Cannabis prices in Massachusetts are sitting at their lowest point since the state’s recreational pot market opened more than seven years ago, industry data shows.

The average price of an eighth of an ounce of cannabis flower — a common purchase at a dispensary — slipped to $14.20 in November, according to data from the state’s Cannabis Control Commission. It has fallen by two-thirds from four years ago, when an eighth ran closer to $45.

The dramatic drop in prices mirrors trends in other states where marijuana is legal and the market has matured. The price decline is welcome relief for consumers even as the cost of many other goods continues to rise.

However, it also comes at the expense of cannabis producers and sellers, many of whom staked their business hopes and financial futures on prices staying high long enough to turn a profit.

Retailers are competing against some shops selling cannabis for as low as $7 for an eighth of an ounce of flower, said Ryan Dominguez, executive director of the Massachusetts Cannabis Coalition, an industry trade group.

Cannabis retailers are in a “race to the bottom,” he said, and for those trying to stay open as long as possible to outlast their competition, developing a profitable business model becomes a future concern.

“So many have been focused on head down, how do I keep the doors open and the lights on and pay my staff?” Dominguez said.

The price plunge has been underway for several years. It played out most dramatically through 2022 and 2023, when cannabis prices sank by more than half. While the market leveled off in the last two years, cannabis prices still fell more than 12% between November 2024 and November 2025, the most recent month of available data.

Industry experts have attributed the price drop to the basic economics of supply and demand.

Massachusetts’ recreational cannabis market is flush with pot, driving prices down. More than 120 marijuana cultivators have active licenses with the commission, about a third of which began operating since 2023.

Consumers have no shortage of retailers from which to shop, creating heavy competition for the best prices. Nearly 400 dispensaries are open across the state. More than 150 of them have opened since 2023.

In the highly competitive market, some have not survived. The first cannabis business to close in the state shuttered in December 2022. It had opened in downtown Northampton earlier that year, with nearly a dozen other dispensaries in proximity.

It is unclear precisely how many cannabis businesses have closed since then, but commission data shows 81 have surrendered their licenses or allowed them to expire. A third of those did so this year.

Some businesses have thrived in a market where consumers are buying more marijuana than ever.

Massachusetts marijuana retailers logged a record $1.64 billion in sales last year and hit $1.57 billion this year through Dec. 14, when the commission last reported industry sales. But those aggregate numbers are little consolation to individual businesses struggling to hang on.

A year ago, Dominguez heard a far more negative tune from the cannabis industry. Some operators feared an “avalanche” of business closures, he said. While some closed this year, the reality was not as dismal as feared.

Today, the industry is buoyed by the possibility that the federal government could soon reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug, thereby allowing pot businesses to take tax deductions they don’t have access to now.

Massachusetts legislators are weighing reforms to the cannabis industry and the Cannabis Control Commission that could boost both medical and recreational marijuana businesses.

Medical marijuana companies would no longer be subject to a requirement that they grow and process the products they sell, a costly burden. The legislation could also allow recreational dispensaries to sell up to two ounces of marijuana to a person at once, double what they can now, which could help them offload more product and retain high-spending customers.

The commission this month created long-awaited regulations for cannabis lounges and other on-site pot consumption venues. It is discussing other regulatory changes to remove “red tape” for cannabis businesses.

“People are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel,” Dominguez said.

However, the issues posed by the oversupplied and oversaturated market are not disappearing, he said.

“These changes can’t come soon enough,” he added. “We’re not out of the woods.”

The commission has also indicated it could take steps to curb oversupply by reducing how much pot a farm can grow if it does not sell a certain amount of its harvest.

The cannabis markets in other states show prices in Massachusetts could continue to slide.

Recreational marijuana sales began in Oregon in October 2015, about three years before Massachusetts. The median price for an eighth of an ounce of flower in Oregon was $14.44 three years ago. It has continued to sink this year and now sits under $12.

The Cannabis Business Times reported a year ago that the average price of an eighth was about $10.46 in Michigan and $9.22 in California.

Michigan had once faced prices six times higher. Some attribute its price drop to a sharp increase in farms cultivating marijuana.

“There are a lot of businesses that are very hurt by falling prices. A lot are smaller producers. The problem is, this is a natural dynamic that happens over time,” Robin Goldstein, an economist and director of the Cannabis Economics Group at the University of California, Davis, told MassLive earlier this year.

“There’s still a lot further to fall,” he said. “If there are businesses out there thinking that it won’t fall further — it will.”