Santa Monica, CA: Herbal cannabis is far more popular among consumers than are plant-derived edibles or extracts, according to an analysis of retail sales data in Washington state.
Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and from the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica reviewed data from over 36 million separate retail cannabis transactions in Washington. Sales occurred from July 2014 to September 2016.
Authors reported that “traditional cannabis flowers still account for the majority of spending (66.6 percent), though they acknowledged that sales of plant-derived extracts have increased significantly over the past two years. Researchers also reported that prices on cannabis-related products fell sharply in the months following legalization “as new retailers entered the market and production expanded.”
For more information, contact Paul Armentano, NORML Deputy Director, at (202) 483-5500. Full text of the study, “Variation in cannabis potency and prices in a newly legal market: Evidence from 30 million cannabis sales in Washington state,” appears in Addiction.