Data Shadows of the Underground Economy

Lecture delivered at Humboldt State University on January 29th, 2013 by Dr. Monica Stephens, Department of Geography, Humboldt State University. Part of the Humboldt Institute for Interdisciplinary Marijuana Research speaker series sponsored by the Humboldt Institute for Interdisciplinary Marijuana Research, the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, the College of Professional Studies, and the College of Natural Resources and Sciences.In the United States, the pricing of marijuana is not evenly distributed. Stephens discusses the distribution of marijuana prices in various regions and the value of volunteered geographic information with studies that could not be conducted otherwise. At priceofweed.com the site???s organizers request that volunteers contribute the prices paid for marijuana and the location of purchase. \ud \ud This site, along with statistical measures used to model the price, demonstrates that within the United States there is a geography to marijuana pricing characterized by lower prices in states with medical marijuana programs and higher prices farther from Humboldt County, California.\ud \ud Stephens also discusses the project as a recent study in the field of volunteered geographic information. VGI refers to map users adding geographic information to an existing base map