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IGrow: Walmart of weed opens in Oakland

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout' started by madmonkey37, Jan 30, 2010.

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  1. madmonkey37

    madmonkey37 Contributing Member

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    IGrow: Walmart of weed opens in Oakland
    Matthai Kuruvila, Chronicle Staff Writer
    Thursday, January 28, 2010

    Call it the Walmart of weed.

    In a 15,000-square-foot warehouse just down the road from the Oakland Airport, an entrepreneur is opening a one-stop shop for medicinal mar1juana cultivation that's believed to be the largest in the state.

    Don't know the first thing about growing pot? The folks at iGrow have a doctor on site to get you a cannabis card and sell you all the necessary equipment for indoor, hydroponic cultivation - from pumps, nutrients and tubing to lights and fans.

    Don't know how to set it up? For a fee, on-site technicians will show you how to build it in your home and even maintain it weekly.

    "A lot of people don't know much about growing pot," said Dhar Mann, 25, the owner, who stood in front of an array of Ikea-like displays, showing different rooms of cannabis cultivation systems. "Since there are no full-service resources like us, they take risks, like electrical fires."

    This is hardly a fringe business. When iGrow opens today, at least three City Council members will attend. So will most of the leaders of the cannabis industry in Oakland, a city long at the vanguard of medicinal mar1juana.

    Today's opening also comes on a key day for proponents of a statewide ballot measure to allow recreational mar1juana. They plan to turn in about twice as many signatures as needed to qualify the measure for the November ballot.

    The supporters of that measure are being led by Richard Lee, owner of Oaksterdam University, an Oakland-based business that trains people for work in the cannabis industry.

    The medicinal mar1juana world is still unsettled. Cities from Los Angeles to Berkeley are grappling with how to permit and regulate medical mar1juana dispensaries.

    Oakland, where voters last summer agreed to have the city to tax and regulate "cannabis businesses," has allowed only four licensed dispensaries.

    Though iGrow provides all the supplies and know-how for cannabis cultivation, they don't sell the seedlings - only dispensaries can. And even some of the vendors tread a delicate line.

    Gabriel Goodhart, the owner of Easy Feed Systems based in West Oakland, was setting up one of the system displays at iGrow on Wednesday. His company has an explicit policy of not setting up any system where mar1juana is visible when they show up - or even mentioning the word "mar1juana."

    "Liability is shifting," said Goodhart, a libertarian who is a registered Republican. "A small business like ours can't take the risk."

    But, he believes, the issue is a moral one.

    "It's not fair to medical patients to put them in a gray area where they have to be involved in criminal activity to stay healthy," he said. "That's like not having health insurance."

    The cost of creating your own cultivation system or relying solely on a dispensary is vast.

    At a dispensary, a patient might spend $120 a week for a quarter-ounce of mar1juana.

    However, it might cost $1,000 to set up an eight-plant system, said Zeta Ceti, one of iGrow's "indoor growing technicians." But in the course of a year, they might only use half of their harvest and be able to sell the remaining 3 pounds for $12,000 to a dispensary.

    E-mail Matthai Kuruvila at mkuruvila@sfchronicle.com.

    http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/01/28/BA4T1BOGCV.DTL

    Heres a cnn video.
    http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/us/2010/01/29/simon.ca.superstore.of.weed.cnn&hpt=P1
     
    #1 madmonkey37, Jan 30, 2010
  2. HombreDeHierro

    HombreDeHierro Member

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    I wonder how the small-time dispensaries feel about this...
     
    #2 HombreDeHierro, Jan 30, 2010
  3. SuperBeeKay

    SuperBeeKay Member

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    Terrible idea; with that much mar1juana, theres bound to be attempted robberies every hour..
     
    #3 SuperBeeKay, Jan 30, 2010
  4. kikimama

    kikimama Member

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    I'm sure a place like this is more secure than a bank. But that doesn't stop the bank robbers.
     
    #4 kikimama, Jan 30, 2010
  5. Rip Van Rocket

    Rip Van Rocket Contributing Member

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    IGrow does not sell mar1juana, they sell supplies to help you grow your own mar1juana.
     
    #5 Rip Van Rocket, Jan 30, 2010
  6. Creepy Crawl

    Creepy Crawl Member

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    <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/muA5EBmpDhA&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/muA5EBmpDhA&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
     
    #6 Creepy Crawl, Jan 30, 2010
  7. LonghornFan

    LonghornFan Contributing Member

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    I'm getting sick of this west coast bias! WHEN CAN WE SMOKE THE CHRONIC!?
     
    #7 LonghornFan, Jan 30, 2010
  8. Chamillionaire

    Chamillionaire Member

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    where've you been? i've been smoking, come to my part of the town, just about everyone i know smokes.
     
    #8 Chamillionaire, Jan 30, 2010
  9. astros148

    astros148 Member

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    o rlly..........
     
    #9 astros148, Jan 30, 2010
  10. ghettocheeze

    ghettocheeze Member

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    Interesting, naturally one must wonder a few things.

    A) is there a limit to the amount you can grow per year for your medical use?

    B) Is there an inspection of your cultivation system every year?

    Depending on the answers to these questions, I can already imagine an enterprise / racket where card holders are paid to serve as a front to obtain all the requiste of starting your own little mar1juana factory. Imagine being able to produce legally without any hassle then exporting it out of state for large chunk of cash?

    Yeah the last part is criminal felony but still it's better than any distribution model available out there today. I'd be willing to finance such an operation, do we any have entrepreneurs from Cali here on CF?
     
    #10 ghettocheeze, Jan 30, 2010
  11. MoonDogg

    MoonDogg Member

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    Not sure about cali, but it's limited to 6 plants in colorado.

    No local inspections that I've heard of. Just the occasional itchy DEA jackass kicking in your backdoor under some false pretense. But that's usually on the bigger places. They busted in a testing lab in Denver last week, confiscated all their of samples and still refuse to release any information on why they did it.

    The paradigm I've seen is...you become a caregiver for multiple people. That allows you to grow 6 plants for each person. Cultivate..Sell...Profit. There's tons of money to be made legally, no reason to get dirty with it ;)
     
    #11 MoonDogg, Feb 1, 2010
  12. Angkor Wat

    Angkor Wat Member

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    Not from Cali but have family there. Anyways, this is something I've always wanted to do. All legally too. Maybe we can be business partners? Email me if serious. It's a big market with lots of money to be made.
     
    #12 Angkor Wat, Feb 1, 2010
  13. ItsMyFault

    ItsMyFault Contributing Member

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    Moes is eager to go back to his homeland.
     
    #13 ItsMyFault, Feb 1, 2010
  14. DaDakota

    DaDakota If you want to know, just ask!

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    What restaraunts are they going to have in there?

    ;)

    DD
     
    #14 DaDakota, Feb 1, 2010
  15. across110thstreet

    across110thstreet Contributing Member

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    more growers to buy from...
     
    #15 across110thstreet, Feb 1, 2010
  16. Surfguy

    Surfguy Contributing Member

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    I saw some news item of a guy using one floor of his home to grow and he said he was making $250,000 a year offloading it to dispensaries. Unbelievable.
     
    #16 Surfguy, Feb 1, 2010
  17. RedRowdy111

    RedRowdy111 Contributing Member

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    So let me get this right. This is legal through the state, but very illegal under the Federal gov....right? Man this Cali-weed stuff is so confusing.
     
    #17 RedRowdy111, Feb 1, 2010
  18. rocketsjudoka

    rocketsjudoka Contributing Member
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    That's the current law regarding medical mar1juana but under the Obama Admin. pursuing medical mar1juana cases isn't a priority.
     
    #18 rocketsjudoka, Feb 1, 2010
  19. RedRowdy111

    RedRowdy111 Contributing Member

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    Just so confusing. So everyone involved is still under risk of being prosecuted by the federal gov. Thats seems more risky than than state and local agents. If only Texas would....
     
    #19 RedRowdy111, Feb 1, 2010
  20. Ryan Bowen MVP

    Ryan Bowen MVP Member

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    I think Oakland has a tax on medical mar1juana now. I wonder if they're making good money from it yet.
     
    #20 Ryan Bowen MVP, Feb 1, 2010
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