Why I Gave Up on Cannabis for a While
Our restricted-market economy doesn’t always reward innovation… or old plants.
If it weren’t for corporate mercenaries running free in wild America, I’d probably be out in my shop extracting healing cannabinoids from hemp, a type of cannabis that doesn’t get consumers high like marijuana does. With my little bootstrapped recirculating extraction system, I could afford to sell the botanical essential oils from hemp for 30x less than the prices charged by grocery stores and major online distributors and still earn a living income. I did it until I couldn’t do it anymore.
The buds and trim contain large amounts of these powerful herbal compounds, while the fiber has been used in cotton-hemp hybrid textiles, clothing, and renewable rope. The hulled seeds offer a nourishing source of healthy fats too. Many people prefer to eat hemp concentrates in edibles, drink it in beverages, or take it as drops under the tongue because it’s healthier and faster than smoking or vaping. Whole cured hemp isn’t conducive to tea or direct addition to foods because of its strong bitter flavor. I know because I tried making hemp tea at home once and I could hardly take a full sip.
My hemp chocolate sales doubled every few days when I first launched an edible hemp brand called Aztec Gold (vitalized by Northspur), and customers regularly sent me messages asking when I would be back in stock.
I had a jar of oil that would last me for months due to the moderate amount of oil used in each package, so I drove down to my chocolatier partner’s shop in Los Angeles right away as soon as a new batch of chocolate was ready. After getting stocked up for a few days or weeks of sales, my focus was on the online marketing, shipping without melting, and customer service. But within a few months, PayPal’s arbitrary decision-making process iced me out of an income, and the e-commerce platform I used didn’t offer me any practical alternative payment methods. There was no recourse and no offer to correct the blow to my livelihood. After enough time being treated like a criminal, I gave up.
Corruption of corporate values and policy is costly. Large chunks of our government stifle innovation by halting entrepreneurship in its tracks because the corporate monopolies sponsoring political campaigns, pet projects, and offensive enforcement operations don’t want free-market business competition that could potentially take away from their profits. It’s not a libertarian or conservative argument to say these massive companies earned their dominance – that would imply that they play by the rules and work hard. These corporate monopolies and their bankers coerce elected officials, reject honor, and manipulate representative procedures outlined in the U.S. Constitution.
When I initially finished my most recent recirculating extraction system in 2018, I was able to process almost 20 pounds of material in two days in hot desert weather running on gas generator power while living in an old Outback RV. I also had 400 watts of solar power and a small wind turbine to run my laptop and phone on my $4k plot of land with its one bold Joshua tree standing tall near the perimeter. I was off the grid as they say, but luckily the flat terrain made for good 4G LTE reception to keep my internet going.
In a moderate climate with full utilities available, those 20 pounds of plant material could be processed in a day. Many hemp strains produce buds with more than 12% CBD (the most prominent cannabinoid), so loosely trimmed whole hemp flowers might contain 10% CBD. That means 908 grams of CBD can be made in one day from my basic little system. If I wanted to pay myself decently, I’d hope for $400 in profit per day of processing, which translates to $0.44 per gram of CBD. Operating costs and materials might yield a required sale price of $1, and retail expenses might double that to $2 per gram. A single gram of CBD mixed with coconut oil sells for $60 retail from CBDistillery, a well-known online brand. That means major retailers sell powerful healing cannabinoids for 30x higher prices than what it costs to make them.
Analytical test results showed that my extract was completely free of solvent contamination. Unlike the clear or golden ultra-refined concentrates out there, it also contained beneficial omega-3 fatty acids that help the cannabinoids absorb more effectively into the body, which made it a perfect ingredient for chocolate truffles since their crème blends well with the hemp oil when warmed.
If I were to build another system from scratch at cost, it would probably cost $28,000 or less. Processing regularly for four days a week (with five vacation and maintenance weeks throughout the year) and earning $0.44 per gram would create a 268% annual return on investment.
Although it sounds like a no-brainer to pursue that, it turns that out life is more complicated. When I tried to start a hemp cannabis company, I didn’t feel like I was conducting business in a free market economy. What would you do?
Photo by Matteo Paganelli on Unsplash.