If you want to get into the cannabis industry in California—where more than $5 billion worth of legal, adult-use cannabis is on pace to be sold this year, according to tax figures—and you want to do it quickly, don’t bother with selling adult-use cannabis.
And almost everyone running a retail storefront says that high taxes and an abundance of cheap, illicit-market weed is killing them.
The quickest way to get into the cannabis business, then, is to get a cultivation permit and start growing massive amounts of cannabis.
And what they’ve done, according to interviews with industry experts, is grow entirely too much cannabis.
as rasberries and blueberries, have become popular shaded shelters to grow marijuana as viewed in this aerial photo taken over Santa Rosa Road on June 16, 2021, near Buellton, California.
Exactly how much cannabis is grown within the state of California is still a state secret, known only to state regulators and select elected officials.
That estimate comes from tallying up the total acreage of permitted grows registered with the state Department of Cannabis Control.
According to other industry insiders, despite too much cannabis already in California, higher quality cannabis grown in Oregon—where production costs are cheaper—is supposedly crossing state lines and appearing in California dispensaries.
“The black market is still coming here,” he said, noting that the greenhouse-grown cannabis produced in the massive farms that are killing the small growers just isn’t as good.
On the illicit market, “You can get pounds in the streets, $2500 to $3000, all day,” he said.
And there’s also the natural cycles of the market, which may seesaw between too much and too little before settling into some groove resembling equilibrium.
And with the state busy with COVID-19 and a recall election, it appears the market will be left to itself to figure out what to do with all this extra weed—and whether the people who grew it can stay in business.
I’m an award-winning investigative reporter and I’ve covered the legalization movement and the cannabis industry with a political economy lens for more than a decade.