$44.52 is the average price of an 1/8th of cannabis in the US | Hacker News Reader

$44.52 is the average price of an 1/8th of cannabis in the US

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22 pointsfreshjane44 comments

In Reno (NW Nevada) 1/8 (of an ounce, 3.5 grams) will set you back around $39. Quarters on sale (1/4 of an ounce, 7 grams) will normally be in the $49-$59 range. I've seen ounces for $99 once in a while. I might add this is all ordered online and you go to the dispensary and get it brought out to your car - it is almost a frictionless delivery, just pay cash and tip well. One of the local dispensaries has food trucks in their parking lot on Saturday - seems reasonable. The state, regardless of their views on legal weed (we used to call it "dope"), is fine with everything given the tax revenue it brings in. At my age I never thought I'd see anything like this in my lifetime.

Commenting for a friend, of course.

"just pay cash and tip well."

That's then actually paying more than 'around' you say for it. Back whenever: £8 for an 8th (of Afghan Black) was standard for many years. If we'd've had to tip...that would make it more expensive.

Do you tip the illegal drug dealers as well? It's odd - I don't tip the pharmacist.

No and please don’t normalize this. This isn’t a tipping service/industry let us not turn it in to one.

I can't see how you could possibly justify tipping a legal drug dealer but not the illegal one. The illegal drug dealer probably works in worse conditions and for worse pay. Do criminals not deserve tips?

For clarity - I'm trying to compare people buying marijuana in states or times when it was illegal to people buying it from legal dispensaries today. The comment I originally applied to says "pay cash and tip well" which surprised me because I didn't think people tipped those who gave them drugs.

Where I live, cannabis is federally legal. So we "tip the dealer" every time, in the form of sin tax and sales tax. That is to say, it's the government that has the biggest cannabis shop, and everyone else is beholden to them. It works pretty much like tobacco and alcohol here.

How are taxes tipping the dealer? It's a fixed price you must pay. Do you give the dealer a small percentage beyond what you're required to pay to legally complete the transaction?

That is ~$5700 per pound. To put that into perspective, Beluga caviar, the most expensive caviar produced from the critically endangered Beluga sturgeon, is apparently only ~$4000 per pound and saffron, what is traditionally known as one of the most expensive bulk-produced spices, is ~$5000 per pound at retail. Tobacco, a reasonably close agricultural analog in the sense that you harvest the leaf for recreational drug use is ~$4000 a ton which, from perusing wholesale prices of agricultural products, is fairly close to the upper end of price per ton of a easily harvested agricultural product.

The pound should be cheaper because of bulk pricing. The smaller the amount, the more you're paying.

Edit: Even then, the wholesale price will be cheaper than the retail price.

Edit 2: "The U.S. Cannabis Spot Index increased 1.9% to $1,265 per pound.

The simple average (non-volume weighted) price increased $11 to $1,534 per pound, with 68% of transactions (one standard deviation) in the $679 to $2,390 per pound range."[1]

[1]https://www.cannabisbenchmarks.com/report-category/united-st...

Leaves vs flowers makes at least some difference.

How many ounces/grams of cannabis is equivalent to a 750ml bottle of wine?

It’s a hard equivalency to make because weed gets cheaper in larger quantities. Wine does too but not on the consumer side (unless for some reason you buy cases of the same bottle all at once)

I know how much wine costs. I got bottle of wine in a restaurant for $35, at grocery for $4, in Spain at grocery for 1 Euro and free with 10 Euro meal in Barcelona. I know what one bottle of wine makes to my body. I don't smoke weed and I don't know if 1/8th of cannabis is something I could use in one evening, so it would be equivalent of bottle of wine.

1/8th of what exactly? Is it an ounce? A pound?

I'm guessing an ounce.

What's funny for me is that in NZ, retail cannabis dealers typically work in units that start with monetary terms but then progress into imperial weight units.

So you can buy a foil/tinny ($20 - 25 worth), or a fifty bag ($50...), but after that you tend to start talking in terms of ounces - yeah mate, I'm after half an O, a couple of Os, etc.

And when you're you're buying from growers or wholesalers as a retail drug dealer, then you tend to work in pounds.

But then anyone measuring out a foil/fifty bag/half an O/an O/a pound will do so in grams. A foil is usually 0.9 - 1.2g, a fifty is 3 - 4g, half an O is well, half an ounce in grams (around 14g). Etc.

Meanwhile, methamphetamine has always been sold in metric, with the smallest unit available being a "point bag", 0.1g.

I always wonder if it's because cannabis culture in NZ predates the switch from imperial to metric that started in 1969 and finished up in 1976, whereas meth was very much a child of the definitely metric 90s.

Back in the day in the US (fifty years ago, say), the expression "dime bag", i.e $10 worth, was very common.

At the same time there was still "half a quarter" which we said for some reason instead of an eighth.

$50 for an 1/8th was also the price of good weed in the 90s. Seems like a sticky price.

The difference is how good a $50 eighth will get you these days.

Back in the day we'd pay 40 generally, regardless of it being mids or some good stuff. But the good stuff wasn't "take your choice of 97 different strains", that's for sure!

Brick weed less than 3 years old was the "good stuff" in my neck of the woods ~20 years ago, and it was probably a tenth or less potent than the average thc content now.

One tiny puff these days is all it takes for me to hit that sweet spot, but I've seen heavy users consume more than a gram of dab in ten minutes. We're in novel territory, with cbd and other isolated extracts letting people tailor the composition of their weed to fit the high they're after.

Psychedelics next, and hopefully blanket legalization within the next 3 decades.

Definitely not in California. They've been copping 1/8's at $20-$25 for the past couple decades.

When I went to humboldt state in the 90s $60 was the going rate for the ‘one hit wonder’ that was commonly available from the local growers…or so my friends used to tell me.

They used to have this harvest festival every year in Arcata which just so happened to fall on finals week which I found quite amusing.

Oh, and the reports on the local radio where people would call in where the DEA helicopters were operating were also fun.

That's exactly the same price as on the street/in a bar in Czechia. Considering the income difference, that's a good price!

Quality tends to be top-notch too.

People often forget that part. Sure it is just as expensive as before, but it's also so so much better than the brick weed you were able to get before.

With that pricing, the black market is sure to stick around.

Except it’s not: in Canada, legal sales have already surpassed illegal sales.

Stick around ≠ dominate, etc

I sincerely doubt that, especially considering the poor quality, legal marijuana that is available in Toronto and the distribution of dispensaries. This certainly isn't true here in the US, where it seems the only people who are buying at the dispensaries are people on vacation. Why pay $44 per ounce with a 30%+ tax when you can just call a friend?

Ontario started with a lottery system, out here in Alberta you'll see dispensaries like you see Tim Hortons.

I was curious if everyone was doing the lottery like Ontario - it seemed like an absolute mess and the quality was embarrassing.

That’s a good question. Northern Europe illegal cannabis prices are like $700 per ounce—I bet many people there would be happy to pay legally $60 per ounce instead.

Keep in mind this is pricing for an 1/8th. At my shop the discounts start piling on as soon as you get more:

1/8 -- $45

1/4 -- $70

OZ -- $120

The prices have dropped in the black market also. I assume a lot of dealers are buying wholesale or clearance product and reselling it in many cases. Either way, I have consistently noticed street prices being cheaper than dispensaries, and they don't include the 16-36% tax. Additionally, at least in the United States, people still seem extremely concerned with the process of having an ID scanned at the stores etc. I've watched people walk out because of it and almost -everyone- asks privacy-related questions.

So do dealers, at least around here.

Some prices mentioned in this thread looks like "tourist prices" from your average dealer.

Adjusted for inflation this seems cheap given we would pay $50 - $60 for an eighth of nice Canadian bud in Minnesota back in the early 2000’s. Mexican dirt weed was $20 back then but half the time it would taste like the inside of a gas tank.

So I recently moved from Georgia to Colorado. Had a dealer in GA and now in CO I just go to the local dispensary. One thing I realized very quickly is how competitive my dealer was to the places here. Average 1/8th (of an ounce) ran anywhere between $35 and $55 based on quality and I found that here in CO, the price is about the same.

I will say where the deal really is, is when you buy an ounce or more. For example you can get an 1/8th for around $45 at my local shop, but you can get an OZ for $135. Though the cheapest ounce I've found is around $80.

Sadly in Pennsylvania the medical market has steadily dropped the price of a gram to ~$6 average but the consumer price has not reflected this

I live between Israel and Colombia and you can buy more than an oz of pretty good weed for $44 in Colombia (more if you buy from a friend), and in Tel Aviv it's way crazier, you just go to a weed themed telegram channel based on whatever city you are in and they deliver it to you after you send them your info. A good 1/8th will be usually 50-100 dollars depending on deals

I thought that it's illegal in Israel

It is, it keeps almost not being, But the government is slow. However people smoke weed EVERYWHERE here. I smell marijuana every time I go outside almost. It is decriminalized so the police dont care at all unless you are literally selling it to kids on the street.

Canada legalized it, prices dropped a bit. 1/8th is around 40$ CDN

Ontario legal prices https://ocs.ca/collections/dried-flower?product=653604254702...

Quebec https:www.sqdc.ca black market around 30-40$ CDN (full @ 100-150)

The price of cannabis is too damn high!!

Like with alcohol, though, most hea ier consumers would choose less expensive options. $10-15/ eighth oz in Oregon, $15-20 in Washington or michigan, $20-$25 in California or Nevada or Colorado.

https://youtu.be/ly1lWkRwm6g

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