Low-cost highs: Price of legal marijuana plunges in Washington state

(RT) Recreational marijuana use has been legal in Washington State for two years, and while sales of the drug have been filling public coffers with tax revenues, the prices for pot have also been shrinking considerably.

As of March 2016, the price of legal marijuana in Washington was $9.32 per gram, the Washington Post reported, citing data from the state’s Liquor and Cannabis board. The wholesale price of the drug was $2.99 per gram.

In September 2014, pot was selling for about $25 per gram, according to a report from KUOW News. By August 2015, marijuana prices had plunged more than 50 percent to $11 per gram.

Although prices initially went up after the drug was legalized, that surge was linked to increased demand and limited supply, according to Steve Davenport of the Pardee RAND Graduate School, who helps aggregate data from the Washington’s cannabis board. Since then, prices have been coming down at a rate of 2 percent per month, he told the Post, and they could potentially shrink 25 percent every year.

“It’s just a plant,” Professor Jonathan Caulkins, of Carnegie Mellon University, who works with Davenport, told the newspaper. He said the drug could become so inexpensive that certain types are essentially given away for free.

“There will always be the marijuana equivalent of organically grown specialty crops sold at premium prices to yuppies,” he said, “but at the same time, no-frills generic forms could become cheap enough to give away as a loss leader – the way bars give patrons beer nuts and hotels leave chocolates on your pillow.”

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    3.00 A GRAM THATS THE SHIT IM MOVING TO WASHINGTON
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