Society has not yet progressed to the point where you can pick up a bag of weed at every grocery store. Its scarcity and specificity can make it challenging to determine a reasonable price for a certain amount of weed. Some prices seem astronomically high, even if they’re actually a great deal. Some prices seem too low to pass up, but once you try the weed, you’ll realize that you’d have rather spent twice the amount for something better.
A lot goes into pricing weed. Growers and suppliers want to give their customers the best prices for the best products, just like retailers of anything else. There’s a lot you’ll want to consider when you’re looking at a price tag on an eighth of something fantastic.
What affects the price of weed?
We all carry around a little bit of the stigma of weed with us. Even people who know, love, and understand cannabis can sometimes fall into a thought trap of perceiving it as forbidden or clandestine, even though it’s becoming recreationally legal in many states.
It helps to think of weed just like you’d think of any other natural crop. It isn’t much different from apples. There are good apples and bad apples. There are sliced apples, apple sauce, caramel-covered apples, and apple pies. It can be used to create dozens of things, and the price of those things depends on the apples being used and how much work it took to turn them into the final product.
The quality of the weed
Weed grown in a pot of dirt and left to languish in the sun will probably be really cheap. It’s also probably going to be really bad. As more people are beginning to enjoy weed, the standards for quality have risen significantly. People want a plant that’s been deliberately bred for favorable traits, well-tended to, and harvested at the perfect time.
There’s even organic weed. Regular weed can be grown with pesticides, just like any other plant. Organic weed uses natural insecticides and fertilizers to produce a natural crop that’s, well, natural.
The overhead costs associated with growing the weed
Someone has to grow, tend, and harvest the weed. That person doesn’t do it as a hobby; they do it as a career. They’ve learned a lot, and they devote at least 40 hours of their week to creating the weed you will ultimately smoke. The price of your weed includes that person’s salary.
Like any professional, if they’re good at their job, they deserve a higher rate of pay. You’ll be able to tell the difference between an expertly cultivated weed and the shriveled, low potency buds produced by someone who doesn’t really know what they’re doing.
The overhead costs associated with selling the weed
Weed needs water, nutrients, sunlight or a hydroponics system, and a safe growing place. It needs to be harvested, packaged, or turned into a product and sent to a store where you’ll ultimately buy it. The people there have overhead costs. They need to keep the lights on and pay their employees. This also factors into the costs of your weed.
The way the weed has been prepared
Buying pure flower is always cheaper because no additional steps are performed. If you want shatter, a distillate, a vape cartridge, an edible, or a pre-roll, that requires more work and more supplies. Many people don’t mind paying a premium for products prepared with weed. It’s like going out to dinner instead of cooking at home. It’s easier to smoke a joint that’s already rolled or eat a pot brownie that someone else already baked. The convenience can’t be beaten.
Price varies from state to state
There is no centralized weed market, and we’re not at a point where international warehouses are shipping their weed freely to all 50 states. This means you have to buy your weed from the state that you’re in, and you’re subject to local market prices.
Because growers and suppliers in different states aren’t yet competing with growers and suppliers in other parts of the country, they’ll charge what they can get. Weed may be expensive or inexpensive in your state, depending on what competition is like in your local market.
Average ranges for every measurement of weed
Here’s the most important question: how expensive is your weed from Colorado to Washington DC? In general, weed is the least costly in Colorado. They adopted recreational cannabis much earlier, and their operations have expanded. Everyone is growing, and this makes the market highly competitive.
Recreational pot is also legal in Washington DC, but DC is small. There isn’t room for many growers, and there’s barely any place to grow it. This keeps the prices on the higher side.
A gram
On the Colorado side, a gram will run about $7. On the DC side, a gram will be about $18. The national average is about $9.
An eighth
A Colorado eighth averages out at $25, but the spectrum of prices brings us up to $65 in Washington DC. The national average is close to $35.
A quarter
A quarter ounce of weed goes for about $125 in Washington DC but is usually as low as $50 in Colorado. National averages suggest that the average consumer pays about $70 for a quarter.
A half-ounce
A half-ounce will be pretty pricey anywhere because half an ounce is a lot of weed. It’ll run you about $100 in Colorado and $250 in DC. The average price is around $130.
A half-ounce is where you start to notice that pricing averages won’t line up. When you reach a half ounce in quantity, retailers offer a slight discount for bulk purchases. It’s easier for them to sell a large amount of pure cannabis flower, so they don’t charge you as much when you purchase it.
If you’re the kind of person who has memberships to bulk warehouses, you’re also the kind of person who would want to purchase your weed half an ounce at a time. Half an ounce will likely last you several months. If you think you can use it all up before the six-month mark, it’ll stay fresh. You might as well go for it.
An ounce
Depending on which state you’re buying it in, an ounce will run you somewhere between $200 and $600. This is the most elastic price range.
You’re going to notice the most significant difference in prices between ounces. Ounces are often discounted as a bulk purchase, but the quality of the weed will always dictate the average price. A $200 ounce won’t always be something you love enough to actually use an ounce of. A $350 ounce might give you the best balance between price and quality.
How do I know my weed is worth it?
The concept of weed being “worth it” is very subjective. If you hate sativa, a quarter ounce of sativa is never worth it. It doesn’t matter how cheap it is. Weed is worth it if you like it enough to justify paying the amount you paid. It’s also worth it if you can’t find the exact same weed somewhere else for significantly less.
The best way to determine your “worth it” weeds is to sample very small quantities of things that look appealing to you. If you try something and find out you don’t like it, you’re not out that much. You also won’t have a bunch of leftover weed that you aren’t crazy about.
If you do like something and know you’ll want it all the time, you can buy it in a larger quantity and save by going the bulk route.
The takeaway
Weed isn’t as predictable in price as most readily available things you’d find at a store. The weed market is still coming together, and we won’t have accurate standards unless and until every state legalizes recreational pot. As long as the price you’re paying is reasonably close to the national average and you like the weed you’re getting, consider that weed to be worth it.
Do you know what’s really worth it? Emjay’s huge selection of cannabis products. We have whole flower, edibles, and pre-rolls of all your favorite strains. We also think our prices are very appealing. Plus, we’re willing to do something that your local dispensary probably isn’t — we’ll deliver your weed to you in half an hour or less. It can’t possibly be more worth it than that!
