5815 replies to this topic

[DustMagnet]

Good example, except it's more like big brewery vs home brew at large scale. I suspect we will have good legal weed and mediocre legal weed just like beer. Pick your poison.

How about your neighbour's garden tomatoes vs commercial hot-house?

Or someone's Italian grandma makes you a nice meal (in an unlicensed kitchen) vs Olive Garden?

 

I'm not a weed aficionado, so I don't know good vs bad weed.  I just like making examples.

[Kikadee]

I’m very excited to smoke legally in my own back-yard, but I really hope some brilliant mind decides to cultivate less skanky smelling ‘suburban’ strains, because I am not keen on my neighbours knowing every time I light up. Personally, I love the odour, but like cigarettes and bbqs, not everyone concurs.

[Mike K.]

You know, I’ve never even considered that as an option. That would be a brilliant gimmick for a brand to focus on.

[todd]

That friend I was talking about earlier used to be an outdoor smoker but installed an underground bunker/lounge complete with activated carbon air filtration/electrostatic pre filtration with essential oils diffuser and all the frills of the outdoors astroturf, outdoor inspired colors, outdoor inspired lighting, golf course, etc.

[spanky123]

So much for the 'legal' producers that have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the infrastructure and security Health Canada demanded to grow pot.

 

https://www.theglobe...egal-in-canada/

[DustMagnet]

So much for the 'legal' producers that have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the infrastructure and security Health Canada demanded to grow pot.

 

https://www.theglobe...egal-in-canada/

Non-paywall snapshot: https://archive.fo/k...-4673.0-4673.41

[todd]

Will a wall/fence stop them?

Edited by todd, 26 June 2018 - 01:00 PM.

[Jackerbie]

Will a wall/fence stop them?

 

They're worried about drones 

[DustMagnet]

Nets.  It's freakin' nets I tell ya.

[Sparky]

Personally, I love the odour, but like cigarettes and bbqs, not everyone concurs.

Somebody sparked up some skunk weed in the Uptown parkade today. Jesus Murphy!

[LJ]

https://www.theglobe...ceit-of-potcom/
 

The dazzling deceit of big marijuana

Published 14 hours ago

Alex MacDonald is a grizzled old pothead. He has a cough from 50 years of smoking dope. He used to be a dealer, too, though he hasn’t done that for years. Today he remains a faithful consumer and a close student of the industry. He thinks a lot of the hype around legalization is ridiculous.

“The law is essentially unimportant,” he says. “That’s because the government has never had the slightest impact on either smokers or growers.”

Legalization will change the world a lot less than you might think, he says. The illegal market will not shut down, or even shrink much. Nor will kids stop using, as Justin Trudeau likes to claim. Canadian kids are already among the biggest consumers of marijuana in the world. They’ll keep smoking what they please, as they please – as they always have.

Nor will investors and governments reap the bonanza they are sure await them. That’s because the fundamental economics of the business aren’t all that good – especially when combined with the state’s historical lack of enthusiasm to crack down on illegal grow ops that will continue to produce a product that a lot of people want.

In the 1960s, Canadians smoked a dreadful product imported mostly from Mexico that was mostly sand and seeds. Then we began to grow the stuff ourselves, and never looked back. The penalties for illegal growers were minimal, and the law was laxly enforced. In rural Ontario, grow-op equipment was widely advertised on the radio. “You can grow tomatoes. You can grow potatoes. You can grow ANYTHING,” the sales pitch went. 

Marijuana is ridiculously cheap to grow. Your average competently run grow-op, according to Mr. MacDonald, can produce a gram of marijuana for around a dollar (enough for a cigarette or two). According to Statistics Canada, Canadians currently pay an average of $6.83 a gram for illegal marijuana. Canada’s finance ministers say legalized pot will be priced at $10 a gram. Which raises a question. With such a big price difference, who will buy the legal stuff?

Unlike the liquor industry – where getting into business takes a big, expensive factory and marketing campaign – the illegal marijuana market is extremely easy to get into. Ma and Pa can set up a 100-plant grow-op in their suburban basement (three harvests a year) for $25,000. “The cost of entry to the market is so low that marijuana can’t be a regulated oligopoly,” argues Mr. MacDonald. He predicts that massive competition from both the illegal and legal markets will make prices fall like a soufflé.

Legal marijuana has another problem. The quality is lousy. Mass-produced industrial grade marijuana simply can’t compete with lovingly cultivated illegal boutique bud. “To an experienced recreational pot smoker, the weed they offer is appalling,” Mr. MacDonald says. “The legal producers are selling the cannabis equivalent of Niagara jug wine for ice wine prices.”

If that weren’t enough, there’s no guarantee that demand will boom as much as pot investors think. The other night I asked a bunch of friends if they intended to line up at the friendly government dealer on Oct. 17. Of course not, they said.

None of this has dampened the investment frenzy surrounding marijuana stocks. Take Aurora Cannabis, a stock-market darling with a current valuation of $5-billion. Its hyper-optimistic CEO, Terry Booth, used to be an electrician. Now he’s running a company that’s worth more than Maple Leaf Foods. Aurora’s annual sales currently amount to a rather slender $62-million. To date, it has only produced seven tonnes of weed. But never mind the past. At this moment it is erecting glass-walled buildings the size of subdivisions to produce mountains of product for a pot-starved world. Buy now. The stock price can only go up. Can’t it?

“Investors are doomed,” says Mr. MacDonald, coughing.

That doesn’t mean there won’t be winners. There already are. They include former politicians and former law enforcers and other insiders with a reputation for rent. The long list of luminaries who’ve lent their names to pot-associated enterprises includes a former prime minister (John Turner), a former premier (Mike Harcourt), and a former Toronto police chief (Julian Fantino), who used to be the toughest anti-drug guy on the block. ”We are not in the marijuana business; we are in the health delivery system,” he explained as he introduced his new company, Aleafia.

The winners also include the lawyers, investment bankers, bureaucrats, regulators, and marketing consultants who hope to make their fortunes in the pot rush. The biggest winner of them all is Mr. Trudeau himself, the father of the bill. His pipelines remain unbuilt, his electoral reforms went down the drain, and free trade is crashing into ruins –but at last he has a deliverable to take into the next election. You can no longer just say he’s another pretty face. He’s the man who brought Ghost Train Haze to a grateful nation.

[dasmo]

Some truth in that, but overvaluation is everywhere. A quick visit to Seattle will show you that legal pot will do well. The entire consumer economy would collapse if the logic that it’s cheaper to grow your own or make it yourself actually mattered. Plus, the Green Rush is way more clever than the pot rush....

[DustMagnet]

Some truth in that, but overvaluation is everywhere. A quick visit to Seattle will show you that legal pot will do well. The entire consumer economy would collapse if the logic that it’s cheaper to grow your own or make it yourself actually mattered. Plus, the Green Rush is way more clever than the pot rush....

See also, homebrew beer & wine and DIY oil changes.  

[Jackerbie]

Some truth in that, but overvaluation is everywhere. A quick visit to Seattle will show you that legal pot will do well. The entire consumer economy would collapse if the logic that it’s cheaper to grow your own or make it yourself actually mattered. Plus, the Green Rush is way more clever than the pot rush....

 

I wouldn't be so sure. A lot will depend on how the new laws are enforced. The marijuana industry in BC is diverse, but a lot of that diversity will be shut out of the new regime. It would be like all of the existing liquor stores closing and being replaced by ones that only sell Molson-Coors, Labatt, and Budweiser. No wine, no liquor, no craft beer. Just the big basic beer brands.

 

Demand will still be there for all of the products that you can already get. The edibles, the oils, the shatter, the various strains, etc. If anything the new regime will simply put the market back underground and online, I think.

[Mattjvd]

I wouldn't be so sure. A lot will depend on how the new laws are enforced. The marijuana industry in BC is diverse, but a lot of that diversity will be shut out of the new regime. It would be like all of the existing liquor stores closing and being replaced by ones that only sell Molson-Coors, Labatt, and Budweiser. No wine, no liquor, no craft beer. Just the big basic beer brands.

 

Demand will still be there for all of the products that you can already get. The edibles, the oils, the shatter, the various strains, etc. If anything the new regime will simply put the market back underground and online, I think.

Is there any reason the legal market won't sell those products though?

 

If we can have a dozen craft breweries and distilleries on the South Island, why not a small-batch craft grower or two making boutique products?

[Jackerbie]

Is there any reason the legal market won't sell those products though?

 

Yah, they're not included in what's being legalized. The supply is controlled by the BC government and only includes dried cannabis, oils, and seeds. Apparently edibles will be added to the mix in the future.

Edited by Jackerbie, 27 June 2018 - 09:20 AM.

[Mattjvd]

I wouldn't be so sure. A lot will depend on how the new laws are enforced. The marijuana industry in BC is diverse, but a lot of that diversity will be shut out of the new regime. It would be like all of the existing liquor stores closing and being replaced by ones that only sell Molson-Coors, Labatt, and Budweiser. No wine, no liquor, no craft beer. Just the big basic beer brands.

 

Demand will still be there for all of the products that you can already get. The edibles, the oils, the shatter, the various strains, etc. If anything the new regime will simply put the market back underground and online, I think.

 

 

Yah, they're not included in what's being legalized. The supply is controlled by the BC government and only includes dried cannabis, oils, and seeds. Apparently edibles will be added to the mix in the future.

Oh, interesting. I hope the delay isn't too long

 

Well is there any reason small-scale craft producers wouldn't get into the market for the bolded then? Our local craft breweries still have the supply controlled through the Liquor Control and Licensing Act.

[Jackerbie]

Oh, interesting. I hope the delay isn't too long

 

Well is there any reason small-scale craft producers wouldn't get into the market for the bolded then? Our local craft breweries still have the supply controlled through the Liquor Control and Licensing Act.

 

Some will get in eventually, depending on how restrictive the requirements are for licensed production facilities. But the first year or two is going to be tumultuous, for sure. The feds can only hand out licenses so fast, so I wouldn't be surprised if there's a backlog of producers hoping to be licensed but having to wait their turn.

[DustMagnet]

More pants-wetting: https://nationalpost...s-poll-suggests

 

It's like these people don't know the extent that marijuana is entrenched.  All these things they are worrying about are here now, and have been for years.

 

Kids have it now, there are stoned drivers now. If "most" Canadians are worried about marijuana use then "most" Canadians are not going to start using it, so we're obviously not looking at a huge uptake upon legalization.

They're worried kids might be able to get it easier.  Easier than walking into a school bathroom?

 

It almost seems that some people want organized crime to retain complete control of the market.

[spanky123]

^ The G&M is reporting this morning that the LCBO in Ontario now wants to lower the retail price of pot by 30% ($7.50 a gram inc taxes) to compete against the black market and is trying to force suppliers to cut their prices. I think what Canadians are seeing with moves like this is that the model hasn't been fully thought out and would rather wait until it is.