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Trying to corner the market on legal marijuana

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Re: Trying to corner the market on legal marijuana

#51

Post by dmichulke »

etplayer wrote: post #7
incompatible wrote: post #2

Ah, patents again. Who wants free markets when you can have a winner-take-all system based on government-granted monopolies.

Ah, capitalism. Who wants the free association of individual producers as labourers when you can have wage labour and the cycle of capital crisis in a commodity economy backed up by the State acting on behalf of the property owners for the benefit of the rich to the detriment of the poor as Adam Smith noted even in the 18th century? The free market was so called because it is free from control of its participants :)…

Please note that free market capitalism (Austrian economics) is not at all in favor of patents (because it creates a temporary monopoly), though I think copyrights are still a thing (because you must not just copy somebody else's work and just claim it was yours).

You may think the above two reasons apply to both patents and copyrights but I will argue they don't once someone asks me for it :)

Re: Trying to corner the market on legal marijuana

#52

Post by saturdaysaint »

malka wrote: post #41
seattle_spring wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Acceptable certainly is relative. If you just "dumped some seeds in your garden", you would get seedy, low-grade crap weed, regardless of what strain you planted. Good weed requires proper attention and care.

Wont kill them or blind them. Will get them High. Wont taste that good.bad weed is More acceptable than Bad alcohol

At worst, any weed being sold today will make for fantastic edibles.

Re: Trying to corner the market on legal marijuana

#53

Post by erikb »

The sad thing about growing up is that most of the magic unicorns die. Yes, it is a nice story, but if it is not the 1 in a million exceptional story it's probably one of the five big players behind this company. And if they really are close to getting a legal lock on the market the other big players are either making deals with them already behind closed doors or they are partnering up and we'll soon see legal battles about these patents.

For the end result it also doesn't really matter how the fight will go. Either 1, 2 or 3 of them will find a balance that all of them can live with and the rest of the market will just die, starting from the smaller participants, either by going bankrupt or by merging with bigger players. Soon everything will become legal and you can buy standardized packages in the super market with a few illegal players continuing to gamble against the law but never really making big bucks out of it.

Re: Trying to corner the market on legal marijuana

#54

Post by csorrell »

Taek wrote: post #16
jasonlaramburu wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Myrcene is the dominant terpene in all strains of cannabis according to this study: http://www.internationalhempassociation.org/jiha/jiha4208.ht... Cannabis has been cultivated and sold illegally in the US for almost a century. It seems unlikely that the USPTO would be able to enforce compliance when law enforcement has not.

Legal marijuana will push out illegal marijuana. Large, industrial farms will outcompete anyone who is growing illegally. And that is going to make it much easier to regulate. Patents have the potential to pick the winners in this industry if they are handed out irresponsibily.

When greed meets control, you get a black market.

I don't see illegal marijuana going away. There's always going to a black market for a product that's strictly regulated, so long as it's profitable and in high demand.

Re: Trying to corner the market on legal marijuana

#55

Post by ringaroundthetx »

tpm wrote: post #48
ringaroundthetx wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

man, 'socialist' really has a branding problem Guess the european nations are going to simply need a new word in order to stop being conflated with North Korea, and former european nations

Socialism does not mean redistribution. There are currently no socialist countries in Europe, if we take the definition of socialism as social ownership and democratic control of the means of production . Some socialist policies are implemented in some sectors of the economy and society in some countries, but there is no country in Europe where this is true for large enough parts of the economy.

Yeah but any politically active "socialist" in America is talking about "implementing some socialist policies in some sectors of the economy and society" just like in Western Europe

and gets run out by other Americans in all levels of society that imagine North Korea because of the word alone

branding problem. if you are talking about one thing and the other people don't understand, then the language isn't working.

Re: Trying to corner the market on legal marijuana

#56

Post by sethrin »

code_duck wrote: post #34
Taek wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Legal marijuana will push out illegal marijuana. Large, industrial farms will outcompete anyone who is growing illegally. And that is going to make it much easier to regulate. Patents have the potential to pick the winners in this industry if they are handed out irresponsibily.

Currently, the black market can provide cannabis in colorado, california or oregon for about half the price of the legal market (and generally, if you wanted half a lb to stock up for personal use, you can't just go buy it at a store anyway). Part of the lower price is due to competition from legal sources, part due to not paying taxes. Personally, I would rather grow it at home exactly like tomatoes, if it's herb. M…

Ah, growing cannabis isn't quite like growing tomatoes. Growing tomatoes is something that a tomato plant does more or less of its own accord. Cannabis really wants to be 15 feet tall and to produce lots of little seeds. Getting it to exclusively produce flowers requires a bit more effort. The 15 feet tall thing may also require some adjustment.

What I'd like to do is to create something about refrigerator-sized which would use hydroponics to get cannabis growing as close to being a push-button operation as possible. I built a prototype a few years ago that was at least able to provide the entertainment of being able to control the lights/fans/pumps via cron job, but life hasn't worked out to be able to do that again. I do think there's a market for such things for pretty much the reasons you identify.

Re: Trying to corner the market on legal marijuana

#57

Post by saiya-jin »

Nursie wrote: post #46
ringaroundthetx wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

man, 'socialist' really has a branding problem Guess the european nations are going to simply need a new word in order to stop being conflated with North Korea, and former european nations

I don't think many of the European nations woukd agree they are socialist, most see themselves trying to balance socialism and capitalism to gain the greatest benefit for all. How successful their efforts have been is up to the individual to judge. You are right that it's not as much of a dirty word here.

unless you come from former soviet bloc/sphere of influence/iron curtain, then anything-socialism is a grave insult and spit in your face.

we've seen it fail big time, and I'll take the evils of capitalism over those evils any day, any time.

Re: Trying to corner the market on legal marijuana

#58

Post by code_duck »

sethrin wrote: post #56
code_duck wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Currently, the black market can provide cannabis in colorado, california or oregon for about half the price of the legal market (and generally, if you wanted half a lb to stock up for personal use, you can't just go buy it at a store anyway). Part of the lower price is due to competition from legal sources, part due to not paying taxes. Personally, I would rather grow it at home exactly like tomatoes, if it's herb. M…

Ah, growing cannabis isn't quite like growing tomatoes. Growing tomatoes is something that a tomato plant does more or less of its own accord. Cannabis really wants to be 15 feet tall and to produce lots of little seeds. Getting it to exclusively produce flowers requires a bit more effort. The 15 feet tall thing may also require some adjustment. What I'd like to do is to create something about refrigerator-sized whic…

Outdoor varieties do grow that tall, or more. Indicas and modern hybrids tend more towards about 5 feet, but it all depends on training, pruning, whether you use clones (every serious grower uses clones, not flowering a single plant grown from seed).

The seeds in your crop only happen if you have male plants, or a problem with hermaphrodites. Most people cull the males or use female clones. If you have a female plant, it only produces female flowers. Triggering flowering is quite simple as it only requires manipulation of photoperiod.

Growing cannabis is really not that complicated… mot only has hemp been domesticated for thousands of years, but herbal varieties have been bred like heck for decades to be easier to grow and productive especially grown indoors. Fertilizer wise, it is a lot like tomatoes, loving rich soil, drainage and nitrogen, and then switching to a bloom cycle. Overall it's a very hearty and resilient plant (weed?). It's true that doing it well takes time, money, facilities and skill, and ideally passion.

For the small, self-contained unit you described, it soubds like what people call a cabinet grow. I think there's a subreddit for that. The subterfuge aspect is less important these days, now that more people live in states where it is legal, but some still do cabinet grows for space or privacy reasons. The automatic aspect is a great idea... definitely there are vast opportunities in helping people grow their own healthy herbs.

Re: Trying to corner the market on legal marijuana

#59

Post by shkkmo »

grecy wrote: post #28
candiodari wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus there's the risk factor. If you fuck up distillation of alcohol, even slightly, people may die. You get the temperature control on your distillation wrong by 3 degrees, people will get sick from drinking it. 5 degrees, and it may kill kids who happen to get a hold of it, and starting at about 8 degrees it gets to the point where 2-3 glasses of your homebrew whiskey will kill a full blown adult.

My experiences of home brewed stuff from all over Latin America and West Africa disagree with your theory. Drink it, you'll be fine!

In my experience with Latin America, much of that homebrew was produced by the local experts and most people don't make their own moonshine.

Re: Trying to corner the market on legal marijuana

#60

Post by logfromblammo »

code_duck wrote: post #58
sethrin wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, growing cannabis isn't quite like growing tomatoes. Growing tomatoes is something that a tomato plant does more or less of its own accord. Cannabis really wants to be 15 feet tall and to produce lots of little seeds. Getting it to exclusively produce flowers requires a bit more effort. The 15 feet tall thing may also require some adjustment. What I'd like to do is to create something about refrigerator-sized whic…

Outdoor varieties do grow that tall, or more. Indicas and modern hybrids tend more towards about 5 feet, but it all depends on training, pruning, whether you use clones (every serious grower uses clones, not flowering a single plant grown from seed). The seeds in your crop only happen if you have male plants, or a problem with hermaphrodites. Most people cull the males or use female clones. If you have a female plant…

Last time I encountered this on the network, the hot thing was self-contained 55-gallon plastic drums, with integrated thermal signature hiding and odor control. You plug it in, add water and hydroponics chemicals, and mostly leave it alone until ready for harvest. But at the time I saw it, the electronic control systems were largely do-it-yourself, rather than turnkey, off-the-shelf control units.

By this time, there should probably be a package targeted for Raspberry Pis, and the ability for your cannabis plant to text you via Signal if she wants some attention.

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