Canadian pot profits shrink with strong 'loonie'

Uh oh - you may have heard that the Canadian dollar reached parity with the American dollar recently. Among the casualties of this strange news: pot prices.

A stronger loonie -- so called for the bird engraved on the one dollar coin -- has cut the profit of selling potent "B.C. Bud" marijuana in U.S. markets at a time when producers in Canada struggle with tighter border security and competition in the United States with pot from other sources.

Top quality Canadian pot is selling for $3,500 (1,725 pounds) a pound in the United States, compared with C$2,400 (1,180 pounds) in domestic markets, according to Emery, who is also editor of Cannabis Culture magazine and fighting extradition to the United States.

I guess it's not too late for all you Canadian pot dealers to go into cocaine distribution. Apparently some crack downs in Mexico have affected the supply in America (and consequently the price), although I wouldn't burn the farm just yet:

A gram of pure cocaine cost $118.70 from April to June, up 24 percent from the $95.89 reported for the previous three months, Walters said, citing figures from the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Steven Karch, a forensics expert in Berkeley, Calif., said he had not seen the price figures Walters cited but was skeptical about the decline in supply.

"I hope they're right. Every time we hear this, it turns out to be business as usual," said Karch, author of a series of books on drugs and drug abuse, including "A Brief History of Cocaine."

Mmm... business as usual.