Milovan
Well-Known Member
couldn't of said it better myself
Medical pot returning to underground - LA Times
- Thread starter flaxseedoil1000
- Start date
angryblackman
Well-Known Member
Decriminalization and education. Relieve them of the fear that they have about MMJ and teach them how to grow their own. That's what I see as a alternative.
That is an option for some people, but in general that is pretty fantastical. Indoor gardening is intense, requires lots of knowledge, time and gear, and again, can fail at any point, leaving patients without medication. Outdoor has its difficulties too, with the limitation of one or two crops a year, again, both of which can fail.
Wishing dispensaries away to increase your profit margin on street sales is pretty ugly, but go for it, but doing it under the guise of helping patients is downright gross.
Wishing dispensaries away to increase your profit margin on street sales is pretty ugly, but go for it, but doing it under the guise of helping patients is downright gross.
angryblackman
Well-Known Member
I could care less about profits. I don't sell my meds for pure profit. Most of the time I take what's offered or they get it for free. I "donated" over a lb to patients from my last seasons grow and made less than it would cost you to buy a zip in the dispensary. So money is not my motivation.
I see what you are getting at but we can't trust dispensaries any more. Patients can't trust they are getting the best meds for their money, growers can't trust that they will get paid on time and adequately, growers can't trust that their anonymity is safe if/when a dispensary gets raided, and finally with all the pressure dispensaries are getting from local and federal law enforcement patients are having to travel further and further to get their meds. There has GOT to be a better way.
Dan Kone
Well-Known Member
Actually I have. Private collectives/delivery services. Not as convenient as dispensaries, but dispensaries are becoming more of a burden than a convenience due to lack of competition.
A private collective and/or delivery service works much like a dispensary, just without the storefront. The storefront are what make these raids a viable option for the feds. They are easy target. But to raid a delivery service who lists a PO box as their address is impossible to raid without devoting a lot more resources just to find out where they operate. The feds don't have the resources to raid thousands of them.
Dispensaries in theory are of course a way better solution than that, but due to lack of competition and excessive greed they aren't much of a help at all. They are underpaying vendors and over charging customers.
I could see the rationale behind $60 eights when they were paying vendors $3800 a pack. $3800 x 2 (100% markup) / 128 (eights in a pound) = $59.38. So yeah, that's why we had $60 eights. Makes sense. But now dispensaries are paying $2800 for that pack and selling it for $60 an eight. That's just pure greed. $2800 x 2 / 128 = $43.75, so about $45 an eight is what that should cost.
Now that's not the end of the world for me either if those dispensaries are out there fighting for the rights of the medical marijuana community. That's worthy of vendors taking less money and patients paying more because we are getting a return on that investment. But they aren't doing that either. Each dispensary only seems to give a shit about the raids when it's them getting raided. Yeah, it's nice to see harborside come out and say "let's unite and fight off the feds!", but where the fuck were they when the raids started? Where were they when Richard Lee got raided? Why didn't all the dispensaries get together and fight when the raids started? They could have won. But instead each dispensary decided they didn't give a shit until it was them who got raided. They refused to make a significant financial contribution when they had the money to do so. Now they are all getting shut down one by one because they are too greedy to involve themselves unless it's them getting raided. So fuck them.
Dan Kone
Well-Known Member
That depends on what the numbers look like. If dispensaries were eliminated growers could make more money while charging patients less. Right now the price of bud for patients is at an artificially high rate because a small number of dispensaries are controlling most of the medical marijuana market. A non-dispensary based market eliminates that because it allows basically anyone to start their own collective without be subjected to heavy handed regulations.
Mithrandir420
Well-Known Member
I don't know... It seems like at least part of the reason the prices are low is because of the dispensaries. Before the dispensaries we were getting 4k a pack, and had no shortage of buyers. If all the clubs are gone, we're back to the beginning. No? Or is this what Oregon is doing?
Dan Kone
Well-Known Member
If dispensaries end, collectives are still legal, probably more so since there will be no confusion about what a medical marijuana collective consists of. Right now law enforcement are having it both ways, when they bust a dispensary, they claim 215 doesn't make dispensaries legal, only collectives. But then when they bust a private collective, the call it illegal drug dealing and point to the dispensaries as what a legal collective is. If they rule one way or the other on the legalities of dispensaries, the question of what a medical collective is will be answered.
If dispensaries are ruled illegal, then buds will be sold through delivery services for the most part.
I don't think dispensaries have lowered the price of bud. Where I am an eight still costs about 40 bucks, which is what it always costs. Dispensaries WOULD lower the cost of bud if they were allowed to freely compete in the market. But due to the restrictions on dispensaries, we haven't seen a price drop because dispensaries aren't forced to compete with each other in most cases.
Nightmarecreature
Active Member
I came up with the idea that if the government wanted to stop dispensaries all they would have to do is set a price or cap on what they can charge for meds. The feds could just cap a price. An example $10 an 1/8th. The true cost to grow. That would put dispensaries out of business or atleast most of them. It's not what I think they should do, it's what they could do. A donation is a bullshit term, a true donation is at cost.
flaxseedoil1000
Well-Known Member
Nixon tried that and it failed miserably.
flaxseedoil1000
Well-Known Member
Google Nixon Price Controls
The solution to high prices driven by high demand is more supply and more competition.
Here is San Jose and SF we are also dismayed by what is happening in LA and other places in our great state of CA... We need to unite and become ONE educated and honest voice that the State and Feds can hear, and with an argument that makes sense. Start the paperwork and get a top respected lawyer to become our voice and speak to the CA Gov't and the FED Gov't. They wont listen to us legal CA card holding patients and they certainly wont listen to dispensary owners!
Nightmarecreature
Active Member
lol. I think you missed the whole point. It's hard to converse with people that are stoned. The whole point of the feds to destroy dispensaries, would be to make it fail by fixing the price of pot.
Mithrandir420
Well-Known Member
I don't think you're grasping the important part... it doesn't matter what the product is. Price fixing doesn't work. It doesn't matter your reason why.
Dan Kone
Well-Known Member
I agree. The only way to fix the prices is let dispensaries open on every corner or shut them all down and let everyone have private collectives. Either way the answer is more competition.