March 5, 2012
The Marijuana Meeting
Lunch: Rasta Chicken and rice pilaf
Weather: Smoky, cold and overcast
S&P: 1362, soooooo high
President Pierson called the meeting to order 10 minutes early.
Dick Storre led the pledge.
Joe Mark led the invocation.
Nick Bertell introduced visiting Rotarians.
Guests (sort of):
Carlton Nielsen brought a guest
Gregg Williston brought one too
Greg Bowen brought his wife, Jenny
Russ Harris brought Chris Whitt of HAF
Mike Cunningham brought the Mosgofians
Jay Hockaday brought the manager from Hagadone Directories
Jennifer Budwig brought guests too.
Cathy Gardinier brought student guests, from Eureka High’s Avid program, Chamine Vong & Kabao Yang.
Recognitions:
Paul Brisso attempted to litigate his way out of a fine. Motion overturned, $10.
Birthdays and Anniversaries are in the book, congratulations.
Announcements:
Sally Arnot reminded the club that fireside sign ups are going on. If you don’t want to have to talk to PP Ingham, you’d better fill out the form on the table.
Mardi-Go-Braugh is this Saturday at Baywood Country Club….be there!
Students sent letters to thank the club for our Dictionary project. Bob Morse reminds us that we can get involved. County Rotary clubs gave dictionaries to every 3rd grader in the county.
POT PROGRAM:
Past President Tom Schallert introduced our speaker, Rotarian Jennifer “Bud” Budwig of Redwood Capital Bank, to speak about the marijuana industry.
Jennifer did a paper on the economic impact of legalized marijuana on Humboldt County. The paper was initially private, but due to high demand, Jennifer blazed ahead and made the findings public.
After the chronic falloff in timber and fishing, marijuana grew as an industry, buffering the county from decline.
Marijuana money affects all North Coast businesses. The likelihood of legalization continues to get higher. Taxes would go up but margins on marijuana growing will decline.
Marijuana costs roughly $400/pound to grow indoors, sells to a middleman for $2,500 and sells retail for $6,000.
There’s a chronic oversupply of ganj, and Proposition 215 provided cover for semi-legal production. A few forays into law enforcement oversight have been attempted and shut down on a federal level.
Other states are also becoming producers – 15 states have legalized marijuana on some level.
9/11 cut down on illegal importing, so much more marijuana is homegrown the past decade.
Jennifer says Humboldt grows the best herb.
FUN FACT: Redwood Capital Bank does not endorse the findings of this presentation.
Prices have come down significantly due to supply. This has a fiscal impact on the county.
Growers are resistant to legalization. Taxes? Checks? OSHA? Bummer, man.
Plants seized have generally increased over the past decade.
There are more seizures but way more sticky icky. The percentage of plants seized is much lower.
I’m sure we can hash this all out, grow business in Humboldt, and not let our economic dreams go up in smoke.
Let’s be blunt: About $1-3 billion dollars of marijuana is grown and sold from Humboldt County annually!! That’s a lot of joints.
Most local marijuana is exported.
There are a bunch of issues to work through on the way to legalization, including the federal laws which trump state law.
FUN FACT: Federally, you can get the death penalty for growing The Herb.
Jennifer was thanked, given a book of inspirational quotes, and the meeting ended 5 minutes late. Now for my glaucoma medication…..
Respectfully submitted,
John Harper
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