Stoned in the city: NYC tops list of world marijuana consumption
The city that never sleeps apparently also takes a lot of weed naps.
New York consumes more cannabis than any other city in the world, according to the 2023 Cannabis Global Price Index, published by the group CFAH.
The study compared consumption and prices all over the world, both in locales where the plant is legal and where it remains criminalized.
Denizens of the five boroughs consume 62.3 metric tons of pot per year, a figure that translates to a staggering 62 million grams, or 6.9 grams a year consumed by the city’s average resident.
That’s enough to fill up more than one and a half 18-wheeler trucks, 300 small bathtubs or a backyard pool.
Even though New York’s licensed recreational vendors have been slow to open up shop, the city is awash in gray-market cannabis vendors, which had no doubt contributed to its leading numbers.
New Yorkers pay $12.5 a gram on average, which is $5.50 more than in Portland, the US’ cheapest cannabis city, but considerably less than in Washington, DC, where weed goes for an average of $19 per gram, according to the study.
Elsewhere in the tri-state region, weed can be snagged for $11.30 a gram in Newark, on average, and $10.80 in New Britain, Conn., the survey said.
Statewide, some 2.7 million New York state residents enjoy marijuana at least once a month, Albany officials said in July.
“New York City is the global capital for many things, so it’s no surprise cannabis is one of them,” Osbert Orduna, CEO of the Cannabis Place, a Queens-based licensed cannabis delivery service, told The Post.
“There’s a tremendous opportunity for New York’s legal cannabis market. The legal market has yet to fully materialize. Most of the cannabis has been consumed in the unlicensed market. Imagine the revenue that will be generated if just half of the product consumed is in the legal market.”
Sydney, Australia, consumed the second-most weed of any world city, even though it is illegal Down Under, according to the report.
Sydney residents actually consume more marijuana on average than New Yorkers, according to the study, because that city has fewer residents.
In Tokyo, where weed is illegal, a gram of the green stuff costs $33. Cannabis is cheapest in Montreal, where a gram costs just $5.90, the study found.
By 2030, the price of a gram of weed in the US could fall to $5.61, according to the report.
Cannabis is still illegal at the federal level, but is now permitted for recreational use in 23 states and DC. An additional 17 states allow for medical marijuana.
CFAH did not explain its exact methodology, writing only, “We collect data on weed prices from 140 cities worldwide and rank them from least costly to most expensive for both illegal and legal weed.”
