Now cannabis wants you to pay for them not to grow

As California struggles through the third year of a drought, drastic measures are being considering including a proposal to pay farmers to cut production of water-intensive crops such as rice, alfalfa and nuts.   The Cannabis industry wants their own water-intensive product added to this list!

For the last year or so, cannabis growers have experience significant reduction in wholesale prices -- caused pretty much entirely by an oversupply of product from legal and illegal grows and new states legalizing.  Market dynamics are now forcing the growers to cut production -- a reality check on the optimistic and often unrealistic business plans that drove the widespread expansion of planting over the last few years. Normally, this would just be called a business lesson.

But instead, the industry wants the taxpayers to pay them not to grow, under the guise of "saving water".  An April 25^th MjBiz article “California drought plan could exclude cannabis as growers prepare for dry summer” discusses California’s proposal from the industry point of view. While there are voices on both sides of the debates even within the industry -- including growers advocating for inclusion and other growers who fear this will shine an unfavorable light on their industry -- it is the blatant hypocrisy that really rankles. When it suits the argument, grower will paint themselves as the most water efficient growers out there and content that we should be pulling up other crops to plant cannabis. In fact, for the last decade they've been fighting to be allowed to grow on every farm, slope and hill.

But suddenly, when prices for their product are low, they're the water conscious farmers who should be paid to go fallow. Perhaps the county could start by just not renewing their licenses?