MMPR Grow op: Small Scale

I

ispice

Well-Known Member
Yep, Ive been saying it all along, the MMAR + MMPR is the best situation yet, by itself the MMPR was not acceptable.

If the big LP's cant afford to sell it for what the market will bare then they should not have gotten passed the planning stages of their business, tough but perhaps painfully obvious.
 
D

djfili

New Member
CndSimon, are you still interested I cooperating with other small producers? I am in the process of submitting my application and would like to connect with other small growers as well.
 
Kootenaygirl

Kootenaygirl

Active Member
Hi everybody, have been keeping up to the threads, seems like some are starting to get it finally, while others are still hating blindly.

Love the ruling for so many reasons and hope for a longer term solution so we could continue to grow our own medicine forever (freedom).

This extra ?year? will show clearly that there is room for the MMPR and home growers, always has been.

This delay is the best thing to happen for small wannabe's IMO, sending the fear of gov. into the pocket books of the big investors and therefore bigpharma while giving us time to clear the gauntlet without all the big money help.

Am currently trying to workout how to move our MMAR grow legally. After being outed by HC, moving should be a given, at the very most we should only have to inform them of our new locations..... but as with everything HC, making sense, being fair or doing whats right is not their way. I will post if I learn anything new.

Reading the remarks about what marihuana should cost per gram is laughable and so I haven't even bothered setting things straight, but then I thought about those reading these ridiculous posts who just don't know, well here it goes..... $2/gram is a nice round number that represents the cost to grow "the dank" at home... this does not include any cost for the location or the labor and most of the time the electrical estimate is low due to mixing with regular use. Real costs anybody?...including everything..

When I worked retail we would mark everything up about 100%... if we paid $10, we would sell for $20, and this would pay our wages/taxes/mortgage/fuel/electrical/etc. Expecting someone to supply marihuana at cost or even for free is naive and shows the lack of real understanding. DG's supplying for 1/4 the price or less... true, but did you ask yourself how or why? First they are competing for the prescription in many cases with other DG's, so lowering the cost per gram to the patient secures their licenses to grow "legally" however many plants listed on the scribe. Does anybody really believe that they are spending money out of their own pockets to help the sick? If they did, how long could they even keep helping!

Same old shit, free or at cost (2$/g) just means not figured out properly or subsidized by the blackmarket... now that might be okay with you as a patient getting free or inexpensive meds, but lets not stick our heads in the sand... when a DG claims how much free meds they have given to the sick and dying they are really saying "I grow for patients and subsidize the meds by selling my overage to your teenagers..... helping the sick and dying through illegal means.

So if the MMPR was a larger version of a home grow we might be able to consider 3-4$ per gram as a fair price which would allow LP's to pay their bills.... BUT, instead the new system requires massive upfront expenditures that are not subsidized by the rec users (blackmarket). So many expenses in fact that a 200% mark up is required to cover operating expenses... SO, when you see an LP selling for 6-10$ per gram, this is not the big ripoff some are claiming. Do you think that the compassion club prices would stay the same (already higher than LP's) if they were facing these new rules? Not likely!

I have not been voicing my opinions as much for many reasons... am moving... am applying... am building... now looking for a place to grow too.
BUT mostly because of the few ignorant posters who can't debate an issue with common sense and instead choose sides and fight blindly...

My unique perspective from being a patient, MMAR/PUPL, wannabe LP, a long term recreational user and having many friends that are involved in the grey and black markets gives me an open mind about the issues surrounding pot. I don't hold punches back for anybody hurting my beloved cannabis, including all these LP's that either are shipping crap or don't have any to ship...or are clearly in it only for the money. DG's using patients to sell to the blackmarket is okay with me as I believe it should be legal across the board, but when they take a moral high ground and pretend that they are not making large sums of cash and only helping the sick and dying, it makes me mad.... then those same crooks accuse LP's of preying on the sick and dying, fucking unbelievable, and I don't have the energy to call them out everyday!
 
I

ispice

Well-Known Member
http://www.thestarphoenix.com/health/Cashing+views+coming+boom+medical+marijuana/9676760/story.html
Cashing in on pot - A corporation. A family farm. Two views on the coming boom in medical marijuana -BY JEREMY WARREN, THE STARPHOENIX
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Come harvest time at Saskatoon's CanniMed Ltd., six employees wearing masks and gloves crowd around a short conveyor belt handpicking stems from mounds of dried marijuana as the product is pushed into a large, clear plastic bag. It's not a common site anywhere in Canada, and to see it is a revelation of industrial marijuana production. It's also one of 281 points of quality control CanniMed's parent company, Prairie Plant Systems (PPS), developed in its 13 years of supplying Health Canada with medical marijuana. CanniMed grows medical marijuana for several thousand of Canada's licensed patients. It's location cannot be disclosed, but it is a short drive out of Saskatoon. Once grown deep in a Manitoba mine, the company's marijuana is produced and processed in industrial greenhouses not out of place among the farm implement dealers and industrial sites between Saskatoon and its bedroom communities. The company also grows three varieties of saskatoon berries. On April 1, new Health Canada rules will allow a handful of companies to start producing marijuana for licensed patients. The change was meant to replace the old system of thousands of home-based licensed producers, which Health Canada and law enforcement argue is open to abuse. But a recent court injunction allows current licence holders to continue to possess and grow marijuana under the old regulations while a lawsuit works its way to trial. Until the legal battle ends, the old and new rules will coexist, providing Canada an interesting test of the two systems through which patients get their medicine. Where some entrepreneurs and investors see potential revenue streams - $1.3 billion by 2024, according to Health Canada - many patients see a restriction of choice and their right to cheap medicine. CanniMed CEO and president Brent Zettl also sees a marketing problem. An estimated 22,000 licensed patients grow their own cannabis or buy from other licence holders who are allowed to grow for a small number of patients, while PPS supplied another several thousand. Zettl says the company will be ready to supply 25,000 patients by June, but his product is not without its critics. "Our competition was blind to us. We were the only ones who had to follow quality-control regulations," Zettl said in his office, two weeks before Health Canada's regulations take effect. He explains PPS could only grow one strain under the old rules while patients could test as many strains from homebased growers as they wish, and until recently it was forbidden to advertise or speak publicly about its product. On his office desk, Zettl sets down brightly coloured bottle labels for the company's new strains, four on offer and two in development, all of varying THC strengths. "Having to be bound by one product, one size for the entire country, how do you turn it around? One customer at a time." Customers, patients, users - read and talk enough about medical marijuana in Canada and you'll see licence holders are referred to as all three. You'll hear more about them in the coming years. The federal government expects up to 450,000 people to have medical licences by 2024, or about 10 times the current market. Where there is demand, there are people hoping to supply it. Health Canada's new Marijuana for Medical Purposes Regulations (MMPR) has licensed almost a dozen growers to date, including Ontario-based Tweed, which is renovating an old Hershey's chocolate factory into a grow operation. In Saskatchewan, an asyet-unlicensed company hopes to buy a school in small-town Milden and turn it into a grow operation employing dozens of locals. CanniMed opened its Saskatoon-area grow operation in 2011. One building is filled with administrative offices and laboratories. The actual growing happens in nondescript buildings separate from the administrative offices and research labs. To get in, one must shower on-site and put on coveralls to prevent contamination of the product. Inside the grow facility are six chambers holding up to 1,000 plants each. Surfaces are spotless white or shiny metal. Security on site is tight - retired police officers greet visitors and patrol the grounds. Zettl is reluctant to talk specifics about security and is careful about what gets photographed. The operation is similar to what companies across Canada are doing to meet Health Canada's regulations - security cameras, vaults, quality control measures fit for pharmaceutical manufacturers. Another application before Health Canada involves four young brothers who bought 80 acres of land an hour's drive from Saskatoon to start a non-profit operation called McLachlan Family Cannabis Farms, catering to patients with severe medical ailments and tight budgets. At the family farm, Chad McLachlan, 28, walks into "the barn," the under-construction facility the brothers and their father are building in a secluded wooded area with the hope of becoming a licensed producer. When finished, the place will house a lab area, production and processing equipment, showers, a vault and offices. For now, the mostly empty 7,000-square-foot building houses a television, video games system and a room of marijuana plants they're maintaining to preserve favourite strains. "They all have their unique medical qualities," McLachlan said, pointing to marijuana strains originating in Mexico, Nepal, Vietnam and Afghanistan. "People have struggled for the right to use this and that's a personal cause ... In 20 years, cannabis will be as ubiquitous as coffee, tea, whatever." The brothers are turning to online crowdfunding to equip a 12,000-square-foot glass greenhouse. Their operation is a throwback to Saskatchewan's agrarian roots, collective-minded and political. The McLachlans plan to meet all the requirements in Health Canada's new regulations for producers, who must adhere to strict security and reporting measures. But they want to offer their dried marijuana at $1.50 to $2.50 per gram, below the $7 to $11 per gram cost many other companies, CanniMed included, say they need to be viable. In McLachlan's ideal world, sick people aren't prevented from growing their own, or at least small family run operations are free to compete against the large-scale corporations. The landscape will be shaped by how many producer licences Health Canada grants to meet demand. "There is an insane amount of profit in growing cannabis and it's because of prohibition," McLachlan said when asked about Health Canada's estimate the medical marijuana industry will eventually be worth $1.3 billion. For now, the McLachlans grow cannabis for one licensed patient under the old rules. They envision initially supplying 100 to 200 patients based on a five gram per day prescription. "If you can grow a plant in a greenhouse legally, the price should reflect that. The cost for a producer isn't the cannabis - it's the wages and everything above." Back near Saskatoon at CanniMed headquarters, Zettl won't reveal the company's current and projected profits. He says the company has exceeded financial forecasts five years running. Just before the April 1 change to new rules, CanniMed announced it has the resources to immediately supply an extra 10,000 patients, moving up its projected expansion by several months. The demand is there and suppliers are eager. But Zettl doesn't believe medical marijuana will quickly become a billion-dollar industry, and rejects the idea the changes herald a new "green rush" of pot pioneers. "How many people really made it in the gold rush?" Zettl said. "Very few." jjwarren@thestarphoenix.com Twitter.com/jjwrrn By the numbers Number of licensed users in 2001: 85 Estimated number of licensed users in 2014: 35,000 to 42,000 Expected number of licensed users in 2024: 450,000 Estimated number of legal growers: 22,000 Health Canada approved growers after April 1: 11 (so far) Estimated number of plants current patients are allowed to grow: 3,500,000 Estimated taxable annual revenue of medical cannabis industry in 2024: $1,300,000,000 Cost per gram of medical marijuana CanniMed says it needs to be viable: about $7 to $11 Cost per gram the McLachlan family wants to do it for: up to $2.50
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Sorry for the formatting, click the link above to read from the source. Check out our site and if your able, pre-purchase or donate: McLachlan Family Non-Profit Cannabis Farm http://www.mclcannabis.com Take Care, Chad McLachlan
 
leaffan

leaffan

Well-Known Member
I said it over there, but worthy to say it again...Congrats and all the best.
I think you have a great business model.
Watch out for the big boys, I'm sure they're not going to like the threat your model poses.
This is so refreshing folks, so nice to see.
 
VIANARCHRIS

VIANARCHRIS

Well-Known Member
@ KG "but lets not stick our heads in the sand... when a DG claims how much free meds they have given to the sick and dying they are really saying "I grow for patients and subsidize the meds by selling my overage to your teenagers..... helping the sick and dying through illegal means." Not that I'm disagreeing with you about DG's selling the extra on the BM, but how can you say they are selling to 'your teenagers'? I don't think teens are the only people using bm weed, in fact I would argue a large majority of recreational users are 30+. Using the "save the children" rhetoric sounds a lot like an HC or Adolph Harper reefer-madness statement. Where did all of us get ours from before we got our ATP's?
 
Kootenaygirl

Kootenaygirl

Active Member
Rhetoric true....So, I'll drop the "teenager" truth, when they drop the "preying on the sick and dying" bullshit!

We should be trying to keep it out of the hands of the teenagers, and this is a low priority for street level dealers supplied by DG's.
My point wasn't to say that all overage is sold to teens, that just happens to be the part that bothers me.

I was once a teen and nobody could have stopped me from getting pot, how much it costed was more the issue, just happens that most of the dealers also had mushrooms, acid, cocaine, and one even had a gun, that I saw. Stopping fraudulent DG's won't stop teen pot use, I get that too.

Again, I don't have a problem with subsidizing patients with rec users illegally, I have a problem when DG's try to take the moral high ground then accuse LP's of preying on the sick and dying. Own it, or don't, it's a DG's choice! So this is a big fuck you to DG's that give weed away for below the cost to grow it then claim that their shit doesn't stink!
 
cannadan

cannadan

Well-Known Member
I guess the bottom line is No matter which horse you are beating to death Neither fosters forward thinking on med mj. I can't vouch for one side or the other either. Since I am not a DG nor a LP but from a patient point of view ,both sides get their respective backs up and it's really about selling or dealing mj and that's about it
 
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