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How the marijuana ‘green rush’ fell apart

washingtonpost.com

61–70 of 231 posts

Re: How the marijuana ‘green rush’ fell apart

#61
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think if people were more open to it culturally it would be used a lot more. I know plenty of my elderly relatives who would benefit switching from opioids to this for their chronic pain, but they grew up being fed lies about the drug that precludes them ever experimenting. Socially its also not up to the level of alcohol is even in California. Every work event I have for instance has a selection of beers and wines…

I'm still shocked we don't have a weed emoji. There's at least 7 for booze.

Well at least they replaced the cartoon revolver with a water pistol

Re: How the marijuana ‘green rush’ fell apart

#62
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a reason why there are dispensaries for ohioans set up just across the michigan border.

I believe the acceptable mold level in Michigan is 10x that of Ohio. Price is only one component, many people like a tightly regulated medical market to ensure safety.

If it were at a sufficient level for people to start getting sick you'd expect to see an increase in people with related issues, but you don't when you seek out news on this factoid, just a statement on the level being higher than in another place. Most products you consume will have at least some mold on them.

Re: How the marijuana ‘green rush’ fell apart

#63
post #30
post #11

I live on the Oregon/California border, where a lot of growers spilled over from Humboldt County and elsewhere. I've seen a few ups and downs in the market, but nothing like what happened over the last two years. There was a moment in 2020 when more acres of weed were being grown than alfalfa . Neighbors were signing multi-year contracts to rent out their water rights. And oh, all of the terrible behavior that the ru…

You can get a lot more than $500 off a single plant. Outdoors grown right into the soil, you could get a pound or more off a single humongous plant, and in California with a medical card you can have 12 of these plants growing at once. Even a small indoor tent grown plant is good for like 5-6 oz or more 3-5 months from start to harvest. Genetics are great these days for seeds and clones. Imagine parting that out for…

If you are still paying $200 (retail) for an OZ you are getting scammed.

Re: How the marijuana ‘green rush’ fell apart

#64

The cannabis boom seems to have been predicated largely on the assumption that it would resemble the high-end wine market, with expensive vintages, "budtenders", etc that can support lots of boutique farms and retailers. But it looks more like the future will resemble the tobacco industry, with slim profit margins and a handful of conglomerates controlling production. And in reality, for wine as well, LVMH owns many…

There are high-end weed products out there. High quality wax, concentrates, and edibles for discerning customers exists. Certain dispensaries also specialize in higher quality product. I enjoy many of these myself as legal weed in my area is still much cheaper than alcohol and I prefer the product. Wine has had a stable market for centuries with products aimed at many customer segments, high and low quality segments…

High-end tobacco exists as well, and you can also pay hundreds for a Cohiba cigar or a carton of Chunghwa cigarettes, but for the vast majority of smokers out there Marlboro is about as fancy as it gets.

Re: How the marijuana ‘green rush’ fell apart

#65
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference between pretty good weed and the best weed is irrelevent when you throw the bud into your grinder, unless you are buying moonrocks (kind of like battering fried chicken, the bud is dipped in high thc% oil then kief). It's not like a whisky where you get this whole tasting experience and can taste the wood of the barrel it sat in; to my tongue at least smoke is smoke unless its the terrible brick weed t…

Smoke is smoke, but vapor is not vapor. You can taste a lot more when you stop burning the plant and I think that's where the industry needs to go if it wants to develop that way

There's not a great vaporizer product for dry herb unfortunately that doesn't cost hundreds, plus they are mostly "session style" vaporizers where you preheat an oven and are expected to vape it all or else a lot is wasted. There's the vapecap and copies that are more "on demand" like a normal pipe, where you use a butane torch to heat up the device each hit, but they don't work well for people with a higher tolerance and take quite a bit of technique from what I've read. With my experience with a pax too, these things are picky about being perfectly clean or the taste will change, the airflow will be poor, and the switch for it will be gunked to the point the device can't even turn on if its not stored standing straight up at all times. I was also disappointed with reddit's favorite the mflb which has a few inherent flaws (batteries degrade fast and its just not nearly as strong as smoking for whatever reason).

It seems like a market ripe for disruption to be honest, the undisputed king among non portable vaporizers at least is still the volcano vaporizer which came out over 25 years ago. I think that's why distillate cartridges are so popular, because they avoid all these issues dry herb vapes seem unable to work around. They don't smell very much at all compared to a dry herb vape, they are cheap, they have no maintenance issues or learning curve, and they are on and off with a click of a button.

Re: How the marijuana ‘green rush’ fell apart

#66

I'd be interested to know if the new market for "full spectrum hemp" in non-decriminalized states is also affecting the legal growers. Here in NC, you can go into stores all over the state and buy thc edibles for a very reasonable price. And I'm not even talking about the delta-8 stuff that was popular for a while (though that's around too). Basically a farm bill loophole has made it so that processing low-thc hemp a…

That d9thc loophole is honestly hilarious. The gummies are comically large to get 0.3% thc

Re: How the marijuana ‘green rush’ fell apart

#67
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/29/us/oklahoma-marijuana-boo...

Anyone know how to circumvent the paywall on these links on ios?

archive.is or one of the "web archives" plugins that use it

Re: How the marijuana ‘green rush’ fell apart

#68
post #33
post #3

I spent about 4 years actively growing weed before it was "legal." in San Francisco. Because mine was indoor/soil/organic and didn't require driving up to Ukiah or waiting for the outdoor harvests, I got the same premium rates for it that are noted in the article. As soon as I realized that weed was eventually going legal, I stopped entirely because I could see the writing on the wall. It was becoming commoditized to…

I'm not sure what your operation was but I think there is still a market for your crop. There's plenty of weed in the dispensary, yes, but its taxed sometimes 30%. You get what you think is a cheap oz of weed but its in a sealed bag, and when you open it up it does the job sure according to THC % but its all that shake and larf and ugly stuff that comes from the trim bag and rock hard cure style of prep commercial gr…

I'm very long out of the business, it is several lifetimes ago for me, which is why I'm comfortable talking about it now.

Grey market at scale is a pain in the ass, and risky. You need people to buy pounds at a time, in cash. A big bag for a big bag.

You basically need to set up a supply chain that you can trust... this is why the DEA a lot of the time finds weapons with drugs.

So yea... growing for friends is easy... growing to make a living, is a real pain in the ass.

Re: How the marijuana ‘green rush’ fell apart

#69
post #3

I spent about 4 years actively growing weed before it was "legal." in San Francisco. Because mine was indoor/soil/organic and didn't require driving up to Ukiah or waiting for the outdoor harvests, I got the same premium rates for it that are noted in the article. As soon as I realized that weed was eventually going legal, I stopped entirely because I could see the writing on the wall. It was becoming commoditized to…

I remember reading something years back that applying modern large scale ag technology to cannabis was never a technical hurdle, merely a legal one, and how much cheaper it would be once the well-capitalized giants got ahold of it and came to pretty much the same conclusion. It did make for a neat trip through Colorado in 2017 when it was still pretty novel though.

Despite the name 'weed'... it is actually a very complex plant to grow well and with the highest output. I propagated the best cuttings, from the same strain and the plant morphed over the years. Far stronger at the end than when I started. But it also became oddly harder to grow, the same techniques that I was using, didn't work over time despite a relatively controlled growing environment.

It is a fascinating plant.

Re: How the marijuana ‘green rush’ fell apart

#70
post #48
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get $5000 or a lot more for a single bottle (~1 plant) of wine, too. But if you're growing acres of either crop you aren't making those numbers reliably.

Is your bottle of wine ready for market in 6 months or less from when you plant your vineyard? Probably not though. The speed at which you can get these yields is another huge advantage for these crops. Some commercial growers are having new plants grow up to harvest continuously, with separate rooms for vegetative growing, flowering, and even maintaining a genetic library of clones fit for expanding and out planting…

You have to have 3 rooms, otherwise you're buying clones, which is stupid expensive, when you can just take cuttings and make your own super easy. The two precursor rooms don't require nearly as much space or power though.
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