Written By Emily Gray Brosious
(Photo credit: Jason Langley/Corbis)
Emerging data shows marijuana prices are getting a lot cheaper in states where the drug is legal.
In the two years since Washington legalized marijuana for recreational sales and consumption, marijuana prices have been dropping sharply, according to a new report from The Washington Post.Marijuana price data from the Washington Liquor and Cannabis Board show retail and wholesale marijuana prices in the state have both dropped significantly since legalization.
Prices “are now steadily falling at about 2 percent per month. If that trend holds, prices may fall 25 percent each year going forward,” Steve Davenport of the Pardee RAND Graduate School told The Washington Post.
Davenport aggregated the price data along with Jonathan Caulkins, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University.
Washington is one of four states, plus the District of Columbia, that have legalized marijuana for recreational use.
And given the price data coming from Washington, readers might not be too surprised to learn that marijuana prices in those other states where weed is legal (even black market marijuana in those states) are way cheaper than weed prices in states where the drug remains illegal, as reported by VICE.
“When people purchase marijuana and other illegal drugs, they are largely compensating the dealer and everyone else along the supply chain for their risk of arrest and incarceration,” RAND Drug Policy Research Center Co-Director Beau Kilmer told VICE News.
“With legalization, those risks are eliminated. Legalizing marijuana and allowing it to be industrially farmed like any other agricultural commodity will cause the production and distribution costs to eventually plummet.”Although the prices of marijuana flowers may eventually plummet if the drug is legalized nationwide, the marijuana market would also likely see an influx of more expensive, higher-end marijuana product offerings, such as extracts, edibles and specialty strains.
No comments:
Post a Comment