States

The same unit, 12 different markets

Price, licensing and enforcement are set state by state, so the gray market looks different in each one. 261 sellers are on file across 12 states; 168 of them (64%) appear in no state licence list Traceleaf reads. The gray-to-licensed price gap runs from $18.52 in NM to $38.15 in MI.

A grid rather than a map on purpose: a choropleth of twelve states would read as national coverage this dataset does not have.

One card per state, widest gap first. The big number is the gray-to-licensed gap. Each sparkline mark is one month’s mean retail observation; a flat segment is a month with no observation carried forward.

MI · gap

$38.15

Licensed retail$65.30Gray retail$27.15

4 licensed16 none found2 actions

CO · gap

$37.68

Licensed retail$65.44Gray retail$27.76

6 licensed7 none found

IL · gap

$33.94

Licensed retail$65.25Gray retail$31.31

5 licensed14 none found4 actions

WA · gap

$33.05

Licensed retail$64.21Gray retail$31.16

6 licensed14 none found4 actions

CA · gap

$31.07

Licensed retail$61.00Gray retail$29.93

13 licensed15 none found4 actions

MA · gap

$30.38

Licensed retail$62.55Gray retail$32.17

7 licensed17 none found2 actions

OR · gap

$29.41

Licensed retail$60.28Gray retail$30.87

9 licensed13 none found3 actions

NJ · gap

$29.25

Licensed retail$65.79Gray retail$36.54

7 licensed11 none found2 actions

NV · gap

$28.01

Licensed retail$59.61Gray retail$31.60

10 licensed18 none found7 actions

AZ · gap

$23.25

Licensed retail$54.30Gray retail$31.05

11 licensed11 none found4 actions

NY · gap

$22.76

Licensed retail$56.89Gray retail$34.14

6 licensed10 none found3 actions

NM · gap

$18.52

Licensed retail$55.16Gray retail$36.64

9 licensed21 none found6 actions

The two prices of the same unit, state by state

Median gray and licensed shelf price per state, on one dollar axis.

What the same unit costs in each state, licensed versus no licence found.

Each mark: Each row is one state; the bar spans its two median prices.

How to read: Sorted longest bar first. Bar length is the saving in real dollars. Click a row for the state record.

Gray retail medianLicensed retail median

Every state's licensed median ($54.30 to $65.79) sits above every state's gray median ($27.15 to $36.64): which market a unit is sold in moves its price more than which state it is sold in. Only the two retail steps are shown. Factory, landed and wholesale observations carry no state in the record, so a state row for them would be the national figure repeated.

Source: Retail menu listing; Published web record

Share of sellers with no licence found

Per state, sellers on file with no matching licence record, as a share of all sellers on file there. Click a bar for the state record.

What fraction of each state's shops match no entry in its licence list.

Each mark: Each bar is one state; its height is that share.

How to read: A share of the shops Traceleaf has found, not of all that exist. 'No licence found' is a statement about the records, not a legal conclusion.

MI has the highest unmatched share at 80% and AZ the lowest at 50%; nationally 64% of the 261 sellers on file match no licence record. It is not concentrated: 12 of the 12 states on file carry at least one seller that matches no licence record.

Source: Licence record; Retail menu listing

Medians here are computed per state from the retail observations on file, so a state with few observations carries a noisier median than one with many. The count is on each state page. The national picture is on the price layer.