The Pot Industry (business startups and potential empires)

Thought I'd open a dialogue about the subject as it is one that interests me. With recreational marijuana use being legalized in more and more states, what interests me quite a bit lately are the startup businesses and potential future empires being created at the moment. With a billion dollar industry there is the potential for successful businesses. Growers, distributors, edible manufacturers, and retail storefronts. Not only that but the potential for expansion if you start up in one state, but then slowly expand your company and open new storefronts across the states. Then once it becomes federally legal, the high-powered established companies looking to make a profit to purchase from those who start up, those people then earning billions simply selling their company.

Personally if I were to start up a business I think an important aspect would be to grow your own product for ultimate quality control but that's just me. Beyond that what do you guys think about the industry and the potential profit to be yielded from it?

Regardless of your personal stance on the plant and its usage, the industry is booming as we're nearing an end of prohibition. It paves the way for billions of dollars to be made and an exponential amount of new jobs to be created. It's quite fascinating and exciting!

Not like anything will change... The illegal traffickers will start opening up official companies, fussing and stuff with others and so, just like it was on USA after it's prohibition years. The unique difference is that, now being legal, police will be less busy in useless stuff, more space at prisons for more relevant crimes and maybe one than other (minimal and insufficient) governmental control there and here.

Most likely you'll see an increase in use, though, as the access, advertising and so will make an impact. And that would be all, frankly. Maybe you'll see a positive impact in corruption as there will be less power chains being connected to police/justice and a reduction in fiscal costs to fight it in the first place, too.

It isn't likely you can create "a new industry" or something like that just because you legalized something. If you wanna do a business you have to have the means of productions, means that already exists in massive scale, so anybody trying to create their own mean will just fail as their prices will be unacceptable high to profit. It will not even make more money that it is already doing, because even if you can somewhat increase the users base (pretty much already established, though), any extra profit will now be eaten by 30-46% standard businesses taxes.

Basically it's economical beneficial for states, makes the job easier for traffickers that doesn't need to hide anymore (like the hassle of washing all the money on Cayman Islands and Switzerland, and not just a part), and makes their job safer, too. While the user will see an increase on the prices in exchange for easier availability.

TL;DR: It's just a change of status from "illegal market" to the name "legal market". You're not creating a new market by doing so, you're just giving more options for those who are already in that market, in exchange for more taxes.

Still too sketchy. The feds can still come in and fuck your shit. You can't store your money in banks...or is that just Colorado? It should be a massive legit industry in the next decade or so, though. I think products made from hemp will be just as big of an industry.

I genuinely wish the war on drugs wasn't a thing. It's done us absolutely no good.

As for it going beyond recreational use, yeah I can see it being used for many things. Too bad there's too much of a taboo on the substance to get anyone to take really big risk.

We might see more clothing made out of hemp, and maybe small business with novelty food/drinks made out of it. Maybe a few pharmacies selling it "pain relievers", my point is that it's hard legally and "morally" to set up a business regarding such a taboo object. It might spring up it's own set of problems too but I believe it's worth it.

[edit] Nyara...Really? You're saying law abiding citizens(and even states) won't be interested in new forms of revenue? It's not going to happen right away but new business and will be made, certain industries will change and have to adapt.(pharmaceutical)
Not to mention now that it's not ILLEGAL criminals will actually have change their business plans to complete or find another addictive substance to exploit on the lower working class (my guess is more meth).

There are a lot of traffickers that only works with marijuana, and while some doesn't, there are a lot who focus on it and get most their revenues from it (revenues and danger exponentially increase when entering on more dangerous drugs, so most stay somewhat safe or take the full risk). Most of them will just switch to the legal market as prohibitions lifts. Now those who never were on the business before will need to use the already existing world massive means of productions to get any minimally decent price (aside very small maximum-quality niche markets) and it's to enter to the already existing market, anyway, and the means are pretty much collapsed anyway to increase too much more (crop land balance for food security is scarce).

Now there aren't too much products you can create with marijuana to start with it... The plant's main use is recreation and painkiller (because it's flavor and aroma sucks). For the recreation side you can create different flavor, formats and so, but that amount of options are already available on the illegal market if you ask a bit, lol.

As for painkiller you can have some space to improve the market, increase revenues and so that aren't possible by illegal means. Though it will also the side that will take more time to have any impact because you have to change the mentality that it is only a recreational plant, and that it isn't bad for health, evil or anything. As for the medical community I don't think the herb will be used too much aside a few rare situations, as it's plain worst to most options already available, but developing country governments can make a use to it's low price, if they are open-minded enough, of course.

As for consumers increase and so. Prices will increase, of course, and consumers will increase, too. Nonetheless, changing from illegal to legal means to take the massive tax burden in account, so profitability will not increase too much. Of course, for privates. States will win a considerable increase in tax revenue that is now being lost, though I don't think the states will make very successful marijuana companies, I've not see an efficient enough states to make profit from secondary products and services.

I don't think legalization will create too many jobs. Pretty much all the workforce is around the production (for each street trafficker you have around twenty farmers), and because a lack of fields available for cash crops in all the world you'll not see an huge increase in production. While with some plants you can increase production by just using improved agricultural workarounds, Marijuana is a pretty simple and easy plant to work with, so it's hard to improve the efficiency...

Don't get me wrong, I'm for legalizing marijuana. It's (most of em' theoretical) benefits: increased state tax revenue, reduce in crime, reduce in consume in dangerous drugs, improved police/jail efficiency, less social pressure on consumer highly surpass the medium increase on marijuana consume (that's the unique benefit in prohibition). I don't have anything (personal) against the herb, neither (aside my distaste for cash crops and recreational drugs on average). It's just I really I don't think it will create a massive 11-15 digits dollar market, but rather just admitting that most of that market already exists (and changing the distribution ways from mafia/gang capitalism to standard capitalism).

You seem to have forgotten that marijuana is made from the same plant as hemp, and hemp was a commonly used fiber in clothing and rope making, however making marijuana illegal has made it less used for those purposes since the restriction on growing such crops has been high.

The ban lift could improve the textile and rope industry since hemp ropes are superior to nylon ropes and hemp is a sturdy textile. As far as my knowledge is concerned the distinction is between the male and the female plants, so you could use the female plants to create marijuana and the male plants to produce hemp, thus avoiding destroying half of your harvested plant seeds, which would greatly increase revenue I suspect (I have no basis for the last claim, but being able to avoid destroying stuff and use it istead as a mean of income usually does increase profits).

But hemp cultivation, buy/sell and products are completely legal in all the world aside USA (being the unique country restricting it in any way, thanks to it's prohibition era). As for the other half of seeds they are already done oil and other products (marijuana seeds are not illegal anywhere aside USA). In fact my country is the third world producer (Chile). The Hemp industry was used to be huge industry until the birth of synthetic fibers on clothing, who are cheaper, stronger and a lot easier to work, because working with hemp is hard as heck and often you seen at most a 25% hemp cloth because that. Hemps' other uses are mainly niche in very small amounts for a variety of products and agricultural aids.

1. Most can't make the switch. They're known criminals, and just as you said, work with different substances do other criminal (mob like) operations.

2. Not a lot? Well that's subjective.

3. >the more demand something has, prices will increase
It's like you know nothing about economics. Are you really implying that once demand gets to a certain point companies won't try to find ways to produce more while managing to sell something at a constant price? I see an initial spike in price first because of the start up required to get something of the ground but that's about it.

4. There will be jobs depending on how the market goes.
>for each street trafficker
Why are you assuming things will be the same?

5. I'd say most of the market only exist because those are the only ones willing to get into it in it's current state. You deeply underestimate normal law abiding citizens. As old taboo goes away old trends change. As I said in my previous post, some people will simply flock to it because it can be profitable, others because the stigma is less apparent. If it were completely legal, given enough time, I see it being as big if not bigger than the alcohol industry.

1. Can't make the switch? Most CEO's, big companies and companies have countless illegal records. People in the higher sphere just give a fuck about it, they are above law. That is about those who got caught, most not even got caught, lol.

2. .

3. Prices will rise not because demand will increase. Prices will rise because people will be willing to pay a bit more in exchange to safety and comfy buy. Standar capitalism is more inefficient in economics than the mafia/gang model, oh, and taxes, lots of em'. Nobody will be willing to lose their profit, that's for sure, and people will accept to carry part of the new costs.

4. You don't need too much staff to sell something that sells itself... In fact it can be a reduce in employment because possible acquisition of machinery (easier now that will be legal) for farms that will make lose a lot of jobs in the developing world (increasing famine, too! Because world gives a fuck about famine if they aren't suffering it, yet). And you'll need less staff on the streets and so, people will just buy their marijuana at the super market, lol.

5. Alcohol produce mild addiction. Alcohol makes socializing easier. Marijuana doesn't produce any degree of addiction. You can't socialize too much while consuming. Marijuana will never, ever, be an alcohol-equal industry just for those two points. Scraping it more, Alcohol is mostly tasteless, so you can make tasty drink and foods with it. Marijuana tastes horrible, so it's hard to make tasty food from it. Alcohol is colorless, so you can make fancier products. While you can color anything, with Marijuana is importantly costlier. Alcohol aroma sucks, thus you don't see "alcohol flavored aromatherapist" or anything like that, Marijuana doesn't sucks that much in that regard, but it isn't a good aroma neither. Millennial bias for Alcohol. 150 years of positive bias, then 100 of negative bias for Marijuana.

Most people doesn't gives a fuck about law if they found something correct or not incorrect (or incorrect, but don't give a fuck about it neither). People's only fear with law is to get caught, thing that is almost impossible with any drug anyway. While I agree that some will never do anything illegal just for the sake it's illegal, the proportion is absurdly small and story has proven countless times that (and proves every frikking day). Million tons of marijuana are already being harvested in the world each year, nobody is consuming em' because it's illegal? That would be a funny joke, that's for sure! Prohibition era was a marvelous example of that, the industry even increased a lot! Lol.

Now the negative bias is of course affecting marijuana. It doesn't have a negative bias because it's illegal. It's negative bias comes mostly from massive amounts of advertising and publics general disinterest for the herb (because it isn't tasty, doesn't help with socializing, doesn't produce addiction, it is too cheap to presume and consumers often does stupid things while consuming to make it look good again). Mafia/gangs doesn't have problem to counter advertise, but they aren't interested because productions means are already on the side of full and there's enough public interested to try too much more.

My opinion of course.

Most of the CEO's weren't in organize crime, darling.

>Standard capitalism is more inefficient than
Highly tempted to stop reading there. Also no, you're objectively wrong.

Machinery can only do so much. You can't cultivate it similarly to other crops, nor is it produced the same.

>it increases famine

How? Literally how? Implying that it's somehow legalized in those other countries, how will production of it help to contribute to more famine? That makes literally no sense. Wouldn't that theoretically add to not only their financial capital, but social one as well?

Anyways let's keep reading.
>it will never be like alcohol because of reasons
You're right, marijuana servers a more practical use while still providing hemp products. But no, as a both of them are recreational drugs, I see Marijuana and related products being bigger. Also alcohol arguably makes you less social the more you consume, then again, they have great advertisement.

>most people don't give a fuck about law
1. It can be argued that most people who want weed will just get it, but that's not true. Not to mention there's millions of potential consumers out there, who don't feel strongly about it, since they're just growing up.
2. If something becomes legal, social views on it will change, albeit slowly but surely. You brought up Prohibition like that proves your point right. It's exactly because it was classified an illegal substance that cultural views saw it as a negative because it become more and more associated with crime. Remove the stigma, and things change. The alcohol industry grew significantly after prohibition ended, but lol that doesn't matter because "people are just gonna do what they want anyways, xD".

The only valid point you had was about the perception, no not everyone stays away from it because it's legal, but because they're misinformed. You really think that's still gonna be the case after a few years of an industry based around the product gets any sort of financial or social power?

Marijuana? It's cultivation is pretty much generic, heck, I even cultivated some. You don't need pesticides, nor careful temperature, nor frankly anything. It's a very easy plant to work with (aside hemp fiber working, that's painful). Production efficiency is hard to increase because the cap is easy to reach with the plant. All you can do is to start replacing manual job for machines like in any developed country farm.

Now, why that produces famine? Manual farmers often uses better the space to cultivate (because it's hard to do details with our current machines), and cultivate food in the extra space gained for their consumption and neighborhood, along always having animal output. More advance farms just doesn't give a fuck about food security or anything as the profiter hardly lives near anyway (on gang/mafia system, the adjacent profiter to the farmer often lives there, too).

Any hectare used in a cash crop is food production lost, and because all this happens in the developing world (because hey, the agricultural % of workforce in developed countries is almost null and you're eating developing world's food right now), then, yeah, more famine as less food is produced in the already scarce terrain available. Currently the decrease in food production in favor of cash crops has made an impressive decline, the birth rates are a way higher than the increase in food output, thus more famine. At least distribution has improved thanks to the increase in infrastructure, but it wasn't being enough in stop the increase in famine. There are other factors aside cash crops, of course, but it's well known that cash crops shares a big side of the issue.

Sadly one of the few things that money can't purchase is to make food from void, so even when economical poverty reduces, worldwide famine prevails unless you sacrifice some money on food production over cash crops. Oh, yeah, cash crops are usually mean by profit maker crops, but it's also used for crops who are most the time not eaten at all, like tea, I'm using that use.

As for the Standard Capitalism thing, economically wise, thanks to monopolies, labor laws and so, it's well known it's more ineffective than gangs and mafia who just need to spend money more money in military power. That doesn't mean Standard Capitalism is bad, the Mafia/Gang Capitalism system brings a lot of social injustice, crime and so, while Standard one is importantly better for society, just you need to spend more money and you get less in the private aspect.

Hemp, while the same species, is another plant. You can't make hemp products with marijuana plants, likewise you can't make marijuana with hemp. Hemp is already legal and an industry in all the globe aside USA, it's just that hemp products sucks in cost-effectiveness and aside fibers, quality (who massively sucks in cost-effectiveness). Mostly only you see a hemp industry here on Chile, China and France (holding about an accumulate production of 96%) for historical reasons rather than economics, mere novelty and niche markets. Speculation says that marijuana seeds from hemp are already being sold in the illegal market, and those who doesn't, well, oil and other products, marijuana seeds are not illegal outside USA. Hemp's unique positive point in economics is it's low intensity capital need, but aside that is pretty much uncompetitive.

As for the marijuana>alcohol, lel, that's subjective, but I don't think you'll ever see that, nor an outstanding increase or anything. It's a mere opinion, though, but marijuana users aren't very loyal after a few years because it doesn't produce addiction, and that's important for a drug to be an omnipresent success.

I still think that the market already exists (or newest) rather that it's about to be created. It's massive of course, the most harvested crop in weight and profit in the world (though all alcohol crops fused are various times higher).

You're implying all resources and land that can support it are going to be used up by the new growers. Also you said there won't be many jobs because of machines and now you're back tracking on it? Glad you can at least see how dumb that sentiment was.
There will be more be more money going into their local system, not draining resources. Land will be worth more an so will labor if it's sought out after more.

Also I live in Central California, I'm eating food that I see grow cultivated before my eyes.

Also monopolies cannot exist in a Capitalist system naturally.

I still stand by my point, if it's no longer illegal, and there's money to be made, it will grow substantially. It has potential to be more than a niche market.

It isn't a niche market already, lol (unless you consider niche 10-15% of 12-65 age range when purchasing power is available). That's my point.

Note: What will be niche are some new marijuana based markets that will come with legalization. Like painkillers, some therapeutic uses (like against anorexia and bulimia), some even more weird presentation formats (some already exists, but most likely there will appear more), and so.

You'll see an increase in revenue before tax? Yes. Advertising will help to improve the bias (you don't need it, but it accelerates it), a few law abiding fellows will join that didn't before and people will accept a certain degree in prices increase, too. Aside the addition of marijuana based niches. After tax? Maybe a bit, but I don't think it'll be a huge difference because it's hard to win too much more than 30-46% consumed by taxes. Governments themselves? Governments sucks at making companies, so I doubt they'll do successful ones, but yeah, they'll receive a considerable increase in tax revenue. It's just I don't think an already 100~$ billion dollar market will increase too much more than 150~$ billion by legalization alone (take in account that the market is already rising without it).

As for USA alone, it's speculated that the illegal market is already a 42~$ billion dollars one (data got from confiscated marijuana revenues multiplied using polls and other data) with around annual 4-8% percent increase per year. While it's very hard to guess the impact of legalization, most expect an around 70~$ billion dollars one with legalization (with ranges from pessimist 45~$ to highly optimist 100~$), with around a 30$ billion dollars in tax revenues (and around other 30$ saved in dumb costs associated to fight it).

[size=10][color=red]At least in Michigan, "we" started up at 2k minimum. We were located in a house we rented out but the first thing I'd definitely do in that instance is ASK FOR PERMISSION or get a separate storage unit where they don't care what you use it for or what you even do there when you're on their property. Landlords can kick you out if they claim you used their property for this without permission. Get your growers and business cards/certification. Display them in a spot where if you were stopped by police or inspected, they'll know you went through the process. Invest in security cause as soon as someone knows you're growing they can easily break in and steal or trash your plants.

I don't remember all we used but for one room was a wet room for baby plants. We rigged it so that someone would always water or pH test them but if you can afford it, hydroponics that shit. We had another room where it was closed off. Most resources online say that it's the best for having "sun" regulation and to grow the best bud. Inspect or spray spiders, use fans to regulate heat and I think we used those machines that suck moisture out the air so the natural basement cold doesn't affect the plants.

I would actively search out a growing or hydroponics store and ask for information, though, because more dispensaries won't share any of their secrets with you unless you work for them. Hydroponics will not only help you network with them but they'll help you network with other friendly growers. Selling to dispensaries that take outside growers is another business relationship you'll have to develop.

I think with any other consumer's product you need to have smarts and you need to be able to consume the product seriously. You also need the funds. Don't constantly ask for money if you don't know what to buy. Read up on the multiple weed or marijuana forums on how to create growing rooms before you do anything. Sorry if this post is all over the place but I helped grow some bud before I discovered I was allergic.[/color][/h]

When it'safe and legal buy stock in pot shops while it's hot. Look for patented strains that have high favorability and demand. This is a burgeoning industry and if you have the money you can both support and gain from it. Colorado for example had seen girl scouts stationed in front of pot shops. Smart entrepreneurs! :D

Big pharma hates pot because it's a non-addictive relatively cheaper alternative as well as... organic XD instead of mass produced in some damn factory from manmade manufactured ingredients.

The irony of pot is that if it wasn't so stigmatized and illegal there wouldn't be a black market for the dramaticized demand that's created for it. If it was legal in the first place most people wouldn't use it anyway by choice. Some people aren't affected by pot use while others become paranoid after smoking. I guarantee you because of this that after the initial spike from legalization that most people won't use it anyway.

It's illegal, therefore cool. But when dad and mom use pot, it's not going to have the same appeal and flair.

I look forward to the day that "Big Pot" is synonymous with "Big Oil".

Smoke pan every day.

There's no denying all the money that is and will be made from marijuana as more and more states are legalizing it, but I do think regulations will become very strict.

For example companies that ditribute or manufacture marijuana will probably need to pay for an expensive permit from the government.