re: #85 SteveMcGazi

From drugscience.org

“It is estimated that 50% of the marijuana available in the United States is imported.” Further, “There is a supply of marijuana in the United States of 21,865 metric tons annually” Do you really think local growers and hydroponics can meet that kind of demand? Going forward, I just don’t see the traffickers getting taken out of the supply chain.

1.) 22K metric tons denotes a quantity, but speaks nothing of quality.
2.) 22K metric tons isn’t all that much by agricultural standards. I’m not sure why you think it is.

However, this is a distinction without a difference. If, as we suggest below, farming yields 500+ pounds of usable dry cannabis per acre, any of these hemp-based production cost estimates suggest that legal, farmed cannabis production costs could be on the order of $1 per pound. When production costs get that low, the main driver of retail price will be things other than production costs (e.g., processing, marketing, and retailing costs).

22K tons / 500 lbs per acre = 97K acres or approx 29% of the amount of US acreage currently devoted to tobacco production. And that’s assuming the entire supply gets grown outdoors, completely ignoring all indoor grow operations.