It's been a little over a year since Colorado began allowing stores to sell marijuana for recreational use and the market continues to grow rapidly. But there are clouds (ahem) on the horizon.
Nicholas Colas and his team at Convergex, a global brokerage company based in New York, surveyed a number of marijuana stores in Colorado last week to get a better picture of the state of the nascent market.
What they found was that prices are declining faster than some had expected, while the number of people visiting the stores has increased.
Here's more from the note:
Since last June, the average price of an 1/8th ounce of recreational cannabis has dropped from $50-$70 to $30-$45 currently; an ounce now sells for between $250 and $300 on average compared to $300-$400 last year. More competition and expansion of grow facilities contributed to this price decline, but it is also a natural result for any maturing industry as dispensaries try to find the market's equilibrium price.
Even with the declining prices, sales are still exceeding those of last year for recreational marijuana.
Public support for the legalization of marijuana has ballooned recently, with Colorado leading the way as a test case for what drug legalization could look like. These are some of the first statistics to show how the market there is developing.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Friday June 26 2015, @01:01AM
And if "anything that a peasant can enjoy? Has GOT to be 'the work of the Debil!(TM)' and therefor MUST be blocked at all cost" then why is alcohol so abundant down there?
It's called the Bible Belt for a reason. Religion is big business down there, and it must have its demons to fight in order to bring in the cash.