The ability to grow your own agricultural products is in our DNA and is one of the foundations of more civilizations. This even extends into making beer, wine and spirits in the form of home and microbreweries. Along with our vegetables and fruits we want to grow cannabis.
Washington State legalized cannabis for recreational use in 2012, but never introduced homegrown cannabis as a part of that system. Most other states that legalized have also approved home grows especially the big ones like California (6 plants), Colorado (6 total, 3 flowering) and Oregon (4 plants). What gives?
The state claims an negative economic impact worth millions would occur but the research shows those other states that have Recreational Cannabis and homegrown have a ten percent greater overall market growth. This is also precisely the case with the beer and microbrewery model: they complement each other.
Medical patients are able to cultivate up to 15 plants at home but still pay the 37 percent excise tax on all legal products. There is no patent-to-patent sales allowed or gifted products in Washington. So in a sense there are medical home grows that have been around for decades and don’t affect the tax collection in the 502 system.
The state claims there would be a stagnation of cultivars as recreational homegrown would only grow specific varieties especially if the grow was to scale. This is totally backwards as most homegrown is small scale and extremely diverse especially when using seeds, and this will lead to a broader breeding pool.
As someone who produces seeds specifically for the PNW it would be amazing to distribute them in my home state to see their full potential. This would also lead to further development of the seed lines and diversity within them. Also having clones available would ease a great burden for medical patients as we currently can’t find any.
Many products will remain exclusive in the recreational marketplace especially those that need to be manufactured like oils, concentrates and edibles and most consumers enjoy these items enough to purchase them in the 502 stores with tax. Homegrown cannabis will be mostly flower and probably grown outdoors which is very different than the indoor flowers produced by the recreational cannabis growers.
The production of specialty medical products like transdermal patches and minor cannabinoid oils and edibles will remain in the recreational market because of the manufacturing process involved that is close to impossible as a small-scale hobby home grow. We are still going to be taxed and seek out the 502 for the array of manufacturers who are engaged in the legal market.
There is a untold upside to home cultivation in the sense that people are being growers and developing skills that are valuable for many other fields of work. Lots of agricultural jobs in Washington State utilize the same techniques and practices that a home grower would develop. It’s a free education and research and development for the professional world.
Overall, the fear of a homegrown bill is what keeps it off of the books because from just about every other angle it makes good sense and supports the growth of the cannabis industry as a whole. Now it’s necessary to lobby and educate those in power the positive aspects of cannabis growing at home in the garden
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