Everyone should be able to drop a seed and watch our tree grow w/o a license w/o taxation w/o any penalties at all. All people deserve to be able to grow their own medicine w/o worry about going to jail.

It's not just weed, it's every single consumer product out there. Cottage industry just can't compete with the Walmarts and IKEAs of this world. This video makes it look like the problem is just about Cannabis. It's a much larger issue than just that.

Cannabis should come from your backyard, just like your eggs, tomatoes, basil, etc.

Feel sorry for all the OG growers who endured jail, fines, mountain treks, helicopters & violent competitors only to be forced to compete in an arguably worse environment.

Me and my friends predicted (55 years ago) that if weed was ever legalized, corporate farms would dominate the industry.

The problem with my states legalization is that the state created its own cartel, charging high prices, and a high tax. Making laws even more harsh and conflicting than they were, to discourage people from growing it. So, the black market thrives, and it's half price of dispensary prices. It's ridiculous.

I live Arizona, I am a medical patient but if I wasn't I could still just go down to the store. That's the way it should be for everybody in every state in the union.

Clearly identifying over-taxation and over-regulation as how government botched the legalization of cannabis, why would Forbes not show us the politicians and bureaucrats who caused this disaster? How can we fix a problem if we cannot see who caused it?

You are interviewing 2 guys who are a major part of the problem. They both lobbied hard for prop 64 and told small scale producers to learn and adapt or go under. Now I wish I could bottle up their alligator tears and sell it like they sold our community.

Forbes interviewed the 2 people that are part of the problem in California. Steve Deangelo and glasshouse. The 2 people that are the root cause of of the market crash.

Here in Michigan, the legal market has ended up being way cheaper than the black market, primarily because the government is giving huge tax breaks to farmers and dispensaries in order to drive out dealers. Unfortunately, this has lead to a select few companies coming out on top over smaller, family owned stores. In fact, I have yet to see a family owned dispensary in Michigan.

Nearly 30% tax depending on where you buy in California. Just ridiculous!

We've had the same problem in Canada. It became legal at federal level in October 2018 and we have private retailers everywhere and the shops are empty. There's no chance for most of them because it's far cheaper to buy "illicit cannabis" on the reserve or just homegrow. There's also mail order services that are mostly operating in Vancouver (aka Vansterdam) for over a decade that ship nationwide. A lot of cops and former politicians are also in the business as well when they used to lock others up for doing the same thing. Never leave anything for the government to solve.

This is the entirely foreseeable reality of legalisation. Scale goes up and cost comes down. Smaller growers should aim to be the agricultural equivalent of craft breweries.

Taxes and regulation: the age old way to destroy business and consumers.

The biggest problem is that once legalization happened everybody would crash into the Pot Shop and buy everything there-----did not happen! Normal neighbourhood users are still supporting their illicit suppliers due to previous service and quality and cost.

Man when I saw all of that bud going into the chipper I was about to cry.

The idea that you can’t get absolutely top quality bud outside of North CA is categorically incorrect.

The issue is we haven’t legalized it!!! It’s at best heavily decriminalized!!$ it’s not even legal federally!!!

I live in switzerland where we're standing close before legalization. The knowledge these guys already have in farming but also in everything that comes along with legalization would be worth a lot money here I think... It's just what comes to my mind when I see these guys struggling who put so much effort and dedication in something they're passionate about but don't get anything in return because of the way the market is governed.

Glad you guys are promoting a cop owned boof factory. Wouldn't expect anything else

I started growing my own bc the prices in the stores in San Diego are too expensive. Its turned into a nice little hobby

When I was in High School, an once of Pot was $40/ounce. Gold was $35/ounce.

"Why rich investors are mad they haven't been able to take over and milk the marijuana market"

There are lots of mixed opinions about stocks and there projection in the next coming years, I aim for short term solid gains from market correction and I'd definitely jump on the boat if I knew a thing or two about day-trading, but then again what do I really know? I'm just looking for the right moves to grow and hedge my stagnant reserve of $370k from inflation.

They've already botched it here in Michigan over the last few years by these dispensaries pricing growers out of the market, the average price paid per oz in MI was recently only $95! Weed on the street back in the day would be worth at least $120 all the way up to $3-4hundred per oz depending on quality and what town I was in but the last oz I picked up was only $65 and it's decent tree

Wow, nice video! Thanks for sharing that real story with us. It feels so nice having an idea about this.

I live in Illinois and it's a joke, they made sure no one could afford to get into production but the super rich. You need 400k in liquid assets, you need a compound with the latest security system that gets inspected. The made sure you had to have millions to start up. Craft growers licenses are at least 25k if I remember right, thousands applied, 50 got approved. Because of this our industry is controlled by 2 or 3 big companies and the little man has no chance which also impacts our prices, we have old school $20-$35 a gram prices, an ounce is around 300 dollars unless you want some trash shake, there's a 20% tax on top of that if you're not medical. Meanwhile you can go next door to Michigan and get quality ounces for half the price in certain dispensaries. Most of the people I know go to street dealers because our regulations, tax and overall prices on marijuana are rediculos. We are by far the most expensive state for marijuana. Also, not that this is on that same note, but why is all of our dispensary weed so dry and harsh? From what I've been told thc content is measured by what percentage of the flowers weight is made up of thc after curing. If that is the case, are people then over drying their weed to fluff their thc numbers for sale purposes? The weed is so dry you don't need a grinder, you can crush it to a full on powder with your fingers, what happened the bud having a slight amount of density, smooth tastes and such. I went to Colorado a few weeks back and the bud I got there was so much smoother. I've never seen weed that dry prior to dispensaries becoming a thing, never seen someone's home grown be like that. Our system is trash. They rushed in a trash system to make a quick buck on taxes and now everyone is going back to street dealers. If they approved more licenses to grow with out flooding the market, It'd be a beautiful thing. I want sub 200 dollar ounces, that'd be amazing. I think they actually see an increase in that tax revenue if they could compete with the street dealers, but that's not happening anytime soon. You can get an 8th on the street for 30-40bucks give or take, ounces for around 240ish, an 8th is at least 60+ tax at a dispensary, its absurd.

Government ruins every single thing it touches.

I’m in Michigan and within 4 years of recreational growing the price of an ounce has been cut in half. Over saturation 😔

Oklahoma is fast becoming the pot farm capitol in the US. Pot farms are popping up everywhere due less regulation than Cali. Several Cali based companies have started grow operations there. Oklahoma is having a special vote early 2023 to go recreational . Prices there are good and will only get better for the end consumer.

I love how people think the geography for weed actually means anything when it comes to indoor grown weed.

i started growing my own once the prices started getting ridiculous here in CA around 4-5 years ago. just like as is the case with growing tomatoes at home, the quality tends to be a lot higher than what you can get at the store these days

I was so interested by this video because I'm thinking about going to school for this sort of thing and opening a dispensary in my home town for help with some addiction recovery. There is a lot to take in as far as this is concerned. I can understand why a business would start with one thing, perfect it, then continue on with other gray area products, which seems an awful lot like the neighborhood shaman's routine. I like it. I think I could enjoy honoring the botanist that helped settle this community. That may beg for more help....

Police, prosecutor's, judges anyone who has ever profited off the war on drugs has absolutely no business in the trade

I got my hands, a shovel and the sun and I absolutely love growing ! I'm 44 and they won't let us poor folks get our foot in the door. black market flower W.V.!!!

Dude is very humble when explaining the struggles of running a legal operation in Cali. The taxes and regulations are insanely destructive.

In Michigan there's grower networks, concentrate & edible manufacturers. Dispensaries are busy, providing jobs far more satisfying than average retail. Top quality extracts & edibles are available at affordable prices. Homegrow is legal. The bud itself is mostly overpriced at dispensaries, at least compared to your buddy's homegrow. What's missing everywhere is truly is the "microbrew" experience where a grower can have a session lounge & retail store. This would allow boutique growers to capture retail profits and turn into resorts, like wineries. Of course the banking and Federal nightmare have been well-known in the industry in every med-or-rec legal state. Congress & the Feds are the true demon.

This is the same thing that happened to organic farms in California. 30 years ago there were thousands of small organic farms and they've all been regulated out of existence, not to mention the word organic now has no legal meaning and the big companies use chemicals and fertilizer and just call it organic.

Legalization helped almost no one, the few individuals who were able to get into the legal market had to have millions of dollars upfront to even try to get into the market, it just went from being illegal to being legal and owned by corporations and already wealthy people

Steve lobbied to lift the canopy limits allowing large producers to stack 1 acre permits. He helped CREATE the problem.

Even when it becomes federally legal growers in the emerald triangle really believe people in the other states would want that sun grown over the fire quality I seen now is baffling.

Have the legacy market cannabis growers figured out that when they apply for a license and they are turned down, they are then marked as illegal growers?

Amazing how a beautiful, beneficial seed can sow such controversy.

it was the best weed before recreational weed rip CA quality

I've always said "support your local small businesses" but also have said "leave growing to the pros in the green triangle"

Nice to see the use of natural light. Thinking about it if the property was large enough you could also capture some energy to help offset what is needed. I’m not sure how much of difference that would make with current tech

Alcohol and pharmaceutical companies lobbied every day against it it's always about their MONEY

The best place to grow weed is right in your house for best quality.And cuts out the big corp.and gov.not everyone can afford weed,lets be american and grow home.

Prop. 64 was the worst thing to happen to legal cannabis. If people were not so blind to the blatant governmental overreach of the prop, we could have kept the "loosely regulated" medical cannabis market which was more people focused instead of profit focused. Ever since 2018 marijuana has never been the same in terms of potency, effect, and benefits which have all changed for the worse... Thanks again for that, Steve!!!

Very educational vid thx. Question I noticed the flowers you have growing at the base of the plants what are they? I can only guess they are for natural pest control.

Here in Maine we are going down the same path as Oregon, the amount of dispensary’s and growers has gotten out of hand. ALot of growers have quit this year.

Over time, the Quality of craft cannabis, Will proof it's value. Mass scale Quality is low, especially in the effects it gives. Craft Cannabis is the Only Cannabis to consume.

It's still illegal where I'm at (Alabama) but the street prices here have been cut in half, high grade in 2012 was going for $20 a gram. Once Colorados weed boom got going good the same stuff goes for $10 a gram.

I paid $15 for my first ounce of weed. I stopped smoking weed in 1990, when side effects were taking over, and I was suffering from panic disorder. ( yes, probably because of my abuse). I am interested in getting some again, but all of this " weed speak" leaves me confused.

In my area we have too many snitches and corrupt cops. Better to get it at a store to not get messed with the local cops for me.

Thank Deangello and the big money players that voted for that but did not know the structure of the rules when it came out. Now look at it. People HATE IT and can not make a living on small farms due to new regs and high price push outs and so many stupid rules. Deangello knows he helped screw that one up.

I live in Sonoma county and there are 22 dispenseries here. It is rural and not populated that much either. Something has got to give.

Lots of discussions and controversies here in Europe about legalization. This excellent video sheds a very different light on this matter and reveals unsuspected side effects and downsides. Not as straightforward as I thought it would be.

I know this story all too well. This is a great recap of what's going on and my heart goes out to everybody affected. Been there. I'm in Michigan now and there are so many problems with the legalization botches, similar stories. But I tell you what, I would pay extra for some sun weed from NorCal. Nothing here comes close to that. It's like Michigan wine compared to Napa valley! Hopefully someday things will get sorted out, cuz I'm ready to support small NorCal family farms!

That woman is in more groups then bootsy Collins.

the man steve is the whole reason the legal weed system in ca failed. you can easily see how he pushed out the smaller farms for a bigger farm and then got pushed out himself

Maryland finally passed recreational this year. Dispensary prices around here in Baltimore are cheap. They have great products and the price is right. We'll see how it changes next July 1 when recreational kicks in.

I'm in maine I purchase an ounce of pretty good weed a week from my local dispensary and the total cost of that ounce is 71 dollars with tax included. I used to pay 2-300 an ounce on the street before legalization.

Growing yourself can be difficult at first. But, if you persist with patience through the cycles, and errors. It is quite rewarding 🐸

All I have to say is some Oregon buds I bought here were super high quality. Some of the best I've ever had and I've had it all.

I would literally move out there from Texas to learn how to grow and gain experience in the grow world. I’m from Texas , i visit California often. I would love to learn tbh ❗️

Steve deAngelo was the driving force for the removal of the 1 acre cap in California, That is the number 1 reason for the over supply of product in the California market. Now he is rebranding himself as a proponent for small farms when he is greatly responsible for their demise.

Glad to see you getting the real story out there that most don't hear or know about..

The best argument for legalizing all drugs that I have ever heard.

16:56 would someone explain to me how sungrown weed costs 300 dollars to produce?

I wished someone would show how much Law Enforcement profited from The War on Drugs as well as the many ways they profited. The legal and illegal ways they benefited.

In Santa Rosa new shops keep.popping up, I'm waiting for the major close downs . There are 60 shops now around here. I predict 60% gone this year or two.

This is one of the best vids on this subject that I've seen. I think that DeAngelo is right.

Steve helped write prop 64 it’s mainly his fault

In Florida we call it “supporting your local growers”. Instead of refining the processes and making it a better more efficient experience the folks in Tallahassee want to keep taking steps in the other direction. My grinder hasn’t seen any oil in 5 years here. Not sure how they’re purging the flower and still having residual thc however I know it’s being done. You can see it in the color and crispness of the bud. So I say.... until the legal Eagles get it sorted “keep supporting your local growers “.....

Could you come to the state Wisconsin and talk to our legislators about legalizing here

Nothing is a coincidence, Lawyers and judges run the dope business on all levels 💯

The Narrator kept trying to hold the US government accountable for the over-taxation, yet it's still illegal federally. It's really each state that has legalized that has done this, and from your video: specifically the state of California. Place the blame where it is due.

Watching the 1M sq ft "weedbro" struggle through his complaint about how no one but people like him can prosper in the cannabis market . . . priceless. Also painful.

IN THE HEART OF UKposts. IS THAT NEW YEARS OR IS IT OPPOSITE NEW YEARS ? a real man forbes ? i hear that all the time.

Black market will always be king because it can't be taxed.... I could go on but I'm not going to waste my breath. Peace and blessings to all. Live life however you see fit

That price is amazing as a medical user, I really feel the sun grown part and it means a lot. Thank you

Maybe I needed to be high to follow this, but I'm confused. It sounds like some folks are saying cannabis cultivation is too regulated (few licenses available) and others are saying it's not regulated enough (folks can grow as much as they want). It seems like there's a problem there, but as a viewer, I'm not really sure what it is. Maybe a follow-up video that gets deeper into the economics of the system might help. Or maybe I should just roll a doobie and rewatch it.

Her point is we're a small business but every company was a small business at one point

Buy seeds grow you're own screw these clowns lol. Take things private in your hands, no middleman and no BS to deal with.

According to this video content, the licensed growers costs are roughly $200-$300 per pound. Googling the prices per pound in California, it ranges from $300-$1100 per pound ranging from small to large buds. How is it then that growers in CA struggle financially?

Anyone seen Jamaican 🇯🇲 licensing laws will be SHOCKED 😲

Like most issues in the US ignorance is at the root.

Remember the song that goes “don’t go legal till I sell my crop “ . It was a camp fire song that old out laws used to sing in the “old west”.

How do you outlaw something that anyone can grow in their backyard/basement?

MY LITTLE TOWN IN IDAHO HAS BEEN BUILDING A HEMP PLANT, THAT IS THE BEST THING TO DO, FOR THE USE OF THIS PRODUCT

“We try to focus on the small companies” shows Camino gummies right after🤣🤣

The lady at the end said “I mean I think it will not take too long for people to realize their local weed isn’t California cannabis”, but she’s wrong. Simple economics 101 has shown me so many growers that have had to divert eastbound to the black market to survive. So, all that you can find is good, medical grade cannabis. I’ve smoked top shelf dispensary for half of the price in a state where it’s illegal for like 8 years now because the black market was flooded strong even after CO went legal. When I was in Denver and LA, I was stunned at the recreational prices. Especially in LA. So as a user, it makes more sense to seek out an unregulated distributor for a cheaper price.

Same thing happened in Florida. Voted to legalize overwhelmingly 3 times. So a moritoriam was passed till the big money took over. But it’s still against the law for you & me plus it’s still against the law to grow your own. On top of that you have to buy a medical card yearly which cost about 500.00. Duh tell me what’s wrong with this picture?

That bud looks " ok" at best. Great or the best is a huge stretch.

That wood chipper will haunt my dreams.

Thank you Forbes for shining a light on we’re going through right now.

Old landrace cannabis strains had balanced THC/CBD levels as God intended. Also many important terpenes! Only recently man has hybridised cannabis to have 20-30% THC and almost no CBD, hence all the side effects, that many people experience. This is why we must return to the original landrace strains.

21:02 I would say that the market started to drop for CA emerald triangle area when legalization took hold especially when it became legal in OR ( price took a cut in 2017). As things have gone and more states have legalization more people also have the option to grow at home as well too. So this gave me a thought on other previous thot. When considering the lose of nature and what it nurturers when compared to the more sterile environment of industrialized standards: the plants don't hear the songs of the bird nor the scampering sounds of the squirrel, sound of the human or trampling of the feet threw the grassy knoll. What sedimentation do these plants leave on the partaker to hold, what do these humans feel and take hold for the experience to be told? Seed banks?