I’ve got a friend that just did a harvest. He says it was tons of work. Keeping things going in the greenhouse was the easy part. The aging isn’t too bad. It’s the trimming that just kills it. Plus of course you need good seed, those aren’t cheep. Truthfully in this day of Mr Beer homebrewing is much easier than growing your own pot, faster too.
I don’t know how many people your friend is trying to supply, or how commercial his operation, or what a drug dealer calls “a lot of work”, but I have been around pot growing and it was easy and is the kind of activity people will love to do when it is legal, beer making is more complicated and few people want to do it, or keep doing it after trying it.
There is a reason that a few illegals can raise vast pot crops in the forests.
People need to quit pretending that pot plants are some complicated plant totally different than the routine gardening that is common to millions, including our old grandmothers and grandfathers.