Does legalization matter once you learn to grow?
Legal weed is necessary, even if you grow your own.
The first time I hit a rosin vape that I made from hash I extracted from weed I grew, that was the moment I realized:
Holy shit. I no longer need the legal market.
Rosin vapes were the last piece of the puzzle—the only thing we still bought at dispensaries.
When you start growing, flower is the first thing you no longer need to buy.
Depending on how crafty you are, edibles and extracts are often next. But specific products, especially advanced refinements (think nano-emulsified beverages, for example), can be outside of the realm of small-scale hobbyists.
Rosin vapes fell somewhere in the middle—a mix of technique and access to materials.
But ever since then, I’ve been tossing out the question to friends and fellow growers:
Now that you know how to grow, does legalization matter?
The reason I ask is that I see a trend among growers:
As they get better at growing and start to be able to produce all of the products that they once bought...
...their interest in advancing legalization wanes.
As a consumer, as a "buyer," legal access matters a lot.
Buying weed exposes you to plenty of potential risk:
You have to meet up with your "guy" who might be trustworthy (or might get arrested elsewhere and spill the beans on everyone he's ever met).
You might not get what you paid for (3 grams in an eight, wtf?!)
You might get more than you paid for (adulterated/”cut” vapes or edibles)
In theory, the legal market solves these consumer problems.
But, as a grower, if you get to a level of self-sufficiency, there's a bit of ego that can creep up and say:
"Hey, you don't need this. You're set.
No matter where you live or go, you're 4 months or less from having high quality smoke."
And there is some truth to this.
But there's also plenty of perks to growing in a place where weed is legal.
Which further got me thinking:
If the future home grower is a hobbyist—and the demand and incentive to grow at home commercially diminishes—then, in a lot of ways, the hobby grower of the future needs legal weed.
But let's back up.
First, why do growers need legalization?
Well, there's the obvious: the legal right to grow.
But growers have grown for decades without it, choosing to ignore arbitrary restrictions on a plant.
And that, right there, is where most growers' line of thinking stops.
I've said this exact phrase, verbatim to my wife:
"We could live in the middle of BFE North Carolina, in the heart of illegal weed, and have everything we need. I'd just have to keep my mouth shut."
Some of us are better about this than others.
When I get excited about something, it's hard to shut me up. I want everyone to know. This is something you're no doubt aware of as you read this post.
If you're the quiet type, who keeps to themselves, doesn't have a newsletter and tons of content on the internet telling everyone and their mother that they should grow and here's how to do it, then there's a chance it might be easier for you to keep things under wraps.
Needless to say, having the legal right to grow definitely makes talking about growing easier.
But it's not just what you say, it's also what you do.
Legalization, specifically legalization that includes home grow rights, means that you don't have to worry about what you say or do getting you into trouble.
Let's go back to my hypothetical BFE North Carolina idea.
Say we moved to the middle of the mountains, got a nice discreet property, had a small home grow, nothing fancy. I made my own edibles and extracts, grew everything ourselves, and there were no "transactions" between outside parties (suppliers or buyers).
I'd still have to worry about:
Buying seeds & clones
Grow equipment shipped to me
Changes in my electricity and water use
Buying too many "weed" things at the garden center
Whether my clothes smell like I was in the flower tent
How red my eyes were after my morning coffee and dabs
Talking vaguely about why I need specific items for the grow
People coming over for anything (neighbor, plumber, electrician, HVAC, delivery guy, etc.)
And so many others that I'm probably not even aware of.
The growers of decades past—those true legacy growers who risked everything for this plant—they had to take more precautions than any of us new growers are even aware of.
They lived in a state of constant readiness and paranoia, always having to anticipate the potential of the wrong person finding out what they were up to.
And that's what we would have without legalization.
No, legalization as we know it today is not perfect.
At last count, even among states WITH LEGAL ACCESS, only about half have the right to grow their own.
It's not legal if you can't grow it.
But I digress...
Sure, you can grow weed—as in the physical ability to—without legalization.
But legalization matters more to growers than many of us would like to admit.
We may not shop at the dispensary as often.
But we also don't have to take 7 backroads to leave the grow store, or come home to a grow light in a box on our front porch and fear for our freedom.
Even if you can grow your own, make your own, and supply your own, being in a legal place to do so makes your life (and doing so) easier, safer, and less stressful.
—
Which brings me to my second point, and a hotter take at that:
The hobby grower of the future won't exist without legal weed.
Legal weed is necessary for hobby growing.
For starters, most people don't have illegal hobbies.
Illegality and the moral arguments of laws aside, the risks discourage the average hobbyist.
They shrug and find something else to do like racing remote control sailboats or buying a motorcycle.
Legal hobbies have greater appeal.
And if we want more people to grow their own weed at home, it needs to have wide appeal, both in ease and risk.
But even more important than that are 2 other often ignored reasons this holds true:
#1: Legal weed removes commercial temptation.
If there is no legal weed, all weed has to come from home growers, risking their freedoms to produce it.
That means production is focused on maximizing the ROR (return on risk). Growers produce more than they need to supply the demand of the market. Supply meets demand.
If there is legal weed, non-growers have a plethora of options to satisfy their demand.
Which means that demand isn't relying solely on home/off-market growers. It has options.
Growers in legal states don't have as much risk, and they don't have as much (if any) demand to satisfy. ROR doesn't matter. They can grow what they need. Supply meets demand.
And, if you just want to smoke, you don't have to pick up growing. And you don't have to hit up your buddy that grows. You can just go down to the dispo and buy a bag on your way home from work.
This means that, if you are choosing to grow, you're doing it for personal reasons.
Right now, affordability is one of those reasons for many. But as legalization spreads, it will become cheaper to buy weed than it is to grow it, in the same way it's cheaper to buy beer than brew it yourself (it already is this way in many places).
Legalization removes all of the incentives for growing other than passion.
And that's what is at the core of the Hobby Grower:
They love this plant, and they love growing it.
Earlier this week, I was on a call with a client who just completed his second home grow; The entire crop got seeded. And he couldn't be happier.
Sure, he'd have loved to have more of his home grown to enjoy on top of his last crop (he grows outdoors in Maui, so he gets a fair amount from his plants).
But, even in spite of wayward pollen seeding his plants, he's still beaming from ear to ear, and, like I told someone else:
When he talks about plants, he talks in ALL CAPS.
“I LOVE HOME GROW. I'VE NEVER LOVED MY WEED MORE. I LOVE MY PLANTS.”
You can FEEL his passion.
THIS is the hobby grower of the future. The grower who grows for passion, for fun, for entertainment, not for profit.
#2: Legal industries make technology and innovation more accessible.
Years ago, I was working on a piece about Blumat irrigation systems and got to talking to their Colorado distributor, a longtime grow equipment supplier.
He brought up how weed growers are the reason things like solar panels and LEDs have come down so much in price.
At the time, I laughed, chalking it up to old growers' tales.
But he said, "No, hear me out."
No other agricultural crop had the margins that pot did.
Weed growers had a lot of room to invest in their craft, much more so than tomato or pepper growers.
They wanted to minimize their electric consumption (to help reduce exposure), so they bought expensive solar panels to offset use, something that non-weed growers would not have been able to afford to do.
Same with lighting tech. Growers could afford to buy higher end products for 5-10% improvements.
10% more when you're selling pounds for $3k makes more of a difference than when you're selling tomatoes for $1.
In both instances, growers increased demand for these products. As demand increased, manufacturers produced more, which lowered production costs, and eventually lowered the retail costs as well.
And the legal market, while struggling to maintain pricing and profit margins anywhere close to the legacy market, has a much larger appetite and need for new, grow-specific advances in technology and equipment.
When I started growing 4 years ago, you couldn't get a controller for a grow tent—let alone the compatible equipment—without dropping $100s or $1000s.
Now, for under $100, you can control your entire tent from your phone from anywhere in the world.
It's already happening.
As legalization spreads, the market expands horizontally, opening up more potential consumers for grow equipment, making it that much more accessible and affordable for future hobby growers.
This could happen without the legal market, but happens faster with a legal industry.
Quick Recap:
Is the legal market necessary if you grow your own? Yes:
Less risk
Less demand
Less paranoia
Less to worry about
Increased legal protection
Is legal weed necessary for hobby growing? Yes:
Legal hobbies have wider appeal
Legal access removes commercial temptations
Legal demand speeds up advances, access, and affordability