[rdl]

The issue isn't street dealers dealing with shoeboxes of cash, it's levels up from that. You can pay for jewelry, guns, rent, stolen precursors, grow equipment, labor, rims, etc. in cash. You can't pay for cars or houses. You can generally pay the dealers 1-2 steps up from retail in bulk cash without problems, but at the point where they need to bring product in internationally, it becomes an issue.

It used to be meth worked a lot better (since you could produce it more locally/closer to consumption), but since Diane Feinstein severely restricted effective formulations of Sudafed (pseudoephedrine) in the Methamphetamine Control Act of 1996, most of the production moved to Mexico, along with most of the (ditchweed) marijuana production, and smuggling routes for both South American cocaine and heroin (also brought in from abroad).

The pharm market is probably more cash-based, since it seems to be just as much "buying pills off people who get them for ~free from pharmacies, for cash" as "bringing in bulk pills from India/China/Israel". This might vary per medication though, but there are definitely entirely-domestic pharm dealers.

I'm not really sure what's happened with the MJ market post-MMJ; I know a lot of the grow ops in the Triangle went from being local people to being Mexican gang grows, but I think there are plenty of 100-400 plant warehouse grows now. I'm not really sure about the outdoor market in places like Missouri (which I believe is one of the bigger domestic outdoor producers). I do know there's a huge pricing differential between Oakland and the East Coast, probably due to MMJ and quantity.