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How the marijuana ‘green rush’ fell apart

washingtonpost.com

161–170 of 231 posts

Re: How the marijuana ‘green rush’ fell apart

#162
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…

>"Whereas my plant takes half a decade to establish, then produces $10 of fruit in a good year." I would be interested in hearing more detail about the economics of the $10. Is this price you get from selling your grapes to someone else or is the net from selling the wine that you produce from your plants?

also involved the winemaking and vineyard biz (east coast us). i think that estimate is on the lower end, but also per season (single harvest per year). while the vines do take 5 years to really start producing, they will continue to produce for decades after, with a cyclical nature of peaks and valleys approx every 5 years. $10/per plant seems very low, even if selling only as u-pick. also highly depends on your spacing and grape type. for us in the south east, muscadine grapes are enormous and a single plant with a 12' spread can produce quite a lot per plant at its peak, easily 80lbs of grapes in one season. wine is approx 15-20lbs grapes per gallon from that.

Re: How the marijuana ‘green rush’ fell apart

#163
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not so much as a disparity as the funding is simply nonexistent. Pot doesn't feed anyone of course, but its legitimate medicine.

The value to society of pot vs corn is where you should look to see why government funding doesn’t match your expectations.

But finding and better understanding its value to society is precisely what the funding is needed for.

Re: How the marijuana ‘green rush’ fell apart

#164
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 toleranc…

The Airizer Air Max is an incredible solution for on-the-go vaping, but unfortunately not exactly cheap.

Re: How the marijuana ‘green rush’ fell apart

#165

Can someone please explain the CBD market? I’m in Paris right now and it seems like every block has a high end (looking) CBD shop. How are these rents being covered? Who is buying? I have to believe that most people still want THC.

I believe THC is still illegal in France. So it's mostly convenience - a certain base of weed users don't want to buy from dealers, or want the security of a well produced product - an illicitly produced THC vape can be dangerous [1][2].

CBD (particularly the terpene infused ones) fill that gap.

[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/vaping-cannabis-oi... [2] https://www.vice.com/en/article/xweejk/cannabis-vapes-pens-b...

Edit: Should also mention there's a market for the effects of weed, without the 'high'.

Re: How the marijuana ‘green rush’ fell apart

#166
It seemed like over the last year or two, dispensaries shot up. Lots of new construction, fancy buildings, expensive weed.

Now it seems like at least half of them closed down, a lot of the chains opened too many locations. This was supposed to bring in all this tax money that was going to fix the roads and the schools and who knows what else.

I just don't know why it was going to be such a big deal to have legal places to buy when everyone that smokes already 'knows a guy' or three.

Re: How the marijuana ‘green rush’ fell apart

#167
post #156
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

these are full time farmers, they aren't sitting around at home with 2 phones waiting for teenagers to pay retail price between fortnite matches. Instead they sold bulk on average for $660 / LB this last year, so ~ $250-330 per outdoor plant. MOST of that average is indoor high grade, so this can be seen as a ceiling on outdoor plant economics. So your napkin math that "you can get a lot more than $500 off a single p…

I had a legal grow in Northern California for almost 10 years.

You can get a lot more than $500 per plant, even at $500 per pound.

I've seen guys with 10'x10'x4' raised beds for each plant. They start them indoors or in the greenhouse so they're already several feet tall when they're transplanted outdoors at the beginning of spring. One friend in particular consistently harvested over 5 lbs per plant this way. So did most of his neighbors.

Re: How the marijuana ‘green rush’ fell apart

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that happened with avocados this year

Avocados take 10 years to start producing. Strawberries are available that growing season. Any wild drop in avocado prices I'd imagine would have to be something changing in the economic playing field (unless it is just a ten year delay from a jump in tree planting). The Mexican cartels have been squeezing avocado farmers, there is an episode on Rotten (Netflix, I think) about it. Any price swinging makes me wonder h…

They're out of the weed business so like any corporation, they're pivoting to cocaine, human trafficking, and shakedowns on avocado farmers.

Re: How the marijuana ‘green rush’ fell apart

#170
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I personally have never even been able to detect a real difference between sativa and indica, let alone individual strains This is interesting to hear because I have the opposite experience. I used to have really bad anxiety and weed was (and still can be) a trigger for it. I took a few years off weed and only starting trying it again since legalization in Canada (and now Thailand). I have definitely noticed that I…

> and those are usually just proxies for the cannabinoid ratios (with sativa usually being higher THC etc and indica higher CBD etc.) As a medical user in the UK, I don't believe this to be the case - I believe these terms are more like proxies for the terpenes than the cannabinoids; you can have two strains with the same cannabinoid content, yet they can have completely different effects.

> I believe these terms are more like proxies for the terpenes than the cannabinoids

Do you have some info on what terps tend to be associated with sativa and which with indica? This is an interesting point if there seems to be a pattern!

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