In less than a week, Colorado dispensaries and pot shops report that they’re selling so much recreational marijuana, there could be a shortage basically any moment. After all, it’s not like they can just grab the plants your cousin was growing in the closet and sell them off. In the face of this supply problem, even charging twice the price for the recreational stuff over the medical version isn’t stemming the tide of eager buyers.

For example, at one pot store the San Francisco Chronicle looked at, customers were shelling out $45 for an eighth of an ounce of recreational pot, compared to the $25 charge for the same amount the shop sells for medical purposes.

“They’re not used to coming into a facility and paying $25 an eighth, so when they come in, it’s just whatever the price is,” the store’s president and chief executive said. “Having the ability to buy safe, reliable, quality marijuana in an environment that’s fun and exciting sure beats going in a back alley and saying, ‘Hey buddy, you got a bag?’”

Around the state, recreational pot sells for about $400 an ounce, twice the $200 an ounce price tag retailers collect for medical marijuana, according to the executive director of the National Cannabis Industry Association, a Washington-based trade group.

“That’s just supply and demand,” he explained. “As more businesses open and the businesses get a sense of what the demand is and are able to meet it, the prices will go back down.”

Ah yes, about meeting that demand — other store owners are saying that if customers keep coming the way they have been this last week, they’re going to sell out, and soon.

“We are going to run out,” one store owner told the Colorado Springs Gazette on Day 2 of legal recreational sales. “It’s insane. This weekend will be just as crazy. If there is a mad rush, we’ll be out by Monday.”

Yes, that means today, Coloradoans. Coloradoites? In any case, don’t be surprised if you can’t get your hands on some green.

Pot Prices Double as Colorado Retailers Roll Out Green Carpet [San Francisco Chronicle]
High demand has marijuana shops running low on supplies [Colorado Springs Gazette]

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