Thinking of moving to Cali to grow weed, legally... Where do i even start?

[dalonghorn]

You are fucked...your husbands pipe dream wont last. Cali is gonna eat you guys alive if you think you can come and just set up shop. Others are correct in saying that if you dont have a way to ship the weed back south, you wont make any money.

 

[Epiphyte]

Trinity is the most fucking outlaw place in the country...dirt roads, guns, weed, pit bulls killing pigs and cows...it is a great place to grow, but understand that you will have to sleep next to your outdoor with a shotgun come harvest... and if you have indoor make sure you are out in the fucking cut and preferably do not have your kids around it.

 

[Rysam]

12% unemployment and a 5 BILLION budget deficit welcome you with open arms!!

 

[Bobby Stainless]

Others are correct in saying that if you dont have a way to ship the weed back south, you wont make any money.

You're not doing it right.

 

[Midnight]

We have enough people that did what you want and certainly don't need anymore. Please stay where you're at or go somewhere else.

 

[whateverman]

We have enough people that did what you want and certainly don't need anymore. Please stay where you're at or go somewhere else.

It's not all about you and yours. All due respect.

 

[megayields]

very interesting advice guys. thanks!
is anyone from or familar with trinity county? thats the general area thats we were looking at moving to. good idea? bad idea? wheres the best place near there to be growing?
my father is also looking at the bay area, whats that like in terms of growing and such?

Trinity is CHOCK FULL of growers! And their tight (the ones that have been dealing with have been doing it for a while ..i.e. longer than 5 years) getting in with them is almost impossible as they instantly know newcomers....(I used to live in Trinity for about a year and I get CHEAP ASS, but good, outdoor their all the time!

I think it is fair to say that of all the counties in California. Trinity probably is in the top 5 with the LEAST amount of "regular" work available, the LEAST amount of social services do to the unemployment, foreclosure, lack of any sustainable tax base situation. In fact they just laid off 13% more of the Sherrif's due to budget struggles (that county reminds me of Greece).

You'll be doing what about I think is fair to say, about what 70% (I might be a tad high) of what everyone else is doing their as it is literealy the only way to bring in money is to grow and then move it south for a decent price, gear up for long ass road trips to L.A. if you want to sell your boo for a decent price...oh did I mention the random meth lab that might be next to you and blow up, get robbed etc...it happens more than people think (they took one down last week and got a neighbors non-prop 215 grow while looking over the fence).

You might find this interesting from Wiki;

Trinity County is a large, rugged and mountainous, heavily forested county located in the northwestern portion of the U.S. state of California, along the Trinity River and within the Salmon/Klamath Mountains. It covers an area of over two million acres (8,000 km²), and as of 2000 its population was 13,022. The county seat and largest town is Weaverville, with a population of approximately 3,500 people.
Trinity County has no traffic lights, freeways, parking meters, or incorporated cities. Trinity County did not have a chain store or restaurant until 1999, when Burger King, Movie Gallery (closed), Longs Drugs (now CVS/pharmacy), and Subway opened for business.

They didn't even have a chain store or restaurent until 1999! lol I remember to get groceries or anything decent to wear it was an hour to 1.5 hour drive to get to Weaverville...heh hope you got money for gas. If you like rural (and I do mean rural) then it is perfect, power outages, road being washed out in the winter, tree's falling on the road, your house, your garden everywhere ....note to self: BRING A CHAINSAW, I shit you not!!! Oh and a generator would be a really good idea! hELL, when I moved into the hills here in Santa Cruz (45 minutes from downtown Silicon Valley) I was told to get two things; 1) Generator and 2) Chainsaw, best two purchases I ever made, you'll need em both, trust me.

Trinity is stunningly beautiful when it is nice and in spring, it can also be your worst nightmare if your not a excellent woodsman or woman, are VERY independent and resourceful and have one HELLA good 4WD vehicle as well.

Enjoy if that where you land!

 

[laylow]

seems people who grow in Cali dont want more growers there....

scared of the competition maybe i dont know?

just seems every post like this everyones like dont move here its hard you wont make it blah blah blah....

just an observation

 

[russjcan]

lol.

If you're being sarcastic, well-played.

If you're being serious, I disagree good sir.

Santa Cruz is infested with tweakers but so is the central valley.I vote for Stockton,they laid off the narcs,soil is all peat lakebed deposits,water is surface from the sierras,sun all the time,temps in the 100's and humidity in the 30's.

 

[laylow]

nice post Mega...

Where are the best beeches? i know its prob going to be expensive but if i was to move to cali "one day maybe" money wouldn't be an issue and it would be for fun and a lill dope growing on the side... up in the mountains with trees falling over all over the place and flooding is not my idea of fun tbh...

 

[guest3854]

Fuck.... where to start....

New member with nuthin to contribute, shitting in tha house. Noob growers moving to Cali, just what we need more of; fuggin transplants with no skills. Yer gonna be in fer a rude awakening when you see just how much it costs fer us to live out here. And with all tha pros out here, you really think you have a shot with no experience, clues or connections? Fuggin kids.....

Steele

 

[laylow]

lol...

 

[CoCo_Crazy]

Interesting thread. Is arnold still governor?

"The most satisfying feel you can get in the gym is the "pump". It's as satisfying to me as "cumming" is, y'know? As having sex with a woman and cumming. So can you believe how much I am in heaven? I'm like getting the feeling of cumming in the gym, getting the feeling of cumming at home, and cumming backstage when I pump up and when I pose out in front of 5000 viewers, I get the same feeling, so I'm cumming day and night! I mean it's terrific...right?" - Arnold Schwarzenegger lol AAEYEE AAAEYEYEYAAA

 

[PondeLftHndSide]

If your dreams are to come to Cali and crank out pounds and pounds of mersh for the big payoff, get in line. A very, very long line. Every time I go to the hydro store for supplies I see someone buying enough equipment to blow up a 2 car garage while asking the guy behind the counter to explain to them everything they need and how it works, and then beckoning their girlfriend over to pay with her credit card. I have a neighbor who just moved in a few doors down who for 2 solid weeks had 4 giant bags of perlite and a pallet of Ocean Forest sitting at the end of his driveway totally out in the open, burning a sodium in his garage with the fucking door open, 8 friends at his place helping him build while toking blunts and coughing up a storm. Same dream.

Every once in a while when I'm dropping cuts at the club I'll take a look to see what's good in finished product. Out of 80-100 selections, maybe one or two that would have actually been considered 'top shelf' before the club explosion, despite 20 of them being on the top price tier. Nothing showing even a hint of cure, everything flash-dried. After smelling a dozen samples, my nose is wrecked from the smell of nutes. I leave with a gram of what looked 'best', get it home and into the pipe. Once in a great while I'm satisfied and say 'wow, someone actually did a good job'. Most of the time it burns to the blackest, nastiest charcoal you've ever seen, tastes like old man smell, and makes me wish I had dropped the $20 on a nice Portherhouse. That's what happens when people let the hydro shop guy tell them what to buy - more additives, more boosters, more more more. In the past year, I have seen a total of 3 samples of herb that I would consider top-shelf. Not one acceptable sample of hashish. Not one.

My point is this - if you're coming here to cash in growing mersh on a small scale, you're too late. Every unemployed idiot from Crescent City to Calexico thinks they're going to throw down some flow tables full of purple and go all Pablo Escobar, and as a result the state is FLOODED with visually attractive but poor-smoking herbs with useless couchlock highs. Unless you were lucky enough to get in on the ground floor when small-scale indoor mersh was a viable tactic in CA (i.e., before everyone and their grandma was doing it), that's the domain of the wealthy now, those who can afford a few hundred grand worth of equipment, space, power, lawyers and genetics and have the connections/balls/smarts to actually pull it off. Nowadays, if you want to go small-scale, you need to be willing to grind out truly top quality boutique product, at the expense of yield, perhaps even lose money, and build a reputation as a purveyor of specialty herbs for a specialty clientele if you expect to be able to stay at it. Which is not an easy task, trust me. The clubs don't care if you spent 14-16 weeks in flower and 8 weeks curing something that will set your 3rd eye alight in 2 tokes, if it isn't rockbud, you ain't getting shit for it. You need to know people who know the difference and are willing to pay for it. Because anyone can get a card, go to their corner Dank Mart and get whatever commercial offering they want, so if that's what you have, it has to be better or way cheaper - 99% guaranteed you'll have to go with the 2nd option.

Anyone can grow some weed, and often one's first grow is a bumper crop yield-wise, and better than anything that grower has ever smoked - beginners luck is quite common with cannabis. My first HID grow was probably the biggest G/Watt yield of my career, total fluke. But just because a bud is hard as a rock and glistening with resin does not mean it is 'connoisseur quality'. It takes years of trial, error, failure, misery, frustration, money, effort, observation, constant learning, experimentation, risk and sacrifice to learn how to consistently produce a true connoisseur product. If this is your goal, it is best realized without the pressures of commercialization (read: grow for yourself). In that context, it is a very achievable goal.

I wish you luck, but seriously, we DO NOT need more yield-centric or 'Kush'/Purple grows here in California. We have all the weight we can handle and then some. California is in dire need of conscientious, knowledgeable growers who are willing to set aside dreams of fat payoffs in favor of purveying a distinctive end product. Or in other words, 'idealistic idiots who don't care about losing money'. I've been called much worse...

 

[Zen Master]

seems people who grow in Cali dont want more growers there....

scared of the competition maybe i dont know?

just seems every post like this everyones like dont move here its hard you wont make it blah blah blah....

just an observation

you think there might be a reason why all of the people who have actually been growing in cali are saying the same thing?

Not to be a dick but moving to Trinity to grow weed, you better be Don Juan King of the Hill wherever you are now, then expect to pay twice as much to produce it and get half as much in return.

Its not all politics, it is a little, but its moreso about the HUGE amount of grade A+++ herb that quite frankly is NOT going to fall into your lap. Can't pay your bills otherwise. In order to be viable in the 'business' end of this market, you will not be 'legal'. Far over 100 plants or a huge amount of land with outdoor trees that you started prepping last year. You're not gonna go to Home Depot, grab a bag of soil, a few pots, and set up shop.


As quantity goes up, quality goes down (usually), if this is something you want to make a business out of, you need to grow more than you are expecting to. A few plants here or there wont do anything. If you are putting enough time and effort into growing to get the A++ herbs (on a large scale), your hubby surely wont have enough time for a regular 9-5.


Moving to cali for the 'business' side of weed is bad business. Why operate on such thin margins violating nearly all the same laws as you would be wherever you are now?

Does your hubby have that bomb sizzle sack wherever you're comin from now? do the people line up to get at it? If not, why in the fuck do you wanna move to CA to grow?! The "legal" aspect? haha its far from "legal". If you cant make it growing elsewhere, you surely cannot do it in Cali.


you should both get legit jobs while growing your own personal, if even possible, and I dont mean that on your end, unemployment is only counting the number of people still receiving unemployment benefits, it doesn't count the people that just gave up and dont look for work anymore because the economy here is such shit. He should grow his own weed for personals and get REALLY FUCKIN GOOD at it, I mean to the point where the locals (in CA) really like and rave about your bud. Then scale up.

You can absolutely make some money selling weed in Ca. Just not as much as most people like to think, nor as easily.

 

[whateverman]

I've already added my two pennies, but I still can't believe some of the horror story shit going on in this thread. It's too much, man. Exaggeration for sure.


My encapsulation of the CA scene: 5 years ago, clinically retarded people could sell dope all day without a "real job" and live an upper middle class lifestyle. Now, only dudes blowing up hyuuuge plant count warehouses (and you need a six figure budget to do that), OR growing truly spectacular herb can do it.


However, most others (that I know) are still surviving just fine in the middle class now. Especially single dudes with only themselves to support. It's still very easy to get by with a lower middle-class income with a few thousand watts in California. Now it's just no Escalade in addition to rent money.

To put it in real terms, with all due respect: If you are a CA grower and have 5K+ watts and can't pay your bills, you either have: more kids than an NBA player, massive debt, way different standards of living than me, or fucking suck with money.


IMO Californians (en masse) ITT have a warped perception of the rest of the country in a huge numbers of ways. There is some serious "grass is greener" shit going on. Dudes, please stop comparing your risk level to that of outside states. It's laughably ignorant to point to a few local busts and pretend like CA is barely safer legally than almost all other states. That's completely retarded; it's not even in the same ballpark. Your odds of doing time in CA as a grower go down drastically as compared to everywhere else in the WORLD, sans like 3 countries. Where I'm at today, two plants= your life is fucked. In CA, 80 plants and a good lawyer, ya, you might get fucked. But you have better odds of getting your weed back than you do going to prison, for goodness sakes.

I agree with sending the right message if dudes think they are gonna roll up and get 4K packs with a friendly hippie in an hour. But I think the message is being sent just as dishonestly in the other direction in this thread. The demand still outweighs the supply. You can still sell herb here. And I don't buy the "people been doing it a long time, u think u can roll up and do better?" Ummm, yes actually, I do. And have. Burger King been makin' burgers a long-ass time too; dummies who grow purple mids or whatever it is don't necessarily get better with experience. I know people in Humboldt who have been growing the same mediocre purple dogshit since like 1985, still haven't stepped up their game. It takes intelligence and humility to grow from your mistakes. Lotsa people in the game here are borderline mentally retarded and smug as hell...

I know I've offended many. Not trying to be inflammatory for it's own sake, I just disagree strongly with most of you dudes, it seems. Cheers.

This is a subject I feel strongly about. I was once the OP, give or take a few details, and people fed me over-the-top negativity too. Said I was naive and the game would eat me alive, etc. In the words of Senator Clay Davis.....Sheeeeeeiiiiiiittt.

 

[Kie26]

okay, i guess some of you may have skipped some of my posts... so let me say a few things again:
i have a job that pays very well waiting for me. and my husband has a part time job lined up too. so our growing would NOT be our main income. we want to grow because we enjoy the whole prosses, not because were hounding for money. see?
and, we are moving to california, theres no getting around it. we are going to the bay area most likely.

so, trinity sounds pretty bad then, huh? we'd like to live in a nice safe weed-friendly neighborhood in the bay area. any ideas?

 

[Epiphyte]

Move to Cali, get a real job, grow weed, and if it can compete, quit your job and hang more lights..... no offence to anyone on this website, because I see danker weed on this site than anywhere else in Cali, but Cali weed sucks.... yes many on this site crush it...but i don't see that herb...I seen mine and the dispensaries....and if yours is not better than the dispensaries, then you don't stand a chance....but growing ain't hard... just add a little feed and it grows like tumbleweed. just don't add too much.

 

[Hash Zeppelin]

okay, i guess some of you may have skipped some of my posts... so let me say a few things again:
i have a job that pays very well waiting for me. and my husband has a part time job lined up too. so our growing would NOT be our main income. we want to grow because we enjoy the whole prosses, not because were hounding for money. see?
and, we are moving to california, theres no getting around it. we are going to the bay area most likely.

so, trinity sounds pretty bad then, huh? we'd like to live in a nice safe weed-friendly neighborhood in the bay area. any ideas?

well then I suggest go for the beauty. Down near San Diego is really pretty for coastal beaches, and close to mexico for vacation too. Yosemite has the most beautiful mountain scenery in the state I think. West lake tahoe is great if you like skiing and snowboarding, and boating. Then there is redwood national park if you like the huge trees and forest. LA is great if want to be a in a city jungle that is never ending it seems. San fran is great if you like a huge variety of culture Victorian architecture.

so ya cali is a great place if you have time and money.

 

[megayields]

Santa Cruz is infested with tweakers but so is the central valley.I vote for Stockton,they laid off the narcs,soil is all peat lakebed deposits,water is surface from the sierras,sun all the time,temps in the 100's and humidity in the 30's.

Actually the Tweakers got pushed out of Zyante area due to the housing boom (remember 2002 - 2007 before everything went to shit) we do however have a fliipin HUGE Heroin problem here down at Pognip (near harvey West public pool) you can watch them do heroin deal's AND watch your kids swim lol!

Actually you know stockton is not that bad an idea, it is as hot as the face of the sun in summer BUT their is CHEAP ass housing all over the place move into a cheap, busted , copper all gone from the copper thieves 3 bedroom house, live in one, veg room in one, flower room in another maybe even build a lung room (if you know how to do that) exhaust into the attic, GET AN A/C cuz it's going to get crazy hot in their.....you might pull a decent crop every 3-4 mos!

Give it a shot the worst that happens is that 1) you get ripped off 2) get busted and do some time 3) get busted and are turned out and live in your car THEN come to Santa Cruz cuz we have milder weather and every OTHER homeless person ends up here anyway. 4) You do a great job make TONS of money and live happily ever after....lol

I honestly hope #4 happens for you!