A rational, reasonable price for pot?

[ChesusRice]

Carjacking and torching are still crimes. Don't get greedy. cn

And dont bother buying a "pollen" press from your local head shop

 

[OGEvilgenius]

"Reasonable" is subjective. I also worry that "reasonable" might be sales talk for "indifferent". I will hurl my gauntlet down before the windmill and remain magnificent in my unreason. SANCHO! My armor - !! cn

Sure, it's subjective. Most folks aren't like you or me though. Most everyone I know who smokes pot only describes it as either good or bad. Sure, there will always be the types who will pay a major premium for the Louis the XIII (i've had it, it's damn good), but it's a relatively small niche market. Barring outside forces like taxes, cannabis should cost about 100x less than it does now. Haven't seen any arguments here that are very compelling to suggest otherwise. Some of the hand trimmed stuff will go for more, but even in that case the price would be much less.

One factor I think Desert Dude has ignored is the store markup. Most stores mark stuff up significantly and I think he's looking at wholesale prices.

I've also seen the automated trimmers (when kept up) do what I would consider a reasonable job trimming. Not perfect, but better than some hand trimmed commercial I've seen.

Of course you will lose trichromes with agitation from the machine, but like I said, we're talking commercially and most folks are 'good/bad' and good stuff through a commercial trimmer is still gonna fall under most people's 'good' column.

 

[OGEvilgenius]

I'm the one who stated it would have to be done on a massive scale.

And I'm telling you it would be.

I'm the one that stated there would have to be different markets because there is no way you can achieve the highest quality at the largest scale, simple manufacturing philosophy.

Of course, but I think you overestimate how many people really want to pay high prices for something that a lot of times might not be much better. Growing indoors would become a thing of the past for most.

I already pay for and grow, only A+++ pot. We have been paying higher for quality throughout this WOP... I don't buy mersh because I can throw 5g into a blunt, for cheap, and get high with a massive headache. We have also argued this point with the liquor industry. Just because you can buy a 30pack of BudLight for $20, doesn't mean that 15$ 12packs of BlueMoon aren't disappearing off the shelves. Same with hard liquor. Same with food, and everything else where quality greatly affects the outcome.

Yeah, I think you're pretty mistaken about how the market would actually play out.

Sure there is shitty ditch weed you can buy now. That wouldn't even be on the shelves. The stuff you'd be competing against would be outdoor huge scale high quality genetic crops that have automated trimming (or maybe none for that market) vs manual trimming. It will prove really hard to compete, especially with a good greenhouse operation (which might add a little cost, but not much really).

So you're right, there would be grades, and there might be tiny niche markets for say indoor haze or whatever that fetches a better price, but most stuff is going to cost almost nothing to produce. It's one of the most vigorous and fast growing plants in the world. The only thing that has put the price high is prohibition. We could grow so much that it's doubtful the stuff could be given away. One outdoor plant is more than enough medicine for most people for more than a year in a reasonable climate.

 

[desert dude]

Sure, it's subjective. Most folks aren't like you or me though. Most everyone I know who smokes pot only describes it as either good or bad. Sure, there will always be the types who will pay a major premium for the Louis the XIII (i've had it, it's damn good), but it's a relatively small niche market. Barring outside forces like taxes, cannabis should cost about 100x less than it does now. Haven't seen any arguments here that are very compelling to suggest otherwise. Some of the hand trimmed stuff will go for more, but even in that case the price would be much less.

One factor I think Desert Dude has ignored is the store markup. Most stores mark stuff up significantly and I think he's looking at wholesale prices.

I've also seen the automated trimmers (when kept up) do what I would consider a reasonable job trimming. Not perfect, but better than some hand trimmed commercial I've seen.

Of course you will lose trichromes with agitation from the machine, but like I said, we're talking commercially and most folks are 'good/bad' and good stuff through a commercial trimmer is still gonna fall under most people's 'good' column.

Yeah, exactly.

If I can plant a small garden in my back yard and grow my own tomatoes for $10 per pound, why would I pay you $1000 per pound for them?

More importantly, if tomatoes are selling for $1000 per pound and I can produce them for $10 per pound what is to stop me from growing them and selling them for $900 per pound, and if I am getting $900 per pound selling them what is to stop you from growing them and selling them for $800 per pound. This spiral continues until the tomato producers are able to sell at a profit point where competitors either cannot compete, or choose not to compete.

This is simple economics. That is why burley tobacco sells for about $2 per pound to the farmer. I can argue all day long with the tobacco buyers from Philip Morris that my tobacco is special because of all the love I put into growing it and how hard it was to trim the leaves off the plant and he will offer me $2 per pound.

 

[cannabineer]

Yeah, exactly.

If I can plant a small garden in my back yard and grow my own tomatoes for $10 per pound, why would I pay you $1000 per pound for them?

More importantly, if tomatoes are selling for $1000 per pound and I can produce them for $10 per pound what is to stop me from growing them and selling them for $900 per pound, and if I am getting $900 per pound selling them what is to stop you from growing them and selling them for $800 per pound. This spiral continues until the tomato producers are able to sell at a profit point where competitors either cannot compete, or choose not to compete.

This is simple economics. That is why burley tobacco sells for about $2 per pound to the farmer. I can argue all day long with the tobacco buyers from Philip Morris that my tobacco is special because of all the love I put into growing it and how hard it was to trim the leaves off the plant and he will offer me $2 per pound.

The problem is that you're still comparing a labor-intensive crop like sinsemilla bud to tomatoes. I can harvest ten pounds of tomatoes in as many inutes, and someone good at it could do way better.
But trimming bud beyond the "reasonable" (and obviously mechanized) level requires hundreds of times as much labor.
I used Chesus' post as a springboard for showing that quality Cannabis products can be made cheaply and mechanically ... just not simsemilla bud, which is at present the signature product of our little cottage industry here.

I do expect that the entire shape of the Cannabis-intoxicant market would change in a legal environment. I, for one, would be making water-clear 99+% THC ... the Grey Goose of extracts. Because of the refining process involved however ... it would not be cheap but still less expansive than dispensary hash. cn

 

[desert dude]

And I'm telling you it would be.



Of course, but I think you overestimate how many people really want to pay high prices for something that a lot of times might not be much better. Growing indoors would become a thing of the past for most.



Yeah, I think you're pretty mistaken about how the market would actually play out.

Sure there is shitty ditch weed you can buy now. That wouldn't even be on the shelves. The stuff you'd be competing against would be outdoor huge scale high quality genetic crops that have automated trimming (or maybe none for that market) vs manual trimming. It will prove really hard to compete, especially with a good greenhouse operation (which might add a little cost, but not much really).

So you're right, there would be grades, and there might be tiny niche markets for say indoor haze or whatever that fetches a better price, but most stuff is going to cost almost nothing to produce. It's one of the most vigorous and fast growing plants in the world. The only thing that has put the price high is prohibition. We could grow so much that it's doubtful the stuff could be given away. One outdoor plant is more than enough medicine for most people for more than a year in a reasonable climate.

I watched a video last night produced by high times about "how to grow pot". Not the exact title but that was the content. The guy on the video, apparently a pot growing expert with 15 years' experience showed an outdoor grow in northern CA. The plants he show cased were twelve feet tall and he estimated that each plant would yield 5 to 7 pounds of bud per plant. Five pounds of pot would last me till the day I die.

 

[desert dude]

The problem is that you're still comparing a labor-intensive crop like sinsemilla bud to tomatoes. I can harvest ten pounds of tomatoes in as many inutes, and someone good at it could do way better.
But trimming bud beyond the "reasonable" (and obviously mechanized) level requires hundreds of times as much labor.
I used Chesus' post as a springboard for showing that quality Cannabis products can be made cheaply and mechanically ... just not simsemilla bud, which is at present the signature product of our little cottage industry here.

I do expect that the entire shape of the Cannabis-intoxicant market would change in a legal environment. I, for one, would be making water-clear 99+% THC ... the Grey Goose of extracts. Because of the refining process involved however ... it would not be cheap but still less expansive than dispensary hash. cn

OK. Substitute tobacco for tomatoes in my example. They are very similar in terms harvesting, drying, curing, and processing for the wholesale market. Tobacco sells for $2 per pound wholesale. I have family members who make their living as farmers whose main money crop is tobacco. I have worked in tobacco fields myself. If they legalize cannabis in Kentucky you growers on this forum will be competing with my cousin. He will be happy, ecstatic more likely, if he can sell his weed for $20 per pound.

 

[cannabineer]

OK. Substitute tobacco for tomatoes in my example. They are very similar in terms harvesting, drying, curing, and processing for the wholesale market. Tobacco sells for $2 per pound wholesale. I have family members who make their living as farmers whose main money crop is tobacco. I have worked in tobacco fields myself. If they legalize cannabis in Kentucky you growers on this forum will be competing with my cousin. He will be happy, ecstatic more likely, if he can sell his weed for $20 per pound.

I agree that tobacco and tomatoes are similar. But I spoke earlier to the point that bud is not a leaf crop. Not unless you're actively advocating that the industry standard be brickweed.

I gave you a lovely out ... sell a Cannabis product that isn't bud. In a legal climate, we'll have the leeway to develop it. Mechanical and solvent extracts of outstanding quality can be made with growing, harvesting and processing procedures as mechanical and economical as those for corn or wheat.

Maybe the paradigm is cotton. It was originally a very labor-intensive crop to harvest and process ... so much so that the labor pool necessary, and its provenance, profoundly shaped this nation's economic and political history. Modern cotton is good and cheap and processed almost entirely by machine, but it took over a century to perfect the Jacquard loom, the cotton gin, yarnmaking machinery etc. Maybe weed is in the same place ... but i expect some feedback to take place between the product and the process. Today's premier product, sinsemilla bud, is shaped as much by culture as by process. Changing the culture will take time and be driven by success. Jmo. cn

 

[desert dude]

I agree that tobacco and tomatoes are similar. But I spoke earlier to the point that bud is not a leaf crop. Not unless you're actively advocating that the industry standard be brickweed.

I gave you a lovely out ... sell a Cannabis product that isn't bud. In a legal climate, we'll have the leeway to develop it. Mechanical and solvent extracts of outstanding quality can be made with growing, harvesting and processing procedures as mechanical and economical as those for corn or wheat.

Maybe the paradigm is cotton. It was originally a very labor-intensive crop to harvest and process ... so much so that the labor pool necessary, and its provenance, profoundly shaped this nation's economic and political history. Modern cotton is good and cheap and processed almost entirely by machine, but it took over a century to perfect the Jacquard loom, the cotton gin, yarnmaking machinery etc. Maybe weed is in the same place ... but i expect some feedback to take place between the product and the process. Today's premier product, sinsemilla bud, is shaped as much by culture as by process. Changing the culture will take time and be driven by success. Jmo. cn

Maybe we will live to see legalization actually happen and see the results first hand?

 

[cannabineer]

Maybe we will live to see legalization actually happen and see the results first hand?

From your mouth into Nature's ear ... cn

 

[overgrowem]

I read that the Wash.tax rate would be 25% at each level, making an lb. selling at $20.farmers market, worth about $40. retail.If a way to import from Mex.,Canada,Philips.Nam. etc.can be arranged it will be. Trimming wont be a prob.,herb will be sold in cigarette form to the masses, a la Park Lane.To est. price, find price of Park Lane in 60's,about $2.00 I think,+ inflation + tax rate,that is about what an unfiltered cig. sized pack will sell for IMO.

 

[tip top toker]

quality Cannabis products can be made cheaply and mechanically ... just not simsemilla bud

Why not? I thought you of all people would use the term correctly, next you'll be talking about "medical quality" cannabis.

 

[desert dude]

I read that the Wash.tax rate would be 25% at each level, making an lb. selling at $20.farmers market, worth about $40. retail.If a way to import from Mex.,Canada,Philips.Nam. etc.can be arranged it will be. Trimming wont be a prob.,herb will be sold in cigarette form to the masses, a la Park Lane.To est. price, find price of Park Lane in 60's,about $2.00 I think,+ inflation + tax rate,that is about what an unfiltered cig. sized pack will sell for IMO.

Sounds about right to me.

 

[cannabineer]

Why not? I thought you of all people would use the term correctly, next you'll be talking about "medical quality" cannabis.

Not sure what "medical quality" weed would be, just as I could press most any alcohol or tobacco into a "medical quality" situation.

But if you've read my posts for this thread, you'll know I'm a raging pot snob. I take issue with the low-grade groom I've seen from both mechanized and "sweatshop" producers. If you wanna see OCD reified, my grow journal has me prepping a few grams of White Widow with every last cow's-tongue individually and lovingly Rainmanned off. Took me days.
Now THAT's nicely groomed bud. cn

 

[Kervork]

Pot should be priced low enough that only someone who smokes it would bother to plant it. There should be no taxes, no government involvement with small scale growing, serious penalties for providing it to minors and no advertising, or mention of it in the media. No one should be able to produce more than 20 times what they can smoke. That puts it at about $20 per ounce.


It was the commercialization of tobacco which created our problem with it. The same can be said of alcohol. I would not want to see weed commercialised. Better to have a million home growers than a dozen evil corporate giants fucking with the thc/cbd levels to sell more product.

The best way to remove the problems with weed is to take the profit out and collectively ignore it.

 

[tip top toker]

Not sure what "medical quality" weed would be, just as I could press most any alcohol or tobacco into a "medical quality" situation.

But if you've read my posts for this thread, you'll know I'm a raging pot snob. I take issue with the low-grade groom I've seen from both mechanized and "sweatshop" producers. If you wanna see OCD reified, my grow journal has me prepping a few grams of White Widow with every last cow's-tongue individually and lovingly Rainmanned off. Took me days.
Now THAT's nicely groomed bud. cn

My point being your use of the word sinsemilla. You talk as if it is not possible to have such a product if it is cheaply or mechanically produced. Hence why i don't understand. I could grow a plant using a flashlight and harvest it using throwing knives while blindfold. It could still quite happily be sinsemilla. Sinsemilla has absolutely nothing to do with the quality, it has to do with being seedless. Sin semilla. Spanish for without seeds. The absence of seeds is the only criteria. Hence why i mentioned "medical grade" because you used the term out of it's real context like a lot of people use a lot of terms out of their real context, such as good weed being called "dro" or such nonsense.

I am just like you, i will take a pair of scissors, and remove every tiny fan leaf to the main stem, every single sugar leaf, i cringe when is ee what most people on this forum call trimmed weed, looks damned awful, but the level of trimming has nothing to do with it's classification as sinsemilla bud.

 

[cannabineer]

My point being your use of the word sinsemilla. You talk as if it is not possible to have such a product if it is cheaply or mechanically produced. Hence why i don't understand. I could grow a plant using a flashlight and harvest it using throwing knives while blindfold. It could still quite happily be sinsemilla. Sinsemilla has absolutely nothing to do with the quality, it has to do with being seedless. Sin semilla. Spanish for without seeds. The absence of seeds is the only criteria. Hence why i mentioned "medical grade" because you used the term out of it's real context like a lot of people use a lot of terms out of their real context, such as good weed being called "dro" or such nonsense.

I am just like you, i will take a pair of scissors, and remove every tiny fan leaf to the main stem, every single sugar leaf, i cringe when is ee what most people on this forum call trimmed weed, looks damned awful, but the level of trimming has nothing to do with it's classification as sinsemilla bud.

I see. Would you accept that my emphasis was on "bud"? That is the groomed product as distinct from the just "weed" i smoked in the 70s. I agree that the sinsemilla aspect raises no barriers to mass production, so long as the farmer has a way to pull the males in a timely manner ... cn

 

[tip top toker]

Indeed i would I was simply nitpicking. I just have a thing about folk using incorrect terms when describing the quality of weed. Don't often hear it simply being called sinsemilla in regard to it's trimming, so just picked up on it. I mentioned "medical grade" as that's the normal one that people seem to use these days, because as you rightly say, anything can be deemed medical, you could take the nastiest skankiest ditch weed and to someone it is still medical grade if it hleps them in such a manner.

Please don't mind me, i'm just in something of a mood today, gf is stuck in hospital with a good possibility of significant surgery and i'm not the most friendly of folk as a result. Ironically i'm bummed because there's nothing i can do with regard to getting her said "medical grade" to help her with her suffering.

 

[Grandpapy]

Pollen pollution will keep the quality low, weather induced by man or nature. At least until a chastity strain can be produced.

 

[spandy]

Not sure what "medical quality" weed would be, just as I could press most any alcohol or tobacco into a "medical quality" situation.

But if you've read my posts for this thread, you'll know I'm a raging pot snob. I take issue with the low-grade groom I've seen from both mechanized and "sweatshop" producers. If you wanna see OCD reified, my grow journal has me prepping a few grams of White Widow with every last cow's-tongue individually and lovingly Rainmanned off. Took me days.
Now THAT's nicely groomed bud. cn

And then it gets set on fire. lol

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