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December 18, 2010 08:25 AM UTC
28 Comments
State licensed and regulated cultivation farms in the San Luis Valley. There is abundant sunshine for on site electrical generation (no power transmission problems). The industry fits in with the traditional and cultural use of the area, i.e. agricultural production. The water is there with aquifers and some water currently used for agricultural production would simply be diverted to production of a higher value crop. The agricultural workforce is already there.
The product would be uniformly processed for quality and potency under regulated standards, and is a non-perishable crop easily transported to large market areas.
The farms would be privately owned, with a permitting process to ensure multiple ownership interests and thus insure competition. Medical marijuana dispensaries would be required to purchase their product from one of these state licensed and regulated cultivation farms, and there would be a documentation trail to ensure that.
This scenario would eliminate out of state product being sold at licensed dispensaries, create an economic boon to the San Luis Valley (an area with one of the lowest per capita income in the state), and create substantial revenue streams for government in licensing, permit, and other fees or taxes.
the eco-tourist dollars from the stoners that want to rip off the plants in the fields…
🙂
Where’s the entrepreneurism in that? One of the greatest things about the CO cannabis industry has been the variety of business models created. State-run, hmm? Remember the track record of state-run computer systems, and maybe get back to us on that idea.
Where did I say “state run” ?. I said state licensing and regulation of privately owned farms. No different than the privately owned liquor industry is licensed and regulated or current licensing and regulation of privately owned dispensaries.
I also stated a permitting policy to mitigate any concentration of ownership so as to ensure competition. I think that’s called capitalism.
What about growers elsewhere in the state? If San Luis is a great place to grow, there will be growers there. Why the state-sanctioned location? Are you talking about creating an enterprise zone? Who pays for the capital construction (roads, power, water infrastructure)? And how does the state tell liquor producers where to locate? (Aside from obvious zoning and property use laws and regs).
And you did not address the issue of how well-equipped the state is to manage this (see the reference to computer systems).
Capitalism is not a “permitting process to mitigate concentration of ownership”. Good Lord.
Pot is grown in CO according to a new set of laws. The final regs have pretty much been adopted.
It’s funded by license fees paid for by growers and dispensaries.
Grows are all indoors, for security reasons. Among the many rules, realtime video surveillance is required, with an internet link that the state can monitor.
Delta County is way ahead of you.
that that cash cow might get mutilated by UFOs in the “Mysterious Valley.”
I’d say very much “no”. Drugs verified to have been grown locally and legally dominate the MMJ market, depriving the drug cartels of something approaching 116,000 would-be enablers of their massive war in Mexico. Most of the stuff not grown locally apparently comes from larger facilities in California.
Of course, some of those 116,000 might buy pot illegally, and some of the dispensaries probably do, too. But the net effect is definitely a drop in money going south of the border.
The biggest problem is that, so long as Federal law totally prohibits Cannabis growing and consumption, the whole thing is a house of cards waiting to fall. The charade is pretending that this is all perfectly legal when a drug war crusader of a President could turn it all around in an instant.
Cool with me. Now if the Rs will just nominate Sarah Palin,…
CO dispensaries are required to grow 70% of their own product. CO licensed caregivers can grow more than their personal use requires, and can easily make up the next 30%. Plus there’s the home-grown contingent – people who have been growing and selling modest amounts locally. Shortage of CO supply isn’t an issue. Cannabis is fungible, but it’s bulky, so it there are transportation/distribution issues. For the cartels, the real money is in cocaine, heroin and meth – all faster and easier to obtain and transport than cannabis. Plus – try getting a CO toker to switch from CO grown to Mexican. Not likely.
BTW – it’s “medical” not “medicinal”
Breaking the cartels requires decriminalization of narcotics. The way to sell it , if you will, to reluctant politicians is to mandate rehab rather than prison for “hard” drug users.
Decriminalization in my mind means not sending people to prison. Legalization would mean no sanctions at all.
Legalization means regulation. See alchohol.
of patient “growing co-ops”, wherein many local regs can be avoided by simply growing it yourself, with assistance.
A very important point, PR.
And, begging your indulgence, may I also add a vote for decriminalization instead of legalization. Cannabis should have the same status as tomatoes, or any other herb or veggie. It should be inexpensive enough to be eaten instead of smoked, but never will be if not decriminalized.
Decriminalize It!
paraphrasing there, bud. (pun intended) 😀
Aren’t tomatoes both legal and de-criminal? Is it the regulation that comes with a legalized product that causes higher prices? Are you saying that cannabis should be unregulated (except for food safety, see other diary for update today) like tomatoes? Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I kind of prefer regulation because of issues like potency levels and strain types and truth-in-advertising laws. But you are right – unregulated, legal, decriminal cannabis would be inexpensive.
I can accept regulation…grudgingly. But, I do believe that, had Harry Anslinger decided on a different career path, Cannabis would cost, I think, about $10 per pound. It could be used as a food additive with enormous health benefits, and would become completely uninteresting as a “social drug”.
That is not the path of history, so we are where we are.
If only Harry Anslinger had become a barber…
grow your own in Colorado (although in California, where there is evidence of importation from Mexico in tunnels under the border, the economics may be different). And, its low value to volume ratio makes it unattractive for cross-border importation as it is easier to catch someone smuggling something big than something small. It is a lot easier to hide $100,000 of LSD tabs or cocaine or heroin or meth than it is to hide $100,000 of marijuana.
Sudafed sale reforms pretty much shut down the domestic meth production industry in favor of Mexican product smuggled to the U.S. (a major gain for Colorado, because the noxiousness of small scale meth production was at least as serious a problem as the drug use itself).
The most problemic side of the illicit cross-border trade is now the southbound part rather than the northbound part. The U.S. is exporting 90% of the guns used by drug gangs in Mexico (mostly from border state gun shops) that are producing over the top orgies of murderous violence in much of the country.
$200/ounce seems pretty high value to volume to me. People smuggle cigarettes and alcohol for a lot less.
Meth is about $1700 per ounce. Heroin is more than $2,400 per ounce.
LSD is close to $2 million per ounce of active ingredient (it is sold by the millionth of a gram embedded in a “tab”).
The question is relative value and the availability of local supply. Marijuana isn’t very expensive per ounce in relatively terms and can be produced locally. Meth, cocaine and heroin are all hard to produce locally (in the former case because precursor drugs are hard to come by without getting caught, in the latter because the climate is ill suited to producing cocoa leaf and because poppy fields are hard to hide respectively).
Marijuana is still smuggled, of course, but the economics of doing so don’t favor nearly the high percentage of imports as other illegal drugs.
Illicit cigarette and alcohol smuggling are a decided minority of the total market for each, is mostly short distance and mostly consistutes tax arbitrage of products produced legally that are indistinguishable from their taxed counterparts. Moonshining and secret tobacco grows are virtually non-existent.
thanks for using the term “tax arbitrage.”
on the economics. For buyers, the cost of medical cannabis isn’t much higher than the cost of quality street cannabis. I believe many people pay the premium for a variety of reasons, including avoiding the risk of arrest (certainly worth a decent premium). That said, I’m sure there’s smuggling, just as there is with cigarettes and booze. But probably not on a great scale, and certainly less than before the Great Dispensary Awakening.