6 ms·

According to this the price will initially go up: http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/12/30/high-prices-for-getting-high-expected-as-colorado-opens-legal-

According to this the price will initially go up: http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/12/30/high-prices-for-getting-high-expected-as-colorado-opens-legal-pot-shops http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/12/30/high-prices-f... ...but since marijuana is literally a weed, why wouldn't the price eventually drop to something like that of tea? I mean, tea is harder to grow, process, and ship, and you can get it for 6 dollars a pound. Even the overpriced teavana stuff can go for as little as 40 dollars a pound.

oinksoft 13y ago
Is medical grade tea a thing? It takes a lot of skill and either great weather or a big investment in indoor growing equipment to grow a single medical plant. Comparing tea and cannabis prices doesn't make much sense.
- hollerith 13y ago
  Now stop that right now! :) I strongly doubt there is any such thing as "medical-grade" marijuana. "Medical marijuana" refers to pot sold in such as way as to shield the buyer and seller from criminal liability (by requiring a prescription from a health-care provider). No official or semi-official body is holding this medical marijuana to any standard. Heading off a potential nit: in the last year or two a new strain of pot much lower in THC and much higher in CDB has arrived on the scene, and some doctors are advising some patients to use that strain, but as far as I know, no one refers to that as medical marijuana.
  - ItendToDisagree 13y ago
    Doesn't 'Medical Grade' just mean high quality? IANAS but there are lots of different levels of quality right? Like in Pulp Fiction? "That one's a Wild Man."
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - dobbsbob 13y ago
      It just means highly potent, pro grown weed that is suitable for medical use. The expression comes from all those California legal grows who produce AAA weed as compared to shake/brickweed junk you get on the street
  - chimeracoder 13y ago
    > I strongly doubt there is any such thing as "medical-grade" marijuana. Actually, marijuana contains about 70 different cannabinoids. Different strains contain different ratios of these cannabinoids, and therefore different strains can be more (or less) effective for treating various ailments. Epileptics may require different strains from people suffering from chronic pain, for example. For people who have very specific medical needs, it is very helpful to have access to specific strains so that they can consume less and still reap the benefits.
  - oinksoft 13y ago
    High CBD/low THC strains are absolutely referred to as MMJ. They're being specifically cultivated and researched for medical uses (especially for epilepsy) in Israel and elsewhere. Also, calling the "medical" label a legal shield is bizarre. Medical cannabis is, as others commented, high-grade cannabis useful for treating serious conditions and helping cancer, AIDS, MS patients, etc. I'm sorry but I don't think you are informed on this topic at all.
    - hollerith 13y ago
      It's no big deal to me, but where I live, California, the phrase "medical marijuana" has been in general use for at least 15 years, with the meaning I indicated, whereas ISTR the high CBD/low THC strains are only about 2 years old. ADDED. You seem to have taken my comment as an attack on the ability of people with medical problems to get marajuana, but it was not meant that way -- and in fact, I'm for sick people's having that ability -- though I have not made a deep analysis of the issue (and there is a chance that such a deep analysis would change my mind). I just do not like to see a word that has been used in one way -- by many journalists and commentators and by the general public -- used in a confusingly different way.
lotharbot 13y ago
The "tea" you get for 6 dollars a pound in the US is, generally speaking, the crumbs and fragments leftover from making actually good tea. Wouldn't surprise me if you could also eventually get crumb-and-fragment grade pot for 6 bucks a pound. There's still a market for legitimately high grade tea (not Teavana). I'm interested to see what sort of market develops, over time, for legitimately high-grade MJ here in Colorado.
- squintychino 13y ago
  Could you recommend a good place online to order good "tea"? I'd seriously like to try some to get a sense of what real tea is suppose to taste like.
  - borski 13y ago
    Check out http://tealet.com http://tealet.com
    - MWil 13y ago
      Based on the above comment I was expecting like $20/lb tea...not $275/lb. I just checked and I got a box of Bigelow from Food Lion (don't judge). Based on the net weight on the box, it's a little under $35/lb granted it is a small box so buying in bulk would definitely bring that down. So I can't imagine what $6/lb tea would taste like but I'm not sure I can justify $275/lb either. This is my cheap-ass tea by the way: http://www.amazon.com/Bigelow-English-Teatime-Tea-20-Count/dp/B000GG0BN4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1388607850&sr=8-1&keywords=bigelow+black+tea http://www.amazon.com/Bigelow-English-Teatime-Tea-20-Count/d... Feel free to suggest something that might amount to a 2x-5x price increase rather than 10x.
      - matsur 13y ago
        http://uptontea.com http://uptontea.com is somewhere in between and has not disappointed the few times I've ordered from them.
Alex3917 13y ago
> since marijuana is literally a weed, why wouldn't the price eventually drop to something like that of tea? It will, plus whatever extra for taxes and regulatory compliance. But it will be the same as with fruit, where what you see in stores are the A-grade products, and the B- and C-grade products get turned into food, beverages, industrial materials, etc.
shalmanese 13y ago
The difference that will be interesting is that the relative potency of the two drugs is completely different. At $6 a lb weed, the cost of a joint will be about 4 cents (3 cents for the rolling paper, 1 cent for the weed).
rbobby 13y ago
The price will drop significantly when large scale production occurs. Large scale production will be limited until the legal risks are known and quantified. For the near future federal law will continue to expose investors to a significant risk of imprisonment. However, expect the price to drop moderately as legal sales expand and small "mom & pop" grow operations are replaced by more efficient moderate sized operations that are willing to accept the risk and have the cash on hand needed to bootstrap.
cookiecaper 13y ago
There's still significant risk in grow operations because it's still a federal crime. The Obama administration has chosen not to enforce that law for the time being, but that can change on a moment's notice, and is likely to change if a conservative attains office (which will probably happen in 2016). Furthermore, even when done legally, there is significant regulatory burden on a state-sanctioned grow. You're correct that ultimately marijuana will probably be really cheap, but we have to wait for the rest of the drug enforcement apparatus to become irrelevant.
- rmc 13y ago
  Hang on, can you explain this to a European? How can something be legal and illegal?!
  - kansface 13y ago
    State/Federal laws and law enforcement.
  - steffan 13y ago
    In (two, I believe) U.S. states, marijuana has been decriminalized. That is, enforcement won't be applied at the state [roughly equivalent to a province] level. At the Federal [National] level, however, there are still laws that prohibit this. The result of this is that while you can be doing something for which you cannot be charged by the state, the Federal government has the ability to prosecute you at their discretion. This is where the risk comes in; you are at the mercy of the federal government to continue deciding that they won't enforce the federal laws in those states.
    - jMyles 13y ago
      Lots of states have decriminalized possession of cannabis (see this map: http://norml.org/states http://norml.org/states). Only two (or three, depending on how you view the legal status in Alaska) have laws that actually create a legal framework surrounding it (ie, "legalized it").
  - 13y ago
sliverstorm 13y ago
I like to compare it to beer rather than tea. You can make it for dirt cheap, but based on some research months ago, growing truly quality stuff is an art. So, like beer, I expect there will be Coors MJ, and there will be Microbrewery MJ. The former a baseline of reasonable quality for the price, the latter far nicer than anything John Doe can grow in his basement, probably complete with hydroponics and sophisticated monitoring. But for the time being, it will be expensive because of risk, ramp times, capital investment, etc.
- scardine 13y ago
  I don't know where you got your information. Yes, hydroponics and growing under artificial light is pretty hard - but farming MJ in the open is easy, the thing grows like grass.
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    farming MJ in the open is easy Yes, but supposedly being able to control the water & nutrients is good for premium quality.

oinksoft 13y ago

Is medical grade tea a thing? It takes a lot of skill and either great weather or a big investment in indoor growing equipment to grow a single medical plant. Comparing tea and cannabis prices doesn't make much sense.

hollerith 13y ago
Now stop that right now! :) I strongly doubt there is any such thing as "medical-grade" marijuana. "Medical marijuana" refers to pot sold in such as way as to shield the buyer and seller from criminal liability (by requiring a prescription from a health-care provider). No official or semi-official body is holding this medical marijuana to any standard. Heading off a potential nit: in the last year or two a new strain of pot much lower in THC and much higher in CDB has arrived on the scene, and some doctors are advising some patients to use that strain, but as far as I know, no one refers to that as medical marijuana.
- ItendToDisagree 13y ago
  Doesn't 'Medical Grade' just mean high quality? IANAS but there are lots of different levels of quality right? Like in Pulp Fiction? "That one's a Wild Man."
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - dobbsbob 13y ago
    It just means highly potent, pro grown weed that is suitable for medical use. The expression comes from all those California legal grows who produce AAA weed as compared to shake/brickweed junk you get on the street
- chimeracoder 13y ago
  > I strongly doubt there is any such thing as "medical-grade" marijuana. Actually, marijuana contains about 70 different cannabinoids. Different strains contain different ratios of these cannabinoids, and therefore different strains can be more (or less) effective for treating various ailments. Epileptics may require different strains from people suffering from chronic pain, for example. For people who have very specific medical needs, it is very helpful to have access to specific strains so that they can consume less and still reap the benefits.
- oinksoft 13y ago
  High CBD/low THC strains are absolutely referred to as MMJ. They're being specifically cultivated and researched for medical uses (especially for epilepsy) in Israel and elsewhere. Also, calling the "medical" label a legal shield is bizarre. Medical cannabis is, as others commented, high-grade cannabis useful for treating serious conditions and helping cancer, AIDS, MS patients, etc. I'm sorry but I don't think you are informed on this topic at all.
  - hollerith 13y ago
    It's no big deal to me, but where I live, California, the phrase "medical marijuana" has been in general use for at least 15 years, with the meaning I indicated, whereas ISTR the high CBD/low THC strains are only about 2 years old. ADDED. You seem to have taken my comment as an attack on the ability of people with medical problems to get marajuana, but it was not meant that way -- and in fact, I'm for sick people's having that ability -- though I have not made a deep analysis of the issue (and there is a chance that such a deep analysis would change my mind). I just do not like to see a word that has been used in one way -- by many journalists and commentators and by the general public -- used in a confusingly different way.

lotharbot 13y ago

The "tea" you get for 6 dollars a pound in the US is, generally speaking, the crumbs and fragments leftover from making actually good tea. Wouldn't surprise me if you could also eventually get crumb-and-fragment grade pot for 6 bucks a pound. There's still a market for legitimately high grade tea (not Teavana). I'm interested to see what sort of market develops, over time, for legitimately high-grade MJ here in Colorado.

squintychino 13y ago
Could you recommend a good place online to order good "tea"? I'd seriously like to try some to get a sense of what real tea is suppose to taste like.
- borski 13y ago
  Check out http://tealet.com http://tealet.com
  - MWil 13y ago
    Based on the above comment I was expecting like $20/lb tea...not $275/lb. I just checked and I got a box of Bigelow from Food Lion (don't judge). Based on the net weight on the box, it's a little under $35/lb granted it is a small box so buying in bulk would definitely bring that down. So I can't imagine what $6/lb tea would taste like but I'm not sure I can justify $275/lb either. This is my cheap-ass tea by the way: http://www.amazon.com/Bigelow-English-Teatime-Tea-20-Count/dp/B000GG0BN4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1388607850&sr=8-1&keywords=bigelow+black+tea http://www.amazon.com/Bigelow-English-Teatime-Tea-20-Count/d... Feel free to suggest something that might amount to a 2x-5x price increase rather than 10x.
    - matsur 13y ago
      http://uptontea.com http://uptontea.com is somewhere in between and has not disappointed the few times I've ordered from them.

Alex3917 13y ago

> since marijuana is literally a weed, why wouldn't the price eventually drop to something like that of tea? It will, plus whatever extra for taxes and regulatory compliance. But it will be the same as with fruit, where what you see in stores are the A-grade products, and the B- and C-grade products get turned into food, beverages, industrial materials, etc.

shalmanese 13y ago

The difference that will be interesting is that the relative potency of the two drugs is completely different. At $6 a lb weed, the cost of a joint will be about 4 cents (3 cents for the rolling paper, 1 cent for the weed).

rbobby 13y ago

The price will drop significantly when large scale production occurs. Large scale production will be limited until the legal risks are known and quantified. For the near future federal law will continue to expose investors to a significant risk of imprisonment. However, expect the price to drop moderately as legal sales expand and small "mom & pop" grow operations are replaced by more efficient moderate sized operations that are willing to accept the risk and have the cash on hand needed to bootstrap.

cookiecaper 13y ago

There's still significant risk in grow operations because it's still a federal crime. The Obama administration has chosen not to enforce that law for the time being, but that can change on a moment's notice, and is likely to change if a conservative attains office (which will probably happen in 2016). Furthermore, even when done legally, there is significant regulatory burden on a state-sanctioned grow. You're correct that ultimately marijuana will probably be really cheap, but we have to wait for the rest of the drug enforcement apparatus to become irrelevant.

rmc 13y ago
Hang on, can you explain this to a European? How can something be legal and illegal?!
- kansface 13y ago
  State/Federal laws and law enforcement.
- steffan 13y ago
  In (two, I believe) U.S. states, marijuana has been decriminalized. That is, enforcement won't be applied at the state [roughly equivalent to a province] level. At the Federal [National] level, however, there are still laws that prohibit this. The result of this is that while you can be doing something for which you cannot be charged by the state, the Federal government has the ability to prosecute you at their discretion. This is where the risk comes in; you are at the mercy of the federal government to continue deciding that they won't enforce the federal laws in those states.
  - jMyles 13y ago
    Lots of states have decriminalized possession of cannabis (see this map: http://norml.org/states http://norml.org/states). Only two (or three, depending on how you view the legal status in Alaska) have laws that actually create a legal framework surrounding it (ie, "legalized it").
- 13y ago

sliverstorm 13y ago

I like to compare it to beer rather than tea. You can make it for dirt cheap, but based on some research months ago, growing truly quality stuff is an art. So, like beer, I expect there will be Coors MJ, and there will be Microbrewery MJ. The former a baseline of reasonable quality for the price, the latter far nicer than anything John Doe can grow in his basement, probably complete with hydroponics and sophisticated monitoring. But for the time being, it will be expensive because of risk, ramp times, capital investment, etc.

scardine 13y ago
I don't know where you got your information. Yes, hydroponics and growing under artificial light is pretty hard - but farming MJ in the open is easy, the thing grows like grass.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  farming MJ in the open is easy Yes, but supposedly being able to control the water & nutrients is good for premium quality.