Friday, February 21, 2014

Sticker Shock for Pot in Colorado

New budget numbers predict that marijuana taxes in Colorado could add more than $100 million a year to state coffers, far more than earlier estimates.

A $30.00 eighth-ounce bag of marijuana in Colorado will have about $8.59 in taxes appended to it. In other words, a 29% tax rate. Meaning it costs $308.72 for an ounce of legal weed (Forbes has the break down)

It Southern California it used to cost $10 for a big fat 5-finger lid of Acapulco Gold™ in the summer of '69, when it came from Mexico. With inflation, that same ounce should only cost $63.74 an ounce today.

But according to PriceOfWeed.Com, here are today's average prices in California:

  • High Quality: $248.05 /oz.
  • Medium Quality: $192.89 /oz.
  • Low Quality: $191.19 / oz.

Whereas today in Perkasie, Pennsylvania, an ounce of medium quality herb can still be had for $20.

An ounce of pot in Colorado today costs more than what you could buy a kilo for 40 years ago (A kilo is 2.2 pounds, or just over 35 ounces.)

According to NBC News, retailers in Colorado have been selling top-shelf marijuana at close to $400 an ounce. For some perspective, that’s about twice the price of medical marijuana.

On the black market, an ounce of high-grade marijuana sells for about $237 in Colorado, according to PriceOfWeed.Com (the site that bills itself as the "global price index for marijuana.")

Colorado's Gov. John W. Hickenlooper estimated that the state’s marijuana industry could reach $1 billion in sales in the next fiscal year, with recreational sales making up about $610 million of that business.

Officials have said that expanding the market for the federally prohibited plant could give states money for health care and substance-abuse programs.

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