Increased overhead in comparison to 'street dealers.' I.e. rent, insurance, business licenses, attorney fees, taxes, et cetera.

Increased risk in comparison to 'street dealers.' Selling MJ in a dark alley at night is arguably less risky than doing it in broad daylight, in a rented retail space, with advertising in local papers and/or internet sites like CL and MMJ related forums.

*disclaimer, I have never grown MJ

Growing MJ outdoors is not free. It requires supplies (seeds, fertalizer, equipment, man/woman power, shade cover, support poles/fencing, etc). I've seen some outdoor grow journals that really showed what an impressive, time consuming and expensive proposition it can be to really go for high quality meds in a decent quantity. ow ifyou jus toss seeds in the ground and pray, well that's a different story.

Growing indoors is not cheap to produce good quality medicine. Lights, fertalizer, power, time, etc all cost bucks.

I can't really argue too hardly about $x per gram to grow indoors versus outdoors because it's really outside my knowledge base. I admit that. But with just a little bit of supposition I can guess that it is never 'free' and never as cheap as $2 per gram (unless you amortize it out over a very long length of time).

And to me it's self evident: if growing was so cheap and easy... then you'd be doing it, or everyone would be doing it and there'd be no need for dispenseries. But it's not that cheap... and it sure as heck ain't that easy... 'theoritically' easy sure (I mean it is a weed right lol). But growing plants is part science and part art, and high quality results just don't happen without a lot of effort.

But I do sympathize with you. Expensive meds suck, be it MMJ or pharmacuticals. Perhaps if we get some good laws passed, then the economy of scale, and reduced risk, will cause the prices to fall like a brick... hopefully.