I’ve been growing cannabis in small batch home grows for around 12 years at this point. I’ve also worked at seven commercial grows in the Denver and Boulder Colorado areas. The night and day difference between the two is startling.
Commercial Grows
Not all, but I would put the estimate of commercial grows that essentially grow toxic product as high as 95% of them. How can I be so sure? Well it’s not just about the first hand experience I have with the seven commercial grows that I worked at (for those initiated in statistics, this sample size is probably sufficient to extrapolate out to a population of grows in Colorado to illustrate an accurate picture of the current grow environment in the state). It’s largely about understanding the economics of the commercial cannabis industry in the United States, as well as the regulatory agencies extracted from the commercial agriculture of cannabis in this country.
Regardless of the sources I check twice a week, which include mjbizdaily.com, ganjapreneur.com, and marijuanamoment.net all signs point in the same direction, the US government has failed the cannabis entrepreneur and cannabis consumer egregiously. There is a myriad of reasons for this, but for the sake of brevity it’s two main reasons, over taxation and regulation and in Colorado’s case they have also allowed for too many retail locations in the municipalities that have opted into cannabis commerce, allowing for too much competition and not enough margin (a similar problem in Oregon would be allowing for too many commercial grows). These two elements cause commercial grows to cut every possible corner just to have a snowball’s chance in hell of being profitable. The government still gets all their tax revenue of course.
Secondly without FDA or USDA oversight due to federal illegality states are pretty much free to do what they want concerning toxic pesticides and grow techniques. Each state is supposed to implement their own respective regulatory agencies to oversee the commercial grows in the those respective states. I have personal experience filing a full report with the MED (CO’s regulatory agency for cannabis aka the marijuana enforcement division) and when I did report a toxic grow, nothing was done (I will be dedicating an entire blog post to that specific grow.)
I cannot speak to the other states’ regulatory agencies personally, but I’ve smoked commercial cannabis in 18 recreational legal states now and I can tell you as a grower the processes that are implemented are not kosher. I like to use the fast food example. If you eat fast food twice a week you probably feel fine eating it, although you are probably doing long term debilitating things to your body. If you eat a clean plant based diet, devoid of preservatives and processed foods all year and you try to eat a double quarter pounder with cheese, there is a good chance that you’ll feel pretty sick after eating it.
When I first moved to Colorado in 2016 I smoked some horrible “Walmart weed” (mass manufactured crap) from The Green Solution and I had a very adverse reaction to it. Basically I almost had a panic attack, not something I’ve ever experienced with cannabis. Since I had only been smoking my own home grown craft organic cannabis medicine for the past five years it makes sense that smoking mass produced PGR and pesticide laced flower would cause me to have such a reaction.
Home Grown and my Non-Profit Third day co-op
As I mentioned earlier I have been growing in small batch grows for 12 years. For five years I ran the Denver non profit Third day co-op and my intention since I wasn’t selling the weed was one thing and one thing only, grow the best possible cannabis for my patients.
Growing the best possible cannabis means taking your time, putting in the work and operating everyday as if there is purpose to what you are doing, as opposed to commercial grows where 100% of the activities from breeding to growing to processing are geared to get products heavier and quicker to shelves.
Some specifics. I NEVER used pesticides that were not truly organic in my grow. I would start by bombing the area I was going to grow in and letting those toxins dissipate before I ever planted a single seed. I would then use preventative methods to kills pests naturally, implementing diatomaceous earth (ground sea shells). After implementing these two methods it was very hard to get pests, but once I did get spider mites, which I killed using simple rosemary and peppermint oil diluted in water. These are natural oils that are safe to smoke and kill spider mites not through toxins but simply drowning them in the water droplets created from the oils.
In creating proper airflow I never had mold outside of my very first harvest. And all of that moldy product was thrown away, obviously.
Commercial Grow Methods I Experienced First Hand
As I mentioned before every process in a commercial grow typically is implemented to get products heavier and quicker to shelves and they cut corners in order to do it. Lets start with the fact that synthetic plant growth regulators are used in 95% of commercial grows, find more information about PGRs in my previous blog post, but long story short they are toxic.
Also 7/7 commercial grows that I work at would implement zero-tol. An anti-pathogen agent. Well all you have to do is accidentally take a whiff of a bottle of this stuff and your knees will buckle. The producers of this product claim that it is safe, I disagree. Also, don’t even get me started on the fact that again all 7/7 commercial grows that I worked at implemented what looked like hazmat suits just to spray the plants.
Fast forward to post production where I saw mold at almost every grow I worked at. The solution most grows used? Was it throw out the product? No, lets instead do a (I shit you not) peroxide laced bath where peroxide was mixed with water and we “dipped” the plants that were moldy in this bath to kill the mold spores. For the plants that still failed testing, we would then turn that flower into concentrates, specifically isolate. So if you smoke vape pens just know there is probably a 90% chance that not only are your cannabinoids concentrated but so are the toxins you’re putting in your body.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, as I could write for days about the things that I saw implemented in commercial grows that will essentially harm consumers. Well there is an easy inexpensive solution to this, yes you guessed it, grow your own. Click here to schedule a consultation with me and begin your journey to clean medicine. One love.
Related Articles:
Why You Should Grow Your Own Cannabis Your Health
Multi-State Operators and How They are Destroying the Market
My Experiences Interviewing at Dispensaries
The Colorado Cannabis Scene Vs. Illinois
My Experiences as a Consumer and Applicant in the Cannabis Retail Space
Cannabis History & Culture Hub
