Commercial Growers vs. Home Growers

[OldManGrower]

I am writing this as a comment to Nebula Haze's Article on the Growers Conference she attended.

The Weed Goddess and Seer explained that many commercial grow companies actively lobby against home growers and have managed to have anti home grow legislation codified. This makes complete sense from a business as well as a state revenue perspective. Of course it all revolves around money, the mothers milk of politics. Politicians want to maximize tax revenues from commercial weed growing, processing and sales. Home growers are not taxed and can undermine state revenues. This of course makes the banning home grown become low hanging fruit for the lobbyists and politicians.

It is almost impossible to lobby in favor of home growing without breaking individual privacy and security. It is also very difficult to organize growers to form a lobby due to legal issues. We are politically vulnerable and an easy target. What is needed to counteract this is a representative association of home growers to advocate for us. Again, how do you organize and pay for this? The only way I foresee this occurring is if enough home growers contribute to an anonymous fund to hire a lobbying concern, something I don't believe will ever happen.

Perhaps, a license (tax) on home growers may help to open the doors and undermine the effort to marginalize us by eliminating the tax issue.

Home Growers Unite! Storm the ramparts of political repression and smoke out our detractors.

[NTXauto]

Home growing has been legalized hand-in-hand with the establishment of commercial (taxed!!) enterprises in mind, in the states that have done so up to this point. The kind of laws home growers want are similar to 'constitutional' concealed carry laws: freeing the people without interference from the state, IMO. I would say that we will never see that, but then a few years ago I never thought that constitutional concealed carry laws had a chance, either.

[changeofpace2014]

All the more reason to Secure a Good Genetic Pool of seeds before they start trying to limit access... I wonder how many P.G or so called use this site for information...

[Gracey]

Late to the show but had to say that my first thought was home growers aren't going to put commercial growers out of business any more than home cooks are going to put restaurants out of business.
But OldMan you're right it's an uphill battle getting illegal growers to speak out which makes that legislation low hanging fruit.

[Satyaban]

Where recreational use is allowed the personal possession laws should be no different than alcoholic beverages. It is legal to brew so much beer, make so much wine, and so on. It is legal to make corn licker, but only so much. So it should be for our plant. The only opinion I can offer is that of someone who doesn't have a greenhouse or intends to grow much more than we can consume and store for when I am too decrepit to get to the cellar.

[Rik]

I pay my state government a decent chunk of money each year in the form of fees, one for my medical card and another for my cultivator’s license. I think it’s probably on par with the amount of tax revenue that would be generated from whatever I would buy from the dispos if I wasn’t growing at home. I guess it’s different in recreational states (?) but in medical states there’s no reason that home growers should have to be a losing proposition for the state from a financial perspective.

[3Berries]

That's how Illinois is. Pay the Dr, Pay the State for a license for a yearly or 3 year one, if you have the medical card . Otherwise it's illegal for home grow.

[Ckbrew]

A license or tax on home growers is a bad idea. Just leave us alone. I would imagine that most people would give a big FU to that idea. The thing is, if those requirements were in place, and people gave it the finger and said no, there would be one more excuse backed by LEO to shut you down for noncompliance. Don't give government ANY excuse to interfere in what you do at your own home.

[Satyaban]

What stinks is their banning of a plant, a weed, that grows on its own.