If you’re shopping for cannabis at Rise dispensary in Bloomfield, the most you’ll shell out for an eighth is $70. A short walk from the 8th Street PATH station in Manhattan, the highest price for an eighth at the new Housing Works Cannabis Co. dispensary is $60.
At Rise, most eighths are $60 or more. At Housing Works, most are below $60. The price differential in the two markets separated by a river — recreational cannabis sales in New Jersey launched in April 2022 and in New York on December 29 — has cannabis users wondering why they’re paying so high in the Garden State. “It costs money that normal jobs don’t provide in New Jersey,” said Nicholas Scarpulla, who takes medical cannabis for nerve pain.
Officials with the New Jersey Cannabis Regulatory Commission, the agency that oversees the state’s medical and recreational cannabis industries, have conceded in the past that the price of cannabis remains high but say that, as more dispensaries open, that should change.
“New businesses are opening every month in both the medicinal and the adult-use markets, and as competition increases, prices will begin to fall,” Jeff Brown, the commission’s executive director, said in a statement to the New Jersey Monitor.
Read more at newjerseymonitor.com