Elected leaders in Massachusetts must counter the negative fallout from legalized recreational marijuana immediately. As the Herald’s Rick Sobey reports, law enforcement officials have indicated that they are seeing pot dealers game the system by taking advantage of supply shortages of legal weed.

As the law stands, all legal marijuana available recreationally must be grown in-state. Not surprisingly, the nascent industry in Massachusetts cannot keep up with demand as yet. In come the black-market dealers with plentiful, cheaper weed, using the legalization laws as cover.

Billerica Deputy Police Chief Roy Frost said last week that the illicit market is “as vibrant or more so” than before as a result of the expensive cost of buying legal marijuana during this slow legal rollout. “When large amounts of marijuana is in play, there’s usually a large amount of cash, there’s usually weapons and potential for all types of crime,” Frost said. “It brings a lot of violence.”

Elected leaders must address this situation on the supply side and the law enforcement side before this glitch becomes the new reality.