Fourtwenty, and all interested
Rather than specifically address your questions, I'll tell you what I know about Cali law. We are a legal not for profit private collective, do not have a storefront, had a lawyer set us up, and do everything above board. This info is based on what our lawyer told us.
The collective is a "closed loop". It can exchange weed between members only and does nothing at all with a non members. Members can be paid for their time spent growing within reason. The oz or pound cost should be the sum of all costs associated with producing said amount (wages, warehouse lease, electricity, nutrients, etc..). Our lawyer recommends no more than $50.00/hr be paid to members for their time. As far as salary goes, he tells us to stick to hourly wages. One other cost we have that gets rolled into the oz price is the interest and payback of the loan we took out from one of our members to build the growroom and cover costs until we had product. Once that is payed back, our price per ounce will go down.
The number of plants that can be grown is the sum of all member's recommendations. We also keep notes on our members regarding their medicinal needs and justification for any heavy users. Example: Joe Shmo prefers edibles made with concentrate and therefore needs 4 oz/week. We cover ourselves three ways with quantity of plants:
1. My recommendation is for 99 plants. We only grow 99 plants.
2. The collective's sum of plants is over 1000, yet we only grow 99.
3. We sell to one other collective and their sum is over 5000...yet, we still just grow 99.
The feds can give you 5 years for over 99 plants...one more reason for 99.
Needless to say, we don't grow sea of green. Our goal is to grow as much as possible with 99 plants...45 flowering at any time. You'd be amazed at how much can be produced with so little plants!
Your oz (or pound or whatever) price should remain the same regardless of how much is being sold. This is why any collective giving price breaks on larger amounts or charging a premium for small amounts is breaking the law. The cost of production is all that can be charged. Your production costs don't change whether you "sell" a gram or a pound at a time.
As far as caregivers and collectives, just have everyone you supply join your collective. That would seem to be the easiest way to keep your legal issues straight.
The cost of setting up our "not for profit" collective was $2,500.00 We also incure about $200.00 per month of legal expenses to keep us up to date.
Anyways, that's what I know for sure. Needless to say, most people deviate some from being 100% legal to make more money. We do not. I'd rather just make our little wages, provide killer meds for a fair price, and sleep well knowing that if we end up in court, we will win!
Everybody be careful out there, and be sure to donate some meds to people in real need of it. It keeps the karma going your way.
