I’m in search of guidance on how to enter the cannabis industry, and what steps I can take to decide where in the industry I can begin!
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What are you interested in. Don’t say money.
1/ growing
2/ extracting
3/ research
4/ retail
For instance I’m more interested in extraction and creating systems for extraction.
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You are going to have a bad time
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I can tell you how to make a small fortune in the cannabis industry!
Step one: amass a large fortune
Step two: invest that large fortune into the cannabis industry, extra points if you own and operate that business yourself
Step three: you now have a small fortune. The bonus points can be traded for your mental health!
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What are you currently good at?
Take that, apply it to a niche in cannabis.
That’s what 99% of people in the industry are doing, with the overall success rate being poor.
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Find someone you know who does one of those things listed and will let you learn from them. At this point in the game, there is tremendous background knowledge required. Unfortunately, reading all you can still doesn’t prepare you for the real thing. Find someone to let you help tend to plants, provide extra hands for extraction, or a retail site you can start at. If your location permits, grow until you have figured that part out. Find some free/cheap trim and try simple extractions. Practice is the answer to your question, regardless of how you go about it.
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I suggest you start the correct way. Aquire a lamp(1k preferably), prepare a closet, get some clones, make them survive over the next 90 days, move the flower and then make your decision.
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My son in law has aspirations. I told him to get a tent and I’d give him the rest of the equipment. If he can keep them alive and produce something I’m willing to smoke, he can come learn in the grow room and lab. I’m a horrible pot snob, so he’s got a tough row to hoe. Even family has to prove themselves in this world.
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After a good career in cannabis I would give it all up to be back in a shack in th woods growing on the hills like I did in my youth. I was the happiest then.
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While the current situation is rough, I can assure you that a PhD in a humanities discipline will be a much worse career choice. The challenge of doing what you love is it’s often something many people love and want to do, thus flooding the market. Find something people are either bad at or don’t like, say, engineering or deal with crowds
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Career in cannabis - can’t help but scoff. Career implies some kind of long term stability. If you want stability, don’t go into an industry that is still federally illegal and currently represented by an untenable patchwork of state regulations and laws. With little to no banking support. And no ability to write off business expenses for tax purposes.
Like many things, it isn’t what you know, it is who you know. Especially true in cannabis. If you can befriend a successful grower, that may open doors. Growers are at the top of the pyramid.
You can have all the knowledge, and skills, and be driven and self motivated. But if you can’t convince the world to mold to you, you won’t get to where you want to be.
When we start seeing colleges offering majors in “cannabis”, we should take it as a cue that opportunities are drying up and the industry is shifting to something that is centralized and corporatized.
Probably the best advice so far on this thread. Find a way to sell pick-axes and shovels. All this stuff is on a time line, as are many of us as well. There is definitely a beginning, middle, and end.
There will always be a place for the craft stuff, but that doesn’t refute the big corporations are digging in and they aren’t going anywhere. Coupled with increasing automation, many jobs we take for granted are going to be obsolete in 20 years. A lot of players in this game are facing hard times with cannabinoid prices bottoming out. Some feel like putting 250k investment into pivoting from CBD bulk to branding is a lot of money. They’re drops in the bucket as far as the corporations are concerned. One of my recent bosses was the high strung corporate type (non-cannabis type)- lead a project where 100 million was dropped to start production line of gluten-free cookies selling at 2.50 a unit. That is the scale we are talking here. And it will come to cannabis.
Rich and quick don’t usually go together, unless it’s selling something illegal and in high demand.
The PhD route seems tough in general. I have worked with a couple of PhDs in chemistry that had very hard times landing jobs after years of doing post-docs. Not saying this is true for every hard sciences PHD, it just that the market doesn’t seem too favorable to them. The market (in general, not just cannabis) seems way too saturated with not enough jobs to support PhDs being churned out of academia.
Find something creative. There are tons of growers, extractors, and the like out there. I am sure there are a few unemployed souls on this forum seeking work in one of the above-mentioned disciplines. Despite my cynicism, I believe there is potential to make money without ever having to touch the product. Find something that someone needs, and maybe find a way to build it. Or create a need. And fulfill it for others.
And if all else fails, you can still just enjoy the plant. Nothing wrong with that.
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@anon81723932
The PhD route seems tough in general. I have worked with a couple of PhDs in chemistry that had very hard times landing jobs after years of doing post-docs. Not saying this is true for every hard sciences PHD, it just that the market doesn’t seem too favorable to them. The market (in general, not just cannabis) seems way too saturated with not enough jobs to support PhDs being churned out of academia.
Yeah you just end up so specialized. If you get lucky and pick a subject in demand in industry you get job right out the gate, otherwise you need to remake yourself to fit the job market.
And its way worse in humanities/SocSci.
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You guys think it’s tough now wait until its federally legal. They blew it so bad up here in Canada, all the licensed produces are burning through money at millions a month and about to shut down or be bought out by venture capitalists. They are making nothing and still selling stuff in stores from early 2018. The black market went from 1800-2k a lb to 700-1000 for premium BC bud. Shatter went from 16-20 a kg to 7-9k.
Might not sound so bad but our dry ice is 2 bucks a lb and butane is 350 for 20lbs for example.
It’s a shit show lol.
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I think I’ve gotten more help from this post than I have with any other resources. I’m going to get a couple seeds and get growing. Not doing anything but learning and observing.
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Spend time with the plants. Get ahold of seeds and plant them. Go window shopping at dispensaries & hydroponics shops. Eat hemp seeds.
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Start with: The Dude Grows Show and The Grow From Your Heart podcasts. Once you get semi comfortable, add in The Cannabis Science and Cultivation Podcast, Shaping Fire, and Growcast. That’ll get your level of knowledge to somewhere around above average for a home grower.
Edit: The Grow From Your Heart podcast has an entire series of compilations that take you from: “I think i might grow cannabis”, to smoking your own cured product.
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Man I thought I was the only one. I remember trying to setup little makeshift greenhouses in my backyard out of whatever I could find lying around so I could pop some seeds early. Never had a plan for what to do with them once they are easily visible.
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As a Canadian (I am in Qc) that grow weed since the past 16 years, the weed was not 1800-2000 in 2017-2018 (before legalization), it was more 1400-1500, I don’t even remember the last times I sell my weed for 2000$, there is some craft growers in Canada that still sell their weed for 2000$+ in 2020…! Even the “AA” is more than 700$, I see some at 850-900 recently. You can easily sell your weed 1400 if it’s some good shit. The 7-9$/gram shatter is nasty trim run. I pay 14$ per gram for an HP of PHO (bud run).
In Canada, If you can do 2g per watt, you still make good money, electricity is cheap here. Almost all the mids is going to the US by the Native Reserves. At a wholesale price of 1100 for the premium weed, american buyers pay less than 850$ us, mids is going for like 600$ us a pound.
Everyone grow these days under the medical program, that is the main reason the price of the weed have drop in Canada. As for the big companies, you are 100% right, it’s a shitshow.
Edit: If you got a hookup for 700$/pound of premiun BC bud, send me a DM lol
Bro you are talking about two different markets. Everyone came here or had a plug here in BC for their green because it was the best in the country, and best in north america before they legalized in cali now its close.
Agreed the price did go down before legalization I should have been clearer, it always fluctuated but one of the main ones was when they announced legalization. The medical licenses dropped it for sure but it would up and down and had high peaks now its low af.
Its 700 mids to a 1000 trips unless you got the hookup for someone shipping it out east or have been working with the same buyers forever and have a higher price. If you got the ride it fan be gotten here cheap af.
The 7-9$ gram shatter is worse than trim run here its crc or pine resin. I cant find anyone with real gear anymore it’s crazy. We still get 14-16 a gram for our wholesale because we have always done premium market and dont drop our prices. Guys always come back after they experience the crc or pine resin. I’d buy the crc stuff that’s everywhere for cheap and resell but I created a premium market everyone relies on so cant water it down with that stuff.
Alot more money to be made if I wanted to rip people off with old ass bunk trim runs on the crc.
It looks like many here just use crc to make their fire just clear which is fine but where I am it’s because the beginning was garbage lol