Reply #18: There's a reason I did it this way

[jmowreader]

Beer makers are single-source producers--if you want Budweiser, you have to get it from InBev. There aren't 500 brewery companies making Bud and selling it into the market.

OTOH, pot would be a segmented market. You'd have cottage growers--people growing a few plants in their spare bedrooms, or maybe small greenhouses. You'd have commercial operations running in multi-acre greenhouses, and there would be industrial growers on pot plantations. All that means the tax system would be very complex. Taxing papers reduces the complexity to its bare minimum; papers come from just a few companies and are sold through retailers.