Any Maine nerds around?

Well fellow nerds... I have finally got so disgusted with the LOOOOONNNNGGGG anticipated wait to be over for MMJ to become legal and make an attempt at being a caregiver, or working at a dispensary or anything that involves growing high quality MMJ for patients and me being able to make a LEGAL living doing so... So I've scrounged up enough $ to live for 6+ months between me and a fellow greenthumber... and to make the move to another state and take most likely, the last big shot I have in me... Not that I dont make a legal living, Im a $30 an hour plumber/pipe fitter thats ran $5 million+ jobs... yet in the past 75 days I've worked less than 20 hours... So.. somethings gotta change... What I grow keeps the few "patients" I have happy, and keeps a few $'s in my pocket, but you all know what the costs are in running any kind of grow room... But my personal op is basically that, a small personal op... And to invest any amount of money expanding is just foolish if I have to sweat my door being kicked in and my "ferocious" pit bull that only gets off the couch to give people kisses, shot for no reason for starters... Never mind the 10's of thousands of $'s that I dont have to stay out of jail if its even possible...

But man does it suck a set of donkey balls to know that a few hundred miles away, not in another country, but every state around the one I'm in, people are making a halfway decent living legitimately growing in some manner. Which is all I want dude... Everyone wants to be able to have subcool $ (just fuckin with you sub...lol) but literally... all I wanna do is make a living, and I cant do that where I am and in the business I'm in... I'm 36, I've worked so hard from the age of 15 that my shoulder is on the way to need replacing, and my left knee is shot to shit, if I keep going in the business having to work as hard as I do abusing my body the way I have to in order to do the work on time and within budget, I'm gonna need a whole new body before I'm 50... Growing isnt easy work at all but in comparison to the shit I normally do, its a dream...

But my actual question now that I've stopped complaining and bitching, is how is it up there? I obviously am in the process of reading and trying to get my head around the laws etc. but my main concern is that ok we can easily enough become caregivers, but how does being a caregiver translate into $? Can I sell the extra after taking care of my patients needs to dispensaries? or??? I understand having patients is where the caregivers are basically making $ but I fell kinda scumbaggish to charge patients the kinda prices I hear being thrown around up there, which in all honesty are WAY higher than street prices here.... And as it is, my cousin went up with some of my "the void" and shared it with several legal patients that have dispensary access, whom all immediately wanted to buy some because there wasnt anything like that there, which I kinda doubt but it made me feel good.. And my partner, who went up a couple weeks ago said that the only thing thats any better about what he got out of the dispensary and what I grow is the cure that was on the dispensary stuff... which I can agree with, I'm always trying to cure as long as possible but sometimes I'll be lucky to have it in the jars for 2 weeks before its gone, anyone that I trust enough to share with instantly wants to buy as much as they can, and I honestly think its ok... but can be WAY better once I can stretch my legs and stop worrying about whos gonna kick my door down for a couple plants.....

I'm actually going up there tomorrow (thursday) with my partner to go check out a place called "Wellness connection of Maine" where my partner was treated absolutely amazing... And whomever there that treated my partner so well, is being kind enough to allow me to come up and show me the facility and explain the same things he did to my P whom is not a grower and is just getting into all of this... So tomorrow is going to basically tell me if this is where I wanna go and take a shot at this or not..

But I guess I'm just trying to pick you-alls brains if you'd care to share anything with a fellow nerd thats trying to make his way up there... I would love to head out west but $ is basically dictating how far I can go at this point, as well as I'd like to be able to come home occasionally but its basically a done deal... we just have to settle on maine if its a place where the "little guy" like most of us are, can actually have a shot without the walmarts, coke/pepsi and budweiser's take everything over, or before they take everything over should I say...

Have a good and hopefully dank day...

I STOPPED smoking the void for a day which makes me do nothing but "analyze think analyze think".. Packed a raw cone until it was ready to burst with some qush and smoked myself as close to impairment as I like to get.. And I figured the whole shit out in 2 easy steps...

Step 1- pack shit

Step 2- drive to said state and start working on it cuz I'm just wasting time here....

You are not allowed to sell to other caregivers, but you can sell to the dispensary(up to two pounds per year only.) Anything you have extra you can donate to a patient or other caregivers, then they can return the favor for you if you need some for a patient.
Electricity is expensive here, as are heating and food costs, with a lot of competition from old school Maine farmers who grow some killer weed.
If you are just in it for the money, don't bother, mostly because we are not a wealthy state, excepting certain areas.
check out the following link for Maine info on caregiving.
http://mainemedmarijuana.com/
Link for state laws on MMJ
http://www.maine.gov/dhhs/dlrs/mmm/index.shtml

No I'm not in it to get rich... I'm trying (en route/in the process of trying to get housing... Hoping to have a lease by the 1st or at least something in motion)...

But I am in it to get my foot in the door, I can't expand my growing abilities in any way with my current setup... I can't go bigger due to power needs, and just that "feeling" that if I do take a run at a bigger op than my personal underground setup; I'll be having that "drug related felony" on my record that's gonna ruin my chances at a decent career, and a decent life doing something good with my abilities...

I knew there had to be something better than what I got when I went up there (old school mainers that grow the dank)... I'm not complaining, patients are getting meds.. But i feel that anything categorized as "medical" should be 1 hitter quitter in at least 85-90% meds available... Unless it's something I haven't grown before, 95% of my end products are 1 hitter quitter to me. And I'm my biggest critic, so if I grew shit, I'd be the first to say so....

Everything I got from the wellness center was good... I guess for the average pot smoker it could be 1-hit-quit... But I picked up 4 different strains, 2 bottles of tincture, and I think that's it... And not a single one of those strains is 1-hot-quit...at all... Even after a double dose of tincture I can puff it like brick weed... I tried giving it to a couple of my patients and they wanted nothing to do with it... I thought it tasted good, looked and smelled amazing but I literally grow better meds on my bad runs...

But in a little over a week I downed just about a whole bottle of tincture that could taste a lil less green if u ask me... And a lot more potent.. But it works.

I was slightly unsure what I was gonna see when I got there but i don't wanna bad mouth anyone getting meds to people that need them but I was unimpressed to say the least....

And as I started to say at the beginning, I'm not looking to get rich. I'm trying to #1 get a foot in the door and do something I love everyday as a real job... #2 MAKE A LIVING...not get rich... Instead of getting farther under, maybe break even a few months outta the year... That's not too much to ask I don't think.. And #3 and most importantly I just wanna be legal... I'm tired of working too hard for too little, with too much of a need to evolve into something with eyes in the back of my head that record because it's just a matter if time before something goes bad... I love the underground and would absolutely keep going if I didn't have this offer/small partnership going.... but there's more for me out there and more I can do for others being legit... I can't exactly get too involved in the "movement" without going to jail... And I can't afford a lawyer that's for damn sure ATM...

I also believe with the current changes coming in October with the defining illnesses that dictate a persons ability to obtain a card is going to raise the demand for 100% organic and better quality meds a lot... Hopefully the amounts we can sell dispensaries goes up because they're the ones making $$$ on this...

My true goal is to evolve further as a grower, and it's not gonna happen waiting for something to change here.. I'm a fool if I don't do it I feel...

I live in Maine. The market is FLOODED with topshelf buds. Everyone grows up here. Worst bud I've seen is years is the dispensary buds.
Not saying you couldn't make a living but If your lucky you can get 250 ounce for the best. 175-200 for the best of the best usually.
The harder thing would be finding patients or clients because selling buds in Maine is personal and is usually done in tight knit groups. Also we've been legal for a while so everyone pretty established.
Boston on the other hand slices go for 50 bucks.

8 -10 years ago you could have gotten 300-350 a zip for some indoor SFV, chem 4, chem d, sour d, cindy 99, killerqueen etc..
But not today.

I know the prices etc.. but the main difference is that what I do now is considered "running a drug factory" or however you wanna put it... (not anymore as i've started breaking down my op for the most part)... Yeah I will have to sell my meds cheaper/basically @ cost prices... but I'm going to be getting compensated for my time if I'm understanding the whole thing correctly (and I very well may not be)... But I figured getting involved with organizations like mmmc and mmcm would assist in the initial search for patients... Also, I have 6 family members up there not including their spouses that have lived there for 20+ years and they all smoke, my 34 y/o cousin just finished a bout with stage 4 breast cancer that she has just about beat.... so I do have some ins as far as people/circles but my main goal is to just get up there and running legally... If I cant make it work in 12-24 months, then I guess I'll have to do something else and was barking up the wrong tree... But I cant know for sure unless I do it...

The other issue I have where I'm located now (a non-grow legal state) is that I cant get involved at all with anything that will put me at risk of getting arrested; even posting here is a risk in my eyes but I really dont have access to more knowledgeable growers anywhere so.... But I cant get involved with anything related to MMJ/legal mj unless I wanna forfeit the past 4-5 years of work and blood I've put into learning how to grow... Or my freedom pretty much; because the bottom line here is if you grow bud, and get yourself noticed doing anything in public, you go to jail... And thats a fact... The one other grower I know personally; got involved with MMJ here in a big way, my man did a lot for it... And then.... my man was arrested within 2 weeks after organizing a public rally or whatever he did (I met him after the arrest)..... got himself noticed prior to it becoming legal (not that it matters, we still cant grow legitimately) and was hit hard by the D E A.. Its great that its now legal here but it was made legal for the richest of rich fuckers (ONLY) to grow and sell... Maybe sometime in the future it will be legal to grow here, but for now; only people with 8 figure $ can even think about owning a MMJ business be it a dispensary or a production facility, and even then you need to have a political hook... The licenses that were handed out here were given out before applications were even accepted, applying was only a formality as well as a way to fleece anyone else who thought they had a shot of getting any form of licensing of $25k...

But back to my friend that went and spoke out and got noticed by leo.... now my man has that "drug related offense" on his record that will prevent him from getting a job in the MMJ industry or any job pretty much for that matter... I dont need those headaches...

I knew their had to be better buds up there, and I'm glad there is, but as it stands, the dispensaries are obviously carrying the majority of patients up there.... so that means people are paying $55 for 1/8th and $300+ if I'm not mistaken for a zip of sub-par dispensary buds so there is a market for quality, or more quality buds arent a bad thing anyhow...

Theres always a market for consistent quality and as I've said, I am my biggest critic. If I wasnt capable, or I had a 1/2 a gram of doubt about my abilities (and doubt is my middle name, I dont even talk about things I dont know about), my meds, or being ready to commit 1000% to this, I wouldnt even bother.. I'd take the $20k I rounded up for this and go balls deep in an illegal grow op and take a shot that way or not bother at all...

My meds speak for themselves so I'm not worried in the least about being able to compete with others, all I wanna do is; make a living while doing my thing legally #1, #2 be able to get involved with the movement, and #3 become the best grower I can possibly be; and hopefully I'll see more of a career path line up for me in the coming years... Being rich $-wise is not my goal, making a living yes, but I dont need a benz in my driveway, thats not rich to me... Waking up every day and getting paid to do something I love while helping others is as close to rich as I can hope for....

However, if I dont do this, or try to do it... It'll be the biggest "I shoulda woulda coulda" regret moment of my life... I see the MMJ/legal MJ spreading like wildfire in the next 5-10 years if not sooner (thats if the country/economy doesn't collapse first), and if I dont get myself involved in a legal state ASAP and carve out a spot for myself NOW, I'll never have another chance or if I do have a chance, its only going to be harder... So its either now or never I guess...

I'd make the move knowing that you have family up here who also smoke and that are around the 'cannabis scene'. That should make finding patients easier..
Around the town where I live (3000ish population), I know police are pretty relaxed about cannabis.
If you get pulled over and they smell buds they just ask if your a patient and basically just flash them your recommendation.
Police and DEA are more after the opiate epidemic here.
It might take a bit to find 'legal patients' but for the time being just having recommendation for yourself would be enough to cover your ass in most situations.
Portland is also legal for recreational use now ..

Either way good luck in your journey