legal weed driving up prices....

[wesw]

well, I don t know where to begin. first, the price of pot is rising. second, the legalization in some states has driven this price increase. third, the weed itself has been changed.

the reasons are complicated. the supply of commercial imported pot has dried up. the only pot available around here is the "exotic" variety. the type sold in pot shops in California and Colorado.
I believe that the reasons for this include increased safety and more reliable suppliers for the sellers and buyers. believe me, inter state commerce in the weed market is alive and well. if Colorado has fancy pink buds, we have fancy pink buds. all these designer buds really are not that great either. they look nice and smell nice, but really aren t anything special. definitely not worth the 20/gram price. before legalization the price of weed was about 40/quarter oz.(7g.)

now to the real mistake. the real mistake is not letting the small farmer grow weed. if the family farm could be our supplier we would have diversity in price and variety of available weed. a big part of the whole legalization push was saving the small farmers. by restricting the growing, we set up a vicious circle , which includes a whole new black market, deceptive farming and tax evasion, as well as making weed un affordable for many people who use it medicinally, as they are often not well off financially.

well, back to the weed quality. these exotic buds are just inbred mutations. don t get me wrong, I don t want Mexican dirt weed either. some nice heirloom varieties would be nice tho, a little Jamaican red bud, panama red or gold, or even some Columbian commercial weed would be great.

I could go on all day, but I won t. you re welcome:)

discuss?

[rubato]

Its having the opposite effect out here:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... =126806429

Plummeting Marijuana Prices Create A Panic In Calif.
May 15, 201012:00 AM ET
Michael Montgomery


Prices for marijuana is much less than $2,000 a pound, according to interviews with growers.

Marijuana in California costs much less than $2,000 a pound, according to interviews with more than a dozen growers and dealers. But the people who don't have quality product aren't selling it, according to a former underground grower who now cultivates medical marijuana.
Justin Sullivan/NPR

For decades, illegal marijuana cultivation has been an economic lifeblood for three counties in northern California known as the Emerald Triangle.

The war on drugs and frequent raids by federal drug agents have helped support the local economy — keeping prices for street sales of pot high and keeping profits rich.

But high times are changing. Legal pot, under the guise of the California's medical marijuana laws, has spurred a rush of new competition. As a result, the wholesale price of pot grown in these areas is plunging.

Demand Not Meeting Supply

In 1983, the Reagan administration launched a massive air and ground campaign to eradicate pot and lock up growers in northern California. Charley Custer, a writer and community activist, had just arrived to Humboldt County from Chicago. With the Reagan crackdown, Custer recalls, wholesale prices shot up — to as high as $5,000 a pound. That sudden and ironic windfall for those growers willing to risk prison time transformed the community.

“ What's happening is the people that don't have quality product aren't selling it. So they're the ones that are creating this panic. So it really comes back down to that, just like in every other agricultural industry. When you get too many vineyards and too many people growing vines out there, then only the good ones make it.

- Tim Blake, former underground grower who now cultivates medical marijuana

"A lot of people were living on welfare and peanut butter and banana sandwiches for a long time before pot made it possible to be part of the middle class," Custer says.

Nearly 30 years later, Custer says that boom may be over.

"Outdoor growers are having a hard time unloading their fall harvest," Custer says. "And this is six months later and when some people do move it, they don't get nearly the price they were hoping for."

That goes for both legal growers who cultivate limited quantities of pot under the medical marijuana laws and illegal operators who often grow larger amounts.

Prices are now much less than $2,000 a pound, according to interviews with more than a dozen growers and dealers. Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman says some growers can't get rid of their processed pot at any price.

"We arrested a man who had … 800 pounds of processed," Allman says. "Eight hundred pounds of processed. And we asked him: 'What are you going to do with 800 pounds of processed?' And he said, 'I don't know.'"

'Only The Good Ones Make It'

As recently as last December, things were still pretty upbeat. At Area 101, an events and healing center near Laytonville, local growers gathered to celebrate the Emerald Cup, an annual competition for the season's best pot buds. But the event's host, Tim Blake, says the mood has darkened since then.

"There's a tremendous amount of concern, borderlining on fear," says the former underground grower who now cultivates medical marijuana.

He says the drop in pot prices is in part the result of more growers and a more tolerant legal landscape. But he says another factor is quality. Indoor-grown marijuana is increasingly favored by dispensaries and consumers for its looks, consistence and potency. It costs more to produce than pot grown under the sun, but commands as much as double the price. That's one reason retail prices haven't hit the skids.

Legalizing in the US has driven the price down so far in Mexico that people are saying they will stop growing altogether.

http://www.npr.org/tags/126951864/mexico

Legal Pot In The U.S. May Be Undercutting Mexican Marijuana

As more U.S. states approve marijuana for medical or recreational use, the price for pot growers in Mexico is falling. This could change the business model for narcotraffickers as well.

yrs,
rubato

[wesw]

2000 a pound is outrageous. disinformation about previous prices, I believe. I smoked a lot (italics) of pot during the Reagan presidential years (all of them), and the prices stated are nowhere near accurate

[wesw]

it did go up, but the pot was different when it did. it went from 40 an ounce to about 150 an ounce, but the 40 an ounce was Columbian and the 150 an ounce was sinsemillia. no comparison.

[wesw]

if you got it by the pound (which I did not) it was much cheaper.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Great - let's recap:

Anecdote anecdote anecdote [beginning with "well, I don t know" which is probably accurate] claiming that prices of weed are going way way way up

Quotes and links describing situation in California - downward price pressure

Anecdote anecdote anecdote proving that prices of weed in California are wrong because anecdote anecdote anecdote and prices were a lot less 5 billion years ago, so there!

anecdote

anecdote about something the anecdoter didn't ever do

((and if wesw posted more times before I can get this posted... anecdote anecdote anecdote))

Let's shoot for quotes and links again: http://www.priceofweed.com/

California, United States
High Quality: $244.23 / oz. (n=16188)
Medium Quality: $190.11 / oz. (n=18589)
Low Quality: $186.43 / oz. (n=1066)

District of Columbia, United States
High Quality: $348.14 / oz. (n=642)
Medium Quality: $281.97 / oz. (n=565)
Low Quality: $216.86 / oz. (n=49)

Montana, United States
High Quality: $265.8 / oz. (n=722)
Medium Quality: $241.29 / oz. (n=363)
Low Quality: $154.59 / oz. (n=32)

Florida, United States
High Quality: $301.96 / oz. (n=9169)
Medium Quality: $217.36 / oz. (n=7942)
Low Quality: $155.45 / oz. (n=678)

[wesw]

yeah meade, I m sure you know more about pot than me... (eye rolling emoticon)

[wesw]

it s hard to learn when you already know everything...

[wesw]

my friends got it by the pound. if you must know....

[wesw]

feel free to correct my grammar tho...

you actually understand that subject.

[MajGenl.Meade]

An eighth of an ounce of pot in 1981 was going for $25. It stayed roughly the same in 1982. By 1986, it was up to $53, and it hit a high of $62 in 1991, a 150 percent rise over 10 years.

Interesting article about the non-correlation between pot prices and those of cocaine/heroin [url]athttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/11/rick- ... 98092.html[/url]

Presidency of Ronald Reagan - January 20, 1981, to January 20, 1989
Per lb
1981 $25 for quarter oz. = $1600
1986 $53 for quarter oz. = $3392
1991 $62 for quarter oz. = $3968

Hi there, wes. I don't know if I know more or less about pot than do you but the early 70s were a lot of smokey fun. I liked the opium-laced resin from the Med., not grass. I may or may not have been buying that in hard times from USAF bases in the UK (along with cigarettes and booze) to sell on to friends and work colleagues. Remember the old saying? Money can't get you through times of no drugs but....

You may have more actual recent knowledge of drugs but I'm not pretending to "know" anything. I'm content with citing facts and figures that prove you are mistaken in your assault on rubato's facts and figures.

Oh and don't forget that the actual prices of pot 1981 would be about 250% higher in today's dollars. And a 1991 dollar about 175% higher today.

Therefore, rubato's post and my own combine to show that the price of pot is falling - but don't take our word for it. I tend to believe these folks:

http://www.hightimes.com/read/thmq-mari ... ruary-2014

The US Price and Mids indices finished the month well below their January averages. The US Price Index dropped $26 in February and fell below $300 for the first time. The Mids Index dropped $35 this month and fell to $263 an ounce – its lowest average price since August 2012. Meanwhile, the Kind Index held steady in February, finishing at $379 an ounce.

CURRENT US PRICE INDEX: $297 (last month: $323, Year-to-Date: $310)
CURRENT KIND INDEX ($350+ PER OZ): $379 ($379, $379)
CURRENT MIDS INDEX ($150-$349 PER OZ): $263 ($298, $281)
CURRENT SCHWAG INDEX ($1-$149 PER OZ): $110 ($94, $102)

The top five submitted strains (with average price) were: Kush ($318), Diesel ($293), Purps ($315), Haze ($303) and Cheese ($243).

[wesw]

yes meade. the price of pot had been falling. actually it had remained fairly constant for about 10 yrs, until recently. now it is very difficult to find any of the cheap (not low quality, just cheap) commercial weed. the only available weed is the exotic variety, 20/gram, 100/ quarter ounce. this has also caused people to charge more for the commercial weed, as it is still cheaper, in comparison, when they do. until recently the cost was 40/ quarter ounce.

unfortunately, I was smoking pot in 1977 too, granted I was only 11 and had no business doing so, but I did anyway. pot was every where then as I m sure you recall. I also smoked the opiated thai sticks, and in the 90 s the opiated afghan hash. I even was around for the tail end of the Quaaludes.
lemmon 714 s.

I will admit that your latest numbers were fairly accurate, except you can t extrapolate the price of a pound from the price of a quarter ounce, it gets cheaper the more you buy. I never possess more than an ounce, tho I will admit to getting a couple QPs in the 90s to pay the rent. also, the cheaper weed has disappeared , as rube said, and the only available weed is the kush type, or what people claim is exotic and charge outrageous prices for.

rock on dude! you old stoner! I never would have guessed....

edit- the afghan hash may have been in the late 80 s, I can t recall....

[wesw]

...and it was never 5000 a pound. unless you were a rich idiot or a rock star.

oh. I don t want to imply that I have been a constant smoker the whole time. employers started drug testing when the crack epidemic got bad, and then the pain management program tested too.

anyway... my point was that a true free market would eliminate the black market, and save the small farm. conservative enough I think. unless you are an ADM fan

[oldr_n_wsr]

I used to get pot for about $250 a pound (late 1970's to mid 1980's) and I would break it up and sell for $40 an ounce. People wanted "dime bags" usually so I would break the ounce into 5 dime bags.
In the summer, supply would dry up a bit so in the late winter and early spring I would stock up. Not so much to take advantage of the shortage, more to make sure I had enough pot to smoke during the lean times.

And my ounces and dime bags were never light, always on the plus side.
Repeat customers are the best.

[dales]

I have a 420 card, I go to Berkeley, buy what I need and never look back.

(they give me a "senior citizen discount")

$40/eighth

[MajGenl.Meade]

well, I don t know where to begin. first, the price of pot is rising. second, the legalization in some states has driven this price increase

So where's the post where you admit the price is falling - based upon the actual facts posted by rubato and me? Or are you sticking with anecdotes from 1977?

[BoSoxGal]

I'm told an ounce of very good stuff in Montana goes for @ $250 today, so Meade's chart seems to be correct.

[Lord Jim]

It's basic Economics 101 that the prices would be falling...

Legalization has increased the # of suppliers, and created a more competitive environment for market share...

That dynamic will always create a downward pressure on price...

[MajGenl.Meade]

Without distracting from the topic (please), I just noted that wesw claims to have edited his post of Dec 6th at 1147. Well done, wesw - moving out of the darkness of Luddite ignorance and into light of 21st century convenience (let us pray and hope).

[Lord Jim]

Legalization has also reduced grower costs. (there are a whole array of additional costs inherently involved in running a business clandestinely as opposed to being able to run it legally)