Agrihood
September 4, 2020
Unhealthy Food
September 16, 2020
Food Chain Radio Show #1246
Michael Olson, Author & Urban Farming Agriculturalist
The Problem of Cannabis Industry
Guest: Morgan Fox, Media Relations Director, National Cannabis Industry Association
Back in the 1930s, the intoxicating cannabis plant, which was then called “marijuana,” was valued at pennies per pound.
Michael Olson Food Chain Radio – The Problem of Cannabis Industry – Can the legal and illegal cannabis industries coexist?
When cannabis was made illegal in 1937, its value increased. Today the intoxicating plant is valued at thousands of dollars per pound.
With so much value, the intoxicating plant now supports two cannabis industries: a legal industry, with reported worldwide sales of $52 billion dollars last year; and an illegal industry, with revenues estimated to be equal to or even greater than that of the legal industry.
That these two industries exist at the same place, and in the same time makes for a very interesting conflict.
By way of illustration, consider the legal cannabis industry of California’s Monterey County, which prides itself as being the “salad bowl” of the nation.
Monterey County’s recent crop report claims the legal cannabis farms of the Salinas Valley make $5.2 million dollars per acre per year. By comparison, those farms growing leaf lettuce make roughly $12,800 per acre per year.
From these numbers it is easy to see that one can generate a lot of revenue from a small parcel of land. And that is the reason there exists a robust illegal cannabis industry. But if the illegal industry thrives and produces more cannabis than the market demands, the legal cannabis will lose its value. And that leads us to ask…
Leave a comment below: Can the legal and illegal cannabis industries coexist?
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