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How the marijuana ‘green rush’ fell apart

washingtonpost.com

71–80 of 231 posts

Re: How the marijuana ‘green rush’ fell apart

#71

I would argue that medical marijuana is really where the money went. In states where there is only medical and not rec, you have to pay hundreds a year to get and keep your prescription. Anyone can get one they just have to say literally anything to a weed doctor and you get the prescription. It took me 15 minutes. Couple hundred bucks a couple times a year though to keep it. The people making money are the few polit…

> The people making money are the few politically well connected companies that have growers licenses and the doctors prescribing it. The grow licenses are worth tens / hundreds? of millions.

Honestly knowing some of the backend of a grow in a medical only state, the grows aren't where the money is.

The article glances over this very quickly, but real money is in the dispensaries.

(this is from a dispensary angle)

> Carl Giannone, the co-founder of cannabis company Trade Roots in Massachusetts, said an eighth of an ounce used to reliably sell for $55. Now he has to price it near $40.

> “And the scary part is that product that’s selling for $40, I can buy from a large wholesaler for $7.50,” he said.

> “The green rush has never happened,” Luchini said.

Nothing like a 533% markup.

Re: How the marijuana ‘green rush’ fell apart

#72
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…

> Plus, the indoor grows we’re usually doing multiple harvests a year.

Maximum of four, and if you have it staggered in multiple grow environments, then you’re doing 12, one every month.

Re: How the marijuana ‘green rush’ fell apart

#73
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It actually is a technical hurdle because not a lot of academic research is being done on it for commercial growers to use. You see some papers out there that cover things like yield per light spectrum or what soil ammendments do for terpene content, but they all come out of Canada and specifically McGill. It's like U.S. researchers are blackballed by their institutions or maybe their grant funding agencies. As such,…

Corn feeds millions of people and animals. Pot? It doesn’t feed anyone. So I can understand the funding disparity.

Re: How the marijuana ‘green rush’ fell apart

#74
post #2

This reminds me of the strawberry growers here in Australia, QLD. Many farmers switched to strawberries and the market was flooded for one season. They were literally selling them by the kilo when previously punnets (250g) were 3-5 dollars each. Lots of farmers switched to other more stable crops. The big players stayed and the small farmers producing high quality fruit continued. The market stabilizing. Interesting…

And that happened with avocados this year

Re: How the marijuana ‘green rush’ fell apart

#75
post #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

My friend had some of those… roughly the size of a Nilla wager for 25mg.

Re: How the marijuana ‘green rush’ fell apart

#76
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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..…

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Re: How the marijuana ‘green rush’ fell apart

#77
post #2

This reminds me of the strawberry growers here in Australia, QLD. Many farmers switched to strawberries and the market was flooded for one season. They were literally selling them by the kilo when previously punnets (250g) were 3-5 dollars each. Lots of farmers switched to other more stable crops. The big players stayed and the small farmers producing high quality fruit continued. The market stabilizing. Interesting…

Off topic. I've been appalled at how tasteless store-bought strawberries in the U.S. have become. I don't know happened, a change in cultivar? 12 years ago I could buy flavorful strawberries in the U.S., today I cannot. I hope they have more flavor in AU.

[dead]

Re: How the marijuana ‘green rush’ fell apart

#78
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Off topic. I've been appalled at how tasteless store-bought strawberries in the U.S. have become. I don't know happened, a change in cultivar? 12 years ago I could buy flavorful strawberries in the U.S., today I cannot. I hope they have more flavor in AU.

Because consumers in the US buy on size and appearance and not taste. We'll buy a pint of massive, red, perfect looking berries that have zero flavor before we'll buy a smaller, dented berry that has the best flavor on the planet. Add to that the berries tend to be picked green and shipped long distances and you have the perfect maelstrom for the next 'red delicious' debacle.

Well most costumers don't buy according to taste because you either can't taste it and compare it in commercial stores, or they don't have much of a choice. A more traditional market or farmers market is a different situation where someone might offer to let you try one or a piece of their fruit knowing their competitions fruit are tasteless and gain customers. In a walmart you can label your fruit as delicious or something, but so can the competition, and you can't really refute it until after they already bought them.

Re: How the marijuana ‘green rush’ fell apart

#79
post #2

This reminds me of the strawberry growers here in Australia, QLD. Many farmers switched to strawberries and the market was flooded for one season. They were literally selling them by the kilo when previously punnets (250g) were 3-5 dollars each. Lots of farmers switched to other more stable crops. The big players stayed and the small farmers producing high quality fruit continued. The market stabilizing. Interesting…

Off topic. I've been appalled at how tasteless store-bought strawberries in the U.S. have become. I don't know happened, a change in cultivar? 12 years ago I could buy flavorful strawberries in the U.S., today I cannot. I hope they have more flavor in AU.

When do you buy them? Where I live in Canada there are two options, big tasteless imported (from down south) stuff that's available year round, or tasty local half-the-size stuff that is only available for a few weeks once a year.

Re: How the marijuana ‘green rush’ fell apart

#80
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?

Paste the URL in at archive.today: https://archive.ph/DFh3y
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