HydroIndustry
Member
Here's Why
Here's Why
The justification, and much of the anger towards Advanced Nutrients, is specifically attributable to their marketing of the product for an illegal purpose in the USA. Yes, yes, we all know medical marijuana is now legal is 14 states. But guess what? It's not legal for medical use in 36 states, and it's not legal to grow for recreational use in any state, either by state law, or U.S. Federal law, which supersedes all state laws regardless. The store visitations in Washington State were initiated by the DEA, so the actions they are threatening store owners with fall under U.S. Federal laws. In fact, I possess a PDF copy of the DEA's communication with the store owners in Washington and you can be assured that the threat is real.
These Federal laws articulate that an item can be considered drug paraphernalia on a number of factors, but one of the primary ones is how the product is marketed, or advertised. In other words, if the product is marketed to be used with marijuana, it is considered drug paraphernalia under Federal law.
Sunlight Supply is a manufacturer of lighting systems and a wholesaler of garden supplies to many retail stores in the hobby hydroponic industry. These are the stores many of you buy your supplies from, whether in a brick and mortar facility or online via the web.
So much to Big Mike's chagrin, what Sunlight Supply is doing is protecting their financial interests (most of their retail store customers have credit accounts and have several thousand dollars owed to Sunlight at any given point in time). Should a store owner who sells Advanced Nutrients be subject to a Federal raid or have his inventory seized as a result of a Green Merchant type action, Sunlight Supply could lose a substantial amount of money, especially if a DEA action was to occur with many stores at once (as with Operation Green Merchant, where over 119 stores were simultaneously raided on one morning in October 1989, primarily chosen for the magazine they advertised in, High Times).
I do not work for Sunlight Supply, but I do work for a retailer that does business with Sunlight Supply. I have been in this industry for well over 20 years. Over this time, the industry has grown from one where we had 3 or 4 nutrient choices to sell to customers to today where there are at least 30 or 40 different nutrient choices, if not more.
Why so many nutrient companies? Because nutrients don't cost much to make. Honestly, for any of the nutrients on the market today, the bottle and label probably cost the manufacturer more than the ingredients. When you buy a bottle of a nutrient with an NPK ratio on the label of 0-0-1, you can rest assured that virtually 99% of the contents of that bottle is water. Oh, sure, there may be some hormones or vitamins or bacteria added, but they are added in such small amounts that they don't appreciably add to the cost of the nutrient.
And when a company that makes nutrients figures out that people will pay between 25 and 500 dollars for what is essentially a gallon of water, they start dreaming of new bottles of water they can sell to the public. And the product line grows. Some of the products are truly breakthroughs in mixing, ratios, additives. But most are redundant at best and pure snake oil at their worst.
Big Mike chose to fly his huge ass bud banner all across the west coast this past summer, metaphorically flipping the bird at the DEA, much in the same vein Marc Emory flipped off the DEA. By marketing his products the way he does, he not only jeopardizes the freedom of the store owners who walk the line to provide you access to what you need to grow, but indeed, jeopardizes the security of you, the customer, as well.
And for all of you naysayers who say the DEA can't do shit, you should go back and read up on Operation Green Merchant. And before anyone says that this kind of action couldn't happen today, just remember Marc Emery once in a while over the next 5 years.
Here's Why
The justification, and much of the anger towards Advanced Nutrients, is specifically attributable to their marketing of the product for an illegal purpose in the USA. Yes, yes, we all know medical marijuana is now legal is 14 states. But guess what? It's not legal for medical use in 36 states, and it's not legal to grow for recreational use in any state, either by state law, or U.S. Federal law, which supersedes all state laws regardless. The store visitations in Washington State were initiated by the DEA, so the actions they are threatening store owners with fall under U.S. Federal laws. In fact, I possess a PDF copy of the DEA's communication with the store owners in Washington and you can be assured that the threat is real.
These Federal laws articulate that an item can be considered drug paraphernalia on a number of factors, but one of the primary ones is how the product is marketed, or advertised. In other words, if the product is marketed to be used with marijuana, it is considered drug paraphernalia under Federal law.
Sunlight Supply is a manufacturer of lighting systems and a wholesaler of garden supplies to many retail stores in the hobby hydroponic industry. These are the stores many of you buy your supplies from, whether in a brick and mortar facility or online via the web.
So much to Big Mike's chagrin, what Sunlight Supply is doing is protecting their financial interests (most of their retail store customers have credit accounts and have several thousand dollars owed to Sunlight at any given point in time). Should a store owner who sells Advanced Nutrients be subject to a Federal raid or have his inventory seized as a result of a Green Merchant type action, Sunlight Supply could lose a substantial amount of money, especially if a DEA action was to occur with many stores at once (as with Operation Green Merchant, where over 119 stores were simultaneously raided on one morning in October 1989, primarily chosen for the magazine they advertised in, High Times).
I do not work for Sunlight Supply, but I do work for a retailer that does business with Sunlight Supply. I have been in this industry for well over 20 years. Over this time, the industry has grown from one where we had 3 or 4 nutrient choices to sell to customers to today where there are at least 30 or 40 different nutrient choices, if not more.
Why so many nutrient companies? Because nutrients don't cost much to make. Honestly, for any of the nutrients on the market today, the bottle and label probably cost the manufacturer more than the ingredients. When you buy a bottle of a nutrient with an NPK ratio on the label of 0-0-1, you can rest assured that virtually 99% of the contents of that bottle is water. Oh, sure, there may be some hormones or vitamins or bacteria added, but they are added in such small amounts that they don't appreciably add to the cost of the nutrient.
And when a company that makes nutrients figures out that people will pay between 25 and 500 dollars for what is essentially a gallon of water, they start dreaming of new bottles of water they can sell to the public. And the product line grows. Some of the products are truly breakthroughs in mixing, ratios, additives. But most are redundant at best and pure snake oil at their worst.
Big Mike chose to fly his huge ass bud banner all across the west coast this past summer, metaphorically flipping the bird at the DEA, much in the same vein Marc Emory flipped off the DEA. By marketing his products the way he does, he not only jeopardizes the freedom of the store owners who walk the line to provide you access to what you need to grow, but indeed, jeopardizes the security of you, the customer, as well.
And for all of you naysayers who say the DEA can't do shit, you should go back and read up on Operation Green Merchant. And before anyone says that this kind of action couldn't happen today, just remember Marc Emery once in a while over the next 5 years.
