There are some who argue that higher costs prevent cannabis consumers from leaning on tax and regulated market for weed. It turns out this is not necessarily the case. In spite of price, a new study finds that most cannabis buyers would still prefer to get their pot products from a legitimate dispensary rather than frequent the black market. Shocked? Yeah, neither were we.
After all, we don’t know anyone who still combs the streets looking for toilet hooch instead of just buying a bottle of something down at their local liquor store. Just in case you weren’t sure, people who buy weed also enjoy the convenience and safety of legal sales.
“[T]he introduction of legal cannabis into the market may disrupt and reduce illegal purchases,” the study reads. Yet consumers are not going to allow themselves to be completely jerked around by the legal marketplace. The study shows there is a number that could push more customers back into black market territory. “For example, when priced the same or slightly higher, the legal cannabis was preferred and suppressed illegal purchasing, but, by $20 [per] gram, that pattern was reversed,” researchers said.
So now that we know that the majority of cannabis consumers would rather buy weed from legal sources as opposed to waiting around for hours, maybe days, to score a bag of sub-par grass from an unreliable street dealer, we suppose you might be waiting for us to explain the reasons for this phenomenon. Well, they aren’t supernatural. Researchers say this preference is because people have a tendency to trust more in the pot products purchased from a dispensary than the sandwich bag of lawn clippings they get on the street. They also very much keen on the concept of not being tossed to the ground by police, at some point, during the transaction and later charged with a crime.
“Cannabis users consider legalized cannabis to be a superior commodity relative to illegal options,” the study reads. Furthermore, “cannabis users exhibited a strong economic preference for a legally-available product.”
Some of the latest data shows that Canadian cannabis consumers are currently paying around $7 per gram on the black market. Still, there is evidence that some of them are spending in upwards of $20 per gram, according to a report from Globe and Mail.
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Early predictions showed that Canadians could pay around $10 per gram once legal sales begin in October. However, a recent report from Deloitte shows cannabis users are comfortable paying $9.33 per gram.
But as long as the cost of weed is below a couple of sawbucks, everything should go off swimmingly.
“Retailers who think $20 a gram cannabis is attainable will quickly find consumers walking out of their stores, pulling out their phones, and DM-ing their previous dealer to see if they can still get that deal on Bruce Banner at $8 a gram,” reads a study from the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.
