The Rising Cost of Getting High

Our team came across this editorial published almost exactly 50 years ago called “The Rising Cost of Getting High.” It’s interesting to consider how the early cannabis market worked – long before med cards, designer genetics or dispensaries ever existed. It was an underground world of dealers, smugglers and middlemen working in the shadows to avoid getting busted by the law. Even though the laws have shifted in our favor, the fact is that demand for good flower remains higher and stronger than ever before. The “connoisseur market” didn’t start recently — it’s been driving pricing for decades. Different era — same game. However, the author notes that the increased demand has also brought about more access to quality and variety in our market, which means even though it’s getting more expensive, cannabis is also getting better.

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The Rising Cost of Getting High

A recent article in the New York Times credited the price rise to the growing purchasing power of those people who, a decade ago, began to get high in high school or college. Today, thousands of these smokers are affluent doctors, lawyers and professionals in every profitable field. Experienced connoisseurs, they can and will pay top dollar for high quality weed. Even younger consumers are prepared to pay for the status of high priced dope. And of course, most people would rather pay the price asked than go dopeless.

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Finally, the same inflation that has shaken the economy of the western world to its roots has produced a new generation of dealers-in reality, a new generation of middlemen whose risks are minimal in contrast to the profits they can make. But even this new breed does not justify the slanderous rumors of unscrupulous conspiracies among dealers to sit on warehouses full of weed to drive prices up. The fact is, few dealers are that cooperative or trusting, and most of them don’t dig ripoffs. It’s a rule of thumb in the black market that it is better to take a lower price than to get caught with the goods.

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Despite the cries of widows and orphans whose savings and pensions have been wiped out by the high cost of weed, the fact remains that your dope dollar often buys a better high today than it ever did in the past. Thai, Colombian, Hawaiian, Afghani, Lebanese, Congolese, cherry and honey hash oil- these smokes were not to be had for love nor money at the height of the Summer of Love. Who wants to return to the days of the $15 oregano-cut, short-weighted Mexican ounce, when you can have the whole world at the end of your roach clip?

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