Cannabis growers sell directly to consumers

Should cannabis be sold directly to consumers at farmers markets?

You’re sure to find a farmers’ market in almost every major city in the United States.

Growing in popularity, farmers markets are growing like weeds in cities across the country. They are recognized as the preferred way to shop for fresh local produce, with many seasonal fruits and vegetables on display. They benefit both the farmer and the consumer as they eliminate the middleman (supermarkets), allow producers to make a better profit and encourage consumers to support local farm workers.

So old veggies aside, it only makes sense that adult consumers can also buy their marijuana at farmers markets, right?

At the moment this is not the case.

And marijuana farmers have suffered, which is why it’s important to address this issue.

Last Tuesday, the California Convention Committee on Business and Professions approved new legislation that would allow consumers to buy cannabis directly from farmers at markets. It would be a good move that would greatly benefit growers financially, as they have encountered serious financial problems for the first time since cannabis was legalized in the Golden State in 2018.

On April 15th of this year, wholesale prices fell by over 55% to $488 per pound, based on data from Cannabis Benchmarks, reports The Sacramento Bee. This is due to the ongoing cannabis glut.

While promising, the legislation still needs to go through many approvals and then await the governor’s green light before it is finalized. However, this step has made many farmers happy. It would allow cannabis farmers to sell their ganja at 8 farmers’ markets annually.

“This is an important first step that will improve our cash flow by being able to sell directly to farmers markets,” said Kristen Callahan, owner of Magic Meadow Farms in Lake County. Callahan and others agree that allowing them to get paid for fees typically paid to pharmacies and other middlemen would be a great way to improve finances. Direct selling could also boost cannabis tourism in California, although that’s a different story altogether.

As expected, there is some backlash from pharmacy owners concerned about the competition.

Loophole, problems caused by gluten

Even if recreational cannabis is legal in your state, it’s still illegal for cannabis growers to make pop-ups the way they do produce.

This is a major loophole in the law that robs even more money from the people who grow the weed. Why can’t we shake hands with the person who grew our weed and ask questions about how they grew it like we can with tomatoes and kale?

Besides, how else are farmers supposed to sell the excess cannabis resulting from the existing tide?

California, again as an example, saw counties’ tax revenues from legal cannabis fall in 2021 due to excessive overproduction without having enough legal retail outlets to sell it to. Add to this the huge taxes imposed on legal farmers who struggle to compete with the low prices on the black market, where traders can sell flowers for just half the price you see in legal pharmacies.

Because of this, some farmers have no choice but to sell on the black market when they need to make a profit.

Over a million pounds of cannabis enters the legal market in California annually, but last year growers had no choice but to let it rot. Imagine this, the most important medicinal plant in the United States – left to rot by the people who grow it because they have no other way to sell it.

According to a Washington State University study that analyzed a sample of 88 farmers’ markets, they generated over $30 million in sales, and all of this goes directly to the farmers themselves without having to pay fees to a middleman.

What went wrong?

That’s the kind of money that cannabis growers across the country can and should enjoy. It’s bad enough that this year and last year have been tough for the industry given the economic woes from the pandemic; there was also a lot of black market competition, supply chain disruptions, labor shortages, inflation and high taxes on top of the oversupply. Both large and small growers are feeling the pressure in the United States.

According to an article by KCRW, this was not what was envisioned when Proposition 64 was legalized, resulting in the country’s largest legal cannabis market. “If you go back and look at what Prop. 64 proponents said was going to happen and you look at their policy proposals, they clearly overpromised, they clearly chose to put best business practices and fundamentals in those Not delivering on promises,” said Dr. Keith Taylor, a UC Davis professor who studies Prop. 64.

He believes small cannabis companies will struggle for the next two years unless there are government reforms to work on immediately. “The clock is ticking,” he says. “I’m not saying this to exaggerate. It absolutely is.”

While consumers who normally shop in pharmacies are currently enjoying the reduced prices, farmers are really feeling it. It’s time for state legislators to take this issue seriously; It has become clear that one solution is to allow cannabis growers to sell directly to consumers at the farmer’s market. We just need the laws.

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