It's not so hard to understand.

if Marijuana is made legal for recreational use, people will grow their own. Right now, unless you have a special permit to grow the stuff, you can face some frightening amounts of jail time. But once you no longer need a permit, anyone who wants to will be able to plant some plants.

And marijuana is notoriously easy to grow. Yes, if you want the high-power stuff you might want grow-lights and CO2 tanks and a greenhouse and all that. But if you're satisfied with the low-end stuff, just grab a handfull of seeds and toss them in any roadside ditch. The way it rains out here, plants'll start popping up in no time.

What does that mean for the price of pot? Once supply outstrips demand, it means it'll be cheaper than most agricultural products. It also means the high quality stuff will have to compete with low-average quality pot, meaning the price even for the good stuff could drop to lower than the cost it would take to produce it.

As such, anyone currently making a living off of growing pot would be out of business.

And those guys would be the same guys operating the dispensaries.

I'm boycotting hempfest this year. Their "neutral" stance oon I-502 really? I thought the point of hempfest was to get this into the culture. They're giving up on DUI shit? Fucking blow me.

Eh, ain't exactly a surprise. I've know a few part-time weed dealers over the years, and there's a high greedy asshole ratio.

Also this is all somewhat academic until we get the feds to legalize marijuana. Or at least consistently deprioritize.

@3,

It's all about chipping away, one state at a time. Legalizing at the state level would be but a means to an end, not an end in itself.

The greedy asshole ratio would disappear once there's no profit in selling pot anymore.

Follow the chain with me a moment...

-With liquor in the grocery stores, a crapload of liquor board-approved real estate just opened up.

-Places that will sell pot must meat LCB Guidelines.

-502 doesn't exempt current medical grow ops, who currently operate in a gray area of the law. Any current grow-op could easily be classified as a "Homegrow" by the LCB, which are not allowed under I-502. This technicality would sabatoge a lot of Medical Grows.

-WA becomes a legal place to establish subsidiaries of the Pharma companies that have already been prepping for legal weed.

...So why shouldn't Dispensaries be worried about staying in business again? Sounds like the deck is about to be stacked against them.

@4, there will always be profit in selling pot. Only a small percentage of smokers will grow their own. Most will happily pay (a much lower price, no doubt) for the convenience of having reliably good quality pot packaged and ready to go.

@5) You say, "Any current grow-op could easily be classified as a 'Homegrow' by the LCB, which are not allowed under I-502."

But that's not true. Medical marijuana gardens would remain legal, under the state's Medical Use of Marijuana Act, as this post already explains.

@2, instead of forgoing the fun, you could join I-502's volunteers to spread the good info at Hempfest, as my email inbox keeps urging me to do....

Hello Hempfesters!
It's August and you know what that means. Hempfest is around the corner, August 17-19. We need twenty volunteers for each day. Can you help us meet our goal by signing up for a shift?
Volunteer at Hempfest and we'll make sure you have a 502 shirt, snacks, and water. Shifts are either 2 or 4 hours long and start on even hours (10am, 12pm, 2pm, 4pm, or 6pm). The Hempfest schedule is below:
Friday August 17, 12pm--8pm
Saturday August 18, 10am--8pm
Sunday August 19, 10am--8pm
We will be holding several sessions of Hempfest Volunteer Orientation to make sure everyone is ready to register voters, as well as discuss the details of I-502. Sign up for a shift and I'll send along the information about the orientation sessions.
Hempfest is heavily attended and we need a big team. Sign up now! In the comment section, mention which Hempfest shift you prefer.

Anybody interested in volunteering can call them at (206)633-2012.

It's the money.

When it's normal, you only make typical retail profits, not obscene profits.

Which is why the gangs fear legalization so.

@1:

You sort of answer your own question. For one thing, given the current price of high-grade, why would anyone settle for less powerful home-grown, even if it is relatively inexpensive to grow? Take beer or ale as an object lesson: anyone can whip out a decent batch of homebrew for an initial investment of less than $100, and wind up with a couple of cases for their trouble. But, you don't see all that many people doing it - why? Because even if it's cheap it's still time and labor intensive, and it's just so much easier to go to the grocery store and grab a six-pack off the shelf, even if it costs more than twice as much as what you could make it for at home. Same thing is going to happen with pot: people will gladly pay a premium for the simple convenience of NOT having to go through the hassle of growing their own, and for 99% of smokers, they're going to get a much better quality product in exchange.

Hell, if people around here are willing to pay double or triple the cost of a fifth of booze in exchange for the convenience of purchasing it in a grocery store, why wouldn't they do the same with weed?

You know, I've always thought the biggest obstacle to legalizing weed is pot-heads. Not people who smoke pot, most of us are fine thank you, I mean people whose whole life and identity are based around their eight foot bongs. No one wants to be seen taking the side of witless societal drop-outs. Stoner opposition may be the best thing that could happen to this initiative.

@12 Think dealer opposition might be more accurate, otherwise agreed.

@11

Homegown pot is not labor intensive. Unlike beer, it requires no special equipment. You merely take a handfull of seeds, make a small furrow in the ground with a stick, space them out a few inches apart, then cover them up with soil..

Then, wait for the rain to come.

This is not the same thing as homebrew beer is it? Your "initial investment" is the cost of one handful of seeds. Your special equipment? A twig you can snap off a tree. And the labor involved? Takes about half an hour.

@14:

And the result? Something akin to the slightly better quality weed one might have purchased in the late 1970's. Besides which you miss the point that most urban dwellers don't have yards in which to throw down those seeds, which themselves aren't exactly lying around for just anyone to pick up. Plus, there's the whole business of the neighbors complaining (and calling your ass in to the FBI/ATF/DEA), the neighborhood kids ripping you off right around harvest time, or the stray raccoon getting wasted off your effort. And growing indoors presents it's own set of challenges: space, lighting, etc. So, while I have no doubt a few people will go the grow-your-own route - just like with home brewing - the vast majority are simply going to find that it's far less of a hassle to buy from already established growers.

Does this law allow you to grow your own weed for recreational (i.e., non-medical) use if you are NOT a licensed manufacturer? if not, what is the penalty?

I would like to bring up the racial component to marijuana laws. The ONLY reason why cannabis is called marijuana in the US is because of RACISM. The word marijuana was used to demonize Mexican immigrants while demonizing a plant. The rhetoric of Yellow Journalism and Harry J. Anslinger demonized a culture while demonizing a plant that never killed anyone. Please read The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander and encourage your community leaders to do the same.

@18 for Me Want More Money You Pay Me epic fail.

Dominic, I appreciate that we disagree on this initiative, but to say we are against legalization is simply a false statement and I think you know better. I have been a legalization advocate, both professionally (NORML lobbyist 2010) and as a volunteer (Sensible WA, Hempfest) for years. I support legalization without hesitation and have worked my ass off and put my political career on the line to support it. Many people from the medical cannabis world supported the first 2 initiatives that tried to get on the ballot because they were good policy. 502 gives little benefit but a whole list of problems. If the creators of 502 cared about having the medical community on board with their initiative, they would have asked us to help craft it, which we would have been thrilled to do.
Also, although nothing in RCW 69.51A would be changed by this initiative, provisions in the initiative would change life for patients, like the taxes and DUI provisions. If these sections simply had an exemption for medical cannabis patients, you would not be seeing much opposition from the medical community. Also, we were worried about 502 making it on the ballot as-is and offered to help fix at least the DUI provision during the 2012 legislative session so there would not be opposition, but the ACLU didn't really care much about it and the fix in our Senate Bill did not pass. Argue with us on the merits Dom, but you look really bad trying to frame the opposition to 502 as being anti-legalization when most people from our organization have tried to help legalization get passed in the Legislature and through initiative. We want good legalization policy or just straight appeal of prohibition in state law. It would not be bad for the "industry", it would just cause changes. However, we don't want faux legalization that creates whole new sets of legal threats to cannabis users. It's that simple.

Ezra Eickmeyer and some "cronies"