How the marijuana ‘green rush’ fell apart • Hacker News Board

Re: How the marijuana ‘green rush’ fell apart

#201

Post by bigbillheck » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 5:37 PM UTC

vendingd wrote: post #194

bigbillheck wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like moral panic bullshit to me.

Do you think what these tweets revealed is acceptable behavior then? You don't have a problem with children in drag (where the 'drag mother' is a sex offender), or children being taken to venues to watch sexual performances and interact with the performers?

The lady in the first one is wearing a bikini (you can see it when she turns around) and (presumably) pasties, it's a little risque but not really much more so then a kid would see at the beach.

The second has a fully-clothed lady in makeup and headdress doing a dance that involves flashes of her underskirt, and is far less sexed up than, say, a can-can dancer, of which I personally saw plenty growing up watching old cartoons and TV shows (and have since ended up posting on the Hacker News forum which I guess is not necessarily the best endorsement). For example: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E_gKenzXMAUOs2W?format=jpg&name=...

As for the third link, I've personally found Andy Ngo to be a completely unreliable source. That said, I do believe sex offenders should not be around children, but maybe let's start with places where they're a bit thicker on the ground.

Re: How the marijuana ‘green rush’ fell apart

#202

Post by alexose » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 5:40 PM UTC

jMyles wrote: post #198

mind-blight wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up in Ashland (visiting there right now, in fact) and have family who funded one of the first marijuana companies in the state. Some problems were bad behavior from legal growers, but I'd argue the bigger problems were caused by regulatory and oversight failures from OLCC and enforcement of existing laws on illegal grow operations. 1) OLCC allowed for way too many grow license at first. For a state of 4.3 mill…

I love Ashland. The lithia water is some of my favorite water I've ever encountered. I have occasionally wondered: is it possible to buy land there with a well that produces that amazing water? I have looked around the area of emmigrant creek and the gun range, from which the water is apparently piped? I'd love to know more about this. I think about this water often.

This makes me so happy. I'm not sure I've ever met anyone who actually enjoys Lithia water!

I'm not the expert, but you might check out Colestin. There was once a resort there built during the heyday of "healing" mineral waters. Land is cheap, although it is quite remote and extremely prone to wildfire.

https://www.livinggoldpress.com/TakingtheWaters.htm

Re: How the marijuana ‘green rush’ fell apart

#203

Post by alexose » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 6:02 PM UTC

flutas wrote: post #14

alexose wrote: 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…

> All the big-money growers went to Oklahoma So accurate. Also a lot of foreign money in pot farms in OK... sometimes leading to essentially slavery on the farms resulting in the deaths of workers. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/man-demanded-300k-killi...

Unfortunately, I can tell you exactly how it's going to go in Oklahoma as well. Not great.

Re: How the marijuana ‘green rush’ fell apart

#204

Post by jimsmart » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 6:04 PM UTC

asdff wrote: post #65

malermeister wrote: post #58

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…

I can recommend the Storz & Bickel 'Mighty' (by same makers as the Volcano) — perhaps plus a pack of spare parts / accessories (so one can postpone cleaning of the cooling / top part of the unit).

Although, sure, it is expensive, as you say, but it's very good. And no matter how gunked up the top cooling part of the unit might get, it will never not turn on/off. I don't find the maintenance of the unit to be a big deal (particularly having an extra top /etc), but as always with such things, YMMV.

Re: How the marijuana ‘green rush’ fell apart

#205

Post by mind-blight » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 6:16 PM UTC

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #177

mind-blight wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up in Ashland (visiting there right now, in fact) and have family who funded one of the first marijuana companies in the state. Some problems were bad behavior from legal growers, but I'd argue the bigger problems were caused by regulatory and oversight failures from OLCC and enforcement of existing laws on illegal grow operations. 1) OLCC allowed for way too many grow license at first. For a state of 4.3 mill…

>you have a serious upper bound to how much the legal market can support. Demand is very much elastic in response to price.

That's true until the market is saturated. Most consumers aren't going to double their consumption if price falls by half - unless you're basically an addict, there are diminishing returns to consumption. Oregon grew way more than the state would ever consume, regardless of price for multiple years.

Re: How the marijuana ‘green rush’ fell apart

#206

Post by dsfyu404ed » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 6:45 PM UTC

mind-blight wrote: post #205

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>you have a serious upper bound to how much the legal market can support. Demand is very much elastic in response to price.

That's true until the market is saturated. Most consumers aren't going to double their consumption if price falls by half - unless you're basically an addict, there are diminishing returns to consumption. Oregon grew way more than the state would ever consume, regardless of price for multiple years.

Saturated at what price point though? Until you can get high as cheaply as you can get your hands on a six pack of beer I don't thing we'll see demand plateau.

Re: How the marijuana ‘green rush’ fell apart

#207

Post by unethical_ban » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 6:48 PM UTC

sudosteph wrote: post #6

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…

How is cannabis flower legal through a loophole? Someone here in TX said they have the real thing but I was skeptical, since some D8/CBD places are trying to sell smokable hemp.

That said, I must say Delta 8 and 11-Hydroxy-THC are two very different but enjoyable and legal substances in Texas. 6mg of D8 is just enough to take the edge off a day, and a full one will just totally chill you out for movies. Then THCjd, HHC or 11 Hydroxy THC will level you if that's what you want.

Re: How the marijuana ‘green rush’ fell apart

#208

Post by mind-blight » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 6:48 PM UTC

alexose wrote: post #200

mind-blight wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up in Ashland (visiting there right now, in fact) and have family who funded one of the first marijuana companies in the state. Some problems were bad behavior from legal growers, but I'd argue the bigger problems were caused by regulatory and oversight failures from OLCC and enforcement of existing laws on illegal grow operations. 1) OLCC allowed for way too many grow license at first. For a state of 4.3 mill…

Hey Ashlander! I'm out in the Applegate (as you probably could have guessed). Thank you for adding some more nuance to my post. I agree with everything you've written here. It matches my understanding of what happened despite my earlier oversimplifications. There were compounding problems, but I think the story to be told is one of ineffective regulation and underenforcement. The regulators just didn't have a complet…

I was guessing either out there or one of the ones vineyards just outside Ashland :).

> The wink-wink nudge-nudge "hemp" growers knew this, and moved with incredible speed to farm as many acres as possible before the regulators caught up.

That's super fair. The ODA wasn't culturally equipped to tell whether a company was a cartel front or a legitimate business. Really nice folks, but way outside anything they had experienced. I don't think OLCC would have done any better though.

The regulatory response also made 0 sense to me: grandfather in existing hemp growers and block anyone new. That just locked in the people they were trying to get rid of

> it was mostly fine until it became clear that there would be a 1-3 year window for growers to extract maximum profits. At this point the whole valley got ground up in the mighty garbage disposal of capitalism.

Oof. That, sadly, hits the nail on the head. The folks who were in it for the long term or more than just the money got eaten alive, and then the bubble popped.

Re: How the marijuana ‘green rush’ fell apart

#209

Post by asdff » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 7:16 PM UTC

aliqot wrote: post #151

asdff wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Or just turn it into an extraction, problem solved. Not many spores can survive a solvent wash, I don't know of any research that says they do.

Their metabolites might be left behind.

Re: How the marijuana ‘green rush’ fell apart

#210

Post by asdff » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 7:23 PM UTC

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #105

asdff wrote: 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.

There's plenty of value for pot in society, for some people it means they no longer are dependent on opioids for example. That being said, the Canadian government thinks this is worthy to fund, grant support for cannabis research can come from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and because of this the bulk of the literature in recent years is published by researchers in Canadian universities.