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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?

#11

Post by Spooky23 »

jacquesm wrote: post #6
mandmandam wrote: post #4

So wait, they're holding (and destroying!) massive quantities to keep the price of medical marijuana "34% higher" than the black market price, then acting surprised that their product isn't moving? > Forced, in most cases, to sell to a provincial wholesaler along with everyone else in the sector Okay I know nothing about Canada's cannabis market, but who thought that could possibly be a good idea?

Canada has a ton of such cartels, the egg board, the milk board, the LCBO and so on.

Onions too. They used some trade negotiations to put a northeast US farmers out of business for certain onions, which now sell for retail at less than production price.

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

#12

Post by JeremyBanks »

mandmandam wrote: post #4

So wait, they're holding (and destroying!) massive quantities to keep the price of medical marijuana "34% higher" than the black market price, then acting surprised that their product isn't moving? > Forced, in most cases, to sell to a provincial wholesaler along with everyone else in the sector Okay I know nothing about Canada's cannabis market, but who thought that could possibly be a good idea?

You're misreading. They're not being ordered to destroy crops in order to support the medical marijuana price. They're destroying crops because there was a bubble and they've created way too much supply.

Cannabis stocks were a fad for a while, and I know lots of people who invested in them blindly. The number of legal cannabis retailers is exploding. I live in a mid sized town and there are three more opening this month, and the ones I see always have customers.

The system's hardly failing, some speculators just played themselves.

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

#13

Post by [deleted] »

staticassertion wrote: post #7

Weed being legal is cool (and a huge deal and way overdue) but, until I moved to SF, I still bought from a dealer. It was cheaper and I got really high quality stuff, got to give feedback to the guy on the strains, chocolates, etc. Plus my guy would smoke me up for free a good amount of the time and we'd just chill and chat for a bit. Legal weed is wayyyy more expensive in my experience and I dislike the experience.…

[deleted]

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

#14

Post by blamazon »

staticassertion wrote: post #7

Weed being legal is cool (and a huge deal and way overdue) but, until I moved to SF, I still bought from a dealer. It was cheaper and I got really high quality stuff, got to give feedback to the guy on the strains, chocolates, etc. Plus my guy would smoke me up for free a good amount of the time and we'd just chill and chat for a bit. Legal weed is wayyyy more expensive in my experience and I dislike the experience.…

Once you learn the system, dispensaries are very convenient. At practically every location you can peruse the menu and place an order ahead of time. Then, at the dispensary, show ID, receive selected cannabis products.

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

#15

Post by _Microft »

codetrotter wrote: post #9

A billion grams. A million kilograms. A thousand tonnes. …one kilotonne?

Isn’t that as much weed as the Dark Lord smoked per hour?

Edit: english subtitles say „hundreds“ while it is actually „thousand“ in the German version. ~1 minute into https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPVKaj9hVcY

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

#16

Post by WhyNotHugo »

staticassertion wrote: post #7

Weed being legal is cool (and a huge deal and way overdue) but, until I moved to SF, I still bought from a dealer. It was cheaper and I got really high quality stuff, got to give feedback to the guy on the strains, chocolates, etc. Plus my guy would smoke me up for free a good amount of the time and we'd just chill and chat for a bit. Legal weed is wayyyy more expensive in my experience and I dislike the experience.…

Here in the Netherlands tax for weed is really high. 50% if I recall correctly.

Not sure I hate the idea -- at least tax money is put to very good use. But for those for whom it's more than merely recreational (e.g.: medicinal use), I wish they'd sell a tax-free version. Too prone to abuse I guess.

However, heading to a coffeshop[1] isn't a big deal. It's a person behind the stand, you pic what you want from a menu, and they hand it over. Very nice and friendly, not dissimilar to ordering at a cafe.

I don't look under 25, and they've NEVER asked me for an id at any of these places. It surprised me in the US that even to sell alcohol to someone clearly over 40, they still ask for an id.

[1]: Stores that sell weed here are called "coffeeshops".

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

#17

Post by gedy »

> The business model at that time didn’t demand actual weed sales: selling hype, selling the potential of selling weed, was proving lucrative.

That's kind of everything these days.. Tech, stocks markets, housing, etc. is less about fundamentals as it is the "potential".

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

#19

Post by h2odragon »

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 that anyone who has a sales channel has been inundated with "buy my crop" offers. Ive heard one guy had grown and harvested several acres or so and had a couple truckloads in round wrapped bales he was looking to sell.

People didn't dive into cotton farming this way, when it became viable in the area again.

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