Brian Lee
Most will already be aware of the incredible story of the emerging cannabis industry in Canada. Companies a few years old are worth billions thanks to their stock market popularity. As they reinvest this capital to expand cultivation facilities, they are also headhunting top scientists and quality control experts from the pharmaceutical and agricultural industries. With greenhouse capacity measuring in the millions of square feet, the economies of scale alone ensure that black market enterprises will find it challenging to compete.
Organized crime nabs much of the media attention for cultivating marijuana but around here, the industry has long provided a welcome buffer for locals during cyclical downturns in forestry, fishing and construction. You might not know it but many of your acquaintances have been growing marijuana for years. The stereotype of the lazy dope grower has been an effective cloak for the clean-cut dad who runs a mortgage helper in his shop or the soccer mom who returns home with a pocketful of cash after a weekend of trimming.
I’m fascinated by what I’ve seen is a very loose bond of secrecy among those involved in the culture of using and making a profit off the plant. Its "need to know" ethos means you are either privy to this marijuana kinship or you are not. Local growers started developing unspoken alliances since before the 1980s when marijuana pioneers were still growing in the bush.
In the 1990s, with a hungry market south of the border, outdoor marijuana sold for over US$4,000 a pound. I recall hearing that the wholesale price went up $1,000 per pound for each state it moved south. Around here, you could find work shuttling heavy bags of Sunshine mix into remote clearcuts for US$20 an hour. Then, in the fall, people made the same for trimming whatever the thieves and cops didn’t find. As the market changed and growers moved indoors, everybody started doing it, resulting in oversupply. A January 2018 StatsCan report estimated the price for cannabis has dropped 1.7% per year since 1990.
In recent times, growers have found medical licensees to front their operations. A 2004 report by the Fraser Institute estimated there were approximately 156 illegal grow-ops on the Sunshine Coast in 2000. If that figure seems low, consider what it must be now with the advent of medical licensing and the grey market of dispensaries.
The media likes to focus on the coming windfall of legalized cannabis but this new market isn’t materializing out of thin air, it’s replacing an existing economy whose contribution to our community shouldn’t be ignored. Last month’s StatsCan report estimated that nearly five million Canadians spent an average of $1,200 on marijuana last year. If our area aligned with national averages, that estimate means 350 people in Area A contributed $425,000 in cash to the local economy in 2017. And that figure pales compared to the returns from locally grown product that is exported off-Coast.
The predicted chaos of legalization will ensure the black market continues to thrive for a while but, inevitably, it will take a hit. And when it does, so might we all.
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