Pubdate: Wed, 25 Sep 2013
Source: Seattle Times (WA)
Copyright: 2013 The Seattle Times Company
Contact:  http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/409
Author: Bob Young

STATE'S POT ESTIMATE: JOINT LOSING POPULARITY

Extracts Gaining Ground

Users Consume Average of 123 Joints Per Year

The state of Washington is counting on the average marijuana user to 
smoke a joint every three days.

Under the state's consumption estimate for a legal pot market, the 
math breaks down to 80 million joints, or the equivalent in pot, 
smoked by roughly 650,000 adults every year. That's 123 joints per 
user annually.

The state's consumption estimate is important because it drives 
licensing for pot production, including the number of growers and the 
size of their operations. Underestimating statewide consumption could 
hand customers to illicit dealers, according to state officials. 
Overestimating could lead to surplus weed being diverted to other states.

But the state recognizes that the joint is losing popularity, 
particularly with younger stoners. A panel discussion at the Drug 
Policy Alliance's upcoming biennial conference is even titled: "Is 
the joint obsolete?"

Edibles, topicals and concentrates, such as hash oil, have become so 
popular that the state figures the market for those products will be 
as large as the more traditional buds and flowers combusted in joints 
and pipes.

When the state-regulated system starts selling pot next year, 
consumers are expected to annually use 40 metric tons of buds and 
flowers, and another 40 metric tons of the so-called extracts: 
pot-infused edibles, liquids and topicals, plus hash oil in various 
forms called wax, shatter and budder.

Working from the state's own announcement of its revised rules, media 
- - including The Seattle Times - had previously reported the state's 
consumption estimate was a total of 40 metric tons. But The 
Stranger's Ben Livingston recently reported that those 40 tons were 
only half the picture.

It's the half that deals with "usable marijuana" which the state law 
defines as buds and flowers, explained Randy Simmons, the state's 
marijuana project director. It's also usable marijuana that state 
consultants have been researching in a carefully constructed 
consumption model that should be completed and released next month, 
Simmons said.

It's harder to specifically study extracts, Simmons said, because 
previous surveys on pot use have tended not to differentiate among 
different ways of consumption. State officials figure that the market 
for extracts will roughly equal that for smoking.

Overall, state officials believe that usable marijuana consumption - 
legal and illegal - in Washington is 165 to 170 metric tons a year.

In the first year, the state-regulated legal recreational system is 
expected to capture about 25 percent of the overall market, or 40 tons.

That equals just over 40 million grams. If an average joint weighs 
0.5 of a gram - some joints are bigger and some smaller, but Simmons 
said that's a reasonable estimate - consumers in Washington would 
light about 80 million joints, or the equivalent, a year.

According to federal government surveys, 13.4 percent of Washington 
state's population used pot in the previous year. That amounts to 
roughly 650,000 adults - and only those 21 and older can legally buy 
and possess weed under the state-regulated recreational system.

Dividing all those joints by all those adults yields 123 each per 
year, on average.

Some will use less and some will smoke more. State consultant Mark 
Kleiman says 80 percent of consumption is done by 20 percent of the users.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom