That's alot of dope!

[Locke]

Originally Posted by blankall

Legalization of marijuana would result in controls, taxes, and corporate market shares. All would lead to a substantial increase in price. 10x is an exaggeration, but it would get a looooot more expensive if it was ever legal. Take a look at what has happened to cigarette and booze prices for a measure.

As for the estimates. The problem with the estimates has more to do with the return than the amounts. A healthy marjijuana plant can probably grow a 1 lb/ year pretty easily. The problem is they always use "street value" when measuring the value of drugs. The people moving bulk amounts are not going to stand on the corner with dime bags. They are moving volume so probably getting less than $1,000.00 per pound.

Weed, cigarettes and booze are considerably less expensive in Amsterdam than they are here. All legal. Granted the Dutch dont believe in taxing people to death on anything but parking, but thats neither here nor there.

[Barnes]

Originally Posted by Locke

Weed, cigarettes and booze are considerably less expensive in Amsterdam than they are here. All legal. Granted the Dutch dont believe in taxing people to death on anything but parking, but thats neither here nor there.

Uhh.. Don't they have a 19% VAT and I am sure their income taxes are higher than ours.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by alltherage

There was also that fire in North CGY earlier this year because of a grow op. I wish Canada would just legalize and regulate marijuana already. If it was grown in regulated and specified facilities fires would not happen.

Stop spending millions to thwart marijuana, and start making millions by taxing it! Marijuana has zero negative health implications when smoked through a vapourizer or consumed orally. Why the hell are we fighting it so staunchly?

I agree with this, I'm in favor of legalized grass, but to me it has to be grown in regulated production facilities so that the government can track tax revenues from it.

I'm in favor of selling it in liquor stores to people over the age of 18. If your caught distributing to kids then you get heavily fined. If your growing and distributing it, then we estimate the tax revenue that you owe and bill you for it.

But my bet is that if you legalize it, it will still be more expensive then it is on the streets so your never going to get rid of the criminal element thats involved in it.

The true change that I would like to see is getting rid of the police wasting their time on the penny ante crap possession arrests for the individual user.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Barnes

Uhh.. Don't they have a 19% VAT and I am sure their income taxes are higher than ours.

I didnt live there. I just partied there. And parked.

Gotta say, parking was insane. It cost more to park my stupid car in Amsterdam than it did for me to sleep there. If they werent so strict I'd have just slept in the damn thing.

[puckluck]

Originally Posted by HOOT

You can't be serious...

And $2.7m is just a made up number that is over 1300lbs of weed sold at $2,000/lb. It must be a pretty massive house to be producing 1300lbs lol

I don't think it's a made up number at all. It might sell at $2000/lb, but the profit is double, sometimes triple off that one pound.

I think they are estimating how much it could be sold on the streets for. A lot of middle men involved.

Edit: Also there were about 2100 plants and depending on the size I'd say 2 plants to each pound average so that number would be pretty accurate.

[North East Goon]

Originally Posted by Locke

Are you coming with my curry fried rice or what? 30 Minutes or its free remember?

I dont want my hub-caps stolen!

[Pinner]

Originally Posted by puckluck

Edit: Also there were about 2100 plants and depending on the size I'd say 2 plants to each pound average so that number would be pretty accurate.

8 oz per plant is what your saying, and 2100 of these frigging monster plants in a house, sure. Dry Buds are the only marketable part of the plant.

The cops make up these crazy exaggerated numbers to make themselves feel more successful and feed their overgrown egos.

2100 plants, probably little itsy bitsy seedlings.

[Frank MetaMusil]

Originally Posted by Pinner

8 oz per plant is what your saying, and 2100 of these frigging monster plants in a house, sure. Dry Buds are the only marketable part of the plant.

The cops make up these crazy exaggerated numbers to make themselves feel more successful and feed their overgrown egos.

2100 plants, probably little itsy bitsy seedlings.

You've never made bubble hash?

[Pinner]

Never pay for shake Frank

[Shazam]

If bud was legal, the price would drop like a rock. It would be on par with cigarettes, its closest competitor, probably less so that the market would grow.

Most would not grow it themselves. It would be akin to people who make their own wine and beer. Certainly I don't see anybody growing tobacco trees.

[HOOT]

Originally Posted by blankall

Legalization of marijuana would result in controls, taxes, and corporate market shares. All would lead to a substantial increase in price. 10x is an exaggeration, but it would get a looooot more expensive if it was ever legal. Take a look at what has happened to cigarette and booze prices for a measure.

This is no point in leagalizing it if people are just going to continue to grow and under cut the government prices. I know personally if I can get a better product (which it would be compared to the Government) for cheaper, I'm going to buy that product 10 out of 10 times, legal or not.

As for the estimates. The problem with the estimates has more to do with the return than the amounts. A healthy marjijuana plant can probably grow a 1 lb/ year pretty easily. The problem is they always use "street value" when measuring the value of drugs. The people moving bulk amounts are not going to stand on the corner with dime bags. They are moving volume so probably getting less than $1,000.00 per pound.

Growing per year and per cycle are a completely different thing.

Maybe they should estimate it by grams and possible out put of the plant for the next 100 years then they can say they busted up house with over $1 BILLION dollars worth of weed in it. Now that is a headline.

Also there is no way anyone is moving a pound weed for $1,000 unless it is just pure garbage, which I guess is a possibily since it's being grown in Alberta.

[MelBridgeman]

Most of that weed is prob destined for down south in exchange for coke.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by HOOT

Growing per year and per cycle are a completely different thing.

Maybe they should estimate it by grams and possible out put of the plant for the next 100 years then they can say they busted up house with over $1 BILLION dollars worth of weed in it. Now that is a headline.

From the police perspective they like to keep things simple. There was a show recently on the marijuana industry in BC on CBC and they were they interviewed a bunch of officers and they were all saying they value each plant at 1 pound per year. Not saying it's right or wrong, but that is how the police do it.

Originally Posted by HOOT

Also there is no way anyone is moving a pound weed for $1,000 unless it is just pure garbage, which I guess is a possibily since it's being grown in Alberta.

Well street price for a pound usually averages about $2,000.00. However, if you are growing in huge volume, you're probably not selling at a pound at a time. Probably selling to a distrubutor in bulk loads of 20-50 lbs. In which case the price falls dramatically.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Shazam

If bud was legal, the price would drop like a rock. It would be on par with cigarettes, its closest competitor, probably less so that the market would grow.

Most would not grow it themselves. It would be akin to people who make their own wine and beer. Certainly I don't see anybody growing tobacco trees.

The actual price might drop, but the taxes wouldn't. In Canada, we get taxed like crazy for cigarettes and booze, I don't see why the same thing wouldn't happen with weed. Then you have to figure in the cost of corporations getting involved. You'd be paying for their marketing etc....

As for the option to buy illegal, a lot of growers would just leave the market. Marijuana would become like any other consumer good. People preferring to know what they get through brands and the convenience of buying in stores outweighing any price benefit from buying from a local grower.

[HOOT]

Originally Posted by blankall

Well street price for a pound usually averages about $2,000.00. However, if you are growing in huge volume, you're probably not selling at a pound at a time. Probably selling to a distrubutor in bulk loads of 20-50 lbs. In which case the price falls dramatically.

Trust me when I say the price does not fall that much, even with 20-50lbs purchased all at once. For example lbs that I buy are $2100/lb, if I bought 5lbs at once it would be $2000/lb. This is coming straight from the guy who owns/operates many houses, of course this is Triple A (Blueberry Kush) quality weed so that could be the difference depending on the quality.

These people have to be able to pay the guys growing it, rent for the houses, equipment, growing supplies, seeds, etc. and still make a big enough profit to make it worth the possible jail time or having it all taken away by the police.

It would have to be some really crappy weed to sell for $1000/lb even at 20-50lb buys. I'm sure it's out there but do you really want to be smoking it is another question. Most likely it hasn't be flushed properly or hasn't matured fully and just tastes like crap. I have many friends who can get a lb for $1600-1800 but it's nothing more than crappy chinesse weed and thinking about smoking it makes me sick.

[HPLovecraft]

Originally Posted by HOOT

Trust me when I say the price does not fall that much, even with 20-50lbs purchased all at once. For example lbs that I buy are $2100/lb, if I bought 5lbs at once it would be $2000/lb. This is coming straight from the guy who owns/operates many houses, of course this is Triple A (Blueberry Kush) quality weed so that could be the difference depending on the quality.

These people have to be able to pay the guys growing it, rent for the houses, equipment, growing supplies, seeds, etc. and still make a big enough profit to make it worth the possible jail time or having it all taken away by the police.

It would have to be some really crappy weed to sell for $1000/lb even at 20-50lb buys. I'm sure it's out there but do you really want to be smoking it is another question. Most likely it hasn't be flushed properly or hasn't matured fully and just tastes like crap. I have many friends who can get a lb for $1600-1800 but it's nothing more than crappy chinesse weed and thinking about smoking it makes me sick.

Did you just admit to running multiple grow ops on an internet message board, or am I missing something?

[kipperfan]

Originally Posted by Locke

Weed, cigarettes and booze are considerably less expensive in Amsterdam than they are here. All legal. Granted the Dutch dont believe in taxing people to death on anything but parking, but thats neither here nor there.

Not even close. If you want good bud over there you're paying WAY more than you would here for a comparable (if not better) product.

[alltherage]

Originally Posted by blankall

The actual price might drop, but the taxes wouldn't. In Canada, we get taxed like crazy for cigarettes and booze, I don't see why the same thing wouldn't happen with weed. Then you have to figure in the cost of corporations getting involved. You'd be paying for their marketing etc....

As for the option to buy illegal, a lot of growers would just leave the market. Marijuana would become like any other consumer good. People preferring to know what they get through brands and the convenience of buying in stores outweighing any price benefit from buying from a local grower.

You also have to consider the reduced overhead with streamlined systems though. If you are mass-producing and legally transporting massive quantities of product it would be way less expensive than have a few hundred plants here and there and having to transport smaller qtys at a time.

As far as taxes are concerned... I dont know. Right now you can get about an 8th for $30-$35. That 8th is probably good for, say, 8 smaller joints. That means it costs around $4.38 per joint.

The streamlined process would bring costs waaaay down... probably to the price of cigarettes, which I beleive cig companies make around $3-$4 per 20 package. That's $0.20 per cigarette.

20 joints is a ton... most people would probably buy them in singles. Even at the price now that's $4.38 which I would easily pay. If the government sold them at $5 each, they would make upwards of $4.80 per joint! And that's if they tax it the same as cigarettes!

Marijuana has way less health implications than tobacco. If smoked traditionally, it has some of the same chemicals and is still hot smoke being taken in by your lungs... but there are no studies that unequivically tie pot to cancer. They have all been up for debate. Saying that, if the Gov't wanted, they could tax it this way and still make tons of money.

I think the best thing to do would be to tax joints like cigarettes, but also encourage vapours and other consumption methods which do not have any health implications. You could go to pot bars where they have the vaporizers there. That way they can be sure you are smoking it from one. In stores, beside joints and what not they could have oils and THC pills and other methods of oral consumtion that would be way cheaper. That would encourage people to consume it in the safer ways becuase 1) it's safer and 2) its cheaper.

So lets see, they start making X millions of dollars OFF marijuana, educate people on the best ways to use it, free it up for people in pain or who want to use it for medicinal purposes, and they save all the millions of dollars they currently spend on cracking down on it.

How is our government, and how are other governments for that matter, so stupid that they can't see this? It might be the ego factor that they have been calling this a gateway and a demon drug for the better part of a century and now have to back peddle. Or they may be so deep in red tape that they cant wiggle without a massive backlash.

Either way, the status quoe is inefficient and illogical. Sure, marijuana isnt something you want to encourage people to use... but you dont want to discourage it either. Like Alcohol. Except no liver damage and little to no connection to dependency issues.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by HOOT

Trust me when I say the price does not fall that much, even with 20-50lbs purchased all at once. For example lbs that I buy are $2100/lb, if I bought 5lbs at once it would be $2000/lb. This is coming straight from the guy who owns/operates many houses, of course this is Triple A (Blueberry Kush) quality weed so that could be the difference depending on the quality.

These people have to be able to pay the guys growing it, rent for the houses, equipment, growing supplies, seeds, etc. and still make a big enough profit to make it worth the possible jail time or having it all taken away by the police.

It would have to be some really crappy weed to sell for $1000/lb even at 20-50lb buys. I'm sure it's out there but do you really want to be smoking it is another question. Most likely it hasn't be flushed properly or hasn't matured fully and just tastes like crap. I have many friends who can get a lb for $1600-1800 but it's nothing more than crappy chinesse weed and thinking about smoking it makes me sick.

I always stayed far away from this game myself as I have no intention of becoming a dealer and don't really like to smoke weed. But knew guys who were buying top notch weed from the Okanagon at around $1,300 a pound in shipments of 5 lbs or so. They would then distribute this weed for $1,800-2,400 a lbs.

If this guy really does have several thousand plants, I'm guessing he is filling orders for a few large buyers. It would be a huge risk (then again maybe that's why this guy got caught) to sell that much weed in small bundles of 1-5 lbs, even if you could do it at $2,000.00 each.

Much more likely scenario here is that there is a distributor buying much larger portions from this guy and either selling them to people such as yourself in lbs or shipping them down south in large shipments.

[rayne008]

Originally Posted by HPLovecraft

Did you just admit to running multiple grow ops on an internet message board, or am I missing something?

It's OK, he's concealed his identity with a paper bag.