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What do you do with a billion grams of surplus weed?

thewalrus.ca

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Re: What do you do with a billion grams of surplus weed?

#151

Post by Symbiote »

blt wrote: post #119
slapfrog wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cigarettes from a corner store that have been imported from a low tax country? Probably just smuggled across state lines. Bought in a state with low taxes, then sold in a state with high taxes. The store pockets the taxes instead of passing them along to the state, which it can do because the cigarettes being sold were smuggled so the high-tax state doesn't have any record of them existing.

The comment you are replying to does not look like it was written by someone from the USA.

It's relatively common for cigarettes to be smuggled between EU states.

You see people in Sweden with packaging with the health warning in Polish, for example.

Re: What do you do with a billion grams of surplus weed?

#152

Post by iaw »

tenfourwookie wrote: post #134

We've been hearing about surplus for several years now, and yet the price of weed is going up, not down. I regularly see $400 retail ounces in Oregon for top shelf. Supply/demand should push the price to the floor with this Surplus gargantus, and yet prices continue to climb. It's like ECON 101 doesn't apply to pot. What are they going to do? Dump it in ocean? What I want to know is how retail is maintaining these ob…

> I regularly see $400 retail ounces in Oregon for top shelf.

I think because this article refers to Canada, not the US, we can't infer things about the market in the US due to the low likelihood of smuggling occurring.

What has the quality and the cost of 'low-grade' weed done? I suspect the quality of the bottom shelf has increased drastically at the same cost.

Re: What do you do with a billion grams of surplus weed?

#153

Post by djrogers »

Yeroc wrote: post #125
mandmandam wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they're not being ordered to destroy crops in order to support the medical marijuana price. I didn't say, or suggest, that anyone was ordered to destroy crops? They created too much supply, yes. Follow the logic chain out a step. If they wanted to sell it, they could lower the price... Instead they _choose_ to keep the price above the black market price. The black market price which is already inflated far above pr…

You seem to be assuming that the producer/grower and retailer are the same company. There are often disconnects in supply chains like this where someone is hemorrhaging money while others in the chain are doing quite well. And besides if your production costs are high there's a point where lowering the price no longer helps. eg. the cost to package it for retail distribution just adds more even more loss.

TFA references a huge amount of already packaged bud and produced and packaged edibles included in that billion grams.

Unless you’re a cartel trying to price fix for long term gain, selling this stuff at >$0 is a win.

Re: What do you do with a billion grams of surplus weed?

#154

Post by smabie »

latchkey wrote: post #68
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sort of question the framing here? Not yours, but the article's. There is exactly enough demand, because however much people want of a mostly harmless plant is how much people should want of that plant. Nobody turning a profit should be no surprise: farmers barely turn a profit either, because selling commodities is not a means of getting rich quick. Considering how low-risk buying pot was before legalization, it b…

As a culture, we over produce, under consume and just throw the rest away. Ever looked into the dumpsters behind super markets? I may have known a grower who would always struggle with the seasons. Indoor growing is year round, but the outdoor stuff is what everyone wants. So every time the outdoor harvests would happen, it was nearly impossible to sell the indoor stuff. So now you combine massive indoor with massive…

People want outdoor weed? I think most people prefer indoor as it's stronger and of higher quality.

Re: What do you do with a billion grams of surplus weed?

#155

Post by throwaway984393 »

What I have heard anecdotally from people who grow is that regulations have stymied their ability to profit. In many places there are limits on how much you can grow, or how you can sell, or how much, or to whom. Illegal sales do not have any of those problems. It's like we've tied the legal producers' hands behind their backs and then wonder what all the struggling is about.

Re: What do you do with a billion grams of surplus weed?

#156

Post by Animats »

derefr wrote: post #143
Animats wrote: post #105

"The business model at that time didn’t demand actual weed sales: selling hype, selling the potential of selling weed, was proving lucrative." Where have we heard that before?

In 2017 a good number of the VCs investing in blockchain in Vancouver, pivoted to investing in weed. I guess their investment thesis was actually "invest in things that can be sold on hype alone."

Monetization of Fear Of Missing Out has become an industry.

Re: What do you do with a billion grams of surplus weed?

#157

Post by [deleted] »

treis wrote: post #22
h2odragon wrote: post #19

Many planning failures in the field. Last year lots of people planted hemp around me, as it just become legal and there was a small market opening. Very, very few of these people had any notion what it would take to harvest, process and store their crop, and no notion of how or where to market it once in. I've seen multiple Craigslist ads attempting to sell garbage bags of wet, mouldy, untrimmed hemp. I've been told…

I did the math on this a few years ago and it came out to be less than 10 farms to supply the entire US with weed. Edit:. Found my post: For comparison, bulk price of tobacco is a few bucks a pound. Admittedly I am not an expert in marijuana vs tobacco cultivation, but I doubt it's 1,000 times more expensive. Ultimately, the problem with profiting in a legal marijuana industry is that people simply don't smoke that m…

[deleted]

Re: What do you do with a billion grams of surplus weed?

#158

Post by smnrchrds »

Symbiote wrote: post #151
blt wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comment you are replying to does not look like it was written by someone from the USA.

It's relatively common for cigarettes to be smuggled between EU states. You see people in Sweden with packaging with the health warning in Polish, for example.

I was under the impression that anything bought within the EU single market can be legally taken anywhere within the single market, at least for personal use, without taxes and duties. Is that not the case?

Re: What do you do with a billion grams of surplus weed?

#159

Post by tenfourwookie »

iaw wrote: post #152
tenfourwookie wrote: post #134

We've been hearing about surplus for several years now, and yet the price of weed is going up, not down. I regularly see $400 retail ounces in Oregon for top shelf. Supply/demand should push the price to the floor with this Surplus gargantus, and yet prices continue to climb. It's like ECON 101 doesn't apply to pot. What are they going to do? Dump it in ocean? What I want to know is how retail is maintaining these ob…

> I regularly see $400 retail ounces in Oregon for top shelf. I think because this article refers to Canada, not the US, we can't infer things about the market in the US due to the low likelihood of smuggling occurring. What has the quality and the cost of 'low-grade' weed done? I suspect the quality of the bottom shelf has increased drastically at the same cost.

Yes, but the same is true in Oregon. Massive surplus. It was some silly number like enough weed to make 1 billion joints. I'll find the number.

Re: What do you do with a billion grams of surplus weed?

#160

Post by [deleted] »

treis wrote: post #22
h2odragon wrote: post #19

Many planning failures in the field. Last year lots of people planted hemp around me, as it just become legal and there was a small market opening. Very, very few of these people had any notion what it would take to harvest, process and store their crop, and no notion of how or where to market it once in. I've seen multiple Craigslist ads attempting to sell garbage bags of wet, mouldy, untrimmed hemp. I've been told…

I did the math on this a few years ago and it came out to be less than 10 farms to supply the entire US with weed. Edit:. Found my post: For comparison, bulk price of tobacco is a few bucks a pound. Admittedly I am not an expert in marijuana vs tobacco cultivation, but I doubt it's 1,000 times more expensive. Ultimately, the problem with profiting in a legal marijuana industry is that people simply don't smoke that m…

[deleted]
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