Plummeting Marijuana Prices for Growers

[SooperSmurph]

Anyone who spends their time judging others because they don't have to deal with that situation is a...

Except i'm not that type of person.

MMJ programs that are more limited like those in rural states can easily be run by and for patients, but take that to a state like CO or CA where getting your MMJ license is a matter of turning 21 and paying a fee? Maybe you can sit there calling healthy college kids patients, but I actually think about these things.

I don't have control over who holds mmj licenses, I hold control over the quality of product I produce, and i'll continue to produce high quality regardless of the nature of the market or what it becomes.

 

[lemongrove]

Government regulations

Government regulations

Having worked in government for many years, enforcing regulations, I know a little something about how governemnt works on local, state and federal levels. People wonder what is going to happen when mj becomes legal.
What is going to happen is that all levels of governemnt are going to have their own sets of regulations and complying with all of them is going to be very expensive. If you are going to produce a product for human comsumption there will be strict regulations and the cost and time it will take to get it approved will be extremely expensive.
The costs to comply with local regulations, for example zoning regulations, will be expensive. Local agencies will more than likely require a grower to first meet all state requirements and then, more than likely, the grower will have set up shop, at the very least, in a mixed industrial use location and probably even an industrial use site; expensive.
The building and code requirements for a grow op. and going to be high. Think electrical, security etc. etc.
The major hurdle will be getting it approved by the food and drug administration. We're talking millions of dollars here. If you are trying to get something approved for medical use, well all I can say is you'd better have at least 10 million to start. Trust me, if mj ever gets legalized federally, small and medium sized growers are done.
If you are starting to believe that the only people who will be able to afford this are big pharma and big corporations, then you are beginning to get the picture. We're talking federal here. Until the feds approve it then it will always be a huge financial risk to get involved.
Yes some states have approved it, I live in one of those states, but I see stormy seas ahead. The state will have many regulations that, in order to comply, will be expensive. If you can afford that hurdle then get ready to pay the locals, they always have their own hoops for you to jump through.
Then after you have made it through the state and local agencies, paid through the nose to get a grow op and a building fitted for the grow, the very next year there can be another ballot measure seeking to over turn the new mj law. Happens all the time, stuff gets voted in, people see if it works to their satisfaction or not and if it doesn't, out see goes. If you lose on a new ballot measure, it's a ton of money down the drain. Even if you win of course the feds could still come knocking at your door. It will be much easier for them then, easy paper work trail. Thanks state and local agencies.
One thing the legal crowd never seems to talk about is that, like to bacco and alcohol, once it's legal and the monopolies have been able to get all the laws passed in their favor, producing your own is even more frowned upon. The big corporations will be sure to do everything they can, mostly buy laws, to make sure no one is horning in on their monopoly. Sure you will still be able to grow but boy if you are caught sticking your hand into the big monopolies pocket, look out brother.
In the past ten years we did learn that big money runs government and that governemnt is there to serve big money didn't we? If big pharma see one 10th of one percent of it's profits drop, well all I can say is, have you ever seen a video of a great white shark come up from below and snap up a seal? Getting involved with government, people I've only scratched the surface here, you have no idea.

 

[oldchuck]

^A good argument against legalization. Can't say that I disagree. I'll be sticking to my old fashioned paranoid hippie way of doing things.

 

[OldSSSCGuy]

Understand your logic lemongrove, but do not think it is really applicable. You could have used the same perspective on other substances such as beer and wine and find it does not apply. When President Carter facilitated home beer and wine production it lit a candle under a new 'home brew' and boutique brewing industry. The explosion in number of wineries and custom beer bars which appeared in the 1990's is one example. The small businesses involved have to deal with a relatively small amount of regulation compared to what you predict. Licensing costs and administration are there but no where near insurmountable, and existing building code applies with very little modification in almost every jurisdiction - with little involvement from the fed.

While there is a scary fearsome amount of manipulation potential for big pharma and the agri-monopoly industries, it will more likely have little impact on the hobby grower and small businessman. The liquor industry has not successfully lobbied to restrict small business and home brewers and that model applies well to the potential cannabis industry.

 

[Biosynthesis]

If or when its legalized I will be smoking freshly imported Thai or high grade Colombian.

 

[BushyOldGrower]

I will open an old style drive in movie...we will sell concessions. The sound comes in through your car radio and ladies on roller skates in shirt skirts and low cut cleavages will deliver the high grade potables.

Or how about a vapor lounge like the Melting Point? Maybe I just won't work in this industry anymore but the sun could stop shining and that would be a lot worse.

Like I said we need to keep it a cottage industry like textiles once were. We have huge unemployment and working at home makes sense from a lot of standpoints.

There will probably remain a black market if the regulated legalization goes the wrong way but this is a bigger issue. We need to change our world and stop the huge corporations that control our governments.

Change is coming but it's about human right and the right to work or start a small business. I see all the bad things about pot like tobacco or alcohol and the question is why not fix those other things controlled now.

As big government breaks down local government takes over. Don't let our world go Idiocracy by doing something about it. But I am busy so you do it.

 

[Dilbert Do]

"Prohibition is better than no liquor at all."

--Will Rogers

 

[macdiesel]

Having worked in government for many years, enforcing regulations, I know a little something about how governemnt works on local, state and federal levels. People wonder what is going to happen when mj becomes legal.
What is going to happen is that all levels of governemnt are going to have their own sets of regulations and complying with all of them is going to be very expensive. If you are going to produce a product for human comsumption there will be strict regulations and the cost and time it will take to get it approved will be extremely expensive.
The costs to comply with local regulations, for example zoning regulations, will be expensive. Local agencies will more than likely require a grower to first meet all state requirements and then, more than likely, the grower will have set up shop, at the very least, in a mixed industrial use location and probably even an industrial use site; expensive.
The building and code requirements for a grow op. and going to be high. Think electrical, security etc. etc.
The major hurdle will be getting it approved by the food and drug administration. We're talking millions of dollars here. If you are trying to get something approved for medical use, well all I can say is you'd better have at least 10 million to start. Trust me, if mj ever gets legalized federally, small and medium sized growers are done.
If you are starting to believe that the only people who will be able to afford this are big pharma and big corporations, then you are beginning to get the picture. We're talking federal here. Until the feds approve it then it will always be a huge financial risk to get involved.
Yes some states have approved it, I live in one of those states, but I see stormy seas ahead. The state will have many regulations that, in order to comply, will be expensive. If you can afford that hurdle then get ready to pay the locals, they always have their own hoops for you to jump through.
Then after you have made it through the state and local agencies, paid through the nose to get a grow op and a building fitted for the grow, the very next year there can be another ballot measure seeking to over turn the new mj law. Happens all the time, stuff gets voted in, people see if it works to their satisfaction or not and if it doesn't, out see goes. If you lose on a new ballot measure, it's a ton of money down the drain. Even if you win of course the feds could still come knocking at your door. It will be much easier for them then, easy paper work trail. Thanks state and local agencies.
One thing the legal crowd never seems to talk about is that, like to bacco and alcohol, once it's legal and the monopolies have been able to get all the laws passed in their favor, producing your own is even more frowned upon. The big corporations will be sure to do everything they can, mostly buy laws, to make sure no one is horning in on their monopoly. Sure you will still be able to grow but boy if you are caught sticking your hand into the big monopolies pocket, look out brother.
In the past ten years we did learn that big money runs government and that governemnt is there to serve big money didn't we? If big pharma see one 10th of one percent of it's profits drop, well all I can say is, have you ever seen a video of a great white shark come up from below and snap up a seal? Getting involved with government, people I've only scratched the surface here, you have no idea.

This is such a quality post. Hope you post more. Thanks. +rep

 

[macdiesel]

Understand your logic lemongrove, but do not think it is really applicable. You could have used the same perspective on other substances such as beer and wine and find it does not apply. When President Carter facilitated home beer and wine production it lit a candle under a new 'home brew' and boutique brewing industry. The explosion in number of wineries and custom beer bars which appeared in the 1990's is one example. The small businesses involved have to deal with a relatively small amount of regulation compared to what you predict. Licensing costs and administration are there but no where near insurmountable, and existing building code applies with very little modification in almost every jurisdiction - with little involvement from the fed.

While there is a scary fearsome amount of manipulation potential for big pharma and the agri-monopoly industries, it will more likely have little impact on the hobby grower and small businessman. The liquor industry has not successfully lobbied to restrict small business and home brewers and that model applies well to the potential cannabis industry.

How many connoisseur tobacco growers do you know personally making a living like many here on IC?

That's really the end of the argument, which only reinforces lemongroves post.

 

[Lemon Larry]

?

 

[Lemon Larry]

?

 

[Lemon Larry]

?

 

[Mud Boy]

I've been growing for 30 years. I don't need or want pot dealers, they are opportunistic exploiters and war profiteers as far as I'm concerned. They sell moldy, weak, seedy garbage grown by oppressed people in third-world shitholes that get pennies on the dollar for their hard work. Now that the laws have begun to relax, here come all these so-called "connoisseur" growers looking to cash in because there's no longer a threat of jail time hanging over their head. I grow what I need and the rest I give away. I don't make a living from growing and I never will. I have a good job and I am a fully contributing member of society. I could have been a rich man selling what I grew, but I chose not to.

Do me a favor, will you Larry? If you're going to comment on my posts, at least learn how to spell. You don't come off as very bright.

 

[Weird]

you fall out of the womb growing weed mud boy?

you never smoked until you grew your own?

how about all the people who couldn't grow but needed relief fuck them too?

some of you dudes are painfully shallow

 

[Weird]

the regulations enforcement officer with one post makes some valid points although they were made long before

 

[irishdude5186]

Lemon grove speaks the truth I'm afraid but hopefully everyone will be allowed to grow a few plants for themselves .. :/

Thankfully there is hope if we keep up the good fight and inform people about the dangers of legalization and how big corps will buy gov to shit on the competition.. hell thats what a load of laws are about.. push up the cost to do business so the big guy can clean out the lil guys.

 

[Mud Boy]

you fall out of the womb growing weed mud boy?

you never smoked until you grew your own?

how about all the people who couldn't grow but needed relief fuck them too?

some of you dudes are painfully shallow

I'm sixty years old. I started growing when the price went from $10 an ounce to $40, then to $80, then to $240 almost overnight. I grew what I could in the summer but still had to buy from dealers occasionally until the harvest came in. I started growing indoors in the 70's when everyone else was still growing outdoors, and I've been dealer free since the mid 80's. In the late 80's-early 90's I began to supply two friends, one with MS and another with ALS, free meds at a time when only people on the fringe believed in the medicinal qualities of cannabis. My friend with ALS has since died, but I still give my friend with MS free meds, along with another MS patient I met several years ago.

Some of you dudes are painfully stupid.

 

[Weird]

i remember 20 lids as well I also have a career and contribute to society and gift meds, now what the fuck does that have to do with the fact that if it wasn't for the part of the scene you don't like you wouldn't have known the good weed ?

your a cynical old man

just like hunter thompson who got so sucked into his own perception of the world that he marginalized the good right out of everything until life wasn't worth living

zappa was cynical as fuck too, really fueled his cigarette and coffee habits which contribute to colon cancer, i don't doubt the constant antibiotics due to STD's didn't help either

Shame because I really dug them both, they were both brilliant but it doesn't dismiss the fact that regardless of their insights they couldn't escape the bias that they caused even in their own lives

they both served themselves a big cup of reaping what you sow

 

[BushyOldGrower]

Old mud does sound a little bitter damning all of us who have ever made a buck in this business.

A low wage for growers is all they deserve? Supply and demand does set all the prices.

I remember ten dollar lids but they were crap weed. The forty dollar seedy ounces from Colombia we all loved and knew it was a great deal.

I often paid fifty a quarter oz. For crap. My clients and clubs are happy to pay me for quality and a lotta growers have figured their expenses when goring indoors. It's more than you assume old mud.

Without an industry and profits it's hard to start a quasi legal business so don't blame us for a world with bills to pay. Do you think growers are greedy rich fuks?

Most commercial growers I know are just managing to get by and they work harder than most people.

Don't come to a grow site dissing growers or your name will be mud.

I do think we all understand his frustration that he does it for free out of love and some of us charge a buck. Nobody forces anyone to buy my shit and it always brings the premium price at any club. Still people want top quality and some of us will continue to provide it.

I am old too but I don't see a reason for this resentment among stoners who shouldn't fight and call people stupid mud boy.

 

[Mud Boy]

I'm happy about one thing. Plummeting prices.