6 ms·

What is the true street value of Marijuana?

18 points by coryl 16y ago

petervandijck 16y ago
Finally a use for crowdsourcing!
mpk 16y ago
As this is a global project, you might want to make grams an option.
shrikant 16y ago
Why do I see only 3 Kent options in my drop-down? Screencap: http://i.imgur.com/mBKi9.jpg http://i.imgur.com/mBKi9.jpg
- coryl 16y ago
  The geoIP detection isn't perfect unfortunately, we use your IP and try to show the best guesses with the database we have. If you could tell me your location it would help in trying to improve it. Thanks
  - contergan 16y ago
    What geoIP database are you using?
    - coryl 16y ago
      http://ipinfodb.com/ip_database.php http://ipinfodb.com/ip_database.php
  - shrikant 16y ago
    [..] we use your IP and try to show the best guesses with the database we have. So if I'd blazed up in LA or Copenhagen or Brussels, then gone back home to Bangalore and discovered this site, I wouldn't be able to enter data? I'm in London now, fwiw.
    - coryl 16y ago
      Not at the moment, but perhaps in the future.
coryl 16y ago
This is a project my friend and I launched to answer some curiosities we have about the real street value of marijuana. I got the idea after watching a National Geographic documentary on Marijuana where they gave some interesting but not totally believable figures about the price of marijuana as it travels across borders, facing different economic/legal statuses from state to state. I realized nobody really knows the price or street value, as the flow of information is nearly none due to its black market status.
- harmonik 16y ago
  Think you could open the results to the public? or am I missing a link?
  - coryl 16y ago
    We're showing last 10 now, we'll make a page that shows all posts and maybe some googlemaps/visualizations.
russell 16y ago
The current price is high because the supply is constrained. If CA Proposition 19 passes, the price is probably going to drop by an order of magnitude. The dreams of the tax revenue rescuing the state are going to vanish. (No citation because I pulled this out of my nether regions.)
- burnout1540 16y ago
  The tax revenue won't vanish if the price goes down. I'm sure the legislature will use a flat tax of a certain amount like they do for gasoline. It doesn't matter if gasoline costs $0.99 or $3.99, California still gets 64.5 cents per gallon.
- tptacek 16y ago
  Pricing is probably disrupted more by the inefficiency of the market; like most people, if I wanted to buy an eighth tomorrow, how would I know whether $50, $75, or $250 was a good price? Which is to say that there are least two factors (scarcity and lack of transparency) artificially inflating pricing. On the other hand, in a truly free market for tobacco, a pack of American Spirits might only cost a buck or two; nicotine is our one and only drug-war success, and I think the state has demonstrated that it can extract profits from vice goods if it wants to. You'd still pay $75 (is that the right price?) for an 1/8 if that was the only legal way to do it, even if you could get it illegally for $30. At least, I would.
  - mikemol 16y ago
    (pedantic) For a physical object, scarcity isn't inherently an artificially inflating factor. Enforced scarcity is a different matter. (/pedantic)
    - NateLawson 16y ago
      This doesn't make sense. Whether scarcity is enforced or natural, it's the demand & supply that drives the price inflation. The reason for scarcity (lack of supply) does not come into play during a static economic analysis. It's only in a dynamic analysis that the "enforced" part comes into play, usually because it is easier to get around artificial scarcity than discover new resources (natural scarcity).
hysterix 16y ago
This is a really cool idea! Unfortunately it is difficult to check this for any accuracy. It is not clear what is low, medium, and high quality, perhaps a strain name for example? (high quality - og kush) etc. I noticed the prices were wrong in California as well, hence I bring up my point about accuracy. Cool idea, I think you just need lots and lots of people to average it all out.
- coryl 16y ago
  I think most people can at least tell the difference between good and bad quality. Average/medium is slightly harder, so it might be more useful to group medium with high. For the most part, the entries look accurate to me. I noticed a lot of variance in California as well, I'm wondering if thats because some people are buying legally (medical), some not. My hypothesis is that the overall price should drop from before, but now we have two different supply and demand graphs because the number of licenses for buying and growing is limited.

18 points by coryl 16y ago

petervandijck 16y ago

Finally a use for crowdsourcing!

mpk 16y ago

As this is a global project, you might want to make grams an option.

shrikant 16y ago

Why do I see only 3 Kent options in my drop-down? Screencap: http://i.imgur.com/mBKi9.jpg http://i.imgur.com/mBKi9.jpg

coryl 16y ago
The geoIP detection isn't perfect unfortunately, we use your IP and try to show the best guesses with the database we have. If you could tell me your location it would help in trying to improve it. Thanks
- contergan 16y ago
  What geoIP database are you using?
  - coryl 16y ago
    http://ipinfodb.com/ip_database.php http://ipinfodb.com/ip_database.php
- shrikant 16y ago
  [..] we use your IP and try to show the best guesses with the database we have. So if I'd blazed up in LA or Copenhagen or Brussels, then gone back home to Bangalore and discovered this site, I wouldn't be able to enter data? I'm in London now, fwiw.
  - coryl 16y ago
    Not at the moment, but perhaps in the future.

coryl 16y ago

This is a project my friend and I launched to answer some curiosities we have about the real street value of marijuana. I got the idea after watching a National Geographic documentary on Marijuana where they gave some interesting but not totally believable figures about the price of marijuana as it travels across borders, facing different economic/legal statuses from state to state. I realized nobody really knows the price or street value, as the flow of information is nearly none due to its black market status.

harmonik 16y ago
Think you could open the results to the public? or am I missing a link?
- coryl 16y ago
  We're showing last 10 now, we'll make a page that shows all posts and maybe some googlemaps/visualizations.

russell 16y ago

The current price is high because the supply is constrained. If CA Proposition 19 passes, the price is probably going to drop by an order of magnitude. The dreams of the tax revenue rescuing the state are going to vanish. (No citation because I pulled this out of my nether regions.)

burnout1540 16y ago
The tax revenue won't vanish if the price goes down. I'm sure the legislature will use a flat tax of a certain amount like they do for gasoline. It doesn't matter if gasoline costs $0.99 or $3.99, California still gets 64.5 cents per gallon.
tptacek 16y ago
Pricing is probably disrupted more by the inefficiency of the market; like most people, if I wanted to buy an eighth tomorrow, how would I know whether $50, $75, or $250 was a good price? Which is to say that there are least two factors (scarcity and lack of transparency) artificially inflating pricing. On the other hand, in a truly free market for tobacco, a pack of American Spirits might only cost a buck or two; nicotine is our one and only drug-war success, and I think the state has demonstrated that it can extract profits from vice goods if it wants to. You'd still pay $75 (is that the right price?) for an 1/8 if that was the only legal way to do it, even if you could get it illegally for $30. At least, I would.
- mikemol 16y ago
  (pedantic) For a physical object, scarcity isn't inherently an artificially inflating factor. Enforced scarcity is a different matter. (/pedantic)
  - NateLawson 16y ago
    This doesn't make sense. Whether scarcity is enforced or natural, it's the demand & supply that drives the price inflation. The reason for scarcity (lack of supply) does not come into play during a static economic analysis. It's only in a dynamic analysis that the "enforced" part comes into play, usually because it is easier to get around artificial scarcity than discover new resources (natural scarcity).

hysterix 16y ago

This is a really cool idea! Unfortunately it is difficult to check this for any accuracy. It is not clear what is low, medium, and high quality, perhaps a strain name for example? (high quality - og kush) etc. I noticed the prices were wrong in California as well, hence I bring up my point about accuracy. Cool idea, I think you just need lots and lots of people to average it all out.

coryl 16y ago
I think most people can at least tell the difference between good and bad quality. Average/medium is slightly harder, so it might be more useful to group medium with high. For the most part, the entries look accurate to me. I noticed a lot of variance in California as well, I'm wondering if thats because some people are buying legally (medical), some not. My hypothesis is that the overall price should drop from before, but now we have two different supply and demand graphs because the number of licenses for buying and growing is limited.