"Keep Pot Illegal!" say Humboldt County dope farmers

Mother Jones reports that Humboldt County pot farmers are afraid they'll go out of business if their crops are legalized in the upcoming California elections.

Recently, “Keep Pot Illegal” bumper stickers have been seen on cars around the county. In chat rooms and on blogs, anonymous writers predict that tobacco companies will crush small farmers and take marijuana production to the Central Valley. With legalization, if residents don’t act, “we’re going to be ruined,” said Anna Hamilton, a radio host on KMUD-FM (91.1) in southern Humboldt County.

A friend told me once that he thought drug prohibition a was good thing because it promoted a black market, which is an important part of society. Interesting point, but I'm not sure the benefits of a black market outweigh its negative effects. It's a fun thing to tell people who are in favor of the drug war, though.

Criminalize Marijuana! (Via Cynical-C. Image via Stoner Party)

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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Borderhacker

There are numerous specialty varieties of pot that bring premium prices to small growers because of their unique quality. Large corporate farms would churn out tons of generic pot that would range in quality from adequate to mediocre. I think there would always be a market for high quality boutique labels to produce the coveted varieties that demand higher prices even now. To put it in concrete terms, yes, Tenneco would flood the market with tons of Humboldt Headband at dirt cheap prices, but connoisseurs would still pay gourmet prices for organic Purple Haze sustainably grown by a small tribe of hippies.
SamSam

i would encourage all pot smokers to continue doing business with whoever you do it with now if that indeed turns out to be the case. keep it clandestine. keep it tax free.

…keep doing business as it’s being done now, no matter where it’s coming from or how it got there? Call me straight-laced, but I’d me much happier knowing that my pot was coming from some legal local farm than somewhere in Afghanistan or Columbia (two of the top-producing countries), and then smuggled into the country by god-knows-what means.

If you live and California and live next-door to your semi-legal growers, then maybe it’s different. Then again, if you live in California you’ve ruined you state’s finances so completely totally that I think you should be happy to pay some extra taxes to your state.
- nutbastard
  
  “Call me straight-laced, but I’d me much happier knowing that my pot was coming from some legal local farm than somewhere in Afghanistan or Columbia”
  
  IIRC only something like 10% of all marijuana in the US is imported. The reason is that importing large amounts is difficult, and the quality you get from, say, South America is much lower than what’s made right here at home.
  
  “Then again, if you live in California you’ve ruined you state’s finances so completely totally that I think you should be happy to pay some extra taxes to your state.”
  
  I’VE ruined nothing – I vote no to every single initiative that will cost the state even one measly dollar. My neighbors and the effete assholes in charge bankrupted my state.
- coaxial
  
  Call me straight-laced, but I’d me much happier knowing that my pot was coming from some legal local farm than somewhere in Afghanistan or Columbia
  
  Exactly. Right after 9/11 the ONDCP ran a PSA that equated marijuana with terrorism. It showed the $50 or whatever that the “pothead” spent being divvied up among things like “flight school,” “box cutters,” and “plane tickets.” At the end of the commercial a voice-over asked something like, “Learned something?”
  
  My response, was always, “Buy American?”
  
  Seriously. Support your community. Buy American. Buy local. You still get the pot, and you’re not supporting narcogangs. It’s no different from making sure when you buy a diamond the proceeds aren’t being used to buy new machetes for child armies in Africa.
  
  Alas, I can’t find this PSA on YouTube. The most promising links were removed, and all the other “drugs = terrorism” spots are those lame Dick Cheney-esque “Nick and Norm” PSAs. If anyone has a link, post it.
Jebediah

Here’s a story on the general topic:
http://www.miller-mccune.com/business-economics/marijuana-dark-horse-savior-of-california-agriculture-11863/
Anonymous

Good dope is grown from clones. Seeds are useless.
Anonymous

What about the jail system, keeping it in a black market will put pot users with real criminals. I think it should be legal and taxed. Pot farmers in NorCal will just have to be legal also, they will still make money in dispensaries due to various illness’s and wants from the patient. They might loose $500-$1000 on each pound and if thats the case its just comes down to greedy farmers. Yeah the pot farmers now are making more money without it legal, but the risk factor involved such as middle of the night runs to Chico to avoid the authorities entails a lot risk, plus the crime rate has grown around the area, maybe due to tweek and the overly popularized area due to movies and TV shows could be a factor, who knows. I enjoy going to a clinic to choose my medication, I dont have to deal with sketchy street peddlers trying to make a buck. Out here there is a cap for eights to be sold no higher than $55 for their top grade medication. I am all for that. No more parking lots, random houses and janky characters to deal with.

If a monopoly happens, and it will. I like to use the Major breweries to Microbreweries. Stone IPA is a perfect example, I love that IPA due to its quality. If major breweries kept up with quality and not quantity, I would buy it from them, but they dont, so i wont. The majority might support Buttwiper, I never will.

Bottom-line NorCal farmers are getting greedy if they dont support this. The dispensaries will buy their product. This allows their product to be out there for more people to try, unlike a taco truck that comes around only to certain areas. I see NorCal medication in SoCal all the time.

Its now widespread.
Anonymous

Reverse psychology?
Aloisius

Yes, but producing alcohol is hazardous (if distilling) and time consuming. It requires special equipment (a bottleneck that makes it relatively easy to control) and the initial investment is rather large. Furthermore, the ubiquity of legitimate alcohol vendors makes doing so rather unprofitable.

Modern distilling is hardly hazardous if you take some basic precautions (you don’t need open flames anymore and ventilation isn’t a big deal), the equipment can be built easily and the initial investment in an unregulated market where you’re producing the small volumes of liquor comparable to a small pot grower is relatively small.

Heck, you can distill using nothing more than a freezer and some homebrew.
Anonymous

â€œKeep Pot Illegalâ€ bumper stickers
that’s not true…I live in Humboldt and work every day in Garberville the center of pot country…and I have never seen a bumper sticker with that on it….lets see a photo..I think this is made up..
- Anonymous
  
  i aagree i live in humboldt and have never seen a sticker like that………..with that said grow your own….seedz707
Anonymous

I haven’t seen anyone in Humboldt County with those stickers. Maybe they just aren’t in my area. But I think I should point out a few things.
In some areas in Humboldt, you can legally grow something like 99 plants in your house without worry about the police knocking at your door. That’s why there is a big problem with the power grids around here. It all goes to pot growing. :)
Also I don’t think wineries and restaurants would do very well where I am. Most of the people are students and we are far too poor for fancy food. :P
Yamara

T E M P E R A N C E !

…

My trademark lawyer 20-odd years ago told me the tobacco industry has registered trademarks for pot brands all ready to go for the moment pot became legal.
mermaid

Turns out pot is a gateway drug: these people have become addicted to money.
dw_funk

Have these growers considered that, if and when pot is legalized, they will be a legitimate business with every reason to organize together in order to lobby the government to keep tobacco companies out of the weed business? It’s just the wrong time entirely for growers to get worried about big business. As long as it’s nationally illegal, as it will be for years to come, it will be impossible for national businesses to risk investing any serious money in growing weed. Local food has become huge, and I imagine there’s encouraging hippie overlap in the demographics of marijuana users and local food types. There are tons of great business models, as many posters above have mentioned, like the wine industry and microbreweries.

As for those consumers who are concerned about prices, taxes take place at the point of sale. Since there are so many legitimate uses for the equipment used to grow marijuana, it’s unlikely they’ll be able to start taxing potting soil. If I were an enterprising marijuana businessman, I’d be looking into what will inevitably be a lucrative market in selling supplies and plants to home growers, with a knowledgeable staff there to help you figure out the best way to get a crop of Northern Lights in before 4/20/2011.

Seriously, there are so many good reasons to legalize, and so few good reasons for it to remain illegal. These Humboldt County farmers are borrowing trouble from a probably-still-distant future in which national laws have changed. Their business model isn’t in trouble; pot smokers will largely be too lazy to grow their own (it’s easy to grow vegetables too, but most people prefer the grocery store) but informed enough to buy from their local farmers.
Anonymous

daamnn!
“drooling”
Moriarty

Why THEY want it to stay illegal is clear enough, but what argument do they have to make to someone who isn’t currently selling it illegally?
Ugly Canuck

Man hat’s a funny headline…have not laughed so hard since my weedy college daze…

Legalize this stuff top to bottom: it’s harmless, and a waste of time to worry about.
And let the cops the preachers and the profit-driven hempsters wail: for wail they will.

Regulation drives up the price, and erects barriers to the entry of new participants in the Markets, and keeps prices higher than they would naturally be:
IMO Prohibition is like “high-proof” Regulation.
And as staggering to the body (politic).
hobomike

egads, this is stupid. First off, legalization doesn’t mean market free-for-all. Just look at alcohol. The manufacture, sale, distribution AND consumption are all very tightly controlled. And taxed at every turn. This is really the point of legalization, no?

(I’d add that freeing up our prisons/jails of soft-drug offenders is the other point.)

As for growers in Humboldt, Mendo, etc., they need to learn from the Wine and Cheese industries. There are industrial producers out there that make more daily that many countries do annually, yet we consumers still happily pay top-dollar for premium product. This is where they’d need to go. If you’ve had stuff from Humboldt, they’re not far off. :-)
- nutbastard
  
  “Just look at alcohol. The manufacture, sale, distribution AND consumption are all very tightly controlled. And taxed at every turn.”
  
  Yes, but producing alcohol is hazardous (if distilling) and time consuming. It requires special equipment (a bottleneck that makes it relatively easy to control) and the initial investment is rather large. Furthermore, the ubiquity of legitimate alcohol vendors makes doing so rather unprofitable.
  
  Marijuana, on the other hand, requires only some seeds, some earth, some water, and some sun. Yes, you can go hydroponic/aeroponic, but the equipment can easily be fabricated with common items.
  
  If legalized, the impetus for law enforcement to blow a lot of money looking for pot gardens goes away, and whether it’s illegal to do so or not, many people will simply grow their own.
  
  actually, we may find that the level of taxation will be so ridiculous that the black market will be able to undercut retail vendors. black markets still exist for cigarettes, for example, due to the disparity between the price of the product and the taxes applied on it.
  
  As far as I know, the majority of the cost of a pack of cigarettes is tax.
hobomike

From my (somewhat limited) understanding, the Proposition legalizes the use and possession of up to an ounce and provides some measure for growing for personal use only. It also provides guidelines for local governments to tax and regulate, if the so choose. It doesn’t, AFAIK, advocate or suggest the legalization of commercial-scale production.
- SKR
  
  If it is based on the Amiano Bill is does create a legal framework for cultivation, distribution, and retail sales. As well as allowing for personal cultivation, (25sqft/person)
Anonymous

You can get those cool “Save Humboldt County” stickers at http://savehumboldtcounty.com/ – Catchy eh?
Anonymous

Oh I see, keep pot illegal rather than obtain a business license and rights to distribute your own product like a smart person :O

Oh Like does everyone buy their beer from Coors and Miller now that we dont have a prohibition? I guess we forget that there are always local brewers booming in their business for those who prefer a better hand crafted beer :)

It’s not bloody rocket science. When the times change, change your methods to seek your profit. Don’t give up and ruin it for everyone sheesh XD
3P

Because there’s no such thing as organised crime cartels crushing smaller competitors? WTF.
kobrakai

“Lower your prices!” says me.
Anonymous

If you drive up hwy 37 in the Napa Valley you can see that the local economy is not really certered around wine so much as it is around wine tourism. There’s plenty of wineries but there are also lots and lots of upscale restaurants, B&B’s, boutiques etc. Wine is the centerpeice but there is a tremendous amount of ancillary economcy activity that attaches. And tha’s despite the fact taht the Central Valley actually produces more product. The Napa Valley is still the tourist destination for its superior quality product.

I suspect that’s how Humlbolt would go. Yes, maybe the bulk of product would be grown on factory farms outside of Fresno, but Humbolt would still be a tourist destination for its reputation as a world famous premier dope growing area. Not to mention is natural beauty. I think you’d start seeing al kinds of high end restauarants and B&B’s catering to pot tourists coming to sample the good stuff and spend the weekend in the Redwoods.

Of course it would depend on how the feds decided to react whether people would really be willing to start investing in that kind of development. But I think tourism would ultimately eclipse dope as the real economic engine of the area.
- Anonymous
  
  Check out highways 29, 101, 116, 128 and 121. 37 cuts across a marsh which is beautiful in it’s own way, but not because of grapes.
  
  Humboldt growers need to specialize as all other ag producers in the county have had to do in order to survive. Specialty and organic markets are the future to growing along the north coast.
Anonymous

So you’re not sure if “the benefits of a black market outweigh its negative effects.” Well, come over to Mexico and remember that 20,000 people has died over the 3 year drug war. If you didn’t consume as much drugs as you do, well, we’d have merry beaches for you to visit on springbreak!

Sereiously, people just think that legalizing is the only way, it’s not propagando for the narcos, because as the company depicted in the note, they LIVE because of their DRUG monopoly.

So let’s take it away from them, tax it to rehabilitate addicts and treturn peace to my country.

Mariano.
freeyourcrt

Black Markets are good because they offer choice. Choice is always good for the consumer. A tightly regulated market is nothing more than a government enforced monopoly. Monopolies are bad for consumers because they limit choice.

I think that about covers it.
- Brainspore
  
  Are you kidding? The average American alcohol consumer today has literally hundreds of times more options than their counterparts did during prohibition. In 1922 an American who wanted a drink could:
  
  â€¢ Brew it themselves and hope not to get caught
  â€¢ Buy it at an inflated price from bootleggers and hope not to get shot
  â€¢ Hope that whoever was doling out the sacramental wine at church was feeling generous that Sunday.
  
  Nowadays I can walk to a bar down the street, grab a six-pack at any grocery store or visit my local BevMo which offers thousands of choices for booze at reasonable prices. I could also theoretically still buy hillbilly hooch on the black market but frankly I can’t think of any reason I’d want to.
  
  Even if you don’t buy the alcohol precedent just take a look at Amsterdam. The legal coffee houses there probably have a greater variety of weed available than your black-market dealer does.
  - freeyourcrt
    
    What you grab from the store is a choice from a very small handful of what could potentially be available. There’s a lot of soft drinks in the store but the vast majority of them are bottled and produced by a very small handful or sources.
    
    Citing prohibition, the most austere government regulatory measure, does not quite address the argument that a thriving black market offers consumers more choices, does it?
    
    Citing Amsterdam also doesn’t address the core argument that a regulated environment like that does not represents a model of the largest consumer choice.
    
    A Black Market is another production and distribution pipeline. Like the shabby taco trucks in my neighborhood, It may not serve you, but it serves me (yummy tacos).
    - robulus
      
      You MUST be trolling.
  - freeyourcrt
    
    What you grab from the store is a choice from a very small handful of what could potentially be available. There’s a lot of soft drinks in the store but the vast majority of them are bottled and produced by a very small handful or sources.
    
    Citing prohibition, the most austere government regulatory measure, does not quite address the argument that a thriving black market offers consumers more choices, does it?
    
    Citing Amsterdam also doesn’t address the core argument that a regulated environment like that does not represents a model of the largest consumer choice.
    
    A Black Market is another production and distribution pipeline. Like the shabby taco trucks in my neighborhood, It may not serve you, but it serves me (yummy tacos).
    - Brainspore
      
      Let’s drop the abstract here for the moment- I just gave two extremely relevant real-world examples of how legalization of a previously contraband product led to more consumer choices than what had been available on the black market alone. Do you have any real-world examples of the opposite?
Boba Fett Diop

This is the difference between farmers and drug dealers.
Anonymous

Keeping pot growing illegal pushes growing onto environmentally sensitive lands, lands owned by ‘someone else’, inside abandoned homes etc.

This is Bad.

Legalize, tax and regulate please.
Guesstimate Jones

They could do a simple work-around this problem, by waiving the physician’s recommendation requirement for medical use, in favor of a waiver, signed by the user.

This would be an opt-in, de-facto legalization, within the existing legal framework of medical marijuana, as provided under Prop 215.
bellebouche

Funny – speed reading through the Boing Boing front page I saw the banner image for this story and immediately thought – Hops!

I’m sure BoingBoing could find a place in its heart for one less Banana Hammock/Ukeulele story and a few more about beer.

Remember the slogan, “Beer – keeps the Happy Mutants Happy”
Anonymous

“A friend told me once that he thought drug prohibition a was good thing because it promoted a black market, which is an important part of society.”

Who is this poor, poor misinformed soul? Saying black markets are good for society is like saying the TV show, COPS, is good for the image of trailer parks and wife beaters.

Black markets are a symptom of the smothering grip of government. Pure & simple.
Marcel

I know what these guys are really afraid of.

It’s called male pollen.
Anonymous

“Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution.” – Clay Shirky
Anonymous

Tobacco companies? How long do you think it’ll take for Pfizer to buy up all the dope farms?
batu b

Harpers 10/09 issue had a GREAT article about a small northern california town that has a lot of small-scale pot growing going on. Part of the point of the article is the question “what happens in a place like this as marijuana becomes more ‘legal’ “? I think you need to be a subscriber to read this: http://harpers.org/archive/2009/10/0082672
“Tokeville: On the frontiers of federalism and dope”
But you should subscribe to this awesome magazine anyway, so there.
Anonymous

These people are missing the point. It was never about and should never really be about money. As long as there are people in jail, none of us are free.
JoshP

first thought at that picture was… OMFG, that’s a lot of weed, like Bill Hicks lot of weed. Then I read the article and once again I am slapped in the head by the smelly carp that is the American schizophrenia.
The county growers benefited from a wave of incremental change that allowed them and others to benefit. But now that the change can be perceived as ‘dangerous’ to their new found rights… *that they wouldn’t have had before* they become all afraid.
But I hear pot does that. Ride with it folks, keep smiling.
Jebediah

Pot is expensive because the current prices include a risk premium. I think prices in dispensaries are not any lower than street prices because despite prop 215, growers and dispensaries continue to get busted (legitimately or not.) But the actual cost of growing is much lower than street prices indicate- an article in issue 21 of “Treating Yourself” claims that the very best quality indoor grown weed can be grown for under $100 an ounce. Growing high quality marijuana requires a fair amount of knowledge and work. If you want good pot, I think 100 dollars an ounce plus taxes and a retail profit margin are what you will end up paying post-legalization.
If you don’t mind lower potency and harsher smoke, it gets a lot cheaper and easier – throw a few seeds in your backyard and let it grow, don’t worry about the exact right time to harvest or allowing it to cure properly, and you’re all set with a bunch of home-grown.
But if high quality pot is available for 20-30 dollars an eighth, I don’t see it being crowded out of the market by industrially farmed crap*. The growers will have to deal with a lower profit margin, but not having to hide their crops means they can easily enjoy whatever economies of scale their property allows for.
*I am not claiming industrially famed crap won’t exist, just that it won’t totally eliminate good weed from the market.
- Jebediah
  
  Ooh, replying to myself…. feels weird, man.
  The article in question is running down the price for highest quality indoor grown. The author doesn’t go into costs for the highest quality outdoor grown stuff, but it stands to reason that without high-wattage lights and other equipment, it would have to be considerably cheaper. Any growers of high quality outdoor weed willing to weigh in on their real costs of production?
SpaceGhost

Bumper sticker would’ve read:

“KEEP JAILING OUR CUSTOMERS SO WE CAN CONTINUE OVERCHARGING THEM”

But that was just too many letters.

P.S. wtf, pot enthusiasts trying to prevent what every potsmoker in the country has been dreaming of since Nixon screwed us over. Think only of yourselves much?
Anonymous

We are now in the modern world that every action you take there are risks involve. You need not to suppress the marijuana production, you just need to punish those who avoid. Certain medical benefits are deprived when this is kept illegal.
Anonymous

Quite frankly, this is INSANE! The growers actually want average consumers to support a black market monopoly that benefits growers at the expense of themselves???

So your business model is predicated upon pot being illegal. However pot being illegal doesn’t exactly benefit the consumers, the tax base, or society at large. It does benefit large gangs, the industrial prison complexes and other leeches on society.

If any other businesses besides the “happy, environmentally conscious growers of great pot” types (that we enjoy supporting because of the image) tried anything like this we would not even be discussing the validity of their argument. We would be decrying their selfish actions.

Does anyone really think that a single person should spend time in jail for the benefit of these people’s business model?
Ugly Canuck

I have serious problems with relying on police discretion to avoid sanctions: if they don’t like you, you gets busted.
If they like you, you go free.
See the problems? No? I do.

Change the Laws: to protect everybody from arbitrary ( =discretionary? Well, not precisely) police decisions and actions.
When cops see their duty, they ought to do it, not instead tohave to make fine judgments as to what amount of mearijuana does or does not legally matter, “no matter what the Law actually says”.
SKR

The problem with outdoor stuff is that you only get one crop a year because of the photoperiod. The people I’ve known that grow “outdoor” are really growing in greenhouses and either supplementing the vegetative stage with lights in the winter, or blacking out for flowering when the days are long. You get a lot more yield from a finite space if you have a higher veg/flower turnover. Commercial cultivation will probably adopt this model like many of the commercial flower cultivators in the central valley. The idea of having fields of pot where the plants are 20 feet tall probably isn’t going to happen (maybe RJR schwag). That will be hemp production. Now they might let the plants get bigger than 2 or 3 feet in the greenhouse to up the yield per plant but I’m guessing there is an optimal plant size/yield for each variety.
- Jebediah
  
  Well, you certainly can’t control the outdoor environment like you can indoors, and tight control of light, humidity, temperature, nutrients, etc. is what produces top-shelf bud. And yield is certainly a lot smaller if you have one harvest a year versus three or four.
  As for Anon @ 58, I think maybe you have too much faith in free markets. Huge producers of almost anything can muscle out competitors at the retail level – ask anyone who has tried to secure some shelf space in major supermarkets. Although, in this case, I think too many people have been smoking too much great weed to put up with whatever weak or additive-filled crap RJR would be peddling. Pot smokers are also used to uh… alternative… retail purchasing and would not mind buying directly from local “boutique” growers or outlets.
ROSSINDETROIT

I’ll stick with my assertion that tobacco companies won’t sell pot. Yes, tobacco is obviously a drug but there’s a world of difference between the public perception of cigarettes and pot. Tobacco and alcohol are socially acceptable drugs. Legalizing pot wouldn’t suddenly erase generations of strenuous effort to make it look dangerous and wrong. Many readers here don’t believe that pot is wrong but the overwhelming public perception is negative. Tobacco companies wouldn’t touch that. I’m not saying that they haven’t toyed with the idea, just that the risks are too high for them.
Back to the prostitution analogy. If it was legalized, can you imagine large hotel chains offering clean, safe, legal call girls as a service as they do massages? Of course not. There would still be a stigma of ‘sin’ attached and many people would be offended.
Far more likely than a takeover by Big Tobacco is grower cooperatives. That business model makes more sense than mass production and distribution. Legalization would not create a mass market overnight. Consumption would increase but would still be dwarfed by the traditional legal drugs alcohol and tobacco.
- dw_funk
  
  I think it’s fairly obvious that tobacco companies won’t step into the market immediately after legalization. But it’d be easy to look forward to the day when the situation with pot and tobacco are relatively reversed. In a few generations after national legalization, if and when that happens, the stigma of marijuana use would begin to erode. At the same time, cigarette laws will only become more restrictive. At some point during this transition, tobacco companies will almost have to begin manufacturing marijuana products. Tobacco will eclipse pot in terms of stigma and societal disapproval; one is a relatively harmless intoxicant, while the other is the leading cause of avoidable death.
  
  The hotel analogy isn’t very apt for this situation. The stigma of prostitution isn’t akin to the stigma of marijuana use. For one thing, I imagine there are several hotels that would be happy to provide prostitutes, but they would be a minority; most hotels don’t really need to add more value to their product. American sexual mores are so restrictive that I’m guessing legalized cocaine will be around before federal laws legalizing prostitution come on the books. God didn’t say anything about weed, but he sure as hell had a few things to say about loose women; like it or not, most Americans are going to go with Jesus on this.
  
  Grower cooperatives are more likely in the short term. But big tobacco has massive factories for producing cigarettes; it would probably take a pretty nominal sum to convert those lines from Marlboro Reds to Greens. You just order up new packaging and put a different plant in at the beginning, while you tell your farmers that they’ll be putting down new crops next year. You’re absolutely right that this wouldn’t happen overnight, but it will happen a few decades after national legalization, and will be a part of the marijuana industry.
- Brainspore
  
  Back to the prostitution analogy. If it was legalized, can you imagine large hotel chains offering clean, safe, legal call girls as a service as they do massages?
  
  Let’s get real about public perception here. In your prostitution analogy the tobacco companies are less along the lines of “Hilton Hotels” and more along the lines of “Uncle Skeezy’s Peep Show & Porn Emporium.”
Anonymous

Micro breweries are pretty damn popular…why couldn’t it be the same for pot?
ROSSINDETROIT

The tobacco companies will NEVER go into the pot business. It just wouldn’t happen no matter how much profit was involved. If prostitution was legalized, would Hilton Hotels get into the business? After decades of demonization pot will have the stigma of a drug forever. Tobacco companies are conservative organizations, largely based in the South. They will not sell something that the majority of people see as a dangerous drug. Period. It would ruin the lucrative tobacco business they already have.
- SpaceGhost
  
  “They will not sell something that the majority of people see as a dangerous drug. Period.”
  
  Um, I was pretty sure that they already do. It’s widely understood they kill thousands of their best customers every year. If they suddenly found themselves unable to sell tobacco anymore but that there was a huge demand for marijuana, I don’t think they’d shed a tear over switching their crops over to something that was making them a ton of cash.
  
  “It would ruin the lucrative tobacco business they already have.”
  
  Things change all the time, and if they really want to stay in business they’ll simply have to adapt. And if they don’t someone will just take their place. Invisible hand and whatnot.
- Brainspore
  
  The tobacco companies will NEVER go into the pot business.
  
  Wow, that post was just full of odd reasoning. Rather than counter point-by-point I’ll just state that one of my graphic design teachers did work for a major tobacco company in the 70′s creating packaging concepts for marijuana cigarettes in anticipation of the day that they became legal to market. (This isn’t the first time we’ve toyed with the idea of legalization, just the most recent.)
  
  Not only are the tobacco companies willing to go into the pot business, they’ve been preparing to do so for the last 40 years.
- Ugly Canuck
  
  Gee funny how “morals” trump “health” for those tobacco companies, eh?
  
  This is a health issue, not a matter of morality.
  Just like the booze, just like the tobacco.
Wingo

LA is overrun with ‘collectives’ that have massive amounts of fresh, locally grown medicinal cannabis. They are practically on every block, and have multitudes of choices that are similar to what you would find up in Humboldt.

I know for a fact that people are making plenty of money growing for these operations, which constantly need supply, and while the ‘legality’ of it is tricky, they are technically allowed to do it, if it is done according to the regulations.

The stupid part is that they have been charging ‘tax’ on this stuff, but the state refuses to take the money, which is just mind-boggling given the economic climate. It’s just sitting somewhere, according to a guy I spoke to at a pharmacy.

If pot were fully legalized, there would certainly be a (likely fairly large) market for good local stuff. Most people I know would balk at the idea of buying mass-market corporate-packaged junk. Just like how plenty of people around town prefer to get fresh local produce at a farmer’s market, rather than a chain grocery. And the state could justify taking the tax money, and everything would be better all around.

The growers fighting the legalization aren’t seeing the big picture and, frankly, just sound greedy. Maybe the volume they move would be effected to a degree, but there would still be a certain demand for their product if it is quality.
greengestalt

Great…
If this isn’t propaganda it’s pure stupidity.

Why not have some Mexican drug gangsters make the same argument?

Want to keep growing pot next to rivers so full of Mercury you could almost make $ extracting it from the water or the plants…? To be fair, that’s cause US firms moved there to escape our “Socialist” rules.

If MJ gets legal: (and we can do it with “Nullification”, they’ll make it legal quickly thereafter)

Yeah, overnight the major Cigarette manufacturers will flood the convenience stores with “Joints” or make “Primo Buds” for the Head Shops… The “Criminal” dealers will be mostly out of business, though a few can make money selling their “Breeds”… And the “Pre-Legal” growers can have a niche for high quality/premium cost bud. That’s where I’d shop! And, not having to essentially have two fake identities to stand a slight chance of escaping if the Fed Pigs bust in to the growing operation should make it far cheaper to grow the herb.

But, anyone who truly likes the herb will be in paradise. Besides, give the homeless, the addicts Mary Jane cigarettes. It’ll calm them down so they are less likely to do crime, esp. the latter.

It’s also a herb that enriches the soil, versus tobacco that drains it.
Fletcherism

Was there an Al Capone-lead movement to “Keep Alcohol Illegal!”?

i think that people will still buy pot if it becomes legal, these farmers are just going to have a lot more competition. While some people will undoubtedly start growing at home, most people don’t have the time/patience for it.

ESPECIALLY STONERS.
- billclonton
  
  The best growers are definitely small scale “boutique farmers” who learned horticulture because they wanted to stop paying for their own medicinal needs; aka “stoners”.
  - Fletcherism
    
    That is very true – i am fortunate to live in Oregon where the boutique growers are the norm =) i just wanted to perpetuate a stoner-stereotype for my own amusement.
    
    More than half of my friends and family could qualify for that title and i would put very few in the “lazy stoner” category.
- Anonymous
  
  it was called bootleggers and baptist. both groups wanted prohibition
- Anonymous
  
  That’s a hilarious connection. What idiots. Yes keep it illegal because I making a killing on profits and i don’t want to change my way of life, even if it would benefit society.
- macmichael
  
  “Was there an Al Capone-lead movement to “Keep Alcohol Illegal!”?”
  
  In one of my history classes, the subject came up. Al Capone supposedly was a financial contributor to the Women’s Temperance League, one of the prohibition supporting groups.
- nutbastard
  
  “Was there an Al Capone-lead movement to “Keep Alcohol Illegal!”?”
  
  You can bet your ass that the last thing he wanted was an end to prohibition. Bootlegging was a huge windfall for him and made up the majority of his business.
  
  Drug cartels in South America and Mexico (among other places) fear US legalization more than any police force or army.
ROSSINDETROIT

“Um, I was pretty sure that they already do. It’s widely understood they kill thousands of their best customers every year.”
Yes, the tobacco companies do sell a dangerous drug. Distillers and brewers also. This is well known but it’s accepted as OK to smoke and drink. It’s irrational but that’s the way it is.

“If they suddenly found themselves unable to sell tobacco anymore but that there was a huge demand for marijuana, I don’t think they’d shed a tear over switching their crops over to something that was making them a ton of cash.”

There’s no reason for the demand for tobacco to go away. It’s strongly addictive and despite all of the restrictions, health awareness, peer pressure, cost and inconvenience there remains a strong market. Cigarette smokers are not going to switch to pot en masse. Apples/oranges.
And I think you over estimate the bulk demand for pot compared to tobacco. I’d be surprised if consumption of pot was even 1% of tobacco volume. Triple or quadruple that and it’s still small potatoes.
Tobacco companies sell tobacco. If they saw a huge profit in pot they’re certainly capable of lobbying for legalization but they haven’t.
Anonymous

I lived in Humboldt for a long time and was telling growers there that they needed to start adjusting their buisness model because weed will be legal soon. I got mostly the “Hell no, keep it illegal” answer. So there they sit up in Humboldt with their same outdated model of buisness meanwhile all the new whipper snappers are busy forming the new model for the distribution of cannabis. The good genetics are still up in Humboldt, but everyone I knew that grew outdoors sent their product out of state anyways so I am not sure how this will effect the big growers in Humboldt. It will flush out all the small time indoor growers up there, which makes no sense to grow indoors up there when the weather outside is perfect. A waste of electricity and resources because some kid hears he can grow up in Humboldt. Good Luck
OriGuy

If it’s legal to grow, then maybe people will stop growing it in out-of-the-way places in public parks, putting irrigation pipes and even booby-traps on public land.
kaffeen

I’ve got the munchies now.
- Anonymous
  
  I’m going to invest in snack foods
Anonymous

I live in the Emerald Triangle, and Anna Hamilton is one of my neighbors. I missed the town hall meetings though I otherwise keep very up to date on the local issues.

I want to correct a couple of misunderstandings above.

First, there’s very few arrests for simple pot possession or use in California today. Just about anyone can get a prescription for pot, so no one needs to go to jail. Pot arrests tend to be for medium- and large-scale commercial production and distribution networks, or involve other issues like tax evasion, guns, or meth production.

Decriminalization is a gray area between full legalization and full illegalization. California has de-facto partial decriminalization of pot. Large scale or corporate production is not legal, and at the same time simple users and growers with prescriptions are not getting busted. Small commercial grows flourish while large commercial grows attract police attention. This results in thousands of small-scale cottage agriculturalists in the Emerald region alone.

Full decriminalization would eliminate all penalties for growing and consuming pot, while still disallowing large-scale commercial production. It would not, however, allow pot to become a taxable product, something that most growers I have listened to actually want.

Pot is not cheaper to produce than tobacco. Unlike tobacco, pot smokers expect a highly manicured bud, a relatively expensive process. Labor costs for harvesting and manicuring pot have remained stable while wholesale prices have dropped; 15 years ago processing might have been 7-10% of a $4000 pound; today it might be 14-20% of a $2000 pound. This is just hired labor costs and does not include soil amendments, pest control, the farmer’s labor, land payments or rent, or equipment costs. And if the grower is a sharecropper then the landlord takes a 1/2 share.

If the garden is indoors, also add generator and lighting costs, fuel costs, and equipment maintenance. On the other hand an indoor scene can produce 3 or 4 crops per year to the outdoor garden’s single crop.

My Facebook network shows a lot of amusement about the “Keep Pot Illegal” bumper sticker mention. No-one I know in the county has seen one of these. Though there might be a few cranks that hold this opinion the majority in the county do not. Growers realize that legalization is inevitable while at the same time they understand it will be literally devastating to the local economy. That will be a tough transition for a lot of families and local businesses. Thus these new town hall meetings, where people are breaking a long-standing tradition of silence to talk publicly on the issue.
Anonymous

“heirloom crop”?
Anonymous

Dealers and growers have always supported the drug war. If weed were legalized, the price would fall through the floor. The only reason people are currently getting away with charging a 10,000% markup is because it’s illegal. Weed is no harder to grow than tomatoes, yet it’s priced higher than gold.
- Anonymous
  
  This comment is ridiculous, the author has obviously never attempted to produce high quality cannabis.
Enochrewt

I live in Colorado, and have a medical marijuana license for the state. If there’s one thing I can tell you, is that marijuana will not be cheaper if it’s legalized. For the most part it’s more expensive than the $50 1/2oz. and $100 for 1oz. that is the illegal “standard” pricing. There’s a lot of deal cutting, such as making a certain dispensary your caregiver for a discount, but the up front pricing for someone walking into a random dispensary is around $60 an ounce for their best stuff.

As for quality, it’s gown through the roof. Eye popping, toe curling, choker stuff. Much better than you can regularly get on the black market. I’m hoping that the price comes down more, but in the last 6 months I haven’t seen that trend. If anything the dispensaries are selling the less desirable stuff for cheaper (You can get their mixed-strain shake for ~$10/gram usually) and keeping the premium stuff more expensive. After all of the shopping around at looking at different places I still go back to my former illegal dealer who is now my legalized caregiver. So nothing really changed, except for the security that we both feel from legalization.

It really is nice to stop in some place and just buy a $6 joint for the evening though, wow.
mdh

I used to live in the green triangle, and I’m of mixed opinion.

On the one hand there are plenty of good people who can live their rural dreams by growing weed right now, because its a high margin heirloom crop not regulated by the FDA or ‘owned’ by an ADM or a Monsanto.

On the other hand, there is no shortage of odious people making money the same exact way.

Know your grower.
toxonix

Wow, pot also makes you really quick to catch on.
Anonymous

Hmm. Not sure agree with supporters of this movement. I’ve heard that Humboldt County has experienced an increase in violent criminal activity over the past few years due to a growing drug cartel. When I lived there, it was mostly happy hippies who grew for their own enjoyment. By making a substance illegal, you’re creating a black market for it. However, I’m not entirely sure that the government should get involved. After all, the state of California is doing it as a revenue generator- not because its a movement truly supported or understood by the masses. I agree with MDH’s comment: “Know your grower.”
Anonymous

To all the people “drooling” over the photo up top, you need to group together and start pushing the MMJ issue in your state. I live in CO and can assure you that legalization (even if only for medicinal use) is FAR better than keeping it outright illegal.

I was raised in the North suburbs of Chicago and I lived in a ridiculous amount of fear of being pulled over while driving home from my dealer’s house. Now I am in the same country, different location, and the worry is gone.

I guess my argument to legalize would be to keep people (ME!) out of jail for smoking, eating, or growing a plant’s flower. This relaxed attitude towards pot should be a luxury that any American can enjoy. We aren’t free until that day…
Foggen

I guess the marijuana market is Tristero now. Awesome.
Coolin93

For the most part I support the legalization of pot but I’m afraid of what the Tobacco companies will do to it like they do with cigarettes. No extra chemicals in my pot, please! I say just decriminalize the smoking of it.
- Brainspore
  
  For the most part I support the legalization of pot but I’m afraid of what the Tobacco companies will do to it like they do with cigarettes.
  
  I wouldn’t worry- if you can still go to farmers markets to buy organic heirloom tomatoes in the age of the Monsanto corporation then specialty pot growers should be able to survive Philip Morris.
Anonymous

I agree with the observation about the effect on the black market, and have long argued the same point in conversations with friends, but I don’t think the black market is ever in danger: It’s just a question of where the border lies. There will always be people in society who can’t/won’t/don’t work “regular” jobs. The black market gives them a (hopefully) non-violent alternative. Legalization will push dealers either into “legitimate” work, or deeper into the black market (heroin? slavery?) depending on their personalities and situations.
nutbastard

marijuana is less expensive to produce than tobacco.

one cigarette generally contains ~1 gram of tobacco. the price to consumers is somewhere around 30 cents per cigarette.

one gram of marijuana currently sells for $10 to $15 – roughly 33 to 50 times more than its tobacco equivalent.

one thing is for sure – if it becomes legal, it will likely be so heavily taxed that the prices will remain pretty much where they are.

i would encourage all pot smokers to continue doing business with whoever you do it with now (assuming you feel you have a fair arrangement) if that indeed turns out to be the case. keep it clandestine. keep it tax free.
- soyonsici
  
  “marijuana is less expensive to produce than tobacco.”
  
  ORLY?
Anonymous

Don’t worry, even with legallized pot there will still be a black market. I imagine indian rezervations will supplement their tobbacco income with legal weed income, I imagine that if natives continue to get away with selling non-taxed cigs they will likely be able to get away with selling non-taxed weed, and thus everyone who is smart will buy their weed in mass quantity from them and then resell to people who are dumb (and likely still make a profit and yet be under the price of legal pot sold outside the rezervations)
Anonymous

If you can’t compete in a free market then you don’t deserve to be in business. If these farmers can’t compete with big tobacco, its because big tobacco is supplying the same or a better product for a cheaper price. Yeah, that’s bad for a few producers, but its great for ALL consumers. Pot should be legal, morally and logically.
Anonymous

The weed growers will be able to rebrand themselves as small-batch organic heirloom producers and charge even more for it.
Anonymous

Let’s go ahead and make legal in California! Why? I would like to live in southern humboldt on those half-o-million dollar properties!Humboldt Pot Lords,they love to screw people all the fuckin’ time! I here about locals putting in their time and never get rewarded by their OWNERS! That’s why I would rather invest in Colorado and watch all the greedy Humboldt grower’s property go south!Most of the properties in Humboldt only focus on pot.You’ve ever been to a pot farm?The majority of pot growers aren’t even planting native plants or growing food for people to eat!But,at least,here in Colorado….I can grow like Eddy Lepp!
Nytespryte

If a person does not care that I may go to jail or may be fined just for using their product, I have a very hard time caring about their finances.
Anonymous

I honestly think that like coffee, there are those that like Folgers and those that buy Organic, same with cigarettes there are the Basic smokers and those who smoke American Spirit. Legalization is good for everyone except those who are ripping people off and those who are dealing in the back alleys. You can have a specialty shop and sell weed, and coffee and edibles that you grow personally and make a profit. Cafes are legal in Amsterdam so why doesn’t Philip Morris grow there, thats right because they won’t be able to compete with Amsterdam cafes in quality. These people who want to keep it illegal don’t realize that the market will be open to EVERYONE 21 and older that means more demand, more work, and more money. Good quality bud is worth it but maybe not 10,000 times more the average price. Use your brains and try to see the good in this I hope it goes legal nationally I’d open up shop tomorrow.
Roger Wilco

i think that the others here that have pointed to the wine industry are on the money. what the large industrial growers will produce in the central valley will be the equivalent of box wine. this will be about marketing and quality for the local growers…hand crafted ganga grown by real hippies!

etc.

btw…it is the “Emerald Traingle”…much sexier than the green triangle.
mermaid

All these years of claiming “Its just a plant” to have it come to full circle to “Keep it shameful”.
IWood

Say, here’s a thought. IF it gets legalized and IF it becomes a significant source of tax revenue for Tha State, how long will it be before home grow operations are as illegal as moonshine stills?
- gATO
  
  Maybe it will be similar to the wine market, where you have the mass producers and the niche and small winemakers, both taxed.
Anonymous

anon pot makes you feel alot better than tomatoes and it will never be that cheap. And good pot isnt THAT easy to grow you do need to know a thing or two to get a gold crop.<-thats what im buying
iamcantaloupe

For one, I’m sure the herb by local growers will be of much higher quality than the shwaggy pre-rolled joints Phillip-Morris would be hawking to us. That Humboldt looks delicious!

Also, #8: Who says dealers don’t care if you go to jail? If everyone who bought from them went to jail, who would they sell to?
- Nytespryte
  
  Well yes, and I’ve only ever dealt with nice young college students supplementing their income in that area, but you can’t really have it both ways.
  
  If you want it to be illegal you are asking your customer base to risk jail for you.
  
  Decriminalization can be an in between but when I lived in Vancouver is still bother me on some level that the cops could start handing out fines again. I could live with that though but the situation in the states in intolerable.
  
  I also would not want to buy from Phillip Morris.
Fletcherism

If it becomes legal in the Northwest, i look forward to the proliferation of various strains/farms growing small amount of really nice, unique stuff.

We did it with Micro-brews here, we can do it with the Green.
ROSSINDETROIT

To many people the tobacco companies are “Uncle Skeezy’s Peep Show & Porn Emporium.” but they’re also huge old profitable corporations with a lot to lose.
In 1992 Kmart bought the bookstore chain Borders. Borders, also a respectable, upstanding company, sold some magazines for adults (Playboy!) that uptight people objected to. Kmart got boycotted over those magazines at Borders and lost millions. Look at the hassles at Disney over the genders of the people they provide spouse benefits to. To a big, old profitable corporation the technical detail that pot became legal wouldn’t make up for the large segment of the population that still opposed it.
- Brainspore
  
  Interesting that you chose two examples of companies that did exactly what your logic says the tobacco companies wouldn’t do if put in a similar situation. Sure Kmart got boycotted- but they didn’t stop selling adult literature through Borders, did they? Same deal with Disney. What those companies had to lose from a few scattered boycotts was a pittance compared to what they had to gain.
  
  The “reputation” argument is a joke. If a company with as family-friendly a reputation as Disney is willing to release films like “Kill Bill” under subsidiary Miramax then what makes you think that the people who sell “cancer sticks” are above dipping into the weed market once it becomes legal?
SKR

Goddamn rent seekers. This pisses me off so much I almost want to drive up there and punch someone with that bumper sticker in the face. And before anyone jumps on me for the violence, let’s remember they are now the ones that want to threaten me with incarceration in order to protect their precious profits. Once a f’n statist always a f’n statist.