Growers License With Pending Bills

[matt79]

I read in the news today that the new bills call for the state to issue growers licenses for 500, 1000, and 1500 plants.

What do you think they will charge for these licenses?

[bobandtorey]

Not sure but i will say about 5,000 dollars and the State may give some out for Free if someone is poor and needs the $$ 

 

Maybe the State can not control it if they can't grow it Imo

[matt79]

I think in illinois the fee is 200k plus a 25k application fee. I dont see the state givijg away licenses, this whole thing is to push the little people out imho

[Mickeydee]

If you don't have very deep pockets and political connections your out. IMHO.  For any of the licenses that will be available.  The vetting process will "weed" out most applicants.

[Greg Rx]

 a CLASS A grower, who would be allowed to maintain 500 plants, could not exceed $10,000, but other rates are not specified.

[matt79]

I guess 10k isnt exactly prohibitive to an average person. The costs of setting up a 500 plant grow would be very high though

[trichcycler]

Its all relative. If the 500 plants are to net 250k(for example) per year the investment of 10k + set up is relatively small. Many people invest more for much smaller returns I'm sure. 10k in a savings account @ 1% interest will earn a cool 100 dollars a year for thought. Imagine a 50k cannabis investment and the first year returns for the experienced.  good credit, 5 years balloon loans....heck...With our own state, and the surrounding ones MI might be a marijuana mecca soon !

Edited October 12, 2015 by grassmatch

[Kingdiamond]

There will be very few people able to even get one of these licenses and I also want to see what the background check specifications will be I can almost guarantee nobody with a criminal background will be granted one plus if you have not already greased politicians palms before these bills pass its likely you will be rejected .

[trichcycler]

Seems years ago when I had the energy to take on such a task in retrospect I didn't have the maturity needed imo. Now with the maturity gained(yeah right) I just know that the venture would soon have little to do with me gardening and more to do with paperwork, employee theft plant tracking mold spore counts future fda prix deadlines fines broken equipment QC issues with nutrients massive electricity use neighborhood complaints onandonandon, taking my joy right out of me.

 

this is just what I always wanted to do. mixing it with money and a job would ruin the experience for me . I love exactly what I do for myself and my patients. I wish I felt safer doing it sometimes, and skipping the news helps in a huge way I find

[semicaregiver]

I am thinking you will need min. 100K+ to set up that 500 plant grow.   

 

If you read thru the entire 50 plus pages of 4209 plus the seed to sale tracking bs bill you will need to spend lots of dollars with lawyers, pay the license fee to both the state and city.  Present physical plans to both city and state for zoning and building approval and inspections.  Go thru serious background checks for you and your staff and investors (just in case you do not have the 100K yourself).  Next you need the computer tracking software and hardware.   Next you will need the hardware to grow.  

 

Like Grass said, you are setting up a real business and with it will come 10x's the government intervention that other business ventures come with.  

[Norby]

Is there any change of a growers conglomerate with 5 growers at 100 plants each?  A group of like minded hi end growers should be able to take the top shelf at multiple dispensaries.  I just don't know if the system is divisable like that.

[mp4c]

All the caregivers involved would most likely have to be growing at the same physical location to pull that off.

[semicaregiver]

There did not seem to be any stipulation on how many people could own/operate a grow op/business, but there is a stipulation that a commercial grow operator can not be a caregiver at the same time.

[Norby]

Looks like dispensary prices are going up. Does any other state tax medical MJ?

[Restorium2]

 Arizona has taxed MM at 9.3% since 2011. 

[t-pain]

arizona is also the state that says if you live within 25 miles from a disp you cannot grow?

[Restorium2]

arizona is also the state that says if you live within 25 miles from a disp you cannot grow?

Yes. It's the eventual destination of all marihuana laws: To create a monopoly so that they can name their price and taxes given to law enforcement to put people in prison for violating their monopoly. Arizona went right for the throat. Some states get a little more creative, but the destination is always the same. Fiddle about until they get to the destination. 

[t-pain]

yes the end goal of medical marijuana is to be put it in pharmacies , grown by big pharma (or licensed producers whatever). edit: NOT my goal, the goal of prohibitionists.

 

this is not something resto or i made up. rick jones says it often:

http://archive.freep.com/article/20131113/NEWS06/311130133/medical-marijuana-pharmacies-grade-home-grow-pharmaceutical

And Sen. Rick Jones, R-Grand Ledge, said the bill will begin the process of getting marijuana sales out of homes and into pharmacies.

 

“It’s time to get marijuana out of houses and put it somewhere else,” he said. “Let the pharmaceutical companies grow it and sell it in pharmacies.”

its the "box canyon" theory russ bellville talks about.

 

http://radicalruss.com/box-canyon-iii-trends-in-medical-marijuana-legislation/

I can’t think of a single “legalizer” that ever campaigned against a medical marijuana law, but I can name plenty of “medicalizers” who campaigned against a legalization law.

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/russ-belville/new-york-governor-steerin_b_5501003.html

I have been a proponent of something called the "Box Canyon" theory of medical marijuana for six years now. Simply put, it means that if you fight only for medical marijuana, your marijuana will become only medical. It means that the effort to separate cannabis consumers into groups deserving or undeserving of a cage by their medical conditions or lack thereof is always going to leave some undeserving patients out and let some healthy people in. It means that the only true route to lasting relief for all medical marijuana patients is fighting for legalization for everyone, even healthy people.

 

The box canyon is a metaphor from old cowboy westerns where the gunfighters would be trapped by canyon walls ahead and to either side, unable to go anywhere but backwards into the clutches of the posse or Indians pursuing them. The Box Canyon occurs politically when tighter and stricter forms of medical marijuana laws are passed to appease the powers that wish marijuana prohibition to continue. We end up being forced to go backwards into the agenda of our opponents, trapped on three sides by the political frames of "medical", "compassion", and "criminals".

 

First, it was the right of doctors, not legislators, to recommend medical treatments. California famously allowed doctors to recommend cannabis for any condition they believed it would help. Advocates explained that these were "patients, not criminals", subtly defining a frame where cannabis consumers exist in two flavors: criminal and patient. Advocates presented the sickest cancer and AIDS patients and dared voters to choose compassion over prohibition, defining the frame where hard political choices must be made in favor of the sickest even if the choices ignore the majority. Advocates even tried whitewashing getting high as "medicating", pot parties as "medicine evaluations", and healthy people's use of marijuana as "all use is medical", thus playing fast and loose with a frame of "medical" that most people understand as doctors, medicines, and serious illnesses.

 

So into the Box Canyon marched the next few states to pass medical marijuana laws. California's medical marijuana law began being described with sarcasm quotes around "medical" as media reported on Venice Beach bikini sign twirlers and twenty-somethings getting recommendations at rap concerts. Condition lists were created where legislators decreed exactly for which ailments a doctor would be granted permission to recommend cannabis as a treatment. Cultivation and possession limits were added rather than just letting the doctor determine how much medicine the patient would need. All so fewer of the "criminals" could get in with the "patients". And who could object? Compassion dictates that we make hard political choices for the sickest, right? We've got to ensure that the program is just about "medical", right? Better the "patients" have some medical marijuana with restrictions than no program at all, right?

 

Next, it was the right of patients to cultivate their own cannabis -- what I consider to be the true miracle of medical marijuana. It's not that cannabis contains these remarkable cannabinoids that contribute to health and wellness. If it's really about THC, CBD, CBN, CBG and so on, medical science will eventually extract, isolate, refine, and deliver those cannabinoids and synthetic replicas in consistent, effective dosages. That's the Box Canyon that leads to GW Pharmaceuticals replacing all the plants in your dispensary with pills, sprays, tinctures, and inhalers that are Schedule III, prescribed by any doctor, and paid for by health insurance.

 

No, the miracle of medical marijuana is that in order to be healthy, a patient doesn't need a big insurer to fund a big healthcare company that pays a big doctor who dispenses big pharma drugs. A patient can grow a little medicine in the closet or the backyard, that's the miracle! But not since 2010, when Arizona became the first medical marijuana state to deny the right of all patients to cultivate their own medicine. If a patient lives within 25 miles of a dispensary, advocates decided, they should be forced to shop at that dispensary and forbidden from growing their own medicine. That meant some patients funded their own grows after the law passed and then were forced to abandon them as dispensaries came online in Arizona. It's to the point now where 96% of the population lives within 25 miles of a dispensary; effectively a statewide home grow ban. And who could object? Without that rule, Arizona may never have passed medical marijuana and compassion dictates we make hard political choices for the sickest. And it is "medical", right; nobody gets to make their own Oxycontin.

 

With home grow banned, most conditions restricted, and the "high" removed, the final step into the Box Canyon is to eliminate the marijuana plant entirely. Minnesota just took that step by passing a medical marijuana law that requires shopping at dispensaries for only pills, sprays, inhalers, and tinctures derived from cannabis that patients never get to touch, setting up the exact model of cannabinoid distribution GW Pharmaceuticals seeks to control.

 

no medical mj law has ever protected all patients from arrest.

 

you can vote against legalization if you want, but you really are shooting yourself and your friends/family/doctors and fellow patients in the feet. i'll still fight for medical as much as possible, but in the end, thats exactly where medical mj laws will go.

 

if marijuana is legal, they focus on regulating and taxing.

 

if medical marijuana is legal, they focus on patients and caregivers and limits and counting plants and weighing edibles and inspecting fences and roofs and defining "public places" and testifying in court and asset forfeiture and doctors "bona-fied" relationships and how many minutes a patient spent with his/her doctor. they focus on writing laws clarifying the law, making it more difficult to comply with the law. they focus on LIMITING medicine, LIMITING conditions, corrupting medical marijuana review boards, arresting and prosecuting and appealing any ruling FOR YEARS.

 

you want more medical marijuana conditions? vote for legalization which means adults can use marijuana for any condition. i continue to fight for medical so that the childrens will still have access.

[Restorium2]

Whether it's medical or quasi legalization, the destination will be the same:

 

 To create a monopoly so that they can name their price and taxes given to law enforcement to put people in prison for violating their monopoly.

[t-pain]

if alcohol is any indication, stills / butane extraction will be banned without a license. for safety.

 

home brews / home grows will be allowed.

 

cant sell your beer/weed without a license though either way.

 

until a state legalizes it fully like mint or tomatoes. then it will be fully out there. but i'm not sure how you can make cannabis like mint but still "protect the childrens" from smoking it. if anyone has any ideas i'd love to hear it...

 

"think of the children" is difficult to beat , for those who think they can legalize cannabis like tomatoes/mint.

[t-pain]

I wonder what happens when both are legal?

like resto says. they try to corner the mmj market into the legal market where they have more power. like putting the mmj program under the control of the liquor board.

 

or maybe they go the other way like sb 660 on medical.

 

i have a question for the audience.

 

aside from adding dispensaries, and aside from fixing a cbd-only crumb law in some states

 

have any states expanded medical marijuana laws to help patients and caregivers?

 

michigan got 1 year cards changed to 2 year cards.

i'm not counting the mmj fee changing. it was raised for ssd/ssi patients, and cgs fee increased.

 

a few states have added medical conditions to the list, arizona, michigan, etc.

 

i cant think of any other state that INCREASED medical weight/plant limits, decreased penalties for patients/cg, protected patients/cg from laws (improper transport my donkey), etc.

 

montana killed their mmj law.

california just passed a bunch of bs rules.

washington, colorado and oregon changed a bunch of stuff too.

 

sources:

http://www.thecannabist.co/2015/07/24/washington-medical-marijuana/38524/

http://www.thecannabist.co/2015/05/18/colorado-medical-pot-new-caregiver-limits-mmj-in-schools-okd-by-gov/35084/

http://www.theweedblog.com/oregon-senate-passes-harmful-medical-marijuana-bill/

http://missoulian.com/news/opinion/columnists/will-montana-be-first-to-lose-medical-marijuana/article_bbcb6e2a-8649-52bf-867b-6d8dd2e93f6d.html

http://abovethelaw.com/2015/10/an-overview-of-californias-new-and-improved-medical-marijuana-laws/

[t-pain]

I read in the news today that the new bills call for the state to issue growers licenses for 500, 1000, and 1500 plants.

What do you think they will charge for these licenses?

no idea. the real question is why 500 1000 and 1500 ? why these arbitrary numbers?

did anyone even do the math to see how many patients that many plants would cover?

 

i wouldnt be running to michigan just yet. the "green rush" still is not here.

the amount of regulations in these bills is intense and FOR SURE to add thousands of pages more of regulations.

 

practically, what this means, is that unless you have managed a food processing manufacturing business (butcher, candy maker, cereal maker, etc) you are going to face an amazing uphill battle to even understand and follow the food and drug laws. not to mention apply them.

 

ok so you want to start a business under these bills?

have you read the food processing laws in michigan and federally?

 

have you read the rules, ordinances, building codes for the city/town/county you want to start your business in?

 

have you asked the city you are in if they will allow such businesses?

 

from hb 4209: 

(n) "Person" means an individual, corporation, limited

liability company, partnership, limited partnership, limited

liability partnership, limited liability limited partnership,

trust, or other legal entity.

corporations are people my friend.

[t-pain]

Rhode Island, I believe, legitimately tried to expand protections under the law and allowed caregivers to participate in the dispensary system.

hmm. i'd have to dig into the details but it looks like just more limits to me? kind of a mixed bag like michigan's changes.

http://hemp.org/news/content/rhode-island-governor-signs-legislation-changing-medical-marijuana-law

[Restorium2]

Early on, Rhode Island passed a patient to patient transfer amendment. 

[bobandtorey]

Rhode Island, I believe, legitimately tried to expand protections under the law and allowed caregivers to participate in the dispensary system.

And added two caregivers per patient ?