I Want To Become A Full-Time Caregiver

[Wild Bill]

If, as a caregiver in Michigan, I'm protected in my right to sell overage to a dispensary then I don't really see anything preventing me from making a mild income by providing a service I believe so strongly in.

 

If sales to dispensaries become legal I would imagine the prices they pay would drop drastically. I don't know any real numbers of existing growers in Michigan but judging by the number of hydro stores there must be quite a few.

 

There are four grow stores within a one mile radius of my house. Each one apparently does enough business to keep solvent. Whenever I have been in any of the stores there has always been other customers there at the same time. Just guessing that they would need a minimum of 25 customers daily to stay afloat, based on a six day work week, that would mean that the four stores together would serve 600 customers per week.

 

So that would mean there are 600 people currently growing just near my home. (I know of two others just on my block) Since I only go to the grow store once every couple of months there are probably more like me so that would imply a much larger number of growers than 600.

 

Not all of them would be interested in selling overages but if even half were then that is quite a bit of established competition.

 

growstorefinder.com lists over 250 grow stores in the state of Michigan. 25 customers per day six days a week would mean that there is roughly a minimum of 37,500 growers statewide now. We can assume many of these are not growing under the medical act and some are already supplying existing dispensaries.

 

I could find less than 100 dispensaries statewide. That gives us 375 current growers per dispensary. If the dispensary bill passes then there will likely be more dispensaries but that is an unknown. There might also be more growers who have the same intention to supply dispensaries.

 

You might want to take that into account before counting on coming in from out of town and making a living.

[Habenero]

If u look at calif as a model competition didn't drop the prices out there. Medical bee legal there for a long time now and they're still fetchin over $200/oz. Supply and demand baby. Demand gonna go up when it's legal.

[Highlander]

Guano, I generally agree with your math.   Of course there is the cost side of things, which would generally stay pretty predictable, assuming good environmental/pest controls ,etc. as well as fire safety and other protections designed to guard against equipment failures.  The income side of things would be a bit less predictable. 

 

Trouble is,   I'm not sure you'd find CGs willing to sign up for this plan.  Let's see....the kingpin caregiver pays about $6,000 in setup costs, then the second tier CG does all the work, makes deliveries, etc., hands over the money, and he gets $15,000/year while the guy above him on the pyramid gets $50,000.  I don't think that this would be sustainable. 

[Wild Bill]

If u look at calif as a model competition didn't drop the prices out there. Medical bee legal there for a long time now and they're still fetchin over $200/oz. Supply and demand baby. Demand gonna go up when it's legal.

 

I'm not referring to what the dispensaries are selling it for, I'm referring to what they would be willing to pay a caregiver for overages.

[Habenero]

What they're paying for overages depends on what they sell it for though bro.

[Guanotea1]

Wild Bill. Fantastic supply side analysis. DANG!

 

A dispensary will pay what they need to to get top quality product in their store. "Top quality" being whatever the manager/tender believes is top quality.

 

Competition absolutely brings the price down, in CO and other areas the reason the price has stayed consistent is because government regulators and those controlling things want to keep the price that way. They are concerned about tax revenue not patients right to safe access. It does create a lucrative grey market.

 

If Michigan Grown Marijuana became fully and unconditionally legal today the price would instantly drop to ~100 /oz and downward price pressure would continue until we hit the $50 / oz mark. You can believe I'd be the first out the door setting up a little weed stand. It's never going to happen because the government wants their piece - and by golly if money is what need to stop imprisoning us then let them have some money.

 

You can make a bonkers amount of money selling at even $70 /oz (indoors!), but your quality control, genetics, etc has to be 100% world class. I figured that was a given but it's worth pointing out. Operational excellence is necessary but not sufficient. Luckily in Michigan we've got everything you could possibly want to grow first class MMJ - including all the right people - it's the laws that need to catch up. At the $70 pricepoint ~90% of home grows *I've seen* would operate at a loss. And since high quality is required too you'd have to be a 1%er type of grower to make this a SURE THING (and that's nontrivial).

 

I contend that a lot of people would be happy to work for 15K /yr, if it only meant them working 4 hours a week. Hey it's an extra grandish every month to be close to weed and not do a lot of work. Everybodies looking for a job, especially something part time and flexible like that. You'd provide the setup, the patients, everything needed and they'd be on the payroll. In my plan they wouldn't even have to fuss with nutrients or anything else. Sterilized Irrigation water would be piped into their rooms and come on for a set period of time, and wastewater would be plumbed out of the rooms. Consider what you actually DO in your grow room if you don't have to water, remove wastewater, or harvest, and if it's easy to clean.... Well mostly transplanting, some pruning, and a little bit of cleaning. And you don't need sophisticated "Gro-bots" or any other such expensive nonsense for full and reliable automation, either.

 

The C.G's would have to physically transplant and clean their areas, as well as do any maintainence items such as occassionally cleaning any equipment not shared by all rooms (for example dehumidifer filters, swapping carbon filters every ~6 months if using noncentralized smell control, etc). The C.G's and their patients tick off the boxes stating what they want to grow, clones are provided from maybe 6 well-chosen mothers. The patients would probably start off as freebie schills until the grow operation is up and running.

 

The CGs would be responsible to check on their rooms say once every 3 or 4 days. There is no room to slack off on that and if they do they're fired. Any theft and they're fired. If they bring ANYONE else to the grow site, even in the parking lot, they are fired. No questions asked, any funny business = fired. But the actual work content would be made so easy a monkey could do it.

 

They C.G's would need to scrub in and have a checklist of things to do each time they went and a security cam would watch them do it. Harvesting could be done by low paid seasonal workers or the owner himself (no idea about the legality of that). The patients would come to a neutral, local, 3rd party area (say a nondescript office) and select THEIR medicine from THEIR caregivers supply. Every plant would be tagged to it's owner, with a combined harvest area but seperate dry/jar area. I haven't figured out the best way for the meds to get from the dry/jar area to the "patient office" but there are a lot of possibilities there such as weighed, sealed jars being checked out by the caregiver and distributed directly by the caregiver to the patient. Having a respected, legal, larger grow operation would set you up really nicely to become part of the first licensed dispensary and from there the sky is the limit. 

 

Medicine would not be available all day everyday, but rather short time periods agreed upon by both the caregiver and the patient with a set number of possible deviations allowed before the patient gets the boot. You should be able to attract patients fairly easy with the extreme professionalism, high quality, and reliability. The trouble will be finding them in the first place but I have ideas about that on the web or you can always set up some local marketing efforts to spread the word about your caregivers (that care TM).

 

If you forget about all those post harvest details I think you'll find yourself in a world of pain. Not sure about the legal grounds (again), but I am sure that if you don't lock down what a caregiver can do with his medicine, and you have enough of them in your employ, eventually one of them will do something to bring trouble to you all. Besides, with a 10 or even a 6 caregiver facility you are definately talking about >99 plants and I know that puts you on the federal radar for sure. What that means today with Colorodo and washington legalized I haven't a clue.

 

I think anyone would agree that this kind of operation is at least trying to toe the letter of the law as it is written today. What would actually happen is anyones guess, but a legal pro would probably make a better guess than me. I thought about this a lot before but being in Michigan any sort of profit-generating schemes make me really nervous - we've seen each wannabe-legal scheme come crumbling down while the real drug dealers continue business as usual with strict secrecy and some additional documents protecting their grow. To me that makes Michigan less attractive for legitimate businessmen like yourself while the black market is still gangbusters - wildly unfair to those that play by the rules. We get 94 ford escorts and they get Dodge Vipers. And on top of that I'm not even sure who has the greater risk for arrest. That is not a metaphor but literally true to my experience.

 

You'd also need a lot of cash sitting in the bank to make this happen. Not like you're gonna get a loan. Considering all the work and all the money and the small rewards I'd say your investment dollar would go a lot further elsewhere. I mean 50K profit max (sans loot from overages) and having to manage 6-10 part time employees in a highly volatile and ever-changing legal environment is tough work! With 50K you might be able to get a loan to open up a Tim Hortons or something. Lots of possibilities out there to make your money work for you, and most of them will never cost you your freedom. On the other hand if you play the overages game you might be able to do 80-96 plants across you and your wife and be fat, dumb, and happy when the dispensary offers you 80 an oz to legally purchase your wares and your patients purchase for 225 each. You could have such an operation as two outbuildings in your inexpensive michigan country home for 30k + the cost of home and property (cheap). Even a 2 caregiver facility has negative legal ramifications and these are all things to consider!

 

My conclusion is that even though I can foresee such a plan POSSIBLY working right now, it won't be an effective way to generate LEGAL income without a lot of headache until the HB passes and becomes effective. Even then you've got to have the cash right now and be (or have your spaced designed by) a top 1% growers, and EVEN THEN there are probably better ways to invest your money. So you'll do it for the passion and for the greed positioning yourself to be a serious player when the laws change. I am not a serious player, and gave up positioning myself long ago, but I do know your competition and they are smart junkyard dogs with unassailable products and astonishing capacity. Believe me, they are just waiting to turn on their machines and outproduce the cartel the second those laws change.

[trichcycler]

[Habenero]

Medical marijuana was tax free in Cali until about 2009. Prices didn't drop prior to that so it ain't taxes that kept the price up. UR missing an important piece of the puzzle bro and it's called demand. When it's legalized there is more demand. Demand drives prices up so yeah it's legal to grow which would drive down the price if demand stayed the same but it doesn't, it goes up..

[Wild Bill]

UR missing an important piece of the puzzle bro and it's called demand. When it's legalized there is more demand.

 

There might be more demand. Most folks I know who don't use cannabis don't use it because they don't care for it, not because it's illegal. Those who wish to use it do so regardless of legality.

 

375 suppliers for every 100 buyers doesn't sound like a great supply/demand ratio to me.

Edited October 7, 2014 by Wild Bill

[Habenero]

There are a ton of people who don't use because it's illegal. There are also a ton who used when young and would use now if they knew how to get it through legal channels.

 

Studies show that drinking dropped 60% during prohibition. That's based on self reporting and other measurements like arrests for public drunkenness and liver cirrhosis.

 

Make marijuana legal and more people will use it. It's common sense. Especially for those who buy the drug war propaganda. They believe the gubbermint that marijuana will turn them into zombies. Make it legal and people change their opinions. They also feel more comfortable using it because they don't put their jobs and liberty in jeopardy. It's common sense.