Like gas, drugs apparently expensive in the North Country
The price of marijuana in Jefferson County is apparently comparatively high, at $200-$250 per ounce. Photo: Torben Hansen, Creative Commons, some rights reserved
We all talk about the cost of living here in the North Country: Gas is expensive, real estate is relatively cheap, and so forth. But what about the price of street drugs? In his series “Life in a Northern Town”, Watertown Daily Times reporter Daniel Flatley this week has addressed that very question.
The answer is kind of fascinating: Turns out heroin is the drug of choice in Jefferson County, with a cost of about $100-$120 per bundle of 10 postage stamp-sized bags (that price is down from last year); crack is much more expensive here than downstate; and pot users are paying a premium price up here at $200-$250 per ounce. Meanwhile, meth is fairly hard to find, Flatley reports, because it’s mostly cooked in small batches and sold privately.
There’s a lot more detail in the article. It’s really interesting if this is your sort of thing.
Tags: cost of living, drugs, Jefferson county
Does anyone care?
What does that breakdown to? About $5 a joint? About the cost of a drink in a bar?
Everything is too expensive.
NCPR has become a drug war propagandist.
You can always tell what is a necessity. An older guy I knew had a rule for this. He said they always heavily tax the necessities: gas, booze, cigarettes!
Powder coke is more expensive in the North Country too, and generally poorer quality. Most of the coke up there originates downstate, so it passes through more hands, gets cut more and marked up by the time it reaches a buyer. And there’s less competition so it’s pretty much a seller’s market.
What we need is more coke dealers. Get some old fashioned free market competition to make things better for the consumer.
This finding is important to the economy of what we see though.
Consider that pain narcotics, heroin are the most popular and relatively expensive. The problem with these drugs is that like ciggs they are physically addicting, but unlike ciggs you don’t just get anxious etc without one or have strong cravings, with these drugs you get physically ill.
Drug addicts have a hard time keeping employment at the level needed for a $100-$200 per day cost just for drugs to keep them from getting sick. So they have to find other ways to make money, usually that is two options, dealing the drug itself to other users (the amway model) or simply committing property crimes. This is how it impacts our communities.
Do we need to be putting these guys in prison? No.
Do we need to be finding aggressive ways to get them out of their addiction? yes.
I’m glad I quit doing drugs back in the early 2000s. Prior to then, I was living in NYC, making very good money. I didn’t even need to leave my apartment…could have anything delivered to my doorstep. I look back on all of the money I wasted on them over those years and shudder at the tally. Could have easily purchased a decent home or put a deserving kid through college.
I understand Jesse Pinkman made it up to just past Ft.Drum when his old jalopy gave out. It’s told he’s holed up somewhere nearby in an abandoned farm house. With that minimal overhead, he should be able to meet the competition’s price yet still cook the 90% pure blue stuff.
Interesting, I didn’t know it was like this. Everything is expensive these days, apparently.
Pinkman? Bitch!
$200-$250 an ounce for marijuana is not that expensive depending upon a number of variables. An ounce of good seedless all bud ganja can cost upwards of $400 just down the road in Syracuse, Utica, Albany, etc. depending upon the time of year and relative demand. Pharmaceutical grade can be even more expensive depending upon the strain and species (Indica or Sativa).
Want to make it cheaper? Legalize the cultivation and use in small quantities for adults and the price would plummet overnight here in the North Country and across the entire state. But that would be a serious threat to too many special interests and thus we languish along side the other states who are held hostage by such interests. But the end is in sight…Wake up New York!