With legalization spreading across the country, prices of the once illicit plant are expectedly dropping. But while stoners in Colorado and Oregon are routinely paying as little as $25 for every eighth of an ounce and single digit dollar arounts for individual grams, the same top shelf tree can go for as much as $60 an eighth and $20 a gram in New York City. Across the pond, the recent introduction of high THC weed with name brand strains is knocking certain U.K. weed prices into the stratosphere.
According to the Metro.co.uk, British stoners are going apeshit for California’s favorite strain, Gorilla Glue #4, paying up to $50 for a single gram of the ultra-sticky bud.
“Everybody wants Gorilla Glue now, we cannot grow it fast enough, people are willing to pay £40 for a gram when a normal bag of skunk is £10.” One Birmingham dealer told Metro.co.uk. “The price went up because it is so strong,so it lasts longer, and also the supply is lagging behind demand.”
That’s right, the same strain being singled out for a Cease and Desist letter from the super glue company of the same name is now one of the U.K.’s most profitable illicit drugs, selling for prices usually associated with cocaine and designer pharmaceuticals.
And while New York City’s pricey product is the result of prohibition, high delivery costs and the risks involved with importing California or Colorado bud to the East Coast, the Birmingham dealer told Metro that the local crop of GG#4 is just that; local.
“Our gardener decided to copy the American Gorilla Glue and we tested it on our normal weedheads and they did not leave their sofa for an hour.” The dealer said.
The strain may be the same, and the results similar, but grown in once empty apartments or warehouses hidden from police, we’re guessing the original version of Colorado’s legally grown and highly tested Gorilla Glue would still win a potency showdown.
In fact, the same dealer selling the high-class skunk credited the strain’s name to its couch-lock properties, even after plenty of press has told the real naming story – about buds so sticky they refuse to leave the hands.
“One spliff between them had them proper lean up, it was obvious why it is named after a superglue.” The dealer said. “And their (Gorilla Glue super glue) adverts are always on TV too now so it is perfect timing.”
At least they’ve got the contested naming correlation down.
Without legal weed or access to the products a continent away, though, we’re guessing dedicated British stoners will continue to pay whatever is required to keep smoking the strongest bud they can find, even if that means breaking open the piggybank for a measly gram.