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Comment by latchkey | Hacker News Reader

I spent about 4 years actively growing weed before it was "legal." in San Francisco.

Because mine was indoor/soil/organic and didn't require driving up to Ukiah or waiting for the outdoor harvests, I got the same premium rates for it that are noted in the article.

As soon as I realized that weed was eventually going legal, I stopped entirely because I could see the writing on the wall. It was becoming commoditized to the point where it was impossible to compete. Too much money was being thrown at it.

Articles like this are zero surprise.

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I remember reading something years back that applying modern large scale ag technology to cannabis was never a technical hurdle, merely a legal one, and how much cheaper it would be once the well-capitalized giants got ahold of it and came to pretty much the same conclusion. It did make for a neat trip through Colorado in 2017 when it was still pretty novel though.

It actually is a technical hurdle because not a lot of academic research is being done on it for commercial growers to use. You see some papers out there that cover things like yield per light spectrum or what soil ammendments do for terpene content, but they all come out of Canada and specifically McGill. It's like U.S. researchers are blackballed by their institutions or maybe their grant funding agencies. As such, techniques like plant tissue culture that are commonly done with other crops and expensive ornamentals in the U.S. are rarely done with cannabis because growers that do these techniques are often tight lipped about things such as the most ideal media composition or really anything else related to methodology.

Meanwhile with crops such as corn, you have entire land grant universities planting test crops as we speak and biology departments dedicated to maize genetics, and thats true for almost every other large commercial crop. Billions are spent on research by the federal and state governments. Agriculture takes advantage of all of this research and development when producing commercial crops, but none of this investment is being made for cannabis and when it is done by these private companies they are not proliferating their findings.

Corn feeds millions of people and animals. Pot? It doesn’t feed anyone. So I can understand the funding disparity.

It's not so much as a disparity as the funding is simply nonexistent. Pot doesn't feed anyone of course, but its legitimate medicine.

The value to society of pot vs corn is where you should look to see why government funding doesn’t match your expectations.

But finding and better understanding its value to society is precisely what the funding is needed for.

There's plenty of value for pot in society, for some people it means they no longer are dependent on opioids for example. That being said, the Canadian government thinks this is worthy to fund, grant support for cannabis research can come from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and because of this the bulk of the literature in recent years is published by researchers in Canadian universities.

From what I understand, the current classification in the US is what stops a lot of the research. Also, if you can get past that, you have to use crappy weed from the federal government that isn't representative of what people are consuming. I don't have any references available, though.

"As such, techniques like plant tissue culture that are commonly done with other crops and expensive ornamentals in the U.S. are rarely done with cannabis because growers that do these techniques are often tight lipped about things such as the most ideal media composition or really anything else related to methodology."

There are so many cannabis forums on the internet (I used to be on the top 5 waaaaay back in the day) that you can find tons of research and tips on various culture methods. Right down to micro-sample cloning techniques.

Despite the name 'weed'... it is actually a very complex plant to grow well and with the highest output. I propagated the best cuttings, from the same strain and the plant morphed over the years. Far stronger at the end than when I started. But it also became oddly harder to grow, the same techniques that I was using, didn't work over time despite a relatively controlled growing environment.

It is a fascinating plant.

In Michigan now that its legal the prices have plummeted. I just saw a place advertising $100 for 2 full ounces for new recreation customers. Thats an insane deal. I'm sure its not the best stuff but its a shocking amount.

I mean $100 for 2 ounces of the marijuana plant in particular isn't cheap at all. There are some 'mild' complications in growing it, but in theory it should end up more like a bulk farming product where we talk about dollars per pound on the retail side, and dollars per ton on the wholesale side.

Wild to not consider that cheap! In Ohio, with a med card, you will pay over $300 for 1.

There's a reason why there are dispensaries for ohioans set up just across the michigan border.

I believe the acceptable mold level in Michigan is 10x that of Ohio. Price is only one component, many people like a tightly regulated medical market to ensure safety.

If it were at a sufficient level for people to start getting sick you'd expect to see an increase in people with related issues, but you don't when you seek out news on this factoid, just a statement on the level being higher than in another place. Most products you consume will have at least some mold on them.

Or just turn it into an extraction, problem solved. Not many spores can survive a solvent wash, I don't know of any research that says they do.

Their metabolites might be left behind.

Or the tight regulation produces higher prices without any particular improvement to the product (e.g. taxi medallions). “tightly regulated” != “better”

It's cheap for weed, but expensive for a relatively high-volume part of a relatively easy-to-grow plant. Imagine seeing an $800/pound price tag in the produce section of your grocery store.

>I mean $100 for 2 ounces of the marijuana plant in particular isn't cheap at all.

Where are prices so low that $100 for 2 ounces "isn't cheap at all"?

It’s cheap but not that cheap depending on quality. “Cheap quality” deals around WA and OR can be as low as $35/oz

Canada ;)

Where I live 2 ounces would be around 750-900$ (converted roughly to usd).

Its also illegal.

I can buy ounces all day in Portland for $20. Is it Jesus incarnate? Nope. Is it perfectly good sinsemilla that gets ya high? Yup.

Where? I live in Portland and would love to try a $20 ounce.

Seconded. I'm not gonna argue that it's not cheap here, but $20 for an ounce is way too low to be true. Unless, of course, it's far worse than "Jesus incarnate".

looking at weedmaps, there are a few places with 1 oz in the $20s.

$25 FA Ranch Mangolicious at Electric Lettuce [1]

$28 Blueberry Muffin at Floyd's Fine Cannabis [2]

if you're willing to travel, $20.83 Pineapple Upsidedown Cake at THClear [3]

[1] https://weedmaps.com/dispensaries/electric-lettuce-northeast...

[2] https://weedmaps.com/dispensaries/floyd-s-fine-cannabis-on-w...

[3] https://weedmaps.com/dispensaries/thclear-lebanon/menu/park-...

In Illinois the opposite has happened. Been legal for going on 3 years now and an mid quality ounce goes for $300-400 minimum. 1 gram carts retail for $60 plus taxes bringing it to an easy 80. I just drive to Michigan now since the prices there are 4x lower, but the black market is doing quite well here since the number of smokers has increased and prices are half for similar quality flower.

And the revolution will be corporatized.

Once the federal level stuff gets sorted out, you think ma and pop growers will be able to compete with big tobacco or some other outfit? This is a dependency-forming market opportunity. It's likely a 10s of billions market, maybe hundreds. Alcohol is 287 billion per year.

I guess the only good news is that cannabis is a lot easier to self-produce than tobacco.

And once they figure out how to get nicotine into cannabis...

I'm not sure what your operation was but I think there is still a market for your crop. There's plenty of weed in the dispensary, yes, but its taxed sometimes 30%. You get what you think is a cheap oz of weed but its in a sealed bag, and when you open it up it does the job sure according to THC % but its all that shake and larf and ugly stuff that comes from the trim bag and rock hard cure style of prep commercial growers do. There's a reason why the grey market remains so huge.

I've had the exact opposite experience with recreational stores. A wide selection of accurately labelled and high quality products, instead of just a bag of weed that's way too strong for me, like the black market primarily provides. It's a million times more convenient and not much more expensive overall (unless you buy some premium products maybe).

I'm very long out of the business, it is several lifetimes ago for me, which is why I'm comfortable talking about it now.

Grey market at scale is a pain in the ass, and risky. You need people to buy pounds at a time, in cash. A big bag for a big bag.

You basically need to set up a supply chain that you can trust... this is why the DEA a lot of the time finds weapons with drugs.

So yea... growing for friends is easy... growing to make a living, is a real pain in the ass.

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