For some reason, the $40 threshold is a concrete benchmark resistant even to inflation<\/a>, and a mark that retailers across the country recognize as meaningful for consumers. <\/p>\n Pricing has as much to do with psychology and conditioning as it does market forces, but the remarkable stability of retail cannabis prices begs a question\u2014and also spells trouble for small and medium-sized producers in the cannabis industry, where more than one-third of businesses claim they\u2019re not profitable, according to a recent survey<\/a>. <\/p>\n In mature, flooded markets such as California\u2019s, where the price of a sungrown pound of cannabis on the wholesale market has plummeted from thousands of dollars in the pre-legalization and medical-only eras to $500 per pound (or less), most of these savings have not been passed onto consumers. And in the instances when they look like they are\u2014with your $90 ounce of shake, or your $25 discount eighth\u2014what you\u2019re really seeing is dirt-cheap production costs, experts agree.<\/p>\n \u201cPrices are down, and continue to be down, and yet we\u2019re largely not seeing that reflected on store shelves,\u201d said Michael Katz<\/a>, executive director of the Mendocino Cannabis Alliance, an advocacy group for sungrown farmers in that legacy cannabis-producing county.<\/p>\n If a $4800 pound was cut into $60 eighths, and an $800 pound is cut into $30 eighths today, where\u2019s the rest of the money going? You\u2019ve probably heard variations of this answer before, and for once, it\u2019s as simple as it sounds.<\/p>\n The above graphic made waves when Sol Spirit Farms posted it in December 2021. It resonated because it\u2019s more or less accurate: In some markets, particularly California\u2019s, consumers spending $40 for an eighth are spending a lot of their money\u2014maybe even half\u2014on taxes and over-regulation. <\/p>\n Farmers like Wood are \u201cprobably getting $3 an eighth out of that $40\u201d after costs including California\u2019s loathed per-ounce cultivation tax, as well as inefficiencies when state-mandated middlemen such as third-party distribution are calculated, he said. <\/p>\n If basic innovations like direct-to-farmer sales were legalized\u2014if Walter and Judi Wood were allowed to sell their cannabis the same way they sell the vegetables and eggs they grow on their property\u2014Sol Spirit would see more of the pie, but they\u2019d still probably shoot for the $40 mark, Wood said.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel 40 bucks an eighth is probably not unreasonable,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s a number we could all work with really well, as long as the government is not stepping on it and taking one-third right off the bat.\u201d<\/p>\n California\u2019s woes are well-known and well-documented, but cannabis industry operators in other states say they\u2019re repeated across the country. Take Massachusetts, a state that allowed far fewer cultivators than states with big sungrown industries including Oklahoma and Oregon, as well as California. <\/p>\n In Massachusetts, where cultivation is mostly controlled by large multi-state operators that invested tens of millions of dollars in indoor grows, a wholesale pound is going for around $3,000, with variation on both ends\u2014but that\u2019s for a pre-packaged pound, already tested and broken up into jars and bags. <\/p>\nWhere the Money Goes<\/strong><\/h4>\n
![\"cost](\"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/why-does-weed-still-cost-so-much.jpg\")
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