Basics · 5 min read

Weed measurements: grams, eighths, quarters and ounces

What an eighth actually weighs, how the sizes convert and roughly what each one costs on our shelf in Dryden.

Cannabis flower is sold by weight, and the names come from fractions of an ounce rather than from the metric system — which is why “an eighth” is a common purchase and “3.5 grams” is the same thing said differently. Here is the whole vocabulary in one place, with what each size actually costs on our shelf in Dryden today.

The conversions, in full

Every size is a fraction of an ounce. Prices below are what is on our shelf in Dryden today, read straight from the live menu, so they move as the stock moves.

An ounce is 28.35 grams strictly speaking. The trade rounds it to 28 and always has, which is why an eighth is 3.5 rather than 3.54. New York’s possession limit for an adult is three ounces of flower, so every size on this table is a legal purchase here, an ounce included.

Browse every flower we have in stock — the menu lists the weight on each product, so you can see which sizes a given strain comes in. We cannot filter the menu by weight on its own, so it is worth scanning the size in each product name.

The half ounce, specifically

A half is 14 grams — half an ounce, four eighths, two quarters. It is the size people ask about most after the eighth, and it is usually where the price per gram starts to make sense. Ours run $50 to $105 depending on the grower, with 25 options on the shelf today.

Against two eighths it is almost always the better buy. At today’s middle prices a half works out near $5 a gram where an eighth is about $12.57 — roughly 60% less for the same flower. The trade-off is that flower does not improve sitting in a jar, so a half is a size to buy of something you already know you like rather than something you are trying for the first time.

Fourteen grams is comfortably inside New York’s three-ounce limit, so there is nothing unusual about buying one. Bring a valid government-issued ID showing you are 21 or older; no medical card is needed.

What each amount looks like

Density varies enormously between strains, so weight is a poor guide to volume. An eighth of a light, airy sativa can look like twice as much as an eighth of dense indica, and both weigh 3.5 grams on the scale. That is the honest answer to “what does it look like”, and it is also why a photograph helps more than a paragraph.

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Everything sold in a licensed New York dispensary is weighed and labelled before it reaches the shelf, so what the package says is what is in the package. If you want to see the sizes side by side, ask at the counter and a budtender will put a few jars out for you.

Pre-rolls and everything else

Pre-rolls are sold by the gram of flower inside them — a 1-gram pre-roll contains a gram, a five-pack of half-gram joints contains 2.5 grams in total. Concentrates are sold in much smaller weights, usually a half gram or a gram, because they are far more potent by weight. Edibles and drinks are not weighed at all: they are labelled in milligrams of THC per piece, which is a different measurement entirely and is covered in the edibles dosing guide.

Buying in Dryden

You need a valid government-issued ID showing you are 21 or older. No medical card, no membership. We are on Route 13 between Ithaca and Cortland, open seven days, with a drive-thru window if you would rather not come inside. Browse the flower in stock, or come in and ask — a budtender will put a few jars on the counter so you can see the sizes side by side before you decide.