Wasted Weed: Canada’s Disposal of 3.7 Million Pounds of Cannabis Since 2018 Oversupply has been a real issue for the cannabis industry.
Wasted Weed: Canada’s Disposal of 3.7 Million Pounds of Cannabis Since 2018 Oversupply has been a real issue for the cannabis industry.
«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.
This is exactly what happened in Oklahoma
And people from all around Oklahoma traveled there just for their low prices.
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.
My state started up sales last year and I watched the prices drop a lot over the year. It’s mostly sold in eighths and the average eighth went from $40 to $20 for high quality products
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?
Taking a write down for tax purposes versus trying to move crap product, just like any other industry.
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.
Could work out well
This was my first thought, too.
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.
Haha thanks!
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.
Then it’s time to start selling 2 ziplock bags at $1. We’re fucking late stage capitalism, companies need to realize, just because they build it, doesn’t mean they get to charge whatever the fuck they want. If they can’t compete with your friend’s shitty leftover weed, then maybe they’re in the wrong business, because even McDonald’s can sell shitty fake meat burgers for $1.
I haven’t seen a 1$ burger at McDonald’s in almost 5 years.
they claim it, but it’s just spin put on by the company. Any THC levels are usable in some fashion, even if not directly smok-able flower.
even 5% flower could be used to create potent extracts.
These are companies who bet big on production for international growth, and that never materialized. And now they’re stuck with production capabilities that aren’t profitable. Aurora Cannabis lost over $1 billion in 2022 over it’s misguided growth plans and killed itself.