Hey there, Grasscity I've been a lurker for quite some time now, and as I go through the process of looking into opening a dispensary/cafe (for edibles and non-medical products, a joint project with my wife), I have a quick couple questions that hopefully you guys can answer. First, I was wondering about growing in general...would it be possible for me to keep our growing for the dispensary privatized? As in, would it be possible for my wife and I to do all the growing ourselves without having to hire other people? It's not that we don't trust others, we just want to know if we should prepare some extra hands around to keep in stock while keeping variety at the same time. My second question is about the specific act of growing. We've never been much into gardening, and we've only had relative success when it comes to keeping house plants. We haven't royally screwed anything up, but we certainly don't know much about what cannabis needs to grow. Will we be okay doing the research on our own, or should one of us take an herbology and/or biology class? Would a formal education on plant growth and plant behavior significantly increase our crop's potential? Thanks in advance
It really depends on how many plants you want to grow. But I would do my best to take care of that work load. The less people who know about your grow, the safer your grow will be. And my opinion is to not waste the money on taking a gardening class. It can help but I would not recommend unless it was free at a community place or a garden center. To get a better understanding of growing just look at the Stickies on the different growing boards. And also use google to research on different Internet domians(don't wanna break rules by naming stuff). And also I personally use YouTube to help me out. Hope that helped you out. Edit: also if you plan to open a dispensary (didn't completely read the topic at first), you will probably have a lot of patients so you would need to keep a lot of bud on hand. If you can't keep up with the demand you may need to outsource and find other marijuana suppliers while your harvest is finishing up.
Very unlikely a couple of newbies can supply a whole dispensary, impossible I would say. The problem won't be hands but knowledge. Marijuana growing is an acquired skill. It takes years to really know what you are doing, and not years studying plant physiology but actually growing and confronting all the hurdles (powdery mildew, bugs, plant stretching, bud rot, etc., etc.) and making all the newbie mistakes that either kill your crop or give you a very low yield. As a beginner, you will be lucky if you can keep a few plants alive and thriving from start to finish.
Growing is easy. If you can follow simple guidelines, anyone can grow good marijuana. I wouldn't waste money on a class unless you are interested in pursuing a degree in some type of agriculture or other biological science. That being said, growing is work. Two people would have a hard time keeping up with large scale demand. 12 hours into a trimming session and an extra hand or two will seem invaluable.
I would think you're silly to try and grow just between the two of you to supply a complete dispensary. Being a medical patient, and i've come to know the owners of my place very well, I know it just isn't possible between two people. You can ask most growers, atleast the serious ones, that it takes a lot of time, and patience. You also realize that dispensaries are non-profit also right? I just find it a little odd that someone who has absolutely no knowledge of doing any of this, just wants to jump head first into it, while just keeping it privatized between the wife and him. It honestly sounds like you're simply going to grow for profit. Now, if you're serious about this and want to better the community of medical patients, good on you. The states have different guidelines, like colorado whom declares you MUST grow 75% of the product you sell personally, while Michigan in-house grows for dispensaries are red flags to get raided. Almost all, depend on vendors (A vendor is someone whom sells their product to the dispensary). I wouldn't recommend taking a class, I would indulge myself in some books though and get to reading. The forum stickies are an outstanding source, and the internet can guide you throughout the process. Of course growing marijuana is easy, it honestly is, but experience makes everything. From setting up grow rooms, to controlling your environment, to dealing with plant problems, the longer you've grown the more quality you'll bring to the table. I would personally get your medical card, or become a caregiver, and grow for a year or two. After that, I would consider owning a dispensary. Do either one of you have experience running books or running a business? It's just damn near impossible for this to happen between the two of you. Even for just the growing portion.
Thanks for all the great responses! From what I can tell, most people agree that we should at least get a few extra hands helping out, particularly depending on customer base. To address the concerns regarding "jumping in" to a dispensary or the "profit" aspect of this: Obviously we wouldn't just open up a dispensary with no prior knowledge. I have a medical card myself and plan on starting to grow my own medication soon. Expanding that potential with my wife as a caregiver would obviously allow us to deal with the preliminary challenges. I don't think you guys registered that I have common sense (likely because that's not a safe assumption on the internet) and thereby am not suddenly saying "OH GREAT GURUS OF GRASSCITY TELL ME ALL I NEED TO OPEN A DISPENSARY TOMORROW." This is something that would take years of preparation and planning, it's a dream for our future to give this care to others on a large-scale level. That segues into what loolzokay was asking...we are not doing this for profit at all. We are strong believers in the healing properties of this plant and want to provide that to those in need. As was mentioned before, dispensaries are non-profit. We are, believe it or not, looking to do this out of the kindness of our hearts because medical marijuana has helped me so much. Thank you for your responses, and I look forward to more discussion on the logistics of this.