A market flooded with lower quality weed is damaging the reputation of reputable growers and medicinal buds
For many people, the last few years have ushered in an age of hope for cannabis and led to what has been dubbed by many as the beginning of a ‘Green Rush’. Consequently, countless families followed the shift in state legislation and chased opportunities in the hope of setting up legitimate cannabis businesses in medicinal and recreational states. Early indications were that this could be the sign of the next big thing and the apparent success stories were predicted to trigger discussions across the rest of the nation which could drive the tide of change forward. However, a few issues ago we reported on some first-hand reports from within Colorado which suggested that the honeymoon period looked likely to be a precursor to a less-than-perfect union.
A recently released report found that the number of medicinal users in Colorado is going down instead of up, and some people hypothesized that the increase in recreational users has meant that some medicinal users are no longer relying on prescriptions to get the medicine they need. However, closer examination of the report shows that the total number of users is declining as a whole. The obvious question to ask is why this is happening, I mean, surely you would expect the number of users to increase once prohibition has been reduced, right?
As a result of this decline, along with some other factors which we will look into during this article, dispensaries are closing down at an alarming rate. In areas where the initial change in regulation led to a boom of blossoming business, people in Colorado report that many shop fronts are now dormant and this worrying trend shows no sign of slowing down. When you consider the impact this is having on the people who gave up their lives to chase the new American Dream it truly is a staggering thing to consider. Was it all too good to be true?
We got in touch with Todd Moon (aka Hempster Luna) to ask his opinion on the current situation and to see if he could shed some light on what he saw as the issues facing the good people of Colorado. His answer was pretty simple and relatively unsurprising: a market flooded with lower quality weed is damaging the reputation of reputable growers and medicinal buds, while the bureaucratic red tape is making everything more challenging for the independent business men and women who helped get the market up and running. As a result, many growers are going back underground and looking to the black market as a way of recouping their losses.
Newly-introduced state-wide testing programs require fortnightly batch-testing of crops before they can go to market. In theory this is a necessity to ensure that the consumer can be guaranteed a safe end product that is fit for consumption, however, when the focus is more about checking for pesticides than accurately determining the true quality of a strain you have to raise a skeptical eyebrow. Add to this the issues regarding cost implications ($900 per fortnight for 3 months per batch – not to mention the cost of acquiring a license to grow and sell legally) and the sad reality is that this system is stacked in the favor of the multi-nationals who are waiting to take over once the seeds have been sown.
Todd, along with many others, believes that the only way for the industry to truly be a success is for complete legalization to be implemented across the whole country. Once this happens, people can look into interstate deals, collaboration in terms of strains, extracts, concentrates and medical research without the constraints imposed by the outdated and archaic rules of law that currently feed the newly revamped war on drugs. He believes that the saddest thing to consider is that Barack Obama potentially had the opportunity to usher in new era and lead the way for the rest of the world before he left office. It goes without saying that the chances of the current administration making these kinds of changes are practically non-existent. Despite America being trapped in the terrifying grip of the opioid crisis, Todd fears that the staggering number of deaths will only continue to rise unless the government accepts what they already know: cannabis can be the cure to addiction. Figures indicate that last year the total number of deaths which were officially linked to opioids was 62,000; the total number of deaths registered during the entirety of the Vietnam War was 52,000. Think about that for a second: legal drugs which are cleared for sale by the DEA and the FDA kill more people each year than one of the worst atrocities to ever happen in the history of the US. To make matters worse, there is no need for many people to be prescribed these horrific concoctions (which often have side-effects that are far worse than the ailments they claim to treat) as Mother Nature’s own remedy is far more effective and far more gentle. Todd has helped a large number of patients to control their addiction through use of CBD (30mg/day) and knows that he could completely eliminate their dependency using THC.
His biggest concern is that those who work in law enforcement still perceive cannabis to be a gateway drug. Even more worrying is the complete misunderstanding surrounding CBD as a stand-alone component (as seen in the wave of stores shut down for selling CBD edibles by an ill-informed police chief who believed that the stores were peddling drugs to children). This should be an era defined by collaboration between state officials and independent researchers, but instead we see people being denied the chance to use a natural medicine in favor of prescription medicines. Furthermore, the end consumers are making it even more difficult for people to move things forward because many recreational users don’t fully understand the plant and therefore don’t fully utilize its health benefits. To fully benefit from cannabis you need to have the full entourage effect, but what some people fail to realize is that the method of consumption is having a huge impact (especially with the shift towards vaping).
We now find ourselves at a turning point with the desire to push for regulation conflicting with maintaining the standards which have been developed on the underground for decades. For legal cannabis to be a viable product it needs to be of good quality and be sold at a price that makes its production worthwhile (I don’t mean people making huge profits, but people can’t make a living working within a business that makes a loss). The concentrate-driven market is swaying the retail market towards ridiculous pricing where the consumer dictates the price and while this may seem like a dream come true to many, the truth is that it simply reduces quality and undoes all the hard work which has already been completed. In real terms, this means that dispensaries are holding stock of buds which are ‘past their sell-by date’ simply because their market share is dwindling. With so many producers vying for people’s attention there are only three options if they want to stay in Colorado: cut quality and reduce the price, move out of the business or shift focus to the black market (back to the old school).
When it comes to the black market, producers are finding that they can appeal to a wider audience and demand a much more reasonable price for their wares if they head out of state. In the eyes of some people, the heavy regulation is ruining the industry and the DEA’s hardline approach to making sure that people are keeping in line with their expectations are seen as blatant scare tactics. Many growers have found that they have no real option other than to pursue a career on the black market (which has existed before and will exist long after the dust has settled), but they are facing increasingly harsh penalties for their alleged crimes. Recently it has come to light that the DEA are looking at energy consumption of properties in order to target non-licensed grows and are planning to hit 600 sites in the near future, yet this is likely to do anything more than force some of the finest growers out of the state (thereby damaging the long-term quality of Colorado bud).
Todd sees that there is little left for him in Colorado and he already has plans to move on to bigger and better things. Over the next year he is preparing to relocate and team up with some like-minded individuals to bring his extensive skills and knowledge to a new and exciting project. For him, the new American Dream has passed through the state he called home and left devastation in its wake and we wish him all the luck in the world.
There is no way of telling how this is all going to play out in the long run, but if the reports are accurate then Colorado could become a worrying sign of what’s to come.
By PSY 23 Originally published in Weed World Magazine Issue 134
