How Much is a Pound of Weed?

For the familiar cannabis dispensary customer, shopping for weed is not much different than shopping for produce at the grocery store. You go in, pick the strain you like, pay according to the weight of what you buy, and go on about your day. However, newcomers can be a little uncertain when it comes to things like weight, quantity, and price.

You probably won’t be shopping for a pound of weed ever, if at all, but certain questions do come up a lot about a pound of cannabis specifically. How much does a pound of weed cost? What about a cannabis pound in terms of quantity? Below, we’ll cover the answers to both.

What is a pound of weed?

A pound of weed is a large amount of cannabis flower, usually only sold on a business-to-business basis. This large amount of weed is 16 ounces of cannabis, which is 16 times more than you are legally allowed to purchase and possess in most states, including Massachusetts and Vermont.

How much does a pound of weed cost?

Cannabis prices vary by state, supply and demand, taxes, and several other factors related to the cannabis itself, like strain and potency. Generally speaking, the higher the demand for any certain strain, the more expensive a pound of cannabis would be.

As of early 2024, the average price for a pound of weed was around $1,000 nationwide on a commercial level. Prices can be slightly higher per pound for medical and indoor-grown flower and slightly lower for recreational and greenhouse-grown flower. 

Pricing can also differ according to whether you are talking about dispensary cost versus street cost. For example, the average price for high-quality weed at a dispensary was valued at just over $1,416 per cannabis pound in 2023, but the illegal market tends to run significantly higher.

How much does a pound of weed weigh?

A pound of marijuana contains 16 ounces, so a marijuana pound is simply 16 ounces. Shopping for weed by the pound is not the norm for the average customer and is not even legal in most states unless you’re a vendor. Therefore, it can be a little hard to understand just how much an entire pound of weed actually is.

For reference, just one pound of cannabis contains over 453 grams. If weed was always measured in pounds, you’d head to the dispensary and ask for 1/453rd of a pound instead of a gram, which wouldn’t make a lot of sense. Instead, dispensary customers shop for smaller quantities that are measured in smaller weight increments, like ounces and grams. You may get an eighth (an eighth of an ounce), a quarter (a fourth of an ounce), or even just a gram or half a gram.

Now, vendors and wholesalers may use pounds instead of ounces or grams because it’s more logical when working with large quantities of cannabis. For example, a wholesaler is not likely to call a supplier and say they need 453 grams; they’re going to be asking for pounds or ounces at the least in most cases.

How many eighths are in a pound of cannabis?

As noted above, an eighth of weed is an eighth of an ounce of weed. Therefore, for every pound of weed (with 16 ounces), you have roughly 128 eighths. This more straightforward answer is one reason why dispensaries often sell products in eighth increments. When breaking down a pound or quarter pound, the eighth increments allow for a smaller quantity increment that comes down to an even inventory number.

What does a pound of weed look like?

A pound of cannabis can be hard to envision. To help you get a good visual of what a marijuana pound can look like, let’s break this down into joints. On average, about one gram of weed makes one rightly-sized blunt. If you have a pound of weed, which is roughly 453 grams, you’d have about 453 blunts. 

Since a standard blunt is roughly four inches long, if you were to line or stack your 453 blunts of cannabis up end to end, your pound of marijuana would stretch an impressive 150 feet, which is 14 stories, or half a football field, roughly. Therefore, a cannabis pound is a lot of weed.

FAQs About a Pound of Cannabis

How long does a pound of marijuana last?

A pound of cannabis would take an average smoker a really long time to consume. You could smoke a blunt per day for more than a year before running out. And, it would be necessary for all that weed to be held in the ideal storage environment, so it would actually maintain its freshness.

How many plants does it take to get a pound of marijuana?

It depends. Cannabis strains produce different volumes of flower depending on several factors, including whether the plant is grown indoors or outdoors. Keep in mind, the full plant is not what is harvested for smoking, because it is the flower buds specifically that hold the valuable cannabinoids and terpenes. 

The general rough estimate is that one indoor plant will generally produce a quarter pound, while an outdoor plant may generally produce half a pound of cannabis. However, it is not entirely impossible to get nearly a pound of marijuana from a single plant that’s the right cultivar, is well-tended, and has ample room for growth.

How many pounds of marijuana is grown in this country?

These numbers can be really hard to pin down. However, according to the National Cannabis Industry Association, the United States produced nearly 50 million pounds of marijuana in 2022, and with several newly legal states added since, that number is bound to be far higher. This number includes cannabis for recreational and medical use, as well as hemp, the low-THC cannabis variety.

Is it legal to have a pound of weed?

Not unless you are a licensed grower, processor, or retailer in most states. For example, the legal possession limit in Maine is 2.5 ounces, while the legal possession limit in Massachusetts and Vermont is only one ounce.

What’s the best way to store a pound of weed?

If you do happen to have a large quantity of weed on hand, storing it appropriately is the only way to keep it fresh. Primarily, be sure to keep the flower away from direct sunlight, at ambient temperatures, in an airtight container, and protected from moisture and dehydration with humidity packs.

Understanding the Cost and Quantity of a Pound of Weed

You may never actually walk into a dispensary and order a pound of weed. But, hopefully, you can walk away from this article with a better understanding of what that would look like and maybe even how much a pound would cost. Need a little more guidance on understanding different amounts of weed? Be sure to check out the Silver Therapeutics blog.