Want cheap weed? Don't go to North Dakota, where you'll pay nearly $400 an ounce. You're far better off in Orgeon where the going rate is just $204. And while some evidence indicates that the tax-related markup on legal, recreational marijuana has driven buyers back into the black market, the average price per ounce looks to support the idea that legalization drives down prices.
As you can see from the map below, the mean price for an ounce of marijuana in the United States is $324, according to the subtly named “PriceOfWeed.com [5]”, a site which crowdsources average prices from users across the US, Canada, Europe, and Australia. Not coincidentally, the states where prices are lowest are also the states where recreational use is legal.
[6]
As a side note on taxation and legal marijuana, it appears that while some legal weed proprietors are happy to pay their fair share, the inconsistencies between state and federal laws make the reality anything but equitable.
Via NY Times [7]:
Dispensary owners who once feared raids by drug enforcement agents say they take pride in paying taxes like any other business. They say it brings them out of the shadows and distinguishes them from the black market. Marijuana advocates trumpet tax-collection numbers to show that the industry is pouring millions of dollars into state budgets.
“It is the last domino that has to fall for us to be treated like any other business in the country,” said Tim Cullen, a co-owner of five marijuana shops in Colorado. “We’re not a black-market cocaine dealer. We’re totally on board and on the level. We’d like to be treated as such.”
A normal business, for example, might pay a 30 percent federal rate on its taxable income, which would represent its gross income minus deductible business expenses. A marijuana business, on the other hand, might pay the same federal rate on all of its gross income because it cannot take these deductions. The difference can raise the rate on a marijuana business to 70 percent or more of its profits.
Whatever the case may be, we suspect the widespread legalization of marijuana wouldn't be the worst thing that could happen to the US right now because although the $53 million in tax revenue Colorado took in during the first year of legalization was underwhelming by some estimates, the massive underfunded pension liabilities and gross fiscal mismanagement that plague the country’s state [8] and local [9] governments seem to suggest that every little bit of incremental revenue would help especially if legalization saves on drug enforcement costs.
