Wasted Weed: Canada’s Disposal of 3.7 Million Pounds of Cannabis Since 2018 Oversupply has been a real issue for the cannabis industry.

  • sighofannoyance@lemmy.worldOP
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    90
    ·
    10 months ago

    «Industry expert and consultant Farrell Miller notes that the majority of this discarded product was destroyed for being too old and having too little THC. “There is no demand for old and low-THC products, so manufacturers of finished products are not buying this biomass as inputs,” she said. “It’s likely low-quality material with no value. “As consumers become more savvy with packaging dates on dried cannabis products, this trend will only continue.”»

    They claim nobody wants it

    • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      67
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      10 months ago

      That makes no sense. Low content strains are perfect for all sorts of concentrates.

      • CaptainSpaceman@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        41
        ·
        10 months ago

        Yeah, any trim or whack weeds could easily be repurposed for concentrates. Theres probably more to it than just “nobody wants it”

        • Troy@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          44
          ·
          10 months ago

          The size of the market was vastly overestimated. Every pothead wanted a slice of the business, so they all started up companies thinking there was unlimited growth potential. It was rapidly saturated and now we’re in the collapse and consolidation phase, exacerbated by the higher interest rates and inflation.

          Canada’s population is similar to California, but it’s producing weed enough for a country several times its size.

          Plus the black market still exists, albeit in a small scope, due to price, quality, variety, or loyalty reasons.

            • sailingbythelee@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              15
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              10 months ago

              It’s legal all across Canada at the federal level. The provinces have the ability to regulate administrative aspects such as where it can be sold, who can sell it, how much it is taxed, where it can be grown, etc.

              However, unlike the USA, criminal law is the same across the whole country. There are no provincial criminal codes. So, provinces have no ability to criminalize cannabis.

          • RaoulDook@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            10 months ago

            My state started up sales last year and I watched the prices drop a lot over the year. It’s mostly sold in eighths and the average eighth went from $40 to $20 for high quality products

      • Nomecks@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        11
        ·
        edit-2
        10 months ago

        It’s cheaper and probably way easier to use higher potency cannabis

          • Nomecks@lemmy.ca
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            10 months ago

            Taking a write down for tax purposes versus trying to move crap product, just like any other industry.

      • deegeese@sopuli.xyz
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        10 months ago

        There’s more than enough of that to go around.

        Doesn’t make economic sense to process low value plants into low value extracts.

          • masterspace@lemmy.ca
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            6
            ·
            10 months ago

            It’s still more efficient with way less energy usage, wear and tear on your machines, and residue build up, to distill high potency strains into concentrates and then dilute that down to the desired potency, rather than chew through enormous amounts of plant matter to get to the same concentrate.

    • mx_smith@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      33
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      10 months ago

      So why is their hemp industry not thriving. They should be making fabrics and paper with it.

      • Coreidan@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        25
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        10 months ago

        I’m fairly certain hemp isn’t made from the flower, which is the part of the plant that is sold for weed consumption.

        What they are throwing away is the flower. The part they would use to make hemp is already long gone.

        • meyotch@slrpnk.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          10 months ago

          In addition, in order to get useful fibers, plants are sown at a density of at least several hundred seeds per square meter. They stretch to 2-3 meters tall trying to win the race to the sunlight. Stalks of plants grown in the typical indoor grow way are only good as very low grade biomass for methane digestion or as chips that might serve in hemplime or hempcrete. An insignificant market so far as these technologies are still going through the regulatory processes to be used more widely.

          There are effective dual cropping systems that can yield cannabinoids from flower and get useful fiber but it is not common yet either.

        • mx_smith@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          6
          ·
          10 months ago

          I’m fairly certain that it’s the same plant with less active cannabinoids. The gender doesn’t matter. They can use all of it.

          • QuinceDaPence@kbin.social
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            10 months ago

            Them discarding the flower doesn’t mean they arent using the hemp part.

            I would imagine they seperate those almost immediately if not the moment it’s out of the ground. If they’re using a combine to harvest it, then that probably seperates it.

      • masterspace@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        edit-2
        10 months ago

        I don’t think you understand that the bottom end of the weed market in Canada is literally $0 per giant ziplock bag of homegrown that your friend can’t possibly smoke all of.

        People arent willing to pay anything for low quality weed because it literally grows on trees… 1lb per plant is a very modest yield for Southern / Eastern Ontario growing conditions and will yield ~1814g or ~5442 normal sized joints, ~15 / day, every single day of the year. And it literally takes no extra work than typical gardening until harvest season … There’s just no market for low quality weed.

        • Cheers@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          arrow-down
          4
          ·
          10 months ago

          Then it’s time to start selling 2 ziplock bags at $1. We’re fucking late stage capitalism, companies need to realize, just because they build it, doesn’t mean they get to charge whatever the fuck they want. If they can’t compete with your friend’s shitty leftover weed, then maybe they’re in the wrong business, because even McDonald’s can sell shitty fake meat burgers for $1.

    • Sprawlie@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      10 months ago

      they claim it, but it’s just spin put on by the company. Any THC levels are usable in some fashion, even if not directly smok-able flower.

      even 5% flower could be used to create potent extracts.

      These are companies who bet big on production for international growth, and that never materialized. And now they’re stuck with production capabilities that aren’t profitable. Aurora Cannabis lost over $1 billion in 2022 over it’s misguided growth plans and killed itself.