Denver residents looking to enjoy the April 20 festivities will be delighted to discover that the city has earned the title of the most marijuana-friendly in the US.
The Mile High City ranked first in an analysis of pro-marijuana attitudes and policies in America’s largest metropolitan areas, thanks to its abundance of marijuana dispensaries and Colorado’s lax drug laws.
The cities that ranked second through fifth were Portland, Oregon; Las Vegas; Buffalo, New York; and Baltimore, all of them in states that have fully legalized marijuana.
However, Southern Americans who want to smoke will be disappointed to find that many Southern cities do not extend courtesy to their April 20th celebrants.
Louisville, Kentucky ranked last among friendliest cities. Its home state only allows medical marijuana, restricting its use to patients with 15 health conditions for whom doctors have recommended using the drug.
Preceding Louisville, Dallas; Atlanta; Houston; and Birmingham, Alabama, ranked 49th to 46th.
The rankings come from Real Estate Witch and Leafly. report which ranked the 50 largest US metropolitan areas based on 15 metrics.
They included the legal status and price of marijuana, the number of dispensaries per 100,000 residents, the number of fast food restaurants per 100,000 people, Internet searches for marijuana-related terms, and the number of visits to marijuana resources. online.
The findings revealed that the 14 most marijuana-friendly cities were in states where the drug is completely legal.
No cities located in states that prohibit marijuana in all forms made the list, and the 15 least friendly cities were all in states where the drug is only allowed under certain conditions.
Denver ranked first in part because it has four times as many dispensaries and 2.5 times as many stores as the average American city, with 10.4 dispensaries per 100,000 residents.
The city also has “unbeatable” marijuana prices. An ounce of high-quality weed costs $242, compared to the national average of $318.
However, Portland, which ranked first last year but fell to second in 2024, has even cheaper marijuana: it costs $213 an ounce. And thanks to its abundance of dispensaries (13.7 per 100,000 inhabitants), people looking for the medicine will have no problem getting their dose.
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For the third year in a row, Washington, DC has the most expensive weed: an ounce of high-quality marijuana costs $597.
Other findings revealed that Kansas City, Missouri, has improved the most, rising 13 spots from 22nd in 2023 to ninth this year.
While Missouri only legalized recreational marijuana two years ago, Kansas City already has twice as many dispensaries per capita as Los Angeles, which legalized it in 2016.
And that city lost the most places in this year’s report. Los Angeles fell 13 spots.
One surprising result, according to the analysis, was that Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, where recreational marijuana is not legal, had more dispensaries than any other metropolitan area, with 32.2 stores per 100,000 residents.
In Oklahoma, marijuana is only legal for medicinal uses.
David Downs, senior content manager at Leafly, said: ‘Cannabis is medicine. They use it for sleep, anxiety, stress, pain.
“The collapse of the price of marijuana in Oklahoma has been a public health victory for Oklahomans, who now have a safer and less addictive option than many of the pharmaceuticals they were offered.”
The price is $336 per ounce, which helped the state move up three spots this year.
In the United States, marijuana is completely legal – for recreational and medicinal use – in 29 states. It is completely illegal in four states.
The laws in the remaining states are mixed, meaning the drug may be permitted for medicinal use, permitted only in the form of CBD oil, decriminalized, or a combination of these.
The decriminalization of marijuana means that penalties for cannabis-related crimes will be reduced. In some states, possession of marijuana in certain amounts, which vary from state to state, may be considered more of a traffic violation.
Penalties may include fines, but will not result in arrest, imprisonment, or a criminal record for first-time possession of a small amount for personal use.
Regardless of state law, the analysis found that about 62 percent of Americans have tried marijuana. Fifty-five percent support the legalization of the drug and a third would prefer to use cannabis than drink alcohol.
Support for legalization was highest in the Midwest at 61 percent and lowest in the South at 44 percent.
However, another Gallup poll from September 2023 found that 70 percent of Americans believe the drug should be legal, a new national record.
Cannabis advocates say the drug has health and social benefits and that making it illegal does little to stop its use and only leads to high levels of pointless incarceration, often of young black men.
Despite widespread support, 23 percent of Americans still oppose legalization, and cannabis opponents argue that widespread use leads to higher rates of mental health problems, substance abuse (especially among teens and adults young people) and more drugged drivers on the roads, causing car accidents.
