I have the exact opposite experience. All my friends and I immediately switched to legal dispensaries the moment we could.
I shudder to recall the bad old days of prohibition when I had to deal with flakey, shady characters.
Check out michigan. They implemented legal weed without corruption and the prices are great. Every dealer immediately got out of weed there because there are stores in every town selling high quality ounces for $50, and those stores regularly have sales for $35 ounces. Meanwhile here in Illinois the state went the corruption route and the entirety of Chicago has 5 stores which all charge monopoly prices.
I will say though, it's legal where I am, and aside from every parking structure stinking like burning skunks, it's not as much of a 'culture' as it used to be, and you don't really find many people talking about it, which is nice I guess.