1. I don't think "medical user" is *only* those who have a piece of paper from their doctor. Thousands of doctors aren't willing to sign, that doesn't make their patients less of a patient when they use the same medicine. If it was a harmful drug like morphine that would be a different discussion, but I truly cannot understand why some of you have your head so far up your ass about why someone smokes marijuana. If it's not harmful, who gives a flying fuck why they use it?
2. Many dispensaries are mom and pop shops, but the ones that are staying open right now (especially in Toronto) are the ones that are backed by LPs or big money. You think they raid 8 dispensaries on 1 block and leave the other 2 alone just because they didn't have enough proof to shut them down? No. It's because those 2 had the right backers and the right political ties to remain open doing exactly the same thing.
3. Tweed prices are out of control. Couldn't agree more. That said, they have 1 strain that's $6 a gram and it's still decent. It's less than I pay at the Compassion Club you love so much, so don't yell at me just because it's only 1 strain and it's a mediocre strain. It's a $6 sativa and I can't get that anywhere else other than a corner on Dundas. If I'm making honey or tincture, it works as well as most strains. The potency is there, the flavour profile and bag appeal are just shit.
4. Tweed forming movements and trying to take over the industry isn't evil as much as it is just business practices. I 100% see it from the patient perspective and it looks like Evil Corp, but the reality is that they've had to deal with hundreds of false promises from Health Canada at every step. When Tweed first got licensed, they believed they were joining a group of 12 approved LPs that would be selling *all* legal marijuana in the country. They knew *nothing* about marijuana and got into this business for the money. As they've learned that you can't hire tree growers to grow pot, they've also realized that this is going to be far more expensive and demanding than they expected. They began to buy up their competitors, expand their operations, build their own labs, lobby the government and do the big pharma thing. Make no mistake of it: Tweed is gearing up to fight Pfizer, not you and I. Pfizer is the one lobbying the government for synthetics and pills instead of the medicine you want - Tweed spends millions of dollars defending their right to produce the medicine we all want.
Damn their prices, their business practices, their ethics, their abuse of power and everything else, but I won't hate them for providing the medicine.
If you listened to their earnings call you would realize that their pricing doesn't make them rich.
If you see what they did with Bedrocan you would realize that lowering the price doesn't solve the problem either.
No matter what Tweed does, you guys are going to hate them. They're keeping a broad spectrum of strains, prices and options to the best of their legal ability.
I know you won't believe me and I'm ok with that, but the cost of running an LP is more than double what it costs to run any other grow you're comparing them to.
For Tweed, the fact that they hold so much on hand means they have to get a level 10 security vault - that vault alone probably set them back $250,000.
How did you think they were going to pay for that? $5 grams?
Blame HC, not the people who get fucked in the system.
When prohibition happened did you take pitchforks and torches down to Canadian Club and yell at them for the price of their booze at Dock 57?