May 17, 2017

Marijuana Is Cheaper In States Where It’s Legal

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I don’t know why this occurred to me, but I got curious about the price of marijuana in states that had legalized it for recreational use. So I headed over to Priceofweed.com, a crowdsourced font of information about the price of weed. There’s a pretty sharp divide at the Rocky Mountains, so here’s the price of pot in all eleven states west of the Rockies:

Sure enough, marijuana is noticeably cheaper in the four states that legalized recreational use more than a year ago. (Nevada has also legalized recreational use, but the law has been in effect for only a few months.) I’m really glad this turned out to be the case since it would have been damn strange if it hadn’t.

As for the east-west divide, that’s a little mysterious. Why is pot so expensive in the bustling and competitive markets of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New York, and other populous states? And does it really cost $500 per ounce in Washington DC, the highest priced market in the nation? They don’t get represented in Congress and they have super expensive pot. Why does anyone live there?

POSTSCRIPT: Someone is sure to point out that maybe marijuana was cheaper in the green states all along. Could be. I’ll leave it to some enterprising grad student in the study of freakonomics to round up the data and do all the proper econometric calculations.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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