Uruguay is the first country to legalize & regulate the sale of dagga at $1 per gram to combat crime and right the wrongs of prohibition.
Recently we calculated the current market value of dagga in South Africa with various pricing we currently pay for dagga but in this article we compare the market value with the fixed price set by Uruguay to see what kind of figure we could expect if South Africa was to follow Uruguay as an example.
It is expected that Uruguay’s dagga trade will have a market value of $30 Million to $40 Million that’s about R391 Million.
The South African dagga trade is enormous & mind-blowing. The dagga confiscated by the South African police between 2012 and 2013 is valued at R19.56 Billion. This if we were to assume that all dagga is sold at a fixed price of $1 per gram.
The estimated value of the dagga that makes it to end users are estimated to be valued at R176.04 Billion at a fixed price of $1 per gram.
The estimated value of all dagga that is brought into or grown in South Africa is estimated to be valued at R195.6 Billion.
It is safe to say that more dagga is confiscated by the South African police than what is sold in Uruguay.
These calculation only include dagga that is sold for recreational / medicinal use. What do you think the value of the industrial dagga market is? I think it’s much more than the recreational market purely based on the fact that dagga has many more industrial uses.
Sources
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/22/uruguay-legal-marijuana-drug-traffickers
http://news.yahoo.com/uruguay-start-selling-marijuana-next-211336449.html
True market value of dagga in South Africa 2012 – 2013 (R1.2 Trillion)