Legal Weed is Cheaper Weed
There are high taxes associated with the production and purchase of pot, but that still hasnt stopped prices from sliding under legalization. In California, the boutique growers can probably maintain a foothold at least for a while but the bottom is dropping our for the mids market thanks to over-saturation.
Its not exactly breaking news that decriminalization reduces prices for cannabis; without the artificial scarcity and monopoly-like control of criminal elements, prices tend to drop substantially. But withlegalization, which entails the establishment of regulations and taxes, there is of course the possibility of higher prices.
There are still those who point to this possibility, like critics of Prop 64 who held it out as a potential in the days leading up the election.
From the LA Weekly:
Fifteen percent taxes on recreational marijuana under the measure will boost the price of weed compared with that guy who sells it out of his apartment. Sales tax in some parts of LA County is already 10 cents on the dollar. So youre looking at a steep price increase for your organic produce if you were to buy it legally for recreational use. Now a study says that even the base wholesale price of weed is likely to go up, at least temporarily, if voters legalize it.
That prediction hasnt exactly panned out, at least not yet.
In Washington, legalization precipitated a 65 percent drop in the per-gram price of cannabis.
From theWashington Post:
The current retail price of $7.38 per gram (including tax) represents a 67percent decrease in just three years of the legalization, withmore decline likely in the future.
And when you talk to those whove been participating in Californias cannabis industry for years, theyll tell you prices have been steadily declining since the initial move to decriminalize back in 1996.
Among them, Neil Dellacava, a cultivator and owner of boutique cannabis brand Gold Seal SF and a purchaser at Harvest medical cannabis dispensary, who told Cannabis Now that the market has seen a major decline in prices since the earliest days of Prop 215.
When it first started there werent a lot of people growing; you could sell for like $4,000 even $5,000 a pound pretty much OG Kush went for $4,000 and any other passable indoor went for $3,000, he said but now ...
