The Idaho Farm Bureau Federation recently released information regarding an increase in hemp cultivation for last year. During 2023, farmers planted 1,273 acres of hemp, which is a massive increase from the 459 acres cultivated in 2022.

Idaho was the 50th state in the U.S. to legalize the production and cultivation of hemp after Gov. Brad Little signed House Bill 126. According to a news report from the Idaho Farm Bureau Federation, 2,440 acres of hemp has been approved via cultivation licenses as of May 31. A majority of Idaho hemp is cultivated in south central Idaho.

In 2022, some hemp farmers targeted cultivation for CBD, and very few did so in 2023. 

In 2022, approximately 44 acres of hemp were destroyed because the crops exceeded the minimum levels of THC, even though they were CBD varieties. In 2023, there was no recorded hemp crop destruction.

The Idaho State Department of Agriculture (ISDA) ag. program manager Greg Blahato explained that plants grown for hemp fiber seem to respond well to the climate. “The fiber varieties have taken off, and that’s what seems to grow very well here,” Blahato said.

ISDA hemp bureau chief Casey Monn suggested that growing hemp wasn’t a problem, but harvesting was challenging for some cultivators. “From the regulatory side, we didn’t see any issues with the crop last year,” Monn said. “Some folks were able to grow and harvest it very, very well and there were some folks that seemed to struggle with growing and harvesting it.” Some of the challenges included improper drying techniques, which led to the plant being “too green or wet,” according to the Idaho Farm Bureau Federation.

Current state law states that people can only grow cannabis if they receive a license from the ISDA. Monn referred to Idaho’s hemp law as one of the most strict in the country, where hemp is not regulated by the grower, but by the “lot.” A hemp production lot refers to a grouping of hemp plants. If a grower harvests their hemp lot all at once, only one inspection is necessary. However, if the grower harvests in more than one batch separately from one another, multiple inspections are necessary.

Department of Agriculture deputy director Chanel Tewalt explained the process to the Idaho Capital Sun in January 2022. “We’ll pull samples from every single lot that is grown, and our sample size is determined on how big the lot is, the acreage,” said Tewalt. “The hemp can’t go anywhere. It cannot leave their farm until they receive an acceptable lab result.”

In comparison to the recent hemp plant data, Idaho’s agriculture still leads the way in wheat (an estimated one million acres per year), hay (more than one million acres), barley (500,000 acres), corn (350,000 acres), and potatoes (300,000 acres) per year.

Idaho hemp cultivator Brad Darrington tried his hand at growing hemp in 2023, but won’t continue to do so. “Why would I continue growing it if” it’s not going to pencil out for me,” Darrington told Idaho Farm Bureau Federation.

Other farmers such Brigham Cook, who grew 100 acres of hemp in 2023, plans to continue growing hemp with another 100 acres this year as well. “I think there’s a future for hemp and hopefully there is a future for hemp in Idaho,” said Cook. “There are a lot of potential uses for hemp that I believe will be a win for farmers who grow it.”

However, Cook noted that he and other growers are still fine-tuning their growing methods when learning how to grow hemp effectively. “The harvest has been a huge issue,” said Cook. “It’s a new enough crop here that we just haven’t figured out all the quirks.”

Cook added that hemp has been useful for weed control as well. “It’s a crop that fits … in this part of Idaho and should be a good crop rotation for us,” he said.

Another farmer, Triston Sponseller, is said to have grown the largest amount of hemp in 2023 and is also the owner of a hemp processing facility. “Harvesting has been a challenge,” said Sponseller. “It’s definitely been a tough crop compared to what we’re used to. It’s been a learning experience and there has been some trial and error.”

Sponseller began growing hemp in 2022 because the idea of cultivating a new crop sounded interesting. “I was just really curious as to what else we might be able to work into our standard rotation, the geography and the climate, and the soil types,” he explained. “We found what works on our farms, and we were just excited to see if hemp would work too, and surprise, it works really well!”

Currently, Sponseller rotates his crops between wheat, barley, and potatoes. According to an interview with Sponseller conducted by Ag Proud Idaho, he primarily focuses on separating hemp stalk and fiber from the hurd and then cleaning them. Then they’re baled and shipped to various parts of the country for use in various industries such as bedding and automotive, as well as being used as a replacement for plastic.

Idaho Farm Bureau Federation director of governmental affairs, Brad Jensen, also commented that the state of hemp in Idaho has a promising future. Idaho’s agriculture industry is extremely knowledgeable and innovative,” said Jensen. “Our growers will figure out whether it’s an economically viable crop in our state.”

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A Reuters investigation found that raids on suspected fentanyl labs by the Mexican government have almost exclusively targeted inactive labs.

Pressure from the United States on Mexico to curb the massive flow of fentanyl coming into our country from theirs has led to a dramatic increase in raids on labs suspected of producing the powerful opioid responsible for the 73,000 some odd overdose deaths of American citizens in 2022 alone. However, it has recently come to light that at least 95% of the raids conducted between January and August of this year were on labs that had already shut down production, according to Reuters.

Data obtained through a freedom of information request submitted to SEDENA, the Mexican Defense Ministry showed that in 2023, Mexican military units performed 503 raids on inactive labs and 24 raids on active labs. In 2022 the military raided 450 inactive labs and 42 active labs. In 2021, the numbers were 195 and 22 respectively, and 267-55 in 2020.  Between December, 2018 and August, 2023 89% of the raids conducted on Mexican fentanyl laboratories were performed on inactive labs. 

Many have speculated this discrepancy in raid effectiveness has spurned from many sources, including the hands-off policies of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador who took office in 2018. President Lopez Obrador has been vocal about trying to solve narcotics issues where they begin by addressing issues like poverty rather than the traditional game of narcotics whack-a-mole so to speak of aiming to take higher level cartel captains. The numbers, however, would also suggest that President Lopez Obrador’s administration has been inflating the data they share with the U.S. by only sharing the total number of raids conducted rather than including the context of how effective these raids have been, as was pointed out by Guillermo Valdes, Mexico’s civilian spy chief from 2007 to 2011.

“SEDENA is ripping up its prestige by altering the figures. Who is going to believe them after this?” Valdes said to Reuters.

Other possible causes for such ineffective raids could be the same problems that have plagued the country of Mexico for decades. Cartel superpowers buying off government, military and law enforcement officials to look the other way and killing those who oppose them certainly makes it difficult to conduct such high-risk operations. One ex-cartel member told Reuters the practice of giving up smaller labs with the understanding that the larger labs can continue business as usual has been commonplace long before fentanyl entered the picture.

“The trade offs happened a lot,” said Margarito Flores, a former associate of notorious cocaine kingpin El Chapo who turned government informant in 2008, eight years before El Chapo’s capture. 

Two active Sinaloan traffickers who refused to be identified for obvious reasons also told Reuters that these raids were often “for show,” as there were several Mexican military members sympathetic to cartel causes and/or on cartel payroll.

Since this data was made available some U.S. lawmakers have accused Mexico of running a completely fictitious war on drugs. Republican Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), co-chairman of the senate’s international narcotics control caucus told Reuters this data shows that our neighbors to the South are “fighting an imaginary war on drugs designed to score political points rather than save lives.”

In October of this year, several banners appeared in Sinaloa appearing to ban fentanyl production in the area, though many wrote this off as a cartel tactic to relieve pressure on their organizations by the U.S. and Mexican governments. 

“Attention. Due to the incessant disinformation of some media and the obvious omission of the government in not investigating and prosecuting the true culprits of this epidemic,” the banners said (in Spanish). “In Sinaloa, the sale, manufacture, transportation or any type of business that involves the substance known as fentanyl is strictly prohibited, including the sale of chemicals for its preparation. We have never been nor will we be related to that business. [Be warned of] the consequences. Att: Chapitos.”

The recent data put forth by Reuters was capped in August of this year so it was not immediately clear whether these banners had any effect on fentanyl production, though the U.S. has certainly kept the pressure on Mexico to do something about the issue as President Biden and President Lopez Obrador just spoke on the phone Thursday concerning the need for more enforcement at the border. President Biden also visited the country in November to discuss similar issues.

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The Southeast Asian nation of Myanmar is now the world’s largest producer of opium, according to a recent report from the United Nations. Myanmar’s new dominance in the international opium market follows the decline of production of the drug in Afghanistan, which had previously been the largest producer of the crop worldwide.

Afghanistan’s drop in production follows a ban on opium farming issued by the ruling Taliban in 2022, although that year’s harvest was exempt from the ban. Since then, the South-Central Asian nation has seen a 95% decline in opium cultivation. The Taliban retook control of Afghanistan in 2021 as the United States military largely evacuated the country following two decades of American occupation and war. 

Before the ban, Afghanistan was the world’s largest producer of opium. According to a 2022 survey by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Afghanistan’s opium cultivation increased by 32% over the previous year to 233,000 hectares (about 575,755 acres). The southwestern parts of the country accounted for 73% of the total area under cultivation and saw the largest crop increases. In Helmand province, one-fifth of the arable land was dedicated to growing opium poppies.

The report also states that the 2022 harvest was the most profitable in years, with prices soaring, even as a political and economic crisis engulfed the country. The income made by farmers from opium sales more than tripled from $425 million in 2021 to $1.4 billion in 2022. The primary markets for Afghan opium are Iran, Pakistan, and Central Asia. 

Decline of Opium Production in Afghanistan Leads to Surge in Myanmar

Earlier this month, a new report from UNODC showed that the drop in production in Afghanistan has led to a surge in poppy farming in Myanmar. The increase in poppy cultivation in Myanmar is also fueled by the social, political and economic distress following a 2021 military coup that drove many to poppy farming, according to the report.

“The economic, security and governance disruption that followed the military takeover of February 2021 continue to drive farmers in remote areas towards opium to make a living,” UNODC Regional Representative Jeremy Douglas said in a statement earlier this month.

Because of the decline in the opium supply brought about by the Taliban prohibition in Afghanistan, farmers in Myanmar can now earn about 75% more by farming opium than they could previously. The average price of a kilogram of opium flower has reached $355 per kilogram, according to the report.

The amount of land in Myanmar has increased from an estimated 40,100 hectares (about 99,000 acres) to 47,000 hectares (about 116,000 acres). The most growth in opium cultivation occurred in border regions in northern Shan State, followed by Chin and Kachin states. The UNODC report also noted that more sophisticated farming practices adopted by Myanmar’s opium growers have led to an increase in efficiency, with the average yield of the crop climbing 16% to 22.99 kilograms per hectare.

Myanmar, previously known as Burma, is an independent country in Southeast Asia. It shares borders with China, India, Thailand, Bangladesh, and Laos. Covering an area of 261,228 square miles, Myanmar is one of the largest countries in Southeast Asia. As of 2014, its population stood at about 51 million inhabitants, with estimates reaching 54 million people by 2017.

From 1962 until 2011, the country was ruled by the armed forces, enduring almost 50 years of oppressive military regimes. In 1989, the ruling military changed the country’s name from Burma to Myanmar.

In 2011, Myanmar transitioned away from full military rule, sparking hopes of democratic reforms. However, the military retained significant control over the government and, following the military’s proxy party’s defeat in the 2020 elections, a coup in 2021 returned power to military leaders. 

Douglas of UNODC said that an increase in armed conflict between ruling military forces and armed ethnic minority groups would likely further accelerate the growth of opium cultivation in Myanmar. The country’s ruling military junta did not respond to a Reuters request for comment on the report.

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The delta-8 THC market is bigger than ever before, regulated like hemp, but South Carolina could change that if one proposal takes root.

Rep. Rosalyn Henderson-Myers (D-Spartanburg) filed a bill under South Carolina’s upcoming legislative session that seeks to create regulations around delta-8 THC and similar products, which can be sold anywhere that hemp products are sold.

H. 4628 was prefiled in the South Carolina House Nov. 16, and referred to the Committee on Medical, Military, Public and Municipal Affairs.

The bill would create a set of new rules for the production and sale of delta-8 THC and other Under the proposal, only adults 21 years and older could purchase those types of products.

The bill would also establish a tax at the retail level, imposing a 5% sales tax. The tax revenue would be allocated towards regulating the industry, according to the bill.

Producers and retailers would be licensed by the state, and any hemp-derived cannabinoid product produced or sold in the state must be tested for pesticides and toxins and to ensure it contains only the legal amount of delta-9 THC.

The license would be in addition to other required business licensing. The annual licensing fee would be $500 for producers and $250 for retailers, according to the prefiled bill draft.

Products would also have to have a variety of safety labeling and be contained in child-resistant packaging.

“These products are not controlled substances in South Carolina. So the quote-unquote enforcement that we’re seeing is a misguided view of the existing law,” North Carolina-based hemp attorney Rod Kight told The State. “That’s why I think it’s important that a bill like this gets passed so it’s absolutely and unambiguously clear.”

 Despite warnings from law enforcement that the products are considered illegal in the state.

Kight provides services to hemp businesses and due to the rapidly changing legal landscape around hemp. Mike Sims, one of his clients, was subject to the murky laws surrounding hemp. Sims’ store in Columbia, South Carolina, Crowntown Cannabis was raided last January when police said he was selling marijuana.

Kight clarified, however, that Sims’ store was selling hemp-derived products, not marijuana.

Confusion about what constitutes hot hemp is also an issue in South Carolina.

Law firm Collins and Lacy reports that recently, the Columbia Police Department (CPD) sent letters to over 30  retailers in the city informing them that delta-8 THC is an illegal substance. CPD is likely following the South Carolina Attorney General’s Oct.4, 2021 opinion that delta-8 is an illegal substance.

Per state law, the manufacture, distribution, and possession of a Schedule I drug is illegal and carries penalties ranging from imprisonment of up to six months and/or a fine up to $1,000 for a first offense for simple possession to imprisonment of five to twenty years and/or a fine up to $20,000 for a third or subsequent offense of manufacturing or distribution.  S.C. Code §§ 44-53-370(b)(2) & (d)(2).  “[U]nless specifically excepted”, “Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)” of any kind is listed as a Schedule I drug, separate and apart from marijuana.  S.C. Code § 44-53-190(D)(18).  Therefore, the manufacture, distribution, and/or possession of any form of THC, including delta-8, would be illegal, “unless specifically excepted” by some other statute.

Defining Delta-8 THC in South Carolina

The legal gray area is due to whether South Carolina’s Hemp Farming Act specifically outlaws delta-8 THC.

Delta-8 THC has seen a surge in popularity due to a legal loophole in federal regulations, the 2018 Farm Bill, that limits THC to 0.3% in hemp products but has no limit for delta-8 THC.

High Times reported on the significant differences between delta-8 and delta-9 THC. Researchers have known about it for decades. Roger Adams and a team of researchers at the University of Illinois were the first to report partial synthesis of delta-8 in 1941. It wasn’t until 1966, when Dr. Raphael Mechoulam and his colleague Dr. Yechiel Gaoni, achieved a total synthesis of delta-8 as part of their groundbreaking work at Hebrew University. In 2002, Dr. Mechoulam applied for a patent on the conversion of CBD into delta-8 and THC through various methods, which he received in 2008, and expired in 2022. 

Last year, a South Carolina farmer filed a lawsuit against the state over the destruction of his hemp crop in 2019.

The lawsuit was filed on Sept. 16, 2022 by John Trenton Pendarvis, and it alleges that a trio of state agencies––the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, Department of Agriculture, and attorney general’s office––“all denied him due process after Department of Agriculture officials discovered unreported hemp crops during a check of his Dorchester County property on July 30, 2019,” according to the Associated Press.

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Recreational marijuana became legal in Delaware on Sunday as Democratic Governor John Carney allowed two bills to legalize adult-use cannabis to become law without his signature. The measures, House Bill 1 and House Bill 2, legalize the possession of marijuana for adults and establish a legal framework for regulated recreational cannabis production and sales. Carney, who vetoed similar legislation last year, announced late last week that he would let the bills become law, although he added that he still has reservations about the measure.

“These two pieces of legislation remove all state-level civil and criminal penalties from simple marijuana possession and create a highly regulated industry to conduct recreational marijuana sales in Delaware,” Carney said in a statement on Friday afternoon. “As I’ve consistently said, I believe the legalization of recreational marijuana is not a step forward. I support both medical marijuana and Delaware’s decriminalization law because no one should go to jail for possessing a personal use quantity of marijuana. And today, they do not.”

The bills were passed by bipartisan, veto-proof majorities in both chambers of the Delaware legislature last month. House Bill 1 (HB 1) removes all penalties for possession of a personal use quantity of marijuana for adults 21 years of age and older. House Bill 2 (HB 2) creates a regulatory framework to govern the cultivation and sale and possession of marijuana, including provisions that provide opportunities for small businesses to be licensed and ensure that people living in areas disproportionately affected by decades of marijuana have access to the new legal market for recreational cannabis.

HB 1 became effective on Sunday, making Delaware the 22nd state in the nation to legalize cannabis for adults. HB 2 will become effective on Thursday, according to the governor’s announcement last week.

“After five years of countless meetings, debates, negotiations and conversations, I’m grateful we have reached the point where Delaware has joined a growing number of states that have legalized and regulated adult recreational marijuana for personal use,” Representative Ed Osienski, the sponsor of both bills, said in a statement after Carney announced he would let the bills become law. “We know that more than 60% of Delawareans support the legalization of marijuana for adult recreational use, and more than two-thirds of the General Assembly agreed.”

Carney’s veto of cannabis legalization bills last year marked the first time a Democratic governor had taken such a move. And while he is acquiescing to the inevitable by letting the bills become law this year, he noted that he is still opposed to the idea.

“I want to be clear that my views on this issue have not changed. And I understand there are those who share my views who will be disappointed in my decision not to veto this legislation,” said Carney. “I came to this decision because I believe we’ve spent far too much time focused on this issue, when Delawareans face more serious and pressing concerns every day. It’s time to move on.”

The governor added that despite his personal opposition, he was allowing the cannabis legalization bills to become law out of respect for the legislative process. Osienki praised Carney for the position he is taking this year and vowed to assist with a smooth transition to legal cannabis in Delaware.

“I understand the governor’s personal opposition to legalization, so I especially appreciate him listening to the thousands of residents who support this effort and allowing it to become law,” he added. “I am committed to working with the administration to ensure that the effort to establish the regulatory process goes as smoothly as possible.”

Brian Vicente, founding partner of the cannabis and psychedelics law firm Vicente LLP, said that the legislation marks another milestone in the movement to reform cannabis policy in the United States, adding that he expects further progress in 2023.

“Each state that legalizes cannabis is a significant step forward on our country’s path to marijuana reform, and Delaware’s recent action to legalize is no exception. This bill breezed through both the state senate and house with a veto-proof majority, showing that Delaware’s elected representatives, much like its citizens, widely support cannabis reform,” Vicente wrote in an email to High Times. “Delaware will send two U.S. Senators and a U.S. Representative to Washington DC to represent their state’s interests, which now include protecting a regulated system for adult-use cannabis. Delaware is the 22nd state to legalize, and will likely soon be joined by Minnesota, which is actively debating legalization in its state legislature. Each state’s legalization gets our country closer to a tipping point, when the federal government will be forced to align its cannabis policy with the states.”

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I’m not here to talk about any specific brand or any specific strain, but in my capacity as a journalist, I have been tasked with truth-telling and to tell you the truth: I have been extremely disappointed with the lack of quality in the California rec cannabis market as of late.

We’ve all heard the news stories and the insufferable bitching from corporate cannabis CEOs about how the legal market just can’t compete with the traditional market, but past the press releases and the buck-passing, anyone in the cannabis space should be asking themselves: what exactly is standing in the way of truly good weed being widely available on legal shelves?

To find the answer to that question, I enlisted the help of some California and Emerald Triangle cannabis staples who have been around long enough to know what good weed is and/or have all managed to put fire onto dispensary shelves. Sourwaves is a long-time grower and meme maker who has lived in infamy for years for his unwillingness to take his foot off the industry’s neck when it comes to growing practices and quality.

John Casali of Huckleberry Hill Farms has been growing and living in the same valley of the Emerald Triangle for his entire life and has multiple awards under his belt including a 1st place Ego Clash win for the Riddlez rosin processed by Heritage Hash Co. Finally, Robert Gale of Humboldt Terp Council produces some of the finest concentrates I have ever had the pleasure of dabbing and is a vocal member of the Humboldt County community on the state of the industry and of cannabis in general. 

After extensive conversations with the aforementioned, I have boiled down the most likely causes of mass boof to the following three explanations:

• Excessive Government red tape/taxes

• Corporate margin slimming/market manipulation

• General lack of growing experience 

Uncle Boof-Smoking Sam

Almost every state has objectively bungled the way they set up their cannabis laws either to the tune of a “pay-to-play” market or a lack of foresight when it comes to issues of license caps or lack of maximums on canopy space or both.

“Basically overproduction and over-taxation have caused a race to the bottom and everybody is losing,” Gale said. “The other issues are, especially with flower, it has only a certain window where it’s good and it takes so long to get through processing, packaging and testing that unless you’re vertically integrated the weed’s already getting old by the time it hits a shelf.”

Testing is its own beast of burden. Every legal state requires some form of THC testing but with little to no guidance on exactly how that process needs to be performed, it has opened the door for manipulation and consumer confusion when they buy a 31% THC eighth that doesn’t get them high at all.

“There’s no set calibration for testing, one. Two, you can buy test results,” Sourwaves said, referring to the lack of regulations surrounding the methodology in which California labs perform tests. “You’re gonna pay more than the next lab but that’s what makes the lab popular. ‘Oh, my, THC is over 30%,’ that makes things fly off the shelf. There’s little tricks people do to make a test hot, like drying it super, super dry and stuff like that.”

In addition to overproduction and over-taxation, many cannabis industry business owners have lamented that excessive regulations on how cannabis businesses have to operate have caused industry gridlock and a slough of unnecessary money hang-ups.

“One of our biggest hurdles is having to go give [our cannabis] to a distributor who takes 17%, who doesn’t pay us up front. Then they give it to a retailer who doesn’t pay that distributor who doesn’t pay us. And then, if the customer doesn’t buy that product, or it takes them a year to pay the retailer, it takes a year to pay the distributor, who then in return takes a year to pay the farmer,” Casali said. “More [often] than not most of us farmers don’t get paid a lot of times.”

Revenge of the Chads in Rec Markets

The jury is out: big money is growing too much weed for their own good. Of all the people I’ve talked to in cannabis throughout the duration of my lifetime, scale is the number one cited culprit of boof production. However, extreme scale is also an extremely effective tool if you’re a really rich dude who wants to get into cannabis but would prefer if all the traditional market cultivators got conveniently arrested or set on fire. 

This mentality has led to market manipulation and pushing out of legacy operators by massive grow companies, some of whom have been accused (if not informally) of shmoozing and lobbying politicians for economically unsound favors like removing a one-acre cap on cultivation licenses, for instance, or generally making it easier for people to buy their way into the industry and weed people out who have less capital. 

“If a guy has a one-acre grow, it’s just basic economics of why the bigger guys cost less to produce a pound of weed,” Sourwaves said. “So, these goons over at Glass House got their costs probably between $30 and $60 a pound so if they need to go crash the market selling packs for $150-$250 It’s because and they know that these smaller farms cannot keep up with these low prices.”

For someone like Casali who grows only 5,000 sq ft of canopy, which he hand waters with his girlfriend/partner, it’s virtually impossible to compete with the margins set by some of the larger operators, so even if the product is vastly better in quality, it creates a situation in which the consumer is faced with a dirt cheap option decent enough to defend saving the $20-$40 extra per eighth they would have spent on something worth smoking.

“Growing in the Emerald triangle, it costs a lot more to produce a pound and in the country up in the hills, being environmentally friendly it costs us between $300 and $400 to produce a pound,” Casali said. 

“You have people who are solely in this to make money and this is America I’m not against making money it’s not that. The problem is that the weed sucks, right? So how do we make that better?” Sourwaves said. 

While no one I’ve ever talked to had a hard line for a plant or light count considered “too big to be dank” almost everyone could attest that once you pass a certain threshold, it’s basically impossible to produce quality bud and at the scale some of the California producers are producing at, it has created a perfect storm of dogshit.

“There’s a few people doing it, but they’re few and far between. I think a place like Fig Farms has managed to keep their quality up and slowly get bigger,” Gale said. “Man, it’s hard to scale quality. Most of the stuff that we view as quality doesn’t stand a chance to what the people are still producing on the traditional market.”

No Love for the Plant, No Knowledge About the Plant

I have never met a single grower worth their salt in my time as a weed nerd who didn’t love the plant and/or sacrifice an immense amount of time and hard work for the plant. Maybe that’s some hippie mumbo-jumbo I picked up whilst on acid in the Arcata plaza, but if every good grower on Earth says the same thing, there’s a pretty good chance they know what they’re talking about and they all stress that while it may be easier than ever to learn how to grow, you still gotta put in your 10,000 hours to be able to consistently produce the best representation of the plant.

One thing Sourwaves stressed to me in terms of growing techniques he believes lead to poor quality are high intensity, full synthetic nutrient cycles for big indoor grows which he thinks could be made incrementally better by the introduction of organic nutrients in addition to the synthetics. 

“When you’re feeding super high EC several times a day, and you’re forcing that plant to uptake all these nutrients because you’re using sensors to measure your dry backs, and it’s telling you how and what you need to feed that crap. Access to that information is so dope, don’t get me wrong, but the way that is being manipulated to push the crop to a higher yield, It does not result in a pleasurable smoke to the end user,” Sourwaves said.

The lack of experience and lack of love for the plant seems to extend to every part of the industry beyond just the cultivators.

“Even in 2018-2019 if you worked at a dispensary it’s because you loved weed and because you wanted to be closer to it, Gale said. “And now that we’re like five years into legalization, and the truth is you’ve got a lot of staff at dispensaries that applied to 10 different places, and the dispensary happened to call them instead of Subway or the shoe store or Orange Julius.”

Could it be that Mother Nature simply has a fail-safe from allowing herself to be taken advantage of by people who do not show her the love she deserves or is this more mumbo and more jumbo? Many growers I’ve spoken to firmly believe that when you put in the work, it comes back.

“Most of us, our parents, were part of the back to the land movement. They taught us that it’s just as important to take care of the environment and take care of the land and the more time and the more energy and the more love that you put into any kind of plants, whether it’s fruit trees, whether it’s grapes, or vegetables, or cannabis plants, the more time, the more energy and the more love you give them, the better they turn out in the end,” Casali said.

So what do we do about all this, asked the obnoxious journalist who was taught never to ask rhetorical questions. In a nutshell:

• We get rid of the excise taxes and any/all red tape standing in between the grower and the consumer so small growers can make a living.

• We put a reasonable cap on license size and/or the number of active licenses so the Chads can still play but don’t ruin it for everyone else.

• People growing cannabis for a living need to learn how to f***ing grow.

• Show respect for the plant and the plant will respect you.

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History was made in Greece with the country inaugurating its first ever medical cannabis plant last Thursday.

According to the Greek Reporter, the plant, which opened in the city of Corinth, is backed by an investment from Tikun Europe, a subsidiary of Israel-based medical cannabis company Tikun Olam.

Adonis Georgiadis, Greece’s minister for development and investments, heralded the opening of the plant as a milestone for the country.

Speaking at an event for the opening of the Tikun plant on Thursday, Georgiadis said that cannabis could be “a product which we will be able to export throughout Europe because this factory can carry out huge exports to all major European countries,” as quoted by the Greek Reporter.

According to the outlet, Tikun Europe CEO Nikos Beis hailed the new facility in Greece as “the largest pharmaceutical facility in the industry in Europe.”

“A new era is beginning for our country with the operation of our Tikun Europe facility, paving the way for Greece to become one of the main players in the field of production and export of medical cannabis products,” Beis said, as quoted by the Greek Reporter.

Greece legalized medical cannabis back in 2017, but the country’s government banned the import of such products in 2021, which effectively made it impossible for Greek patients to receive the cannabis treatment due to the lack of domestic production 

But that appears to be changing.

The country said last year that cannabis would soon be sold in pharmacies throughout Greece.

“The goal is for Greece to become the top European country in the production of medical cannabis. Greece’s environment is friendly for this particular plant and we think we will have a natural advantage,” Georgiadis told the Greek Reporter last year, which said that “foreigners will also be able to use medical cannabis in Greece” and will “be allowed to purchase it through pharmacies” so long as they have a prescription from their doctor.

The outlet reported at the time that Georgiadis anticipated “huge investments in the production of medical cannabis which the government hopes would add up to 1.5 billion euros ($1.67 billion) annually to state revenue.” 

The Greek Reporter has more on the facility:

“According to Tikun Europe, the plant can produce finished medicinal cannabis products in various pharmaceutical forms. The company aims in the immediate initiation of cultivation in the vertically integrated greenhouse unit, with an area of 21,000 m2 and an annual production capacity, reaching in full growth, the quantity of 10 tons of dry flower. The plants received will be used for propagation under strict protocols that will ensure the preservation of the unique characteristics of the mother plants to future generations. The facility is expected to reach its full capacity levels gradually in the near future, to deliver a wide variety of finished medical cannabis dosage forms.”

Tikun received its license to initiate operations on the facility last year. 

“It was a great pleasure to welcome the operating [license] of our production unit, the construction of which was recently completed,” Beis said in a statement at the time. “The operation of the plant will start very soon, bringing us one step closer to the [realization] of our vision: to meet the ever-increasing demand of Greece and Europe for high-quality medical cannabis products. Our factory is the largest pharmaceutical company in the specific industry in Europe and exploits the potential of our country to play a leading role in the global market for medical cannabis.”

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The long-delayed medical cannabis program may finally be coming together in Georgia, with state regulators reportedly expected to vote on rules over the production and sale of the product.

Capitol Beat News Service reports that the “Georgia Access to Medical Cannabis Commission is expected to vote Wednesday on rules governing all aspects of the program from growing the leaf crop in greenhouses under close supervision to manufacturing low-THC cannabis oil to treat patients suffering from a variety of diseases to selling the product at a network of dispensaries across the state.”

The Medical Cannabis Commission held a meeting last week at Lanier Technical College in Gainesville, where officials heard from representatives from medical cannabis companies who “urged Georgia regulators to quickly approve rules for production and distribution of the drug to registered patients while skeptics of the drug asked for stronger protections against illegal use,” Georgia public radio station WUGA reported.

The anticipated action this week by the Medical Cannabis Commission means that qualifying patients in Georgia may soon have access to the treatment years after it was made legal. 

State lawmakers in 2015 passed the Haleigh’s Hope Act, which legalized the prescription of cannabis oil containing no more than 5% THC for patients with the following qualifying conditions (as listed on the Georgia Medical Cannabis Commission’s official website): “Cancer, when such diagnosis is end stage or the treatment produces related wasting illness or recalcitrant nausea and vomiting; Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, when such diagnosis is severe or end stage; Seizure disorders related to diagnosis of epilepsy or trauma related head injuries; Multiple sclerosis, when such diagnosis is severe or end stage; Crohn’s disease; Mitochondrial disease; Parkinson’s disease, when such diagnosis is severe or end stage; Sickle cell disease, when such diagnosis is severe or end stage; Tourette’s syndrome, when such syndrome is diagnosed as severe; Autism spectrum disorder, when (a) patient is 18 years of age or more, or (b) patient is less than 18 years of age and diagnosed with severe autism; Epidermolysis bullosa; Alzheimer’s disease, when such disease is severe or end stage; AIDS when such syndrome is severe or end stage; Peripheral neuropathy, when symptoms are severe or end stage; Patient is in hospice program, either as inpatient or outpatient; Intractable pain; [and] Post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from direct exposure to or witnessing of a trauma for a patient who is at least 18 years of age.” 

The law was given teeth in 2019, when Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed a bill that created the Medical Cannabis Commission and established a regulatory framework for the program.

Since then, the number of registered patients who are eligible to receive the cannabis oil has grown to more than 25,000, according to the Capitol Beat News Service.

But none of those patients are able to legally purchase the oil in Georgia. 

Should the Medical Cannabis Commission approve the regulations that are up for a vote this week, “two companies awarded licenses to produce low THC oil could begin selling it to patients as soon as this spring,” according to WUGA.

Capitol Beat News Service reports that the Medical Cannabis Commission is “requesting a $125,000 increase on top of its current $908,000 fiscal 2023 budget to move the program forward,” an amount that “includes licensing the five dispensaries the original 2019 law authorized for each production licensee in addition to a sixth dispensary each will be permitted to open now that the registry of Georgia patients eligible to receive the oil has climbed above 25,000.”

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