An eighth costs $15.31 in Washington and $51.63 in Kentucky. Thirteen months of register data across 36 states points at one variable, and it isn’t whether the state calls itself medical or recreational.
Trans-High Market Quotations is live, and this is the first full read of it: thirteen months of retail flower prices, August 2025 through August 2026, built on point-of-sale data supplied by Hoodie.
We brought THMQ back this month because every form of prohibition creates an information gap between the person who knows the going rate and the person who doesn’t. In 1974 High Times closed that gap with field reports mailed in by readers. In 2026 we’re closing it with register data and, shortly, with reports from readers again.
Every price here is what an actual package rang up for at the counter. No conversions applied.
The national number is hiding what happened
A national eighth cost $22.72 in August 2026. A year earlier it was $22.79. Seven cents.
That flatness is an artifact of weighting. The national figure is dominated by the biggest markets, which were already cheap and had nowhere left to fall. Underneath it, 24 of the 34 states with a full year of comparable data cut the price of an eighth, with a median decline of 5.2 percent.
Where an eighth got cheapest
Year-over-year change, August 2025 to August 2026.
| State | Aug 2025 | Aug 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| New Jersey | $36.66 | $31.78 | −13.3% |
| Connecticut | $32.21 | $28.43 | −11.7% |
| Illinois | $29.15 | $26.01 | −10.8% |
| Delaware | $40.88 | $36.57 | −10.5% |
| District of Columbia | $46.23 | $41.52 | −10.2% |
| Maryland | $29.08 | $26.17 | −10.0% |
| Colorado | $19.77 | $18.00 | −9.0% |
Source: Hoodie. August 2026 data cut.
Ten states got dearer. Only one moved hard: Minnesota, up 42.4 percent. We’ll come back to it, because it’s the most useful state in the dataset.
The compression is sharpest at the small end. A single gram fell 8.7 percent over the year, from $11.28 to $10.29. A quarter fell 3.8 percent. A half-ounce moved half a percent, from $53.86 to $53.58. Whatever competition is happening, it’s happening at the bottom of the menu.
The medical premium is a mirage
Count states and medical patients look gouged. The median medical-only state charges $37.86 for an eighth. The median adult-use state charges $24.80. A 53 percent premium on people who need a doctor’s sign-off to shop.
Count people instead, weighting by how much each state actually sells, and the gap disappears completely.
Median state vs. typical buyer
Weighted by actual sales
One cent apart. The typical medical patient and the typical recreational buyer pay the same.
Source: Hoodie. August 2026 data cut.
Both numbers are true and they describe different things. A handful of small, license-capped medical programs charge enormous prices to very few people, which drags the median up without touching the average. Kentucky sells an eighth at $51.63. Hawaii and Utah both land at $46.76. North Dakota is at $43.89.
Meanwhile the medical states where most patients actually live are among the cheapest places in the country to buy flower. Arkansas sells an eighth at $19.40, Florida at $20.01, Pennsylvania at $20.63. All three undercut California, Nevada, New York and most of the recreational map.
So the split isn’t medical versus recreational. Something else is doing the work, and it’s sitting in the same spreadsheet.
It’s how many stores there are
The median medical-only state has 36 dispensaries. The median adult-use state has 247. Florida, the outlier that undercuts half the recreational map, has 766.
Sort all 36 states by store count and the price falls in a straight line.
More stores, cheaper flower
Median price of an eighth, by number of licensed dispensaries in the state. August 2026.
Under 25 stores (7 states)
$43.89
25 to 100 (7 states)
$30.25
100 to 300 (11 states)
$26.17
More than 300 (10 states)
$18.50
Rank correlation between store count and price: −0.65.
Source: Hoodie. August 2026 data cut.
Washington has 431 stores and the cheapest eighth in the country at $15.31. Michigan has 764 and sits at $17.87. Kentucky has 20 and sits at $51.63. North Dakota has eight.
It isn’t mechanical. Arkansas manages $19.40 with only 36 stores, which is a reminder that canopy, tax structure and how many growers hold licenses all matter too. But across 36 states the rank correlation is −0.65, and no other variable in the file comes close.
Watch it happen in Minnesota
Most states in this dataset have already found their level. Minnesota is finding it right now, and the thirteen months we have capture the whole arc.
Minnesota, month by month
Price of an eighth in gold, dispensary count in green. August 2025 to August 2026.
The store count more than quintupled. The price peaked in December and has been coming down since.
Source: Hoodie. August 2026 data cut.
Minnesota went from 26 stores to 134 in thirteen months. The price climbed as the first wave opened, because early demand ran well ahead of early supply, and it topped out at $59.93 in December. It has fallen in six of the eight months since.
At $54.11, Minnesota is still the most expensive state in the country. But calling it a state where prices are rising misses what the file shows, which is a market that already peaked and is on its way down. You can put it next to Washington or Colorado on the tracker and watch what the next few years probably look like.
Where it costs the most
The ten most expensive states
Price of an eighth, August 2026. National weighted average: $22.72.
| State | Eighth | vs national | Stores |
|---|---|---|---|
| Minnesota | $54.11 | +138% | 134 |
| Kentucky | $51.63 | +127% | 20 |
| Hawaii | $46.76 | +106% | 24 |
| Utah | $46.76 | +106% | 16 |
| North Dakota | $43.89 | +93% | 8 |
| District of Columbia | $41.52 | +83% | 58 |
| Louisiana | $39.54 | +74% | 29 |
| Virginia | $37.86 | +67% | 24 |
| Delaware | $36.57 | +61% | 14 |
| Alaska | $34.62 | +52% | 145 |
Eight of the ten have fewer than 60 stores. The full ranking is on the tracker.
Source: Hoodie. August 2026 data cut.
Alaska is the interesting exception at the bottom of that list: 145 stores and still $34.62, which is what happens when everything has to be flown or barged in. Geography sets a floor that licensing can’t get under.
Cannabis can’t legally cross state lines, so every market runs at its own pace and stays more or less sealed. That is why a legal eighth can cost three and a half times as much in one state as in another with identical legal status. States that license generously reach affordability faster. States that legalize and then throttle the number of stores keep their buyers at frontier prices for years longer than they need to.
Now send us yours
All of this comes from registers, which means all of it comes from legal stores. We have no idea what an eighth costs in the markets that never went legal, and those are still most of the world.
So tell us. Where you are, what you bought, what size, what you paid. It takes less than a minute. Submissions are anonymous by design: we do not collect identifying information, we do not want it, and we cannot hand over what we never held. We publish aggregates only.
The original High Times price list worked because readers understood why it mattered. A market with no public price is a market where somebody is always getting taken.
Submit what you paid, anonymously, right here. If enough of you do it, next year THMQ isn’t just a U.S. dataset. Help us build a world price index.
About the data: figures reflect the August 2026 data cut, covering August 2025 through August 2026. The index refreshes on the 15th of each month, and the numbers here will move with it. Hoodie’s file covers 38 states. We publish 36: New Hampshire is excluded because its sample is too small to be meaningful, and North Carolina because it reflects two tribally operated stores. Year-over-year comparisons cover 34 states, since Kentucky and Ohio entered the dataset partway through the period. Hoodie supplies the point-of-sale data under an editorial partnership; no money changes hands in either direction.
