Study: Pot prices may decline up to 80 pct. after California legalization

best news I have seen on here, time to move to CA.

The study is faulty. Unless they take into account the taxes that would be added to the product it is bogus to imagine prices.

Back in the early 1970's, the price for an ounce of killer Columbian Gold was 25-30 dollars, and pounds went for no more than 200-300 depending on your source. Of course there was a huge supply, with the borders virtually unprotected against smuggling.

Nowadays, the price could stabilize to about 50 dollars an ounce, before taxes, as the growing would be legal. the with taxes an ounce would run about 200 dollars. Now with it being illegal, according to High Times, people are paying about350-400 per ounce. That would be cut in half with lagalization, to about 200 or less.

Competition would enable deals to be made for lesser prices depending on the growing industry and how they decide to cooperate and stabilize prices so the market does not bottom out.

Being legal means that the market forces that are applied to all other products would also be used for cannabis and sooner or later a stable price would settle down ...and it would be a LOT less than now.

That means that all the millions of people who use cannabis would have extra income for other products, which would help the entire economy.

If you can get an ounce for 200 dollars instead of 400, that gives you 200 more to spend on other things...good deal for all.

I don't see how this will lower any prices.

Legalization, will not stop greed.

I know people, who can by an lb of marijuana for $300, definately not some "boom boom pow", but definately not "commercial schwag" either.

Do they sell it for a slight mark up to make a profit?

No, they sell it for $700-$1000.

Why?

Probably the same reason a pair of Air Jordan's cost $4 to make, yet they are sold for $150.

reply to post by GreenBicMan


I totally agree cops wouldn't enforce it. However the federal govt has got to get their hands in it somehow. There would have to be some federal tax or regulation or license of some kind. The govt is never content to not get involved in this type of thing.

I also think if Cali were to legalize pot that the Feds would tax it. The really weird part of that is that how can they tax something that would still be federally illegal?

Originally posted by robbinsj
best news I have seen on here, time to move to CA.

My community (CA) has already banned growing it in your garden.

And who really believes the vote wont be fixed?

And even if it passes, the feds can still prosecute if they want to.

Jerry Brown can appeal the decision and tie it up in court for years,just to show he is tough on drugs.

I will believe it if I am smoking it.

Legalization will probably lead to differernt grades and prices of pot on the market, just like a bottle of wine.

Up here in BC we apparently grow the best pot in the world (est annual crop $7 Billion), and that is apparently where most of the pot in Ca. comes from. That said, I can't see our local thug and Hell's Angel dealers lowering their price.

[edit on 9-7-2010 by leo123]

[edit on 9-7-2010 by leo123]

The whole thing is a joke and i do not think it will pass. The they can still tax it through income tax, adding a specific MJ tax would be tricky. People also do not understand between fully legal and legal for medical use. Morphine for example is okay for medical use but illegal to have otherwise. Even if it does become legal it will not change much, it will be about as legal as alcohol and the people who currently use it will continue to use it and those who do not want to use it still will not. Then there will be city ordinances to deal with. As it is right now in many claifornia cities it is becoming illegal to smoke tobacco everywhere besides your own house and someplaces do not even allow that. It is also illegal to drink pretty much anywhere besides a bar, reasturaunt and private residence except for special occasions.
To add to this Federal anti-discrimination laws don’t protect anyone outside the area of race,color, creed, sexual preference, disability, age or religion. So you can be a Black-white mix, scientologist-neo pagan-buddhist-satanist-atheist-christian mixed philosophy religion, transgender with a homosexual preference, leggless and 70 years old. They can't refuse to hire you because of that but they can if you smoke or drink. There are a lot of places now that are refusing to hire people who smoke tobacco so they can refuse to hire people who smoke or use pot.
If it becomes legal for medical use only nothing will really change, with it be seen as legitimate medicine pot would be seen as a narcotic drug and it would become heavily regulated like pain killers. I would expect to see many of these doctor's offices that exist only to perscribe pot to be shut down.

Duh!

And is it news the violent criminals are in it for the easy, high profit margins, too?

And this will mean they have to go elsewhere or get legit?

But what would we do if there weren't 23,000 Mexicans getting hacked to death by drug traffickers over the past few years?

Do you think that might help the Mexican economy, by making productive enterprise more close in compensation to drug agriculture?

Moralisms make people braindead.
Doubly so in Mexico.

WOW!!! $40 a OZ?!?! I just jizzed my pants

Update:
Don't everybody get your hopes up for this just yet. Source

Poll: Californians Narrowly Oppose Legalizing Marijuana

Jul 9 2010, 11:58 AM ET | Comment
Californians will vote this fall on whether or not marijuana should be legal in some parts of the state. What will they decide?

Polling on marijuana in California was scarce before the Tax Cannabis campaign officially ramped up, but in the past few months more legitimate surveys have been conducted, and we're getting a clearer picture of whether people actually want to make the leap and let counties legalize and tax pot.

More polling is out today: Californians narrowly oppose legalization, by a margin of 48% to 44%, in the latest survey from Field, which described Proposition 19 in an accurate fashion and then asked people how they'd vote.

The issue is fairly divisive, and everyone seems to have an opinion. Only 8% were undecided, and 77% of voters have heard of it (by comparison, 63% have an opinion on Senate candidate Carly Fiorina). Field polled 1,005 likely voters June 22-July 5, with a +/-3.2% margin of error.

Originally posted by ~Lucidity
Yes, prices will drop for a minute, until they get the sin and other taxes slapped on. And until production goes big business. And until Monsanto starts manipulating the seeds. Just a guess. It probably will curb some of the violence until they find something else to fight over or replace it with coc aine or something.

There would be too many individual growers for them too manipulate all the seeds...

People would just use eachothers plants or however you do it to avoid tainted monsanto seeds.

Originally posted by ThaLoccster
I don't see how this will lower any prices.

Legalization, will not stop greed.

I know people, who can by an lb of marijuana for $300, definately not some "boom boom pow", but definately not "commercial schwag" either.

Do they sell it for a slight mark up to make a profit?

No, they sell it for $700-$1000.

Why?

Probably the same reason a pair of Air Jordan's cost $4 to make, yet they are sold for $150.

You are making a fundamental error; you are comparing the prices when illegal...when it is legal, the prices MUST drop. Why? Because many people would grow it who would not when illegal, thus increasing the supply. Also, competition would mean that if your pal is selling a pound for 1000 dollars, Joe grower will sell one for 500...then your pal will either sell cheaper or use it all himself.

Your Air Jordan example is also totally wrong to use; the company that makes Air Jordans has the ONLY supply on earth under than name and can demand what they want. If you could produce an exact copy of the Air shoes you could sell them for 20 bucks and make 16...right?

You simply do not understand market forces and competition based selling or you would not have made the statements you did...increased supply ALWAYS leads to lower prices..increased competition ALWAYS leads to lower prices...that why they have laws against monopolies setting prices for any market.

Think about it: If 10 million people began growing cannabis when legalized, the supply would be vaqst, and thus the prices lower. It is the same no matter what: If Jimmy is selling for 100 bucks, then Johnny cannot charge 110...get it?

reply to post by Wayne60


Back to the old days, well almost anyway. It used to be around 20 and oz.

Literally overnight, it became available in 1/4's , at 40.

You guys have failed to consider the Big Pharma factor. If they get their grubby hands on it then we would simply be trading a illegal cartel for an legal one and the situation would get no better. In fact, I'd bet they would screw it all up and make it much worse than it already is.

Here's a good article from Rolling Stone that was posted in a dead thread here a while back. There is nothing simple about this, no easy answers, as the article shows.

Marijuana America

reply to post by Revolution-2012


Even then, that would still drive prices lower if people are actually demanding higher quality from the growers.

As far as price, 300$ an oz? Wow, you all are getting robbed blind.

Canada is where it's at.

I've never seen it more than 200$, and that was after large scale busts when supply was low and demand was high.

~Keeper

Originally posted by TheLoony
You guys have failed to consider the Big Pharma factor. If they get their grubby hands on it then we would simply be trading a illegal cartel for an legal one and the situation would get no better. In fact, I'd bet they would screw it all up and make it much worse than it already is.

Here's a good article from Rolling Stone that was posted in a dead thread here a while back. There is nothing simple about this, no easy answers, as the article shows.

Marijuana America

The beautiful thing about it is that big pharma can't get their hands on it. You can't patent a natural substance, sure they will grow it, but they'll never be succesfull in gaining wide market consumption compared to the private growers.

There won't be any money in it for them, which is why it is illegal right now in the first place. That and the industry greed with paper and textile.

~Keeper

A lot of people seem to think that growing good, never mind excellent, pot consists merely of throwing seeds in the ground or a pot, adding water and a few nutrients and letting nature take its course.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Indoor is energy intensive and requires constant environmental monitoring, produces a quality product on a regular schedule that is consistent in flavor, texture, aroma, and potency. All those features may be shifted by changing the variables. So you have good to excellent raw buds manufactured to a pattern, the equivalent of good to excellent beer. What happens after harvest determines the overall quality, flavor, potency and longevity of the end product.

Outdoor is less energy intensive but more variable, more demanding, requireing a deep understanding of soil, climate, bugs and diseases. It is more akin to growing wine in that there is one main season, individual colas ripen at different times and in different ways, and each plant develops its own characteristics dependent on location, immediate soil conditions and the interactions between plant and grower. Truly medicinal pot needs the full, natural growing process to develop the complexities that provide the best medicinal qualities.

In both cases, proper trimming, drying, and curing is required to develop the best of the product. This is where indoor/outdoor most obviously diverge: indoor is a manufactured product meant to be processed quickly and easily for retail sale by the gram, that is why you see mostly naked bud in the medical shops. This style of trimming loses a lot of the the resins and degrades rather quickly due to exposure to air, so it's good that it is consumed swiftly.

Outdoor is trimmed for larger sale and has the smaller outer leaves left to dry around the buds, locking in the resins, flavor, and potency until the bud is consumed. It is still attached to the stem, which keeps the cola fresher and allows for further curing. It therefore has a longer shelf life (actually, jar life).

My point is that growing, trimming, and curing good to excellent pot requires skill, knowledge, and experience, as well as patience and dedication.

Legalization will open new markets, good product will take awhile to emerge and stabilize, so I'm pretty sure that prices will be all over the lot for awhile, but eventually will settle in the $150-500 per ounce range exclusive of taxes. Indoor factory operations will fill the low-end market for the most part, and small growers with expertise will dominate the high end.

Most people have no idea of the quality available to a select few from small ops: their product doesn't travel far. When these growers come out of the closet, their product will be in high demand, but available only in limited quantitites, like fine wines, cognac, and scotch.


But $40 an ounce? Not economically feasible as far as I can see. Fixed costs would preclude it.

reply to post by apacheman


Good reply, dude.

Though I disagree with what people on here generally think about what would happen if weed was legalized. I seriously doubt people will allow their weed to be taxed and controlled, or become manufactured at all for corporate profit. And if it did, then you can rest assured that the corporate weed would be a truly harmful substance, not just for body but also for the mind.

Marijuana is not just a plant, it is a symbol of the revolution. Why? Because when you smoke it, it gives you the ability to perceive the world around you in a different manner. This is scary for governments because they work so hard to control you into only thinking in their way of life (also known as introjection)... same reason why fluoride is in your toothpaste and if you can avoid the toothpaste you'll be glad to find it in your drinking water.

When weed becomes fully decriminalized it will bring more common sense into the Western world, the only thing stopping this social revolution is globalization and the morons who support it.

Do they not teach Econ 101 in high school anymore?

The most direct effects of prohibitions are on the supply and demand for the prohibited commodity.4 Prohibitions raise supply costs because black market suppliers face legal punishments for manufacturing, distributing, and selling. Conditional on operating in secret, however, black market suppliers face low marginal costs of evading government regulations and taxes (Miron 2001), which provides a partial offset to the increased costs due to prohibition.5 Prohibitions reduce demand by creating legal penalties for possession and by increasing uncertainty about product quality.6 Prohibitions also reduce demand if consumers exhibit "respect for the law." At the same time, prohibitions can increase demand through a "forbidden fruit" effect, meaning a tendency for consumers to desire that which has been forbidden to them. Thus, the effect of prohibitions on price and even quantity are ambiguous a priori and must be determined empirically.

In addition to affecting price and quantity, prohibitions potentially increase violent and non-violent crime. Participants in an illegal trade cannot use the legal and judicial system to resolve disputes, so they seek other methods such as violence. Enforcement of prohibitions means reduced resources for enforcement of non-prohibition laws, which implies reduced deterrence of crime generally. Prohibitions can increase income-generating crime, such as theft or prostitution, by raising prices if consumers finance consumption of the prohibited commodity from such crime. And prohibitions give black market suppliers an incentive to corrupt law enforcement officials and politicians. Despite these tendencies to increase crime, the net effect of prohibitions on crime can be negative if prohibitions discourage consumption of the prohibited good and if such consumption encourages criminal activity. Thus, the net effect of prohibitions on crime can only be determined empirically.

The "forbidden fruit" phenomenon is what's taking place with cannabis, increasing demand (comparative to the Netherlands where their attitude towards cannabis use has led to less users).

They have made supply as hard as they possibly can... and demand as high as they possibly can.

What kind of economic effect does this policy have?

The question raised by this result is why consumption did not fall more significantly, since conventional accounts suggest that alcohol prices rose by several hundred percent on average (Warburton (1932), Fisher (1928))

Why so much speculation when a fundamental understanding of supply and demand + knowing only a little bit of your country's history would squash this right away?

When cannabis is legalized, whenever that is, the price will go down. Tax or not. This has happened all before folks.


both quotes from: eh.net...