Weed Lifestyle

The Price Is Too High: Why Colorado Tokers Are Still Buying Illegal Weed, Source: http://www.hightimes.com/read/tokers-react-high-priced-legal-marijuana-sales-coloradoColorado is renowned as one of the few states with legal recreational cannabis. However, if you’re looking to toke in Colorado and you’re on a budget, the legal clinics might not be for you. Apparently the high prices of Colorado’s weed market are driving tokers back to the streets to get their cannabis.

Back in January when cannabis was just beginning to be legally sold in Colorado, excited tokers started flooding social media with pictures of their first legal cannabis purchase receipts. Instead of inspiring envy in their fellow weedists across the states, people online reacted with shock at how high the prices were. Legal dispensaries tax customers at whopping rates above 20% for their cannabis purchases, which makes going to a clinic for some herbs a wealthy tokers venture.

“$400 an ounce?” reacted one Twitter user to a picture of a receipt showing a total charge of $64.25 for an eighth ounce of Girl Scout Cookies. “You can keep your legalization if weed’s gonna cost $65/8th!” As a stoner on a budget, I share the same concern if legal cannabis means such high prices.

The Price Is Too High: Why Colorado Tokers Are Still Buying Illegal Weed, Source: http://www.summitdaily.com/csp/mediapool/sites/dt.common.streams.StreamServer.cls?STREAMOID=LsGLiEU97VJQxsHCBoyHGM$daE2N3K4ZzOUsqbU5sYs9kQgMz1_8IhPh6zlYXRVKWCsjLu883Ygn4B49Lvm9bPe2QeMKQdVeZmXF$9l$4uCZ8QDXhaHEp3rvzXRJFdy0KqPHLoMevcTLo3h8xh70Y6N_U_CryOsw6FTOdKL_jpQ-&CONTENTTYPE=image/jpegThese taxes are jacking up prices and sending the thrifty stoners back out to the streets to make their purchases. In an interview with Vocativ.com, one dealer shares his experience in the Colorado cannabis market. Jake, a black market cannabis dealer chasing the dream of selling weed in Denver, found that their was no shortage of customers on the street, despite all the legal dispensaries.

“I moved to Denver to grow weed, to get into the legal aspect of the business,” he explains. “Basically, the dispensaries force people to go in the streets to get their weed. A lot of people can’t afford to pay $50 for an eighth of weed. They can come here and get it for 20, 15 sometimes.” So Jake opted to sell weed the old fashion way, prohibition-style, on the streets where he claims to make just as much money, if not more, selling to Colorado’s street tokers.

Rachel Gillette, executive director of the Colorado chapter of NORML, attributes Colorado’s high prices to the novelty of legal cannabis in the market saying, “It’s a new industry, a new market. I think things will work themselves out in a few years. We saw the same thing happen with the medical marijuana industry before prices came down.” We can only hope so if legal and affordable cannabis is our goal for the country.