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Comment by prostoalex | Hacker News Reader

There was a pretty informative round table on cannabis business hosted on Jason Calacanis' This Week in Startups https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zZ8RgfTFzA&feature=youtu.be...

One useful quote from there is not to get euphoric over revenue figures - first few months "people are not buying marijuana, people are buying freedom". A variety of things, such as novelty effect, natural curiosity and even social currency accumulation (people who live in Colorado/Washington brag to their friends outside of those states) motivate the first purchases, you have to look at longer timeline to properly extrapolate the expected sales.

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People aren't purchasing freedom, they're purchasing convenience. And this isn't a new product. Also, as prices fall in the legal retail trade, shouldn't we expect more competition with the black market?

Currently, in CO, the legal retail prices are > than the black market was in the '90s. The black market is 50% of retail.

Both groups exist.

Think of the "buying freedom" bump as the bump that happens when a new restaurant opens. A lot of people buying pot for the first time (or the first time in a long time) probably don't really care about pot that much. Not enough to break the law to buy it. It's just fun to try something new.

Replacing "Pot" with "Norwegian Cuisine" is maybe a useful exercise. I'm in the group that doesn't care much about either (from the consumer standpoint). I wouldn't break the law to smoke pot, nor would I break the law to eat Norwegian food. But if either was suddenly legalized, of course I'd go try them out a few times, why not?

But that's my point...you're talking about a "few times" and not volume. Sure, some (at least 1) may purchase freedom, but compared to the convenience crowd (think Starbucks), freedom is a rounding error.

BTW, prior to legalization, there were more Medical Marijuana dispensaries in Boulder than coffee shops.

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