In most states the licenses are extremely hard to get, it's not a matter of just 'putting in the work'. They're effectively out of reach for your standard weed dealer.

A standard weed dealer is not on the same level as the person that would get the license. A standard dealer is part of a very large organization. They're the equivalent of a person working a cash register. I expect it's extremely hard for someone who starts out working the register at a McDonalds to become a franchise owner.

That's not to say that getting a license isn't harder than starting a fast food franchise, but the metric of difficulty we use here shouldn't be the typical weed dealer.

Probably a better comparison would be an entrepreneur trying to start a liquor store. Even then, it makes sense to me that as society tries to figure out the best way to do this, it goes carefully & with a lot of scrutiny to figure out how to do it right. It's not the sort of thing that should have a "move fast & break things" approach.

Life isn't 'the wire', your standard dealer is a dude with a medium-grade connect and some friends.

As far as 'move fast and break things'.. in one sense, preserving the status quo is conservative, but it is also continually breaking things all the time. Glass, ribs, lives, etc. Compared to the status quo, we could break fewer things.

The issue is that legalization is a new development and the effects of asymmetric enforcement continue to disadvantage racial groups.

Drug laws were not created in a vacuum. They are just one step on a long journey of racially motivated oppression.