You’ll Never Believe How Much Marijuana Cost at Ivy League Colleges In the ’70s

Ivy League kids aren’t like us state school slackers: They’re all about digging into that research #grind. That’s why I have to give a serious shout out to Yale’s Marissa Medansky for an incredible blog post about the average cost of marijuana at Ivy League schools in the ’70s. If you’re interested in all things marijuana, I highly suggest reading it.

Below is her breakdown. As Medansky notes, it’s important to note that $20 cost adjusted for inflation is $118, which is still a pretty damn good bargain for an OZ of weed in the Northeast.

  • Brown: Brown’s weed costs as low as $8 per ounce, the YDN reports. Most students buy in bulk at around $130 per pound, which helps explain the low prices. (For comparison, the paper tells us a pound at Harvard costs $280.)
  • Columbia: Prices vary, says the Columbia Daily Spectator. The cheapest weed on campus goes for $10 per ounce, but a decent ounce from Mexico will set you back twice that at $20. The best of the best, like prized Colombian red, costs $60 with the help of “time and well-placed friends” to acquire.
  • Cornell: Weed costs $10 to $40 per ounce, according to a 1979 article in the Cornell Daily Sun. The paper says prices vary based on product quality and the “arbitrariness of dealer markups.” (Curiously, though Cornell was not mentioned in the 1971 YDN article, a short brief in the Suncovered the Yale report yet failed to acknowledge the snub or offer its own pricing data for comparison.)
  • Dartmouth: Marijuana goes for $10 per ounce — comparatively low for the East Coast. “Being from a rural area, there is a fair amount of homegrown stuff.”
  • Harvard: Most weed is $15 to $20 per ounce. The “really good stuff,” shipped to Cambridge all the way from Vietnam, costs $25. The Crimson says potent hash oil, also popular on campus, runs $20 per gram and $350 per ounce.
  • Penn: Pot costs $25 per ounce, up 50 percent from the previous year.
  • Princeton: It’s $20 per ounce, but who’s buying? The “novelty of dope” has passed through Princeton, where a source tells the YDN most students prefer Boone’s Farm to reefer. “There doesn’t seem to be much of a market anymore,” as one former dealer laments to the Princetonian. “People are more serious now, more interested in graduate school.” Of course.
  • Yale: Prices run from $13 to 18 per ounce, though the YDN reports prices depend on residential college. Other articles, like this 1974 feature on drug dealers at Yale, suggest a typical price of about $15. (That story includes a notable sidebar entitled “How to Buy An Ounce,” including “5. Do not accept seedy or overly stemmy marijuana.”) Elsewhere, the YDN reports that growing your own dope is a popular option, noting that the average Yale closet “can produce about twenty full-sized marijuana plants a year, enough to supply a moderate smoker.”

According to Medansky, differences in quality are also very important to note here, especially regarding the general cheapness of the product: A lot of the weed in the ’70s was coming back from troops in Vietnam or dirt schwag in Mexico. THC content was MUCH lower.

Our current-day politicians and leaders who attended these schools back in the day didn’t have easy access to that sour diesel. Otherwise, their opinions about legalizing ganja might have changed a long, long time ago.

Now someone put that Steely Dan record back on…

Pic via R/Trees

Brandon Wenerd is BroBible's publisher, writing on this site since 2009. He writes about sports, music, men's fashion, outdoor gear, traveling, skiing, and epic adventures. Based in Los Angeles, he also enjoys interviewing athletes and entertainers. Proud Penn State alum, former New Yorker. Email: brandon@brobible.com