Plain-language poster
Illegal grows raise the cost of buying legal
The price on the jar went down. The extra costs did not. If you buy recreational or medical cannabis from a licensed shop, you pay the bills an illegal grow skips.
How the cost moves onto you
- 1An illegal grow pays no tax, no lab test, and no license.
- 2It can sell the same kind of flower for less.
- 3A legal shop cannot raise its flower price. If it does, people buy illegal.
- 4Tax, testing, and the license stay. They land on your receipt.
Illegal grow
$0
tax, lab test, and license
- Pays none of the legal bills
- Sells cheaper because of that
- Sets the price a legal shop can charge
You, buying legal
15–40¢
of every dollar can be tax alone
- Plus the lab test
- Plus the license and tracking
- Plus the flower itself
Where a legal dollar goes
A simple picture, not a tax form. Tax is often 15 to 40 cents. This bar uses about 30 cents.
Legal receipt
Illegal grow
On about $150 a month, the tax piece alone is often $25 to $60. An illegal grow charges none of it.
Same squeeze, two kinds of buyer
Recreational
You pay the full tax stack. In some states that is more than a third of the price. The shop cannot erase it. Your legal bag costs more than the illegal one by that tax, even when the flower itself is cheap.
Medical
A medical card often cuts the tax. That can save a few hundred dollars a year. Insurance still will not pay for cannabis. You still pay for the test. If the dispensary closes, the medicine you were buying is farther away.
Why the shop cannot just charge more
What a licensed California farm got for a pound of flower.
$1,400
a pound
$720
a pound. About half.
Illegal flower was valued near $690 a pound. Legal flower was pushed down to almost the same number. Outdoor flower, the kind illegal grows mostly sell, fell by about three-quarters.
About 4 in 10 pounds used in California come from a legal seller. About 6 in 10 are illegal. Fewer legal sales have to carry every test and license. Each legal buyer covers more of that bill.
When the shop closes, you pay again
- A longer drive, or a delivery fee.
- Fewer tested products, which hits medical buyers first.
- Sometimes illegal cannabis is packed to look legal. You pay the full legal price and do not get the test.
The point
If you buy legal, you pay the share the illegal grow skipped.
The tax. The lab test. The license. And the extra trip if your shop is gone. Recreational or medical, that bill is yours.