Pubdate: Sun, 28 Apr 2013
Source: Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)
Copyright: 2013 Scripps Howard News Service
Contact: http://web.commercialappeal.com/newgo/forms/letters.htm
Website: http://www.commercialappeal.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/95
Author: Dale McFeatters
Note: Dale McFeatters writes for Scripps Howard News Service
Page: 5V

MARIJUANA IS NEW HOPE FOR AGRICULTURE

The legal and quasi-legal growing of marijuana is big business, and 
don't just take my word for it. The Wall Street Journal said so on 
the front page of its weekend edition in a prominent place right 
below its play story on the Boston manhunt.

"The Pot Business Suffers Growing Pains," says the headline, a cry 
for capital - seed capital, so to speak - for startup businesses that 
are a lot better bet, and a lot more fun, than packaging toxic 
mortgages for sale to municipal pension funds.

The Journal introduces us to pot farmer Elliott Klug, and if any 
member of Congress praised him in the Congressional Record as a job 
creator, I missed it. He employs 70 people to raise marijuana for 
sale to people who have a prescription for it.

Eighteen states and the District of Columbia allow the production and 
use of marijuana for medicinal purposes, of which there are 
surprisingly many. Who knew that a couple of joints were a universal 
specific for existential angst?

Two of those states, Washington and Colorado, allow marijuana for 
what is euphemistically called "recreational use," meaning "getting 
stoned." Clearly, marijuana is on its way to becoming a mainstream 
business, but, as always, government lethargy and red tape are 
hindering its growth.

Marijuana cultivation is surprisingly labor-intensive, and as the 
prices inevitably come down - in Denver, for example, from $3,900 a 
pound in 2011 to $2,000 this year - so, too, will wages, only around 
$10 an hour plus, I guess, whatever you can smoke. And the working 
conditions are brutal: Klug's plants listen nonstop to the Grateful Dead.

But nowhere in the compromise immigration bill do we see an exception 
for skilled Mexican marijuana workers, who have been growing most of 
our weed for years. In addition to providing much-needed work and 
decreasing the need for Mexican pot dealers to shoot each other, it 
will improve our current accounts deficit.

The entry costs to commercial marijuana cultivation are high. Klug 
estimated that he invested $3 million before the business became 
profitable and the operating costs are high - a $14,000 monthly light 
bill since plants are grown indoors.

Farm-state lawmakers, fighting for corn and soybean subsidies, become 
lachrymose when talking about the "small family farm," even though 
such a thing no longer exists. The pot cultivators really do operate 
small family farms (mainly because it lessens the chances someone will snitch).

Certainly it's time to think about including marijuana farmers in the 
farm bill so they can get cheap crop insurance that pays for 
accidental losses - say, if your basement flooded - and pays if there 
are unfortunate fluctuations in price. Speaking of which, pot futures 
should be a part of any well-run commodities market.

Including marijuana in the food stamp program - a major part of the 
farm bill - might be counterproductive. Food stamps are intended to 
combat hunger, whereas marijuana is known to induce severe attacks of 
the munchies.

The Journal estimates that there are now 2,000 to 4,000 legal 
marijuana businesses, with annual sales of $1.2 billion to $3 billion.

The growers have a trade organization, the National Cannabis Industry 
Association, based in Washington. Their website doesn't give a street 
address, but we like to think it's high above Pennsylvania Avenue.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom