring more prominent and accurate health warnings to inform consumers.
• Requiring equity in cannabis licensing and hiring practices.

By putting in place more sensible guardrails that prioritize public health, protect youth and advance social equity, communities may feel more confident that allowing legal cannabis commerce is a safer choice.

These measures can help shrink the illicit market in a more responsible way. Our legal cannabis industry can and will thrive without sacrificing the will of California voters at the altar of corporate profit. Let’s put our kids first.

Dr. Lynn Silver, a pediatrician and public health advocate, is senior advisor at the Oakland-based Public Health Institute and clinical professor at University of California San Francisco.