Marijuana 'Canada's most valuale agricultural product'

[emad]

From The Guardian UK:

Investors who rely for advice on Forbes, the highly regarded American business magazine, will be tipped off this month about the industry that is now outpacing many others in North America: marijuana growing. The magazine's cover story focuses on "the unstoppable economics of a booming business" and claims marijuana is now Canada's most valuable agricultural product, ahead of wheat, cattle and timber. In the Canadian province of British Columbia, Forbes suggests, the industry is generating US$7bn (£4bn) annually, with signs of growing because of the changing legal climate. "Canadian dope, boosted by custom nutrients, high-intensity metal halide lights and 20 years of breeding, is five times as potent as what Americans smoked in the 1970s," it reports. As a result, Canadian-grown marijuana is selling for as much as $2,700 a pound wholesale. By the time that pound has come down to Los Angeles, it is sold at around $6,000, says Forbes.

What makes the industry so powerful, suggests Forbes, is that the growers are "not a small coterie of drug lords who could be decimated with a few well-targeted prosecutions, but an army of ordinary folks". Small growers look to bring in $900 a pound, with net profit margins ranging from 55% to 90%, reports the magazine, something that places marijuana alongside some of the dotcom enterprises in terms of return on investment percentages. Marijuana is also a growth industry in terms of jobs, with people earning $15 an hour for trimming the dried flowers and consultants earning $40 an hour to help inexperienced growers get started.

The relaxation of the laws surrounding marijuana in Canada has led to increased confidence in the industry. Canada, which has legalised cannabis for medical use, has authorised a company to grow marijuana for this purpose.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1077190,00.html


Seem to remember much moaning recently in the DU Lounge about how Canadian grass is low grade and bad value compared to Californian....

[Cooley Hurd]

1. If only the US could get over its "reefer madness" mentality

...it could save the family farm from extinction (between the manufacture of hemp products, medicinal and recreational marijuana) Did you ever see the movie "Cash Crop?"

[DUreader]

2. Maybe The BC Growers can Bring A lawsuit under Nafta Chapter 11

Forcing the repeal of the war on some drugs

[Media_Lies_Daily]

8. Too many people at each level are being paid off...

...to allow the illegal growing, importation, and distribution of pot to ever allow pot or any other drug to be legalized.

It has been stated by people in the know during the 1980s that the illegal drug trade produced a revenue stream for the CIA equal to at least 10% of the funds budgeted by Congress. Do you think they're going to give up those kinds of completely untraceable funds...accountable to absolutely no one...in favor of legalized drugs that can be produced so cheaply that they would undercut the illegal drug trade?

Legalizing drugs would solve a lot of problems in the U.S....not the least of which is the number of first-time offenders currently in prison that could be released.

[Philostopher]

20. Not only that,

But the liquor lobby (and, probably, the prescription drug lobby) has bought enough politicians that it's highly likely nobody who's old enough today to be participating in DU will ever see marijuana decriminalized, let alone legalized, in the U.S. in their lifetimes.

And sure -- not decriminalizing marijuana provides fodder for the corporate prison industry, too. Like Halliburton is going to let go of that.

[bleedingheart]

3. Capitalism at its finest

;-)

[AlecBGreen]

4. American pot is the best in the world

Nothing finer than greens from the emerald triangle in Cali...:Smoke:

[emad]

7. Some might dispute that assertion!

There are pockets of narco-agricultural activity in the western samoas that would easily challenge your claim (though it might take several days before you are in a fit state to analyse the comparison...)

[piece sine]

9. nice patriotic touch...

but not necessarily true. Recent stash from British Columbia has been kind, dank bud like many have never encountered before. It was dah bomb....made California rope taste like something they'd sell at WalMart.

[jayfish]

5. I Keep Hearing That Todays Rope Is...

five times more potent then what was available in the 70's. Well, I gotta tell you geezers, you must have been smoking grass clippings. Will the propaganda about pot ever end? Anyone see the new anti-pot commercial that features two crash test dummies smoking a joint? The end of the commercial gave the following statistic: two out of every three reckless drivers who were tested for substance abuse, tested positive for marijuana. What a fucking travesty against the science of statistics.

Jay

[NNN0LHI]

6. It was grass clippings in the 1970's

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0%2C12271%2C947880%2C00.html

With pot and porn outstripping corn, America's black economy is flying high

Illegal migrants provide the muscle for US black market

Duncan Campbell in Los Angeles
Friday May 2, 2003
The Guardian

Marijuana, pornography and illegal labour have created a hidden market in the United States which now accounts for as much as 10% of the American economy, according to a study. As a cash crop, marijuana is believed to have outstripped maize, and hardcore porn revenue is equal to Hollywood's domestic box office takings.

Despite laws that punish marijuana cultivation more strictly than murder in some states, Americans spend more on illegal drugs than on cigarettes. And despite official disapproval of pornography, the US leads the world in export of explicit sex videos, according to Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs and Cheap Labour in the American Black Market, by Eric Schlosser.

Although the official American economy has been suffering a downturn, the shadow economy is enjoying unprecedented levels of success, much in the way that the prohibition period fuelled the illegal markets in the 30s. Schlosser found that three specific industries accounted for a major portion of this boom.

No aspect of farming has grown faster in the US over the past three decades than marijuana, with one-third of the public over the age of 12 having smoked the drug.

While the nation's largest legal cash crop, maize, produces about $19bn (£11.9bn) in revenue, "plausible" estimates for the value of marijuana crops reach $25bn. Steve White, a former coordinator for the US drug enforcement administration's cannabis eradication programme, estimates that the drug is now the country's largest cash crop.

more

[psychopomp]

11. That is an amazing article

I find it hard to believe that a country so stoned can be so violent...one-third of the public over the age of 12 have smoked pot?

Unbelievable.

[LeftofU]

10. Now watch bushco. go into "blame Canada" mode.

He will compare Canada to Columbia soon.

[LeftistGorilla]

15. except that...

America sends Canada more addictive drugs such as Coke, X and Heroin..

[LeftofU]

22. What! America can do no wrong....

.....god won't allow it.

[Hand]

12. The funny thing about this is...

that the Canadian government recently started growing reefer (at the bottom of a disused salt mine, I think!) for distribution to people who were allowed to use it medicinally. Apparently it was... well, far less than primo. Well, actually, it was really lousy--made users nauseated and didn't give a decent buzz. I mean, this is a WEED, folks! Quite a hoot. No one was surprised that Agriculture Canada couldn't even grow a weed properly!

B-)

[LeftistGorilla]

17. I have a friend....

who tried it.... she said it gave her a headache...

[bleedingheart]

13. Wouldn't it be absolutely great if Canada became a world exporter

of hemp paper, clothes...etc You just don't get high off this stuff it is actually useful for other things.

[TrogL]

18. There's a hemp store in the local mall

Sells mostly clothes made out of hemp.

There's a cafe in downtown Edmonton that sells hemp beer. It's good!

[Hand]

14. Chretien sez...

This is TRUE--that after he retires, he may just give the stuff a try. "Now dat it's legal, ya know, me, I'd be dere wit' a joint in da one hand and da money to pay da fine in da udder." (It's impossible to reproduce his Shawiningan accent in print.)

I think he just said that to PO Chimpy and Asscrack--although I'd sure like see him stoned out of his kug! That'd be worth the price of admission!

:hippie: :hippie: :hippie: :hippie: :smoke: :smoke:

[snooper2]

16. I don't know about some of these numbers....

"As a result, Canadian-grown marijuana is selling for as much as $2,700 a pound wholesale. By the time that pound has come down to Los Angeles, it is sold at around $6,000, says Forbes."

I get an ounce for $60 and a QP for around $170, and it isn't dirt crap from down south of the border. They must be talking about hydro...which runs around Dallas for about $100-$120 a quarter. That would still be at the high end $1,920 a pound, and the more you buy the cheaper it gets.... :shrug:

[chenGOD]

21. No doubt....

I don't buy in quantity anymore (my situation kind of precludes that option), but man if some one had tried to sell me a pound for $2,700 I would have laughed at him, and gone and gotten it for like $900. And that was for some decent BC bud.

Oh yeah for the North Cali guy: You should find out how much weed from BC makes it down into California. You'd be surprised.

[molok555]

19. A good friend of mine

is one of those 'regular' folks. He is doing juuuust fine, man. I don't what his shit sells for in the States, but the rolls of $50s and $100s in he gets every month sure do suggest he's getting something SERIOUS for it.