Wasted Weed: Canada’s Disposal of 3.7 Million Pounds of Cannabis Since 2018 Oversupply has been a real issue for the cannabis industry.
Export or stop making so much (or discount it, or give it away).
«Industry expert and consultant Farrell Miller notes that the majority of this discarded product was destroyed for being too old and having too little THC. “There is no demand for old and low-THC products, so manufacturers of finished products are not buying this biomass as inputs,” she said. “It’s likely low-quality material with no value. “As consumers become more savvy with packaging dates on dried cannabis products, this trend will only continue.”»
They claim nobody wants it
That makes no sense. Low content strains are perfect for all sorts of concentrates.
Yeah, any trim or whack weeds could easily be repurposed for concentrates. Theres probably more to it than just “nobody wants it”
The size of the market was vastly overestimated. Every pothead wanted a slice of the business, so they all started up companies thinking there was unlimited growth potential. It was rapidly saturated and now we’re in the collapse and consolidation phase, exacerbated by the higher interest rates and inflation.
Canada’s population is similar to California, but it’s producing weed enough for a country several times its size.
Plus the black market still exists, albeit in a small scope, due to price, quality, variety, or loyalty reasons.
Whats the overall legal status of cannabis in canada?
It’s legal all across Canada at the federal level. The provinces have the ability to regulate administrative aspects such as where it can be sold, who can sell it, how much it is taxed, where it can be grown, etc.
However, unlike the USA, criminal law is the same across the whole country. There are no provincial criminal codes. So, provinces have no ability to criminalize cannabis.
This is exactly what happened in Oklahoma
It’s cheaper and probably way easier to use higher potency cannabis
What’s more value than 100% if the product is considered worthless as flower?
There’s more than enough of that to go around.
Doesn’t make economic sense to process low value plants into low value extracts.
Not everyone wants a 85% THC extract with a minimal CBD profile.
It’s still more efficient with way less energy usage, wear and tear on your machines, and residue build up, to distill high potency strains into concentrates and then dilute that down to the desired potency, rather than chew through enormous amounts of plant matter to get to the same concentrate.
So why is their hemp industry not thriving. They should be making fabrics and paper with it.
I’m fairly certain hemp isn’t made from the flower, which is the part of the plant that is sold for weed consumption.
What they are throwing away is the flower. The part they would use to make hemp is already long gone.
In addition, in order to get useful fibers, plants are sown at a density of at least several hundred seeds per square meter. They stretch to 2-3 meters tall trying to win the race to the sunlight. Stalks of plants grown in the typical indoor grow way are only good as very low grade biomass for methane digestion or as chips that might serve in hemplime or hempcrete. An insignificant market so far as these technologies are still going through the regulatory processes to be used more widely.
There are effective dual cropping systems that can yield cannabinoids from flower and get useful fiber but it is not common yet either.
I’m fairly certain that it’s the same plant with less active cannabinoids. The gender doesn’t matter. They can use all of it.
Them discarding the flower doesn’t mean they arent using the hemp part.
I would imagine they seperate those almost immediately if not the moment it’s out of the ground. If they’re using a combine to harvest it, then that probably seperates it.
They should sell it for biomass fuel. :)
This just in, huffing your cars exhaust gets you H.I.G.H.
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I think Hemp is a different species that has low amounts of thc.
Same species! The line between them is actually pretty blurry and some strains are inbetween. They’re just different general ‘types’ within the same species
Different “types” in horticulture are called variants, for future explanation reference.
Supply and demand. No one wants it for the price they’re charging.
I don’t think you understand that the bottom end of the weed market in Canada is literally $0 per giant ziplock bag of homegrown that your friend can’t possibly smoke all of.
People arent willing to pay anything for low quality weed because it literally grows on trees… 1lb per plant is a very modest yield for Southern / Eastern Ontario growing conditions and will yield ~1814g or ~5442 normal sized joints, ~15 / day, every single day of the year. And it literally takes no extra work than typical gardening until harvest season … There’s just no market for low quality weed.
They could have free weed events for tourism. I’ve been meaning to drive up there.
How about we change the title juuuuust a bit…
Since 2018 Canada Destroyed 3.7 Million Pounds of Cannabis Rather Than Let Prices Fall
That’s not really that accurate. The article explicitly says that much of the waste is caused by growers who overproduced low quality weed, when most of the market is focused on really high potency cannabis.
How does throwing away cannabis prevent prices from falling?
When demand is high and supply is low they raise prices but when supply is high and demand is low they don’t lower prices, the lower supply.
Okay but…couldn’t they just NOT grow more instead?
Economics 101: additional supply is counteracted by lower demand (meaning lower prices to compete for that demand)
Economics 102: no single company controls supply. If you don’t make it, someone else will.
Also if you want to decrease supply you can simply grow less, there’s no need to throw out perfectly good product.
It’s a weird way to frame misspeculating and overestimating demand, but whatever makes you feel better, industry.
Hey man. I’m just like… Doing my best.
You’ve been bested 😱 😜 😂
Me too, eh! Rolls another one, while singing “Oh Canada…”.
It’s probably got a lot to do with the market being relatively new. I imagine things will settle down in the coming years as producers gain real data to base demand estimates off of.
Also, I think initially some people were conflating support for legalization with actual demand. There are many people that support legalization who don’t actually use the product.
This is me :)
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🫡 🫡 🫡
fr i’m a low thc enjoyer. i’ll take a few kilos off their hands.
Lower the price???
If nobody wants it I guess I could take it off your hands. 🤷🏻♂️
Yeah, its call puff puff pass for a reason. Sharing is caring!
Weirdly phrased title. The Canadian government has no role in throwing away product or setting the price, that falls on the businesses that manufacture and sell the weed.
We’re smoking. It’s just not that weed.
Absolutely. For many reasons. Quality, price, delivery options, selection. All beaten by the original market for such items.
😂 🤣 😅
Supply exceeded demand, it happens.
Demand increases to meet supply?
Only if suppliers decide to lower prices, and only up to a certain point.
It’s puff, puff, and then pass.
to the left. eh?
Bring in the army before it’s too late. /s
They fucked everything up. I know there were big issues with major gangs making money ect… but no one seems to get that there were soooooooo many mom and pop operations making a little tax free money that went direct into the communities. They were buying quads , snowmobiles from local dealerships. Paying cash to local restaurants. There were people who couldn’t find other jobs for reasons that could trim and grow to support themselves. It was a great industry for the lower to middle class to rise up without being screwed .
Why would they be able to selfishly make money on the black market without paying any taxes though? That isn’t fair to the rest of us with legal jobs.
I’m not jealous of them. It’s cool they get to live off of weed without being jailed. But that takes away money that can be used to fund health care, hospital, schools… Which everyone needs to pay for. And don’t mention billionaires not paying any taxes. I am more pissed at billionaires obviously, but I’m just taking issue with your presentation of reality, which I think should not be idealized.
The monopoly the government has on weed here in Quebec sucks though, it means the people you mention cannot do what they’re doing legally.
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totally!
