Which, if you put it on top of the taxes that voters in my state approved last year (25% on the grower, 25% on the distributor, and 25% on the buyer) adds up to a 125% tax rate on the legal stuff. I can’t imagine that a legal marijuana dispensary in this state is going to be competitive with Ron down the road who drives the van with the Molly Hatchet cover art airbrushed on it.
Drying is self-explanatory, but how is it “cured”?
The link worked fine for me, but I note that it only mentions one union, United Food and Commercial Workers, and their only involvement is in organizing and negotiating for workers who, ya know, are in an industry and job description that the union represents. Saying they are getting “heavily involved” in the marijuana business is like saying they are getting heavily involved in the prescription drug business if they happen to organize and represent workers at a Walgreen’s. The fact that it’s marijuana and not milk and bread and sliced ham is really immaterial to what the union does.
Makes one wonder just how they would advertise/market their pot – especially when it comes to competing with rival brands.
With the exception of Colorado and Washington there are no other states that have “legal” recreational use of cannabis. And I haven’t checked Washington but Colorado has also legalized commercial hemp farming. So this conversation is premature at best.
In fact hemp is already being tested at sites in Colorado to reclaim land that has become unusable due to contamination in order to absorb the poisons and make the land usable again.
And one other thing the Feds have already been growing medical cannabis for years. The feds are also the only entity (in the US) that I know of that actually hold patents on medicinal cannabis (extracts I believe). Kind of strange considering it is classified as Schedule I (no known medical use).
We will see what happens in 2014 when Colorado is supposed to have recreational use laws by then and probably stores that will sell to people 21+. I remember when California tried to pass recreational use and the feds (under Obama) threatened to come down on them hard if it passed.
Colorado is different though. When they passed medical use they put it in the state constitution and it is regulated better then Cali (IMHO). So far nothing from the feds as to what they plan to do if/when Colorado starts to open Pot Stores (which are totally different from medical dispensaries). Whatever happens I don’t think it will affect me still being able to purchase it medicinally (I hope & pray).
I believe it will still be a long time coming before any unions or otherwise can profit from it. I already can grow 6 plants under Colorado law, 15 plants if I go by what my Doctor wrote on my “recommendation” (almost always referred to as a prescription by those confused).
So as Mr. Wolf put it “Let’s not start sucking each others dicks just quite yet”.
A good post on “curing”:
http://boards.cannabis.com/grow-faqs/60954-drying-curing-your-buds.html
To do it right you use a hygrometer and dry to 55-60%. Then you seal in mason jars, not for long enough but for as long as you can. Curing can add a lot to the product, but is a pain and commercial growers don’t bother with it.
ps I don’t know any of this firsthand, and if I were to cure any it would be for 90 days.
Weed really does not have the same requirements as tobacco. A lot of smokers prefer to use some kind of utensil, like a bong or pipe, and, I think, the smoking habit is not really like it is with time to light up another cigarette, it seems a little more focused. How tobacco could manage to grab onto that market, without opening a bunch of dispensaries, is difficult to fathom I need a twinkie.
I was hearing that in Washington state, it is expected that legal weed will go for around $12/g.
Let’s see, that comes out to about $340/oz. Not much improvement over . . . what one hears might be market-price now.
I believe it’s going to drive prices down. $12 a gram is high to me. There are many places in Colorado I can get oz’s for less then $200 and often as low as $125. And I’m not talking garbage. I’m talking top-shelf. There are many magazines that publish local that have coupons and discounts for new patients. Most places I can go in and my first purchase gives me member pricing.
The place I am a member of, http://lodosdispensary.com/ often has sales for $150 oz’z ($175 for non-members). Last week they even had a sale at $125. And their grower known only as Tiera Rojo (probably not his real name) is a legend and premiere grower and cultivator. Average price at this store is around $220 an oz when not on sale.
Article about Tiera Rojo.: http://hightimes.com/grow/ht_admin/7253
It’s an excellent article about this grower.
If the government gets involved prices will not go down. It will be a competition between producers and taxers to split the profits. You don’t really think either group has an interest in giving any back to the consumer?
Grow your own.
The advantage legal weed has over Ron and his van is that you don’t need to spend a week leaving voicemail messages with Safeway until Safeway calls you back and tells you it’s cool to come over and pick up the weed. Also, Safeway won’t insist that you hang out for an hour while Safeway explains to you that Sweet Home Alabama is, like, the greatest song ever, maaan before it will sell to you. And the weed Safeway sells will be a more consistent quality, and if it disappoints, Safeway has established return policies you can take advantage of.
Don’t underestimate the market value of convenience.
Isn’t the price structure now an inflated result of the black market? The price seems sure to tumble by an order of magnitude. What other vigorously growing herb costs hundreds of dollars per ounce?
On The Price of Weed for WA, I see a price for “high quality” weed (whatever that means, seems kind of subjective to me) that ranges from $300~$25/oz. Curiously, the spread can be that great (an order of magnitude) even within a single metro area. Presumably, legal weed would tend to flatten the price out a little, adjusting for local variance (a box of Triscuits will be one price in Pasco and another in Omak).
Saffron?
High quality is very subjective. The psychoactive quality isn’t why the price varies so much, though. The prices generally vary so widely due to one product being sensemillia (seedless) and the other not. The seedless variety takes a lot more care to produce (indoors, removing all males or growing from clones), and it has far more smokable product when compared by weight. Both varieties can be of the same psychoactive potency.
Saffron is not a weed, it is actually one of the oldest “GMO” crops. Normal crocuses do not produce saffron, the saffron crocus is a forced hybrid (which, yes, is not really GMO, but I like hyperbole).
Also, I believe it’s labor-intensive to separate the stigmas from the flowers – unless they have a machine that can do that now – and, you can get at most twelve stamens from one saffron crocus (the plant produces up to four flowers with three stamens each). To cooks, twelve dried stamens is no more than one “pinch” of saffron, just enough to flavor/color one pot of garbanzo-bean soup. The smokeable parts (leaves and flowering tops) of one pot-plant amount to considerably more, I should think, though I have no experience in cultivation, etc.
Well, and the parts you cannot smoke you can either put into brownies or, perhaps, press for oil. Imagine, smoke all the bud, get the munchies, scarf the brownies, I always thought it would be fun to try to be the first person to actually OD on weed. Except, it would no longer be fun for me, I reach a point where it gives me unpleasant ague, and I reach that point rather quickly. At least, last time I smoked weed, which was … geez, I forget, a decade ago?
How much should an individual be able to grow for his own use if legalized?
This is where I see the problem with those salivating over taxes/ I don’t think you can make it legal and tax it, without allowing people to grow small amounts for their own use tax free.
The small home garden part of the industry is what is exploding now. I’ll bet there is at least a million small pot gardens indoors in the US today. Selling the systems and lights and nutrients is a huge business.