While it’s monumentally exciting to have any legal access to cannabis, the green rush has seen a wave of investment from venture capital. If you’ve seen what happens when venture capital gets involved in anything, you can probably guess what happened next: Mass hiring of the C-suite boys from predatory industries has shepherded in every cannabis user’s worst nightmare—high prices.
Not that there is anything wrong with paying for good weed. High prices used to mean high quality and even higher potency, but to the bummer of many consumers, that isn’t always the case in legal states, and the middle-and-lower price points are a particular gamble. As a medical consumer in California, I have found that when asked, many budtenders won’t recommend anything below the luxury/high-end tier, knowing they simply can’t vouch for it. Add 30% total taxes in some states, and suddenly you’re paying upwards of $50 or more for a potentially boofy product, and perhaps a lot more. In a notoriously pricey state like Illinois, the most expensive state for legal recreational weed, an ounce of green will cost you upwards of 50% more per ounce than in a bargain basement area like Oregon.
I recently caught up with Natasha Przedborski, co-founder of Pussyweed, a cannabis accessory and advocacy brand, at Hall of Flowers, arguably one of the industry’s most important link ups. She agreed with me that the legal industry is in the midst of a pricing crisis.
“There’s definitely inflation happening in both the legal and legacy markets,” she told me while puffing on a Punch Rocket preroll. ”Costs are high right now for every part of the supply chain, so it trickles down to the consumer. Flower prices in New York are going up because the prices in California are going up and we all know where [New York] is getting its stuff. I’m seeing $100 eighths of flower in NY—and people are paying for it. That’s [a 150% markup].”
Nobody is saying that rare and potent products aren’t worth their salt—or their coins—but mere affordability is harder than ever to access. While I can’t in good conscience tell you to return to the untested and risky underground market, I (with the aid of a few cannabis luminaries) can share some strategies to make the most of what you are buying and stretch your stash.
GYO (That’s “grow your own”)
If you’re in a state with home grow regulations, planting your own really is a viable strategy for saving money. Some outdoor plants can yield close to a pound of cannabis, or a year’s supply for all but the heaviest consumers. It’s not hard to grow your own, but it is not easy either. With the appropriate growing medium, sun, specialized fertilizer, and water, they will do their thing, but outdoor plants are also vulnerable to pests, which includes weed thieves.
Indoor plants require a good deal more in terms of supplies and planning—and as they use your electric bill for an energy source rather than the sun, there are some additional hidden costs. But for people who like a good project and don’t have the sun, climate, or gardening skills to grow a big ol’ tree of tree outside, growing via indoor methods can be educational, enriching, and produce more potent flower (once you get good at it).
Either method requires an investment, though, and Przedborski personally found GYO challenging, “I attempted to grow my own when I first moved out to LA. I bought a clone from a cultivator I really liked and figured it would be a great way to save money. I’m not going to lie, it was a disaster. It takes a lot of work and infrastructure (aka money) if you want to grow tasty buds.“
But there is still hope. Raw Garden head of product Khalid Al-Naser and I talked about home grow, budgeting, and cannabis concentrates—all his areas of expertise.
“Anytime you can grow your own anything [it] is a worthwhile pursuit,” Al-Naser told me. “I am a strong believer that everyone should invest themselves in growing some of the things they enjoy consuming—whether it be herbs on their windowsill or a cannabis plant in their backyard.”
Vaping can help stretch your supply
Maybe you don’t have the space to grow, or maybe it’s illegal in your state. For you, more direct tips—like why a scale is an important piece of equipment for any enthusiast—will be more effective money-savers.
Raw Garden is known for their high quality concentrates, and any time you scoop something out of a jar without weighing it on a scale, the dose is a mystery.
Moreover, while Al-Naser prefers the very fragrant and goopy fruits of his labor in the form of dabbable concentrates, he finds other methods more cost-effective. “I’ll generally turn to vape carts as a way to stretch out my product when I am traveling,” he said.
Perhaps you prefer old school, tried and true methods?
“As for when I was younger, and an avid flower smoker, I would buy my weed and then weigh it out and roll it up into individual joints so that I could ration out my consumption over the course of a week,” Al-Naser said. “A quarter ounce would be turned into 14 half-gram joints or a half-ounce could be turned into 14 one-gram joints, which meant I had two for each day of the week.” In other words: Planning, planning, planning.
Use every part of the joint (or switch to glass)
Another old standby is the frankenjoint, which involves taking all of the roaches from a day, a week, or whatever, and cutting the paper open to collect the wee bit of herb inside. You can usually get an additional huge joint for every 5–10 roaches, and I will personally never forget A$AP Rocky telling Desus and Mero “we still do that” and feeling New Yawk pride.
Like Rocky, Pussyweed’s Przedborski and I have both experienced weird weed times in NYC; there were days when you had to really make it last if your “budtender” was out of product or (often!) unreachable.
She recommends you “ditch the joints and the blunts. If you’re low on bud or cash, you’re going to want to stick to glass. Save everything from your stems to your kief. You can make THC tea or even make your own hash with all the leftovers if you really want to get creative.”
Przedborski is also a fan of scavenging spent vape pens. “In the early days of vape carts, I used to take paper clips and scoop out all the leftover oil. You can put it in joints or bowls for an extra kick, or mix them all together to make a new cart.”
DIY edibles
If you’re more into edibles or tinctures, you’re already saving money if you DIY: An eighth of flower can make 700mg of edibles or oil, and costs only twice the price of most 100mg packs of shop-bought edibles.
Additionally, making your own leaves you with oily weed—called raffinate—and you should never toss your raffinate if you’re on a budget. While not full-strength, there are definitely cannabinoids in that flower. Freeze what’s left after making oil or butter until you have a pint or so to work with. You can eat this ‘spent’ weed with food dishes that mask the green crunch, or run some oil through it again for a low-dose vehicle. My personal favorite hack is making raffinate into a pesto with fresh herbs and olive oil, then freezing it in four-ounce portions to make magic pasta whenever I want.
While weed might be expensive right now, some speculate it’s only temporary. Once market realities weed out the money people, hopefully it will be those invested in the plant—not only its profits—who will steward the industry, just as was the case before legalization. Wishful thinking, perhaps. Until then, smoke ‘em if you got ‘em can afford them.