{"id":32442,"date":"2019-01-28T06:00:25","date_gmt":"2019-01-28T14:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2019\/01\/28\/why-does-ohio-have-the-nations-priciest-marijuana\/"},"modified":"2019-01-28T12:52:30","modified_gmt":"2019-01-28T20:52:30","slug":"why-does-ohio-have-the-nations-priciest-marijuana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2019\/01\/28\/why-does-ohio-have-the-nations-priciest-marijuana\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Does Ohio Have the Nation\u2019s Priciest Marijuana?"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

In many ways, Ohio \u2014 where medical cannabis finally went on sale to qualified patients on Jan. 16, following a two-year build-up and\u00a0a four-month delay<\/a>\u2014 is a case study in how not to do medical marijuana.<\/p>\n

Unless you are one of the state\u2019s\u00a024 licensed cultivators<\/a>. In that case, you are enjoying the right to sell cannabis at the princely sum of $8,620.68 a pound \u2014 which would be, according to a brief review of online menus and the most rudimentary understanding of the wholesale market, probably the most expensive marijuana on the legal American market.<\/p>\n

Why and how is this and how will it stop and how can it be avoided elsewhere?\u00a0According to WKYC<\/a>, the first sale of cannabis from licensed cultivators to retailers on Jan. 16 was a delivery of 8.7 pounds for $75,000.<\/p>\n

If an ounce is going for $538 wholesale \u2014 and retail markup is generally 100 percent \u2014patients in Ohio are paying easily quadruple what they would in a state with an established market like California or Colorado. Or even nearby Pennsylvania \u2014\u00a0where, at RISE in Erie, a short drive<\/a>\u00a0from the Ohio border, a top-shelf eighth will run you $65, with grams going for $20.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s going on? WKYC interviewed marijuana industry attorney David Patton, who chalked up the exorbitant pricing to the industry\u2019s early-stage status, and predicted that \u201conce this industry grows and develops and reaches maturity, I would expect those prices to come down,\u201d he told the TV station.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis industry is in its infancy right now,\u201d he observed. \u201cSo, we don\u2019t have a stable marketplace.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s all true \u2014 to a point, which ends right after \u201cinfancy.\u201d Ohio was supposed to have the stablest of marketplaces \u2014 that\u2019s why, in theory, it took until now for a sale.<\/p>\n

The law legalizing medical marijuana that then-Gov. John Kasich signed into life in 2016 created one the country\u2019s\u00a0most strictly regulated cannabis programs<\/a>. The number of producers was limited to 12 large-scale cultivators and 12-small scale cultivators by law. This created a nationwide scramble to get a permit \u2014 anyone who did get one had something akin to a license to print money.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s worth observing that every regulated market has had a similar trajectory. In Michigan, where voters legalized recreational marijuana at the ballot in November, regulators celebrated by strictly limiting who could participate in that state\u2019s existing medical-cannabis market. Before, when caregivers growing at home provided marijuana to patients, pounds ran about $2,000,\u00a0according to the Detroit Free Press.<\/a>\u00a0Now they cost about $3,500 a pound \u2014 plus another 80 percent markup for transport costs.<\/p>\n

Which is still about half the cost in Ohio, where we see in stark outline the costs of an artificially constricted market. Because there is so little competition \u2014 and not even the risk of additional competition \u2014 cultivation companies can charge prices befitting a cartel monopoly. They may argue that they must do this and that the start-up and regulatory costs demand it. That may be true. It would be hard to say for certain without a detailed investigation of their books. But the end result is all too predictable: Ohio patients who are either too far away from a dispensary or utterly unwilling to be fleeced by a state-granted monopoly are taking to the black market, as Patton observed to WKYC.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the solution? From a consumer perspective, it\u2019s obvious: Let caregivers grow and don\u2019t slap arbitrary caps on how many cultivators or retailers can exist in a market. Why did Ohio pick 24 cultivators and not, say, 36, or 40, or 80? You will be hard-pressed to find a coherent answer couched in any kind of market logic. But that\u2019s cannabis in America.<\/p>\n

TELL US<\/b>, do you think it makes sense to limit medical marijuana cultivators?<\/p>\n

The post Why Does Ohio Have the Nation\u2019s Priciest Marijuana?<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n


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\nRead More: Why Does Ohio Have the Nation\u2019s Priciest Marijuana?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In many ways, Ohio \u2014 where medical cannabis finally went on sale to qualified patients on Jan. 16, following a two-year build-up and\u00a0a four-month delay\u2014 is a case study in how not to do medical marijuana. Unless you are one of the state\u2019s\u00a024 licensed cultivators. In that case, you areContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,170,687,7304,139,539,7305],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32442"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32442"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32443,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32442\/revisions\/32443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}