There's nothing special about medical herb. People can just order seeds in the mail and call it medical or kush or whatever depending how good it turns out and what the locals call stuff.
Think about economics. There's more herb in recreational-legal and medical states, therefore there is more supply and then the product is less expensive.
A sliding price scale depending on patient's condition and economy is sometimes observed.
This was in an essence was the point I was trying to make in my last reply. I live in a state where MMJ is only extracts and buds are still banned. I feel in that case the "medical" buds are probably just a good quality harvest, either from someone local indoors, or most likely shipped in from out west. Unfortunately, my wording I feel caused addition confusion. I can't tell you how many people, at least around here, try justifying charging 60-70 and 8th cause it's "medical." I guess when I think of herbs as medicine I think of it being tested for things like mold, bugs, etc, however I'm almost 100% certain that 99.9% of whats sold here as "medical buds" are nothing more then good quality herb.
I understand economics as far as supply/demand, with that being said, it seems that in MN medical patients are still forced to go to the black market to get there herbs/extracts, as buying it from a state approved distributor is up to 5 times the cost. This just doesn't make sense to me as I haven't heard of any shortage person of "legal meds." Just seems that someone who has a prescription to purchase MMJ shouldn't haven't to question cost/quality of their legal meds and often resort to the black market as a lower cost alternative. If that makes sense?
I haven't had the experience of ever stepping foot in a dispensary, however I feel like it make sense that medicinal should be less expensive for those the are able to purchase it. From my understanding in say CO they have medical and recreational dispensaries as separate entities. Medical runs considerably lower according to a previous post, which to me make sense. I feel that in my state personally the MMJ industry is taking some major plays out of the big pharma play book.