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California marijuana prices plummet

May 15, 2010

Northern California pot growers are facing a new and serious challenge: Falling prices. [California Watch]

With a more tolerant legal environment and a rush of new growers, wholesale prices for marijuana cultivated in outdoor pot gardens have plummeted this year to under $2,000 a pound–down from a peak of $5,000 to $6,000 a pound a decade ago.

In some parts of the state, pot prices are the lowest they’ve been since the early 1980’s.

Pot growers are supposedly sitting on large stashes of their product up in Humboldt, Trinity, and Mendocino Counties, where marijuana is historically king. Dealers who normally arrive during the winter months to buy local supplies haven’t been showing up.

Some growers can’t move their marijuana at any price. Many so-called pot storerooms up in Humboldt County are still jammed with last year’s product.

The other challenge faced by these outdoor growers is that indoor-grown marijuana is increasingly favored by consumers and dispensaries for its looks, consistency, and potency.


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I voted for prop 215 but I don’t think I will vote for the legalization because the fed needs to at least accept the medical use nationwide before we move into this next realm. The DEA isn’t just going to stand back and let every mom and pop liquor store sell Trainwreck, Northern Lights, Green Crack, ect. Hopefully this won’t impact the medical users in a negative way. The feds may just get pissed and start arresting all users, including medical ones. Those Humbolt guys need to start marketing out of state.


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Standup COMIC, “this won’t impact the medical users in a negative way.” They already have to pay $150-$250, a year, and some not all, really need it, to keep down their lunch, please rethink your opinion, the legalization of the so called psycho weed is a good thing.


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@malcolmkyle: Beautifully written but horribly misguided. The weed called Cannibis Sativa is banned because it causes undeniable and unwanted behavior in the people that use/abuse it. Period. There are many products that fall under this classification and are appropriately restricted.


The ‘oh, well, we can’t stop human behavior so just make it legal’ argument is bovine fertilizer. We can’t stop humans from killing one another, but yet we have laws prohibiting the action. Morality and Law are intertwined. The restriction of Marijuana is no different.


Cannibis is also a noxious weed that can destroy ecosystems when left unchecked, which has happened when the price falls (like now) and growers abandon their fields.


An ocean of incompetence, corruption and human wreckage, as you so eloquently put it, will exist without Marijuana. It just won’t be as fun, cuz you won’t be high as a kite.


But I really love the irony of watching free-market forces working on a product that isn’t free (as in legal) yet. Its empirical proof that government can’t do anything right – including legalizing a substance to tax it.


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ds_gray


You quote that pot causes undeniable and unwanted behavior in people that use/abuse it?


So then with your arguement am I to assume then that you are also for banning tobacco and alcohol??


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Sure – if the legislature proposes a ban and it passes, so be it. No problem.


That being said, your comparison is flawed! You are argumentatively placing a substance known to cause serious brain damage in people who use it long-term (thus the ‘high’ it produces) in the same category as tobacco (which causes damage, but takes far longer) and alcohol, which is already controlled, and in many states only sold in ‘state stores’.


You are comparing apples to oranges to weed(s). There is no comparison.


Besides, the state is quickly making tobacco impossible to use but still legal to possess, so an outright ban will not be necessary. Alcohol abuse poses risk to the public and groups like MADD have made that substance virtually illegal in their zeal to arrest people with so much as the smell of beer on their breath. The ‘Legalize Pot’ movement is traveling in the opposite direction of the legislature’s ideal of public safety, and will fail.


In closing, marijuana nets far more money for state and federal governments when they arrest and ‘rehabilitate’ than it ever will raise in taxes as a legal crop.


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Can get over that Movie,????? Fear the Refer,????? How old are you? Ever had cancer and not been able to keep food down? Ah,,,,,, thought so!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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You’re making ass-umptions about my age and background that are unfounded and unwelcome.


For those who suffer from extreme nausea, whether from complications due to chemotherapy or require medical help for end-of-life comfort, THOSE PEOPLE CAN ALREADY OBTAIN MARIJUANA LEGALLY, from a pharmacy, in whatever form they require for optimum treatment of their symptoms, and under a REAL doctor’s care – not some quack who signs a bogus Rx at a marijuana ‘club’.


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You are talking out of yours, marijuana is not available in pharmacies and no Doctor can prescribe it.(at least in America, the UK has sativex, once upon a time there were eleven people in the Federal marijuana program but no one else was allowed. you do need a real Doctor to get a recommendation for medpot.


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Morality should be based on Science….either something is Rational or it is Irrational. Rational is Good, Irrational is Bad. The Drug War is Immoral and Irrational. But actually I’m jumping ahead of the gun….Most of the World is Irrational cuz the dominant philosophy is Religion and the Pope is the spewer of Religion and Irrationality….The sheeple of the World need to evolve from Religion to Rationality……Irrationality is War….Peace is Rational…War is the end process of a long history of being Irrational…..Peace is a long history of being Rational…. Peace..


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Morality should be based on science. Let’s dwell on that for a minute.


Science has identified the gene that causes Autism (fact). You’ve been tested and possess the gene (hypothetical). You have a 95% chance of developing full-on autism, costing the taxpayers millions to care for you as you age. The decision is made to terminate your life – at age 2 – because of a scientific ‘breakthrough.’


Science is the search for Truth. Morality is deciding to do what’s right in the face of the truth. Evaluate my moral challenge above and decide. Science can only answer the questions, not make the decisions.


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ds_gray


Where your argument fails is that the “undeniable and unwanted behavior” that marijuana causes isn’t illegal either. Let’s say for the sake of argument that weed actually does cause people to be lazy and unproductive (which isn’t true in all cases) as you’ve suggested. Being lazy and unproductive isn’t a crime. If a person sat on their couch eating cheetos and watching cartoons their entire life they would obviously make no contribution to society but nobody would even consider putting the person in jail for it. It’s completely irrational to penalize someone for engaging in activity that could possibly cause them to be lazy and unproductive when it isn’t actually illegal to be lazy and unproductive.


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I love it how posters on this forum put up arguments that are illogical at best, laughable at worst, and then knock them down as if I had written them.


The behaviors I wrote about in my initial post, you quoted as ‘undeniable and unwanted’ and then twisted to ‘lazy and unproductive’ are more serious than simple sloth. I am referring to the impairment of judgment that can affect ones performance behind the wheel or in command of an aircraft. And, by the way, those types of behaviors, including those commonly referred to as ‘drunk and disorderly’ are most certainly illegal.


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“You say this was indo? Smell like outdo.” — Friday


Sorry, I couldn’t resist :)


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I imagine the people most torn on this issue is going to be the hydroponic equipment suppliers. Sure their sales will go through the roof for a period of time after legalization, but after a rush of business, for say 6 months to a year, a large majority of the new growers are going to discover that its not as easy to grow as their issue of High Times said it was. The Hydroponic equipment suppliers will then find that their strongest competition selling at uncompetable prices is going to be all that equipment they just sold in the previous quarter as a majority of new homegrown crops fail, all that equipment will find its way to craigslist and be available for pennies on the dollar.


I would suggest anyone who wants to grow a few plants in their closet when and if it becomes legal spend the first 6 months or so studying how to do it right and then look for craigslist deals. That set up that would have intitally cost you 800 bucks will probably be availble for less than 200


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Prohibition is a sickening horror and the ocean of incompetence, corruption and human wreckage it has left in its wake is almost endless.


Prohibition has decimated generations and criminalized millions for a behavior which is entwined in human existence, and for what other purpose than to uphold the defunct and corrupt thinking of a minority of misguided, self-righteous Neo-Puritans and degenerate demagogues who wish nothing but unadulterated destruction on the rest of us.


Based on the unalterable proviso that drug use is essentially an unstoppable and ongoing human behavior which has been with us since the dawn of time, any serious reading on the subject of past attempts at any form of drug prohibition would point most normal thinking people in the direction of sensible regulation.


By its very nature, prohibition cannot fail but create a vast increase in criminal activity, and rather than preventing society from descending into anarchy, it actually fosters an anarchic business model – the international Drug Trade. Any decisions concerning quality, quantity, distribution and availability are then left in the hands of unregulated, anonymous, ruthless drug dealers, who are interested only in the huge profits involved.


Many of us have now, finally, wised up to the fact that the best avenue towards realistically dealing with drug use and addiction is through proper regulation which is what we already do with alcohol & tobacco, clearly two of our most dangerous mood altering substances. But for those of you whose ignorant and irrational minds traverse a fantasy plane of existence, you will no doubt remain sorely upset with any type of solution that does not seem to lead to the absurd and unattainable utopia of a drug free society.


There is an irrefutable connection between drug prohibition and the crime, corruption, disease and death it causes. If you are not capable of understanding this connection then maybe you’re using something far stronger than the rest of us. Anybody ‘halfway bright’, and who’s not psychologically challenged, should be capable of understanding that it is not simply the demand for drugs that creates the mayhem, it is our refusal to allow legal businesses to meet that demand.


No amount of money, police powers, weaponry, diminution of rights and liberties, wishful thinking or pseudo-science will make our streets safer, only an end to prohibition can do that. How much longer are you willing to foolishly risk your own survival by continuing to ignore the obvious, historically confirmed solution?


If you still support the kool aid mass suicide cult of prohibition, and erroneously believe that you can win a war without logic and practical solutions, then prepare yourself for even more death, corruption, terrorism, sickness, imprisonment, unemployment, foreclosed homes, and the complete loss of the rule of law and the Bill of Rights.


“A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded.”

Abraham Lincoln


The only thing prohibition successfully does is prohibit regulation & taxation while turning even our schools and prisons into black markets for drugs. Regulation would mean the opposite!


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You write and with very high reviews,”But for those of you whose ignorant and irrational minds traverse a fantasy plane of existence, you will no doubt remain sorely upset with any type of solution that does not seem to lead to the absurd and unattainable utopia of a drug free society.”

Ya da ya da yaww,,, how do I get, what your on? Good post. Gothcha reply haters!!!!!!

I agree an would like to reiterate for the not so brainy, no victim no crime, don’t throw up,

NO SLIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Pot has been legal for years, some friends say I’m voted against it because it’s illegal and that would take all the fun out of it, others need it for chronic pain, a will to live, or chemotherapy therapy, what do you really think in plain English please so not to inter-fear with brain analysis functions. In other words your going over my head, and hundreds of others with your brilliant radiance.


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In addition to growing, selling and taxing marijuana, let’s get going on growing hemp, the proverbial “weed” that grows almost anywhere, with very little water, almost no need for fertilizer and can be processed into all sorts of products that could eventually replace foreign petroleum for plastics, oil and other uses. “Grow a new economy”


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“In recent weeks, Hamilton stoked controversy when she spoke out against an initiative on the fall ballot to legalize the personal use of marijuana, saying it will push prices even lower and devastate the local economy.”


“There is a lot of anxiety,” she said. “People look at the possibility of legalization this fall and they see prices are already falling. The market is collapsing on itself.”


Can any one else see the greed here, is this the American way? These guys operating illegally are bent because it might be come legal?


To bad I wrote in a previous article blog that the only people against the legalization of Marijuana would be the dealers and the cash crop growers!


Grow it, tax it and get this country out of the worst fiscal dept it has ever been in.

More to follow someone else take a shot at this very controversial situation.


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