Comment by grandmczeb | Hacker News Reader

Comment by grandmczeb | Hacker News Reader

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> A 15 year old can easily grow enough weed in his bedroom to keep himself constantly high. This is Really Bad for profits.

I see this repeated a lot, but I have a very hard time believing it matters at all. It’s just as easy to grow tomatoes and the result is significantly cheaper and tastier than what you can buy in stores, yet I doubt anyone would say tomatoes are significantly less profitable because of it. Even in my own state where growing weed is legal I’ve heard of exactly one friend who grew their own, and that was a one time novelty rather than a real supply.

The reality is that the vast majority of customers prefer the convience of pre-packaged and pre-portioned weed products over the cost savings of growing. In fact, if anything the trend is towards more convenice (edibles, single dose vapes, delivery services) rather than away from it. The profit impact of those who do choose to grow will be extremely tiny.

I've had several friends that grow weed, from pretty sophisticated (albeit <5 plant) hydroponic setups to "guerrilla grows" (tossing seeds into areas unlikely to be discovered and later coming back to check/harvest). It's a lot easier than most home garden produce by a long shot, in my opinion. There is even a book called "The $64 Tomato" that details how difficult that particular fruit is to grow.

Even if the actual growing isn’t hard, you need to plan it months in advance and there’s work involved in setup and harvesting. That’s far more inconvenient than just opening an app or driving to the store. It can also be risky (there are still plenty of confusing rules around growing for personal use, and guerrila growing is illegal) and even meticulously attended plants have variable yields. The only way for it to substantially affect profits is if a non-trival portion of customers prefer the cost savings to inconvenience, and, imo, the evidence points strongly against this. Heck, at my local despensery pre-rolls far outsell flower and the only work involved there is grinding and rolling!

Also, I haven’t read that particular book, but the growing difficulty depends on the variety. I can personally attest that growing cherry tomatoes is extremely easy (they’re commonly recommended as a “beginner” plant.)

That's a really good point about pre-rolls. I agree that homegrown weed is no more of a threat to dispensaries than homebrewed beers are to Budweiser.

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