Posted on 10/14/2012 2:31:55 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
As competition drives prices down, even chamber-of-commerce types acknowledge that the North Coast economy is at risk. Pot kept things afloat as the logging and fishing industries declined. Restaurants, car dealerships, banks, hotels and dental clinics all depend on marijuana money...
In the past,planting day was a time of great expectations, maybe for a vacation in Hawaii or Mexico during the rainy months or a new motor home to make deliveries around the country.
But this year,Andrew and Anna are hoping only that their 50 or so marijuana plants will cover the bills. Since the mid-1990s,the price of outdoor-grown marijuana has plummeted from more than $5,000 a pound to less than $2,000,and even as low as $800.
Battered by competition from indoor cultivators around the state and industrial-size operations that have invaded the North Coast counties,many of the small-time pot farmers who created the Emerald Triangle fear that their way of life of the last 40 years is coming to an end.....
[SNIP]
......The larger irony is that the marijuana pioneers are being pushed to the margins by the legalization they long espoused.
"Ultimately,we worry about Winston or Marlboro getting some land and doing their thing,"said Lawrence Ringo,a 55-year-old grower and seed breeder deep in the wilds of Sohum. "We see it time after time in America-big corporations come in and take over."
Ringo saw the 2010 marijuana initiative,Proposition 19,as a ploy by Bay Area activists to dominate the market with giant warehouse grows in Oakland.
He suspects plenty of people will still want high-quality,organically grown cannabis but fears the big business interests will dictate how marijuana gets regulated. Ringo points out that Colorado,the one state that fully regulates marijuana,helped push most growing indoors and place cultivation under the control of large dispensaries.
"We're afraid of losing what we've been doing for 40 years,"...
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Geez. I don't know what to say. But hey! Things are tough all over. (Old Cheech and Chong saying).
Oh please! Pardon me while I DON’T cry! :^P
Damn, that free market economy is a bitch.
I guess we’re supposed to get all sentimental or something.
Its not difficult to grow marijuana, in as much as it is a weed.
Only the risk of getting busted can justify the high price.
Once that risk is entirely lifted, the price will be a lot closer to zero than even the $800.
It is just as the proponents of legalization have foretold: Make it legal and the incredible profit margins just.... go away. The market will take care of it.
Same thing happened at the end of Prohibition.
When did it become legal to grow pot? Did I miss something?
Excuse me but I have no sorrow for them.
Meanwhile Mexican drug gangs are making it harder for honest mafia hit men to compete in the open market.
AW, I am just crushed that the free market is causing you to lose your butt. Maybe the choome brother in the white hut will bail you out. /S
The pot bubble is popping.....meanwhile stock in Frito Lay is looking hot.
Oh, well. Who'd've thought that organic pot was GOOD for you?
Millions of greenie hippies, that's who.
I suppose they could always switch to cocaine...
The economy went to pot.
Then things got bad.
If it’s so easy to grow, why don’t users just grow a few plants for their own use.
Of course I have no idea how many plants would be needed to grow enough of the stuff for personal use.......guess that depends on how much of the day they are “mellow”.
If marijuana is legalized it should be regulated, licensed and taxed like tobacco and alcoholic beverages. It should be processed and packaged like cigarettes and sold by licensed merchants. Like homemade wine, people should be allowed to grow limited quantities for their own consumption. But eventually the quality and price of the commercial products would be the choice of most consumers.
Law enforcement could focus their time and energy on hard narcotics and serious crime and U.S. prisons wouldn't be quite as crowded.
LOL! I’m surprised these Northern California’s almost but didn’t quite say that environmentalism is why they are dying. They live in a beautiful coastal forest, but cannot harvest fish or timber.
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