New marijuana law piques interest of local farmers
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EVERETT, Wash. -- Washington's newly-passed recreational marijuana law is opening up a whole new world for local farmers.
Farmer Bruce King makes his money selling pigs, but he's thinking about diversifying his business by adding marijuana.
"With pot you have a crop which will make on an acre what might take you 500 acres and a half million to make with a conventional farm," he said.
King maintains a blog aimed at his fellow farmers, and he said three dozen of his readers have shown interest in opening their own marijuana farms.
The idea of adding large amounts of pot to the area isn't sitting well with all of King's neighbors. Farmer Cora Cunningham said she's going to stick with cows and doesn't like the idea of farmers using prime agriculture real estate to grow marijuana.
"When they don't have beef or food or fruit to eat, what are they going to do, just smoke pot?" she said.
Even if King starts a pot farm, he said he would have no interest in sampling his own crops.
"I've actually never tried it and have no interest in it," he said. "You don't have to like Brussels sprouts to grow Brussels sprouts."
King is far from the first farmer to see there's money to be had in marijuana. The Liquor Control Board, which will regulate marijuana farms, has received daily calls from people interested in growing, processing or selling pot. Thousands more have signed up for email updates, according to the board.
Under federal law, it's still illegal to grow pot. However, the Liquor Control Board is busy developing a list of rules and officials say the Department of Justice will soon issue a policy to let the state know what it should expect.
"I think there's going to be 10,000 licenses before we're done," King said.
Kind isn't waiting. He plans to buy his $250 license and a greenhouse so he can start bringing home the bacon in more ways than one. He estimates he could make $40,000 more per acre by growing pot than from his pigs, though he plans on doing both.
Farmer Bruce King makes his money selling pigs, but he's thinking about diversifying his business by adding marijuana.
"With pot you have a crop which will make on an acre what might take you 500 acres and a half million to make with a conventional farm," he said.
King maintains a blog aimed at his fellow farmers, and he said three dozen of his readers have shown interest in opening their own marijuana farms.
The idea of adding large amounts of pot to the area isn't sitting well with all of King's neighbors. Farmer Cora Cunningham said she's going to stick with cows and doesn't like the idea of farmers using prime agriculture real estate to grow marijuana.
"When they don't have beef or food or fruit to eat, what are they going to do, just smoke pot?" she said.
Even if King starts a pot farm, he said he would have no interest in sampling his own crops.
"I've actually never tried it and have no interest in it," he said. "You don't have to like Brussels sprouts to grow Brussels sprouts."
King is far from the first farmer to see there's money to be had in marijuana. The Liquor Control Board, which will regulate marijuana farms, has received daily calls from people interested in growing, processing or selling pot. Thousands more have signed up for email updates, according to the board.
Under federal law, it's still illegal to grow pot. However, the Liquor Control Board is busy developing a list of rules and officials say the Department of Justice will soon issue a policy to let the state know what it should expect.
"I think there's going to be 10,000 licenses before we're done," King said.
Kind isn't waiting. He plans to buy his $250 license and a greenhouse so he can start bringing home the bacon in more ways than one. He estimates he could make $40,000 more per acre by growing pot than from his pigs, though he plans on doing both.
Bruce makes his money selling pigs? False
Bruce makes his money from the online physic company he owns:
http://www.bizapedia.com/wa/LEGACY-CREATIVE-VENTURES-LLC.html
http://www.wahm.com/boards/Forum68/HTML/000985.html
And now he's an expert on growing marijuana? This is a joke...
well i know how to grow hemp rather well, if only i had me some land i would probably the main supplier for all its multitudes of use
The only people that licenses should go to should be the people that went to jail for marijuana crimes. Not some pig farmers looking to cash in.
By the time the state gets done taxing marijuana it will be as costly as cigarettes. They see a cash cow here and with everyone jumping on the bandwagon to make the bucks it will be very expensive to the consumer.
 @Jatok Well, to be fair, tax revenue from pot WAS the keystone of the campaign to legalize it...
@OrcasThunder I can guarantee the tax won't be fair, you can count on that.
 @Jatok  @OrcasThunder Actually, I hope it is...but then. I voted "NO!" on the measure, because I didn't care for all the hype on the amount of tax money pot would raise. The idea of salvaging the State's budget on pot is simply a pipe dream.
Stick with Pig Farmin Bro, you will be money ahead.
Bruce King you are an idiot! Â So is anyone else who thinks they can grow commercial cannabis worth consuming without any prior experience. Â I've been saving up jars of male cannabis pollen for many years. Â If morons like Bruce King and Jamen Shively from Microsoft get into the game, some of it might just happen to get released up wind of their crops. Â
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I hope everybody who voted yes on 502 dies in a grease fire. Â Ignorant Morons.Â
 @BigBill the pollen doesnt last for years, only months
 @BigBill Hmmm...weren't we told that pot smokers are mild, non-violent, and tend to love everyone...?
Were they lying?
So how much marijuana would a person need to grow to maintain a recreational use for maybe one or two nights a week of usage? Then based upon that how much space would be required to sustain a grow large enough to support said usage year round inside? Can you harvest parts of plants and expect the pruned areas to grow back? How long do the plants need to grow to be worthwhile to harvest? Does the age of the plant determine potency? Do the plants die after so much time or lose their potency?Â
you can, and many people do, grow a recreational amount for a person or two in a closet, and it takes about 90 days per crop. you harvest the crop all at once, just as you would wheat.Â
The reality is that marijuana doesn't grow well outdoors in Washington. To grow well here, and to grow it organically so you don't need pesticides, you really need to grow it indoors, and use air filters to keep the mites out. Greenhouses will work, but require heating and lights. You're just not going to see large outdoor farms here in Washington. You need warm, dry October weather to make it work. So the word "farming" will take on a new meaning; it's not as easy as you might think to grow good, organic marijuana. A pig farmer can't just throw seeds in the ground and hope to get great buds. I'm sure pig farmers will tell you the same thing about raising pigs, so neither would I expect marijuana growers to start making pot bacon anytime soon.Â
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The best shot at making good, economically viable marijuana here would be out by Vantage, where you have cheap land and the possibility of buying lots of cheap excess wind generated electricity.
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However, Washington farmers do have a good shot at growing commercial hemp for body oils, soap, fabric and other hemp based products that are unrelated to getting high. This could in turn create plenty of new jobs related to the processing of hemp, such as the manufacture of clothing, hemp paper, bio fuel, and other goods.
 @Bellevue Scott Good point! Washington farmers could make a lot of profit with this very useful product. Hemp should be legalized across the country, there is so much good that can be done with it and it does not get people high (not that I object to marijuana, mind you!)Â
I wonder if these farmers know how much time and care it takes to produce quality product. I bet they don't. They just see the dollar signs. How much crappy pot is going to flood the market once the state starts selling? Good thing I have connections for privately grown organic product. You won't catch me buying worthless smoke at jacked up prices!
 @Tattooed_Angel They absolutely don't and MANY will fail thinking it is as easy as throwing seeds in the ground. By I-502's own standards, any product tested (all products require testing) that fails (ie:mold pesticide, etc) has to be destroyed along with that particular crop it came from.
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Save yourself some trouble and a lot of money pig farmers, leave it to the dedicated lovers of cannabis to build the industry of DANK. Hemp, however, is right down your alley.
 @Tattooed_Angel Have you seen the test results from Monsanto pilot program of GMO pot? Holy beejebus! Low cost and high potency with a smooth afterglow. I suppose the Greenies will be protesting Monsanto any day now, if  they can get organized. Or off the couch.
 @Tattooed_Angel The STATE will not be selling the product.
@slappywag The STATE will be issuing licenses to retailers who sell it. Those retailers are selling it for the STATE. As will the STATE be issuing permits for people to grow it for the STATE.
The STATE won't be personally doing it because they are worried about retribution from the Federal government. They don't care if the little guys take the fall if the Feds decide to enforce Federal law.
@Tattooed_Angel Most people who like pot have those same connections. If the farmers don't produce quality product or otherwise make it worth the consumer's while to purchase, then they will not be able to sell their product.
Just think of all those wonderful pesticides that will have to be sprayed on all that marijuana to keep the spider mites off the buds. those little buggers can decimate a crop very quickly. No thanks. Organic is the only way to go and that would be extremely difficult on acres of the plants. It's rare to find good natural marijuana. Most of the weed sold at the dispensaries and on the street is grown hydroponically for maximum yield and impressive looking buds which generally have a nasty chemical aftertaste. Most of the weed out there have very high THC levels which get you high but are lacking in High CBD levels which have great anti inflammatory, anti spasmodic, anticonvulsant, and anti-psychotic properties along with being able to shrink tumors. Mass produced weed? No thanks.
 @Luciferian there will be a market for high-end, "craft" marijuana in the same way that there is a market for high-end tequilas. they sell a lot of cheap, mass-produced tequilas but if you're willing to pay the coin...
The trouble here is, now everybody has a grow opperation in there house or is planning to grow a field of cripidy crops and it is driving the price straight down to nothing. An ounce of the finest blueberry bud is going for roughly $150 to 200 at best, a couple years ago it was close to $300 an oscar. Times are changing.
 @FILO BEDO I remember a time when a kilo, yes that's right a kilo was only $210. What a wonderful trip it has been.
 @FILO BEDO Exactly. And the part the state hasn't realized yet is that to compete with the underground market, with a 25% tax on the grower, a 25% tax on the processor, and then a 10% sales tax, the grower would have to sell it for almost nothing.
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The state has declared that there will be three levels 1) grower 2) processor (packaging) 3) retailer. So, let's do the math on that, and assume that each tier gets a 25% margin on their business. If you grow an ounce, and sell it @ $75 +25% tax, then the processor marks it up 25% + 25% tax, and again the retailer marks it up 25% + 10% sales tax, the consumer would pay $201.42 an ounce. But that's the price it would have to be sold at by the grower to make it competitive with current underground prices. If each tier operates on a 30% margin, then a wholesale ounce @ $75 becomes $226.00.
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No matter how you do the math, margins will need to be thin to compete with current market prices, and growing good indoor marijuana is not cheap. At such low prices, with the forced three tier system the state has designed, it's going to be very hard to make a living at it.
 @Bellevue Scott  @FILO BEDO I think that people need to get out of the "smoking box. As an outdoor crop, MJ as a smokable is not that great - but as a textile?
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Ounce for ounce it will kick cottons butt!
 @Bellevue Scott Your logic is sound. More competition should lower prices, but there is a lot of labor overhead - these crops need to be carefully tended, so it will be hard to drive prices down significantly. And as others have mentioned, NW weed would be most likely an indoor grow operation, which would have very expensive energy inputs. The competition should drive costs down, but probably not enough to compensate for the additional tax. (0% tax at each stage of the operation!)Â
 @Bellevue Scott  @FILO BEDO in other farming industries, growers can form a co-op to package their product and eliminate the middleman. will this apply to marijuana as well? that would save 25%
 @lazarus  @FILO BEDO Interesting. I didn't know that about the co-op. If you could do that, then you could eliminate a tier. I wonder if the state would allow it, because that would cut out a lot of tax, but it would also make the game economically feasible.
@FILO BEDO Prices going down are trouble? That's great if you ask me.  Prices have to go down anyway, if they don't people will just continue to buy on the black market like they've been doing, free market at its best.
apple growers should plant marijuana in the rows between their trees and produce two crops on the same land, using the same water. this could be a bounty for them.
 @lazarus this is aleredy use in France with their nuts tree in the wheat field by example.
 @lazarus Not how cannabis works, but I welcome the idea of every farmer proving how much of an art form growing this plant is as they bring in pound after pound of mediocre product to the shelves. Job security for those that actually love the plant and have diligently spent decades perfecting their green thumbs.
YUM!! Bacon flavored pot!!!! Light me up a bowl.
 @toolbox1007 There are bacon flavored rolling papers. http://www.grasscity.com/us_en/juicy-jays-sizzling-bacon-flavored-regular-size-rolling-papers-single-pack.html
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@Shelly You know what's good? Add some bacon grease to pot brownies. Delish!
 @Shelly  @toolbox1007 Yuck. lol
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 @toolbox1007 Almost enough to get me to try it again, but not quite.
One concern I'd have is thieves taking them. It'll probably be like the new scrap metal thieves, once removed, no pun intended.
Whom ever ends up being able to grow will still need to have security the likes of well, like illegal growers do now. And still there will be those who out of desperation for a buzz will test that security. I am thinking there needs to be a few if not a lot more laws on the books for this to remotely work.
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 @virtual anomaly Well gee lets see, how about laws against growing on the I-5 corridor you know next to I-5. How about a law stating you have to have insurance to cover the police being called to your grow daily.and every other conceivable probability that what happened during the prohibition of alcohol days will and does already happen concerning marijuana now. Tell me why is it going to be different. How is it going to be different. If every body and any body can legally grow. hows that going to work with out additional laws?
 @virtual anomaly  @Cindertang Amen to that
@Cindertang There are "ifs" in every industry (legal or not). The market is fluid, it adjusts, that's what is so great about it. Some people will gamble and lose, and others will learn from them, of course. But we won't need MORE laws and gov't to step in and "fix" whatever problems arise. I am hoping we can get them to step further away eventually.
 @virtual anomaly  @Cindertang See, still more ifs, The glass isn't full just yet.
 @virtual anomaly  @Cindertang I am not rooting for it to fail, I want to hear and see ways that are currently being pursued in a legal manner for it not to fail. So far I am hearing and seeing, run with it because its legal. What would happen if tomorrow a person would and could only grow from genetically altered seeds the same as all farmers now have to do or face losing their farm. There are a lot of what ifs yet to get through before we all start celebrating. Just saying.
@Cindertang This is the end of prohibition so I'm not sure what you're saying there.
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Not "everybody" can grow, there are a limited number of licenses that are being given out.
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Why not grow by the I-5 corridor? As for repeated calls to 911...I'm pretty sure that most local police already have policies enacted for that.
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These things will work themselves out, the same way people always work it out when they have something of value which may be subjected to theft--private security, cameras, motion detectors, insurance... It's not as complicated as you would like to make it seem.
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Having something of value is not a novel concept, but keep rooting for this to fail, if it makes you feel better.
 @Cindertang I highly doubt it would be due to desperation for a buzz. For money, yes.
 @Hachee_Bungwhy  @Cindertang Agreed. Average pothead will just sort of look at the security in place and be unable to form a plan to overcome it. :-)Â
@Hachee_Bungwhy "highly doubt...." Knee slapper! :)