A Single Cannabis Farm Could Make the City of Oakland $2 Million per Year

[BakedAtAMileHigh]

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/LegalizationNation/archives/2010/05/26/huge-legal-cannabis-farm-study-surprises-industry-officials

Huge, Legal Cannabis Farm Study Surprises Industry, Officials

The groundbreaking study showing how the City of Oakland could make $2 million per year licensing a medical cannabis growing warehouse caught many locals by surprise this week. Even though city officials and the cannabis industry are looking toward licensing large-scale grows allowed under state law SB 420, the hard numbers appear to be the first of their kind. Economist Joanne Brion of Brion and Associates, who did the six-month, $16,000 report said she was surprised at how potent an economic force cannabis is.

“My gut instinct said that this would be a great revenue and job generator for the city,” she said. "But after running the numbers, “I went, ‘Wow, that’s really a job generator.'"

Brion’s report found that licensing a seven-acre cannabis growing facility near I-880 at the Embarcadero would create up to 371 union jobs, paying an average salary of $53,700 a year. The site could produce an average of 58 pounds of cannabis per day, and generate gross revenues of around $59 million per year. The site would grow an estimated quarter of one percent of the estimated 8.6 million pounds of cannabis cultivated annually in California.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. All right!

Let's do this!

The more I hear about legalizing marijuana, the better I like it!

[aquart]

2. Do it! Do it! Do it!

Let's empty those privatized jails!

And a special SCREW YOU to the Colombian and Mexican drug cartels.

[walldude]

3. Wow .. people are starting to get it...

Bout fucking time. Now if California can get it legalized in November, the dam will break and within a few years we'll all be legal.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

5. If we legalize in November, a lot of our budget woes will vanish.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

8. I don't object - but I don't believe that for a second

Legalize marijuana and people will get it the exact same place they always have, which will probably be an untaxed source.

[eShirl]

9. No, they will get it from a more convenient, and legal, source.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

10. Do you live anywhere near an indian reservation?

If so, ask a smoker where they buy their cigarettes.

[eShirl]

11. No, and neither do most people.

[4_TN_TITANS]

12. I don't agree with that...

By that logic, there would be illegal moonshine everywhere. You can still get the old fashioned stuff here, but you'll pay just as much as the taxed liquor. People will take the easiest, most legal method to consume something.

[Hempathy]

14. They'll buy it wherever it's the best quality for the best price.

Just like with pretty much anything else that people buy.

[BakedAtAMileHigh]

15. just like most alcohol sales are bootleg likker today, right?

:eyes:

Legalization and regulation provide greater incentives for those now-underground growers to get licensed and taxed. Will there be home growers & illegal commercial operations after legalization? Sure; just as there are homebrewers and bootleggers now.....there is just a hell of a lot fewer of them than during Prohibition.

[Spike89]

16. false assumption

I'm all for the sanity and fiscal advantages of legalizing pot. However, you can't have it both ways in the budgeting and tax revenue forecasts. Legalize it and start large-scale farming--great. However, to assume that black market prices will hold up under those conditions is absurd and unrealistic. If the state attempts to prop prices up with huge taxes and overly expensive labor, the black market returns (never leaves). In fact, because so much stigma will have been removed, underground growers will almost certainly proliferate.

Comparisons to cigarettes and alcohol aren't truly valid. Tobacco is a much more difficult crop to grow and process with a much, much lower return on the market. Alcohol (distilled) is not only difficult and dangerous to produce, the quality of moonshine in no way compares to the scotch, bourbon, gin, and other spirits produced legally. Even then, the gap between production cost and selling price is no where near what you currently see with pot.

That said, it is worth legalizing for a dozen good reasons. It will even make economic sense. However, you simply can't take current street prices and translate them onto the product after it is no longer contraband.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

19. I wouldn't assume that street prices would continue to hold.

Nor did I say that they would.

I don't know how pricing works. I would assume that there would be some sorting out while both growers and buyers figured out what the market would bear.


:shrug:

[Spike89]

20. You didn't, but the study made assumptions

Aside from the pricing, they didn't take into account the likelyhood (extremely high) that overall production would jump, nor did they factor in the competition from potentially superior pot-growing regions of the state. I have no doubt that you could grow some decent pot around Oakland, but I know there are areas that grow much better than decent stuff and have a huge base of experienced growers.

However, I really don't think this is bad, but I do think over-inflated estimates on the revenues are dangerous to the success of the experiment. If I can grow great pot in my backyard with minimal criminal risk, the government will have a huge problem selling that same pot for anywhere near current street prices. In fact, I'm guessing the real "revenue" potential of the law is actually in the potential to seriously cut back on enforcement--but if they make it too lucrative for grey-market growers, they'll have to keep the enforcement levels up, maybe even increase them.

Realistic financial expectations would still help California a lot, and blunt the inevitable counter attack when the millions and millions of dollars don't come flooding in to every city.

[Starry Messenger]

4. Union too!

I read that this week. Why oh why did I move away??

[Politicalboi]

6. I wonder if they counted

Tourism too. LOL! But I still don't know how they will implement this while the feds just watch. It took Ca 14 years since we voted for medical marijuana, and we still hear of the feds doing busts. If this does pass, and it's enacted fast, I see a need for new cannabis smoke houses popping up. :smoke:

[Beam Me Up]

7. Yeah, but if you keep it illegal, the revenues go into criminal enterprises.

Not that the government of the city of Oakland isn't one, you understand.

[Echo In Light]

13. K/R

[Uncle Joe]

17. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, BakedAtAMileHigh.

[surrealAmerican]

18. Surely a large scale growing operation ...

... would drive down prices. I think this projection is overly optimistic as to revenue generated. That doesn't mean it's not a good idea anyway, though.

[carlyhippy]

21. The next gold rush for california's economy-cannibis, go for it

I don't understand why we are not doing this all over the country, good lord, our stupidity and ingnorance is destroying our country.