ICMAG Administration endorses The Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010

[nomaad]

sacramento ca news says that the price will drop to $60 per ounce

As per the RAND corporation.

 

[MoldyFrogToe]

So very sad. You are ranting at a group of people who have been growing and smoking weed for decades. So while the rest of the world understands that "things sold on the market are ALWAYS taxed and regulated" we thick skulled individuals DON'T believe you because for DECADES we have been buying and smoking WITHOUT government help.

Even if your regulation is "inevitable" it is not necessary as this community has been using this plant for decades with no ill effects. Who's war is UNREALISTIC the guy who wants to be left alone to grow as he has for decades OR the MOOCHERS and LOOTERS that now proclaim the right to regulate him after decades of espousing how evil he and his crops were?

There is no MED SYSTEM, there is just another large group of smokers enjoying weed. Mooching is stupid and immoral, but my understanding is people PAY for the weed they smoke. This proposal adds NEW criminal penalties on growers and smokers and should be rejected by this community.

Yup, what you said is basically true, it isn't a true med system, it's too much of a joke. The problem is exactly that a large group of ppl are enjoying weed until the guise of MMJ. It devalues the priority and importance of people who are actually suffering, as opposed to the kid of the streets going in lying about his "headache" just because he wants to get high.

It's a joke out there right now, does a complete disservice to prop 215 in the long run, the general public views it as a joke because of stuff like maintaining an entire unregulated underground blob of people marking up a plant to prices similar to that of the black market.

Wanting to keep it underground because of anti tax viewpoints is just plain unrealistic, it's a total minority view that will never, ever, ever succeed. To close down the freedoms of the general public because of this attitude is ridiculous, it never even crossed my mind that people in the MJ community would ever want to keep this issue illegal. Mind boggling, it's like punching yourself in the face. I guess some people have more immediate concerns about themselves - that's what this opposition is all about - as opposed to doing what is in the best interest of the general public - and not just a few dispensaries or misguided users out in CA who are comfy with inflated black market prices and zero regulation. I can understand it but I can't agree with that attitude. Selfish & childish is how I see that.

Nobody is mooching or looting MMJ by voting in prop 19.

However long you've been doing this is 100% irrelevant when you talk about keeping it underground and never taxing or regulating it. Time to take this seriously, do scientific studies like everything else, get an industry going, and make it real, instead of some stoner dreamland with no rules or regulations. In other words, I see it as...time to grow up.

I guess I've never been one for that homeopathic, untested, unregulated BS you always come across in health stores. If people want to grow their plant on their own, that's fine, no regulation will stop that, realistically speaking. If people want to sell it they should expect to be regulated though, like every other single thing in this country. This isn't anarchy, this isn't about "ooooo, fight the man!" and it isn't a drug peddling black market. Well, it is now, but it shouldn't be.

 

[nomaad]

Nomaad: This is incorrect

Prop 19:

Have you even read the bill???

missed this at the bottom of the page. yes, i have read the bill. lol.

in the post you refer to I believe I am trying to make sense of analysis in a different post by Jack the Grower. Pretty sure I say it bore further examination... upon re-reading the section I still see a murkiness and would still appreciate clarification of what Jack meant in the post I was referencing.

 

[mullray]

Yup, what you said is basically true, it isn't a true med system, it's too much of a joke. The problem is exactly that a large group of ppl are enjoying weed until the guise of MMJ. It devalues the priority and importance of people who are actually suffering, as opposed to the kid of the streets going in lying about his "headache" just because he wants to get high.

It's a joke out there right now, does a complete disservice to prop 215 in the long run, the general public views it as a joke because of stuff like maintaining an entire unregulated underground blob of people marking up a plant to prices similar to that of the black market.

Wanting to keep it underground because of anti tax viewpoints is just plain unrealistic, it's a total minority view that will never, ever, ever succeed. To close down the freedoms of the general public because of this attitude is ridiculous, it never even crossed my mind that people in the MJ community would ever want to keep this issue illegal. Mind boggling, it's like punching yourself in the face. I guess some people have more immediate concerns about themselves - that's what this opposition is all about - as opposed to doing what is in the best interest of the general public - and not just a few dispensaries or misguided users out in CA who are comfy with inflated black market prices and zero regulation. I can understand it but I can't agree with that attitude. Selfish & childish is how I see that.

Nobody is mooching or looting MMJ by voting in prop 19.

However long you've been doing this is 100% irrelevant when you talk about keeping it underground and never taxing or regulating it. Time to take this seriously, do scientific studies like everything else, get an industry going, and make it real, instead of some stoner dreamland with no rules or regulations. In other words, I see it as...time to grow up.

I guess I've never been one for that homeopathic, untested, unregulated BS you always come across in health stores. If people want to grow their plant on their own, that's fine, no regulation will stop that, realistically speaking. If people want to sell it they should expect to be regulated though, like every other single thing in this country. This isn't anarchy, this isn't about "ooooo, fight the man!" and it isn't a drug peddling black market. Well, it is now, but it shouldn't be.

Beautifully summed up.

 

[kmk420kali]

Haha...you notice how 2Lazy edited a sentence that said one thing, to just a few words, that mean another--

 

[MoldyFrogToe]

sacramento ca news says that the price will drop to $60 per ounce

I wonder how they even arrived at that number. I think it's safe to say the price will drop. How much it will drop is really, really hard to peg though. Insanely difficult. There are just too many factors. Maybe I'm wrong I dunno..

 

[subrob]

Another word on Jack and Prop. 19 from Chris ConradPosted by Mickey Martin on July 25th, 2010

I love Chris Conrad for his dedication to this cause, his always spot-on insight and his ability to see both sides of an argument and make sense on any number of valid topics. Below is a letter from him regarding Jack Herer and his evolving opinion. God Bless you, jack. Obviously you are missed greatly….

Dear colleagues,

To go by the credo, “What would Jack do?” you must understand that Jack evolved and over time changed his positions on many things. He was against something until he was for it, but somehow he got credit for the very thing he had previously opposed. Here are just a few examples:

Jack told his first wife that if she ever brought marijuana into his house he would leave her and get a divorce. Now he’s characterized as the patron saint of marijuana activists.

Jack didn’t want to revise and publish the Emperor Wears No Clothes in 1990, he wanted to do a book about sex, language and religion. Now, the Emperor is called “the Bible of the hemp movement.”

Jack may have been a tax resistor, but this is the Cannabis movement not the anti-tax movement, and when we (I was co-author) wrote the original California Hemp Initiative in 1990, it provided for an excise tax. Jack insisted in 1990 that pot should be legal for people aged 18, but by 1994 we set it at 21.

Jack vehemently argued against forming the Hemp Industries Association. He likened it to the DEA and called us traitors for passing its bylaws. But he loved getting free hemp products from HIA member businesses and when we sued DEA and saved hemp foods, Jack was quite happy.

Initially Jack deeply hated Prop 215. He literally stumped up and down the state cursing out hemp activists who backed it. He screamed at us, called us traitors for working on medical use, and claimed that Dennnis Peron was secretly against legalization. When 215 was filed, Jack filed the California Hemp Initiative (CHI) on the 1996 ballot to block it. and changed the name to “California Hemp _and Health_ Initiative” so people signing it would think they had signed Prop 215, to mess with the signature count. When I called him on it, he said he was trying to keep Prop 215 off the ballot because, among other things, “people will stop working for legalization and we’ll be stuck with medical forever. No hemp, no legalization; that will be the end.” Later he circulated the CCU petitions for pay, then before the election came to support it completely. Now some people actually credit Jack for ‘passing Prop 215.’
Jack vociferously opposed Senate Bill 420, but he loved the dispensaries it allowed to open.

If the movement had done what Jack first said to do, we would not have made the major political gains of the last 20 years, because he espoused ‘all or nothing.’ Jack knew how to come around, but first he had to cuss everyone out. So of course he railed against TaxCannabis 2010. That was what Jack did.

The pattern is clear, though. Jack would never support the HIA, then he did. He would never support Prop 215, then he did. He opposed SB420, then he loved its results. He said he would never support Prop 19, but were it not for his heart attack, by now Jack would have come around to back it.

Jack would never, ever walk into a voting booth and vote to keep prohibition as it is.

He would see the writing on the wall once the Secretary of State said Prop 19 qualified for the ballot. He would have complained, he would demand that we pass CHI in 2012, but Jack would hold his nose and vote yes. The problem is thatJack Herer died before he came to support Prop 19, otherwise he would tell you so himself. Do we let his death mean the death of legal marijuana? I say no.

So let’s do what Jack really would have ended up doing, and give TaxCannabis unwavering support. We can later improve on Prop 19 — but not unless we pass it first. Support and vote “Yes on Prop 19.”

– Chris Conrad, editor and designer of the 1990 Emperor Wears No Clothes, friend of Jack Herer

---there are a few members on these boards who REALLY need to read this post and understand it....they hold on to one or two statements from him like the pope holds onto the bible....thank you for bringing this point up in a way that not only does not disrespect someone we all respect, but doesnt leave room for people to claim you are being disrespectful.

 

[mullray]

I've heard people on this thread talking about the 4 Oakland licenses that were given out to well connected political people. True if you consider that these well connected political people are people who have long fought for sane drug policy for years, put their action where their words are and started Med dispensaries at the risk of DEA raids and invested their lifetimes and hard earned money into gaining licenses and progressing the legalization movement. Now they're risking setting up major State sanctioned legal grows, knowing that the DEA may target these grows and that they may face years in prison. Great if mj coms down to $60 an ounce. I'm all for it. That'll get the organized crime out of the game and bring some ethics into it.

 

[localhero]

i want to let any felons on the board know that as long as you are not currently on probation, you have the right to vote. register.

 

[Chaman]

So...anyone here work in pharmacueticals ?

Mean...they are going too be alowed to finaly realy study and brake things down with the plant in Cali Medical schools right ?...jeje could be a nice time to invest, after all the Pharmacueticals and Paper industries helped ban it, now they can fully embrace it.

Cool & Calm
Chaman

 

[indickahead]

Glad to see it happen...

 

[mullray]

i want to let any felons on the board know that as long as you are not currently on probation, you have the right to vote. register.

Yeah like they're really gonna vote for prisons (unless of course they have commercial interests).

subrob please explain what you're trying to say!?

 

[localhero]

I would feel alot more comfortable voting yes on 19 if i knew that cali growers were organized enough to lobby against big business. if cali growers were united, i do believe we would be more powerful than any enemy of cannabis or would be big business carpet bagger.

if that were the case , then the pro's would outweigh the con's for me.

it would be kinda fun to say, cali is legal. hahahaha

 

[localhero]

Yeah like they're really gonna vote for prisons (unless of course they have commercial interests).

mullray, many felons in california are misled by their probation officers and told that they do not have the right to vote anymore. this has been something going on for a long long time. its an attempt to prevent a block of americans who have paid their dues from participating in and changing their system.

as long as you are not currently on probation, you can register and vote.

ps- registering ex felons was the funnest part of my old job.

 

[mullray]

I would feel alot more comfortable voting yes on 19 if i knew that cali growers were organized enough to lobby against big business. if cali growers were united, i do believe we would be more powerful than any enemy of cannabis or would be big business carpet bagger.

if that were the case , then the pro's would outweigh the con's for me.

it would be kinda fun to say, cali is legal. hahahaha

Yo bro - Cali growers are big business! get real they're just bitchin now because 215 taught them that mom and pop would kill their prices and now Prop 19 is here, well hell. Prob is that if supply outstrips demand prices go down. If demand outstrips supply prices go up. The fordist formula - build it and they will come. Standard capitalism - nothing new there.

 

[bs0]

The problem many people see is not the cost of the license, but the limitation of the amount of licenses granted. In Oakland, the four permits granted were granted to the most politically connected growers in the city. $211K is nothing to them.

on the second part in bold: your math is way off. First of all, anybody growing those 20x10' plants in their yard spends the entire year working and prepping for that single grow. So lets call it 40lbs a year. Growers of this scale are LUCKY to get more than $2500/lb. I have never heard of a grower of this scale or bigger selling 20-sacks...

so now we are talking about $100,000 once a year. Minus operating costs. Rent and utilities alone brings the profit down to $80K. Start figuring in the rest of the costs and we're talking about much more modest incomes than your post suggests. Not to mention the fact that the "2 month" harvest in your calculations is really a 6 month harvest. With light deprivation techniques and an expensive greenhouse, you could also pull down 2 or three more MUCH smaller harvests. There is only one summer time.

Even if you double the yield the numbers just are not nearly as sexy as you'd like to believe.

I'm just barely going to vote for this thing, BUT those who are gung-ho about it should start using more cogent cost and profit analysis to back up their arguments. Generally, trhe numbers being flung about could be shot down by my 6 year old.

I'm well aware (and are many others here) of the rigors of growing. It is exceptionally easy, with the only real effort required for trimming.

A rotating outdoor harvest would easily achieve the numbers I stated.

I do, like yourself, have issue with the limited commercial licenses. But, like most of the people here, know I could produce enough out of a 5'x5' space to provide for all my friends over the course of a year. 1k hps in 5'x5' with a lower mother/clone chamber and upper flowering chamber could yield 6lb a year with great ease.

This bill would be a HUGE boon to the movement. People who are just mad they won't be able to make upwards of $500k/year with little to no effort any longer are of no concern to me. Prohibition-inflated price points are built on the backs of every person before us being prosecuted, imprisoned, and ostracized. Every persons life ruined by a juvenile felony drug possession... This is your gold-mine.

Do californians realize that the reason they can maintain such prices is the prohibition that we non-medical states endure? This is the reason you can charge OUR street value for your "compassion medicine".

 

[mullray]

mullray, many felons in california are misled by their probation officers and told that they do not have the right to vote anymore. this has been something going on for a long long time. its an attempt to a block of americans who have paid their dues from participating in and changing their system.

as long as you are not currently on probation, you can register and vote.

ps- registering ex felons was the funnest part of my old job.

Cool misunderstood - apologies. Felons should be allowed to vote full stop.

 

[binaryfission]

I would feel alot more comfortable voting yes on 19 if i knew that cali growers were organized enough to lobby against big business. if cali growers were united, i do believe we would be more powerful than any enemy of cannabis or would be big business carpet bagger.

get involved talk to your community. bring their feelings back to us.

WE have to start doing.

check my sig for ideas.

 

[subrob]

subrob please explain what you're trying to say!?

--if you look on many of the other threads made on the exact same topic, there are a few members whos answer to everything is "jack was against taxing herb" ask them why they are against prop19 that is thier answer....ask them to explain what other arguments they have against getting the legalization movement kickstarted and that is thier answer...ask them why the sky is blue- you guessed it, jack didnt think it was right to pay tax on cannibis...i think milton did an excellent job pointing out that jack, as with anyone else, may possibly have had a diff view when it came down to brass tacks. i appreciated that he did it without insulting the man, disrespecting him, and that it seems to come from personal experience. if i had said the same thing, never having met the man, it could have been viewed as disrespectful, something i would never do to someone i admired so much, but disagree w on a few points.

 

[nomaad]

I'm well aware (and are many others here) of the rigors of growing. It is exceptionally easy, with the only real effort required for trimming.

no... 'fraid you're not.

Just for example, It takes 3-4 hours in the July- August sun to do the pre-stretch trim on the inside of a single large plant... That is only one of a number of time-consuming tasks. That single task multiplied by 30 plants, that is a half month of full time work. That's one task. Based on the commercial grows I am aquainted with, its clear that growing about 30 serious plants is a full time job for one man (with a lull here and there). Add a round of flowering trees into your rotating paradigm and the indoor cloning and vegging op that would have to be involved and you've got another full time gig. Especially if you're always harvesting... then you'll perpetually need a harvesting crew. And there has to be a person coordinating all this to happen at the right time and make sure the right materials are on site to make it all happen.

How much of your $300K goes to paying your 3-4 full time employees and the 4-6 other part-timers.

you're obviously not "well aware" of the rigors of commercial growing and your numbers are still far from correct.

I'm not saying you can't do well in the industry. But it still takes constant hard work and being ahead of the curve.