Legal Weed Thread.... updated 1/31/15

[FelixDeCat]

Cigarettes have a black market due to taxes. Should we now outlaw cigarettes too?

You bet your sweet ass cigarettes should be outlawed. I hate tobacco more than weed. D:

 

[mrjminer]

No surprise here. I knew there would immediately be a ton of people growing weed because it was a sure thing right at the start, but it was obvious there was going to be greater supply than demand with how much of a cash cow it would be initially. Supply and demand. People can only consume so much weed, either due to other obligations or incapacitation.

 

[FelixDeCat]

So are you saying you are going to not only repeal individual state laws for recreational use in WA and CO in order to abuse more minorities, you are also going to go after AIDs and Cancer patient's medication?


Wow, stand up guy you are

Put down the pipe. Your dramatic correlations are not making any sense.

 

[repoman0]

You bet your sweet ass cigarettes should be outlawed. I hate tobacco more than weed. D:

Nobody cares what you hate.

 

[poofyhairguy]

You bet your sweet ass cigarettes should be outlawed. I hate tobacco more than weed. D:

Well you are just an authoritarian then.

 

[MrPickins]

Well you are just a troll then.

Fixed that for you.

 

[DrPizza]

It's pretty much like any farming. How rich do you think the straw farmer is? Exactly. They sell straw by the bail on craigslist for $10 flippen dollars. a BAIL. If it Ultimately became that free and open to grow it would be the same thing. Well ok you don't harvest the entire weed plant, but still, Aint nobody gettin rich. And geez it actually costs money to get rid of weeds they grow so good lol.

Holy crap! It's $2 or $3 a bale in this area. (I just bought a trailer load of straw a couple weeks ago.) But straw (and the grains that grow on it) - requires a lot of specialized machinery - tractors, threshers, mowers, bailers, etc.

In the article, in the first year, the one "company" or whatever you want to call it made over $150,000 after taxes. What the hell kind of specialized equipment is used for pot that's grown outdoors??? How can they not have made a significant profit, unless they were frivolously spending money on unnecessary equipment to make their operation look all hipster or something?

 

[sportage]

WOW! Looks like pot really does make one paranoid.

 

[Belegost]

Similar things are happening in Colorado. Overall sales and tax revenues are far less than projected. A big factor is that the taxes on legal pot are outrageous. They're already being re-examined by the legislature.

Let's not overstate the issue here - tax data up through Nov. (Dec data is not yet available) shows the state brought in $67M, the optimistic projections for first year revenue was $100M for the year. If Dec. performance is about average for the year, we'll see about 72% of that. This hardly seems like terrible failure.

As for actual sales, by Oct. official numbers reached $246M in recreational sales, and a further $326M in medical sales. So we're talking about a $600-700M/year industry.

The issue in Washington, (and somewhat in CO) is that it is a new market, there should be an expectation of volatility until supply and demand start reaching an equilibrium. For WA this means that a lot of people who jumped in to growing or selling expecting to make it big are going to lose their shirt. That's just economics in action, they will leave the market, supply will reduce down and bring things closer to demand.

At the same time, the new laws make it easier than ever to both grow illegally and to buy and sell on the street. Cops don't want to investigate every report of a grow in someone's house, because it's now legal for anyone to grow a limited number of plants. Possession of up to 2 oz by any resident of the state is legal, so busting someone for selling baggies now becomes almost impossible.

Police don't want to investigate reports of people doing legal things? How terrible.

And it seems to be untrue, the Denver police unit tasked with controlling illegal weed growing/selling increased the amount seized this year by almost 10x, I can't imagine they did that by not investigating legitimate reports of illegal growing and selling. Of course the fact that part of the taxes generated by recreational sales are dedicated to funding police depts. to enforce the new laws might have something to do with that.

 

[DrDoug]

If there is a way to screw something up, Washington state will lead the way. I left that place in '92 and I'm glad I got the fuck out of that hellhole. The state government is a pain in the ass and Spokane is the asshole that never gets wiped. The state wants their cut of the action and they will fuck everything up to get it, even if they don't get as much as they could by being reasonable and having sensible rules and regulations.

I hope we do better here in Oregon.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Let's not overstate the issue here - tax data up through Nov. (Dec data is not yet available) shows the state brought in $67M, the optimistic projections for first year revenue was $100M for the year. If Dec. performance is about average for the year, we'll see about 72% of that. This hardly seems like terrible failure.

As for actual sales, by Oct. official numbers reached $246M in recreational sales, and a further $326M in medical sales. So we're talking about a $600-700M/year industry.

The issue in Washington, (and somewhat in CO) is that it is a new market, there should be an expectation of volatility until supply and demand start reaching an equilibrium. For WA this means that a lot of people who jumped in to growing or selling expecting to make it big are going to lose their shirt. That's just economics in action, they will leave the market, supply will reduce down and bring things closer to demand.

I don't see how any of it is a bad, as the OP seems to be suggesting. That's tens of millions of dollars in tax revenue that did not exist at all before, and the savings on no longer locking people up for non-violent drug offenses. This is a new market that is both legal and illegal, there are bound to be some growing pains.

 

[88keys]

OP is an idiot. Please share with us the amount of tax revenue Colorado generated in their first year of legalized marijuana.

Thank you, have a nice day

 

[bbhaag]

Holy crap! It's $2 or $3 a bale in this area. (I just bought a trailer load of straw a couple weeks ago.) But straw (and the grains that grow on it) - requires a lot of specialized machinery - tractors, threshers, mowers, bailers, etc.

In the article, in the first year, the one "company" or whatever you want to call it made over $150,000 after taxes. What the hell kind of specialized equipment is used for pot that's grown outdoors??? How can they not have made a significant profit, unless they were frivolously spending money on unnecessary equipment to make their operation look all hipster or something?

I believe that most pot is grown indoors for a variety of reasons. Theft of the crop being an important one but also to help control environmental barriers like a 12/12 daylight schedule to force flower(bud)production.
Did you catch 60 Minutes the other night? They went to CO and did a pretty good piece on the industry their. It's pretty high tech. This warehouse is around 44k square feet which is right around an acre.

 

[BudAshes]

Sorry bud, but everyone knows how bad things are in most everything in California. I blame potheads.

Yup it sucks here. Please stay away.

 

[poofyhairguy]

I believe that most pot is grown indoors for a variety of reasons.

There is usually a obvious quality difference with indoor grown pot. A lot is still grown outdoors for cost though.

 

[bbhaag]

There is usually a obvious quality difference with indoor grown pot. A lot is still grown outdoors for cost though.

That could be. I really don't know to much about it. The 60 Minutes piece did focus on a more upscale grower/retailer who specialized in what they said was "better strains" whatever that is.

 

[SparkyJJO]

We've been smoking weed legally in CA here since 1996. Go to a doctor, pay $44, get 1 year card. You won't be getting us to "come to our senses", ever.


Also, this isn't about taxes. This is about an end to jackboot thuggery on the part of the DOJ to further a racial agenda, which is what all drug laws are. Nobody gives a shit that potheads in WA aren't getting rich. Too bad.

/facepalm

Really? Everything somehow comes down to race huh?

 

[manimal]

washington and colorado are good litmus tests for regulation and oversight in emerging markets. In colorado they have a tight field of regulations but its not strangling the industry. Washington went overboard and made the process too difficult and the taxes too hight. The street dealer in washington is much cheaper so people have gone there.

So the industry is having a hard time there. So what? People arent dying in the streets and people arent running around the streets naked and screaming get the ants off of me.

In most measurable metrics its been a success in both states.

 

[brianmanahan]

It's not rocket science....

It kind of is to potheads :whiste:

 

[Rakehellion]

Lol. That was always the purpose behind it. Governments were just looking for a quick tax buck.

In a few years, pot will become just like tobacco. It will be heavily regulated with only a few big companies controlling the vast majority of production. Probably with a thriving black market on the Native reserves.

People will get choked to death for selling marijuana loosies.

 

[BUTCH1]

Fixed that for you.

Thanks, nail hit on head. OP has been one of the more annoying trolls around here lately..

 

[TreVader]

Holy crap! It's $2 or $3 a bale in this area. (I just bought a trailer load of straw a couple weeks ago.) But straw (and the grains that grow on it) - requires a lot of specialized machinery - tractors, threshers, mowers, bailers, etc.

In the article, in the first year, the one "company" or whatever you want to call it made over $150,000 after taxes. What the hell kind of specialized equipment is used for pot that's grown outdoors??? How can they not have made a significant profit, unless they were frivolously spending money on unnecessary equipment to make their operation look all hipster or something?

At least here in CA only bottom of the barrel stuff is grown outdoors. I'm talking <5$/g retail. Anything more than that is indoor. I don't know about Washington quality but there isn't any good reason their weed would be any more expensive.

 

[poofyhairguy]

That could be. I really don't know to much about it. The 60 Minutes piece did focus on a more upscale grower/retailer who specialized in what they said was "better strains" whatever that is.

Here is what I understand from a significant amount of research:

For the longest time weed was a weed, just this plant that was grown out in the open that people knew got you high. Weed's brother hemp was the productive one that was refined into a useful product. Weed was kinda left alone. If people wanted a stronger smoke then they would make that weed into hash, a concentrated form, in a practice goes back over a millenia. The other option in say the 60's was to get weed from places that naturally has stronger plants growing there. Back then outdoor grown Thai sticks maybe dipped in a stronger drug were as good as you could do outside of hash.

Then sometime in the late-70's-early-80's a new market for high-end weed came around. Super rich customers were willing to be pot tourists in Amsterdam, or pay sky high prices for a better product in places like New York. Modern hydroponic growing techniques from plants like tomatoes were combined with advanced lighting to make indoor grow houses that could be somewhat shielded from authorities here in the states. Instead of having to sneak the weed type of the drug across the Mexican border, cartels could buy houses in metropolitan suburbs and let some stoner green thumb turn it into a cash cow. Hydroponic weed could fetch 8-20 times the prices the Mexican stuff could, and Amsterdam fed the American market a ton of differing strains of higher and higher potency to justify those prices. Eventually sometime in the early 00's a Canadian lack of enforcement allowed out northern border to flood that market, and soon the Mexican cartels moved onto harder drugs and more violence. From what I understand outdoor weed is still sold and grown, especially in states without a lot of population and possible illegal traffic lanes, but I don't see how a worse product could survive in such a competitive market even if it is an advanced strain.

From what I understand now the legal states (the ones with lax medical laws included) have become primary producers of drugs available in the non-legal states in their vicinity. I have also seen many articles about pot tourism from even Canadians, so it seems Colorado at least is getting the first mover benefit of being the release value for pot enthusiasm in America. Now that the barn door is open it is impossible to put the horses back in, and now the high end pot trade is moving to a new target of edibles and concentrated THC products. Reading this story from that perspective and it would seem that someone made a gamble that any old weed would be good enough and are dealing with the consequences when it turns out stoners have standards too. I don't see anything in the article that makes my inner Libertarian nervous that we will have to deal with a loss in momentum on this subject till at least 2017, and then only if a Republican is in the White House.

If anything the articles shows that effective markets can effect change anywhere, even in hippy stoner communities. Sorry communists.

 

[Markbnj]

Nothing in that story is in the least surprising. It's an agricultural product. The market hasn't even begun to have time to settle down. And like all agricultural products in the U.S. the county, state, and federal government agencies will fuck with it over and over again. It's what they do.

The really funny thing in this thread is that some people apparently think the stuff should only be legal if the market for it behaves the way they think it should. Oh look! Taxes are less than we thought! Throw everyone who uses it in jail!

 

[TreVader]

That could be. I really don't know to much about it. The 60 Minutes piece did focus on a more upscale grower/retailer who specialized in what they said was "better strains" whatever that is.

Lol. Genetics has actually a lot less to do with quality than you'd think.


Indoor is just much, much easier to handle. You have control over the lights and therefore can control exactly when you want the plant to start to bud. You can control the humidity. You can keep pests out, and those that get in can be killed using a fraction of the pesticide.


The only problem is costs and law enforcement. Water, power, and high intensity discharge lamps are very very expensive. Cops do not like it when criminals start to make more money than they do, and you will (at least appear to) make money.

If done right, in 8 weeks plus two more to cure you can make tens of thousands of dollars for each thousand spent. It's not easy to do it right tho, and the people in this industry are not the most technical or well read.