Now that Obama has caused the price of pot to skyrocket, we can fire up the 1000 watt lights again.

[Webster Green]

Lots of folks have been letting their lights sit idle, as it's been difficult to justify the cost of running them.

Now that Obama's war on pot has raised the price on the black market, we can get the grow rooms up and running again.

Thanks Obama! I'm looking forward to making a killing. Just like the good old days. Oh boy!

[htuttle]

1. Re-invest in LED panels

Low power, no heat. Can't be beat (or so easily spotted).

Not cheap at the outset, though.

[GaltFreeDiet]

2. look into the "joule thief" as well

I've been playing around with it, definitely works.

[joshcryer]

26. Otherwise known as an inductor.

[Throckmorton]

36. The circuit is very similar to a Flash Charger in a disposable camera, sans capacitor and flash coil

Not really magic by a long stretch.

[Webster Green]

3. Totally!

The post was kind of tongue in cheek. LEDs are the way to go, but I haven't seen any that I'm really thrilled with, so we're building our own. It's hard to keep up with the LED technology, as it gets better every day. Every time we think we've found something really sweet, something better comes along.

[tridim]

4. Nothing beats ceramic metal halide for quality final product.

I used one for years for my personal medicinal grow when I was legal.

Works with a standard HPS ballast and grows rock-hard buds the size of two liter bottles. It's amazing how many growers don't know about CMH.

I've only seen one grow with the LEDs and it was awful, but that could have just been due to the grower. I hated viewing his garden because of the crazy colors. CMH is nice because the light is white, like pure sunlight.

[REP]

8. I know about CMH ... but I grow orchids. Really.

LEDs do work, but you need to have red and blue LEDs, not just white. I'm sure this is true for other flowering plants ...

[Buddyblazon]

5. LED's are the future...

but they're a long way from showing any type of generous yields. Not bad for side lighting. But nothing (at least indoors...as the sun is the best lightbulb you can use) beats a High Pressure Sodium bulb.

The current LED hoods are OUTRAGEOUSLY priced (many closing in on $1000) and the yields are disappointing to say the least.

And yes...thank you Obama.

[RZM]

6. I hope you aren't one of those growers

Who opposes legalization because it would cut into your profits.

Because those people do exist. I doubt you are, but just saying

[Webster Green]

15. I've been an activist for legalization since 1966

Even when I was growing fairly big-time in Humboldt, much to the dismay of some of my grower friends.

[joshcryer]

27. I knew a guy. Made $30k sitting on his ass.

[JackRiddler]

30. I believe it's irony.

[Riftaxe]

7. Considering the horrific violence inspired by those to lazy to invest in grow lights

This of all things regarding civil liberties you choose to take to heart?

Folks grow your own or grow up, i not care much.

[Warren DeMontague]

9. not to mention the horrific violence inspired by those too lazy to use the word "too" properly.

Seriously, the people who need to "grow up" are the ones still apologizing for the moronic $60 Billion Dollar A Year war on a relatively benign psychoactive plant. This is a MAJOR decades-long transgression against civil liberties that started the clear-cutting of the bill of rights which has continued through the so-called "War on Terror".

Ever wonder what happened to that thing.... what was it called, the 4th Amendment?

Thank the fucking Drug War.

So stop playing "responsible adult" morally cluck-clucking and tut-tutting at the silly juvenile potheads. I'm an old grayhair, haven't personally smoked pot in about a decade, and yet I'm sick and fucking tired of seeing my tax dollars spent on dragging chemo grannies off to prison and hassling Willie Nelson for something that should be legal, regulated, and taxed.

Fucking ENOUGH, already.

[xchrom]

12. +1

[RainDog]

22. +10000

this is also a person who thinks wealthy people are buying Mexican brick weed...iow, has no clue.

[Riftaxe]

49. So...You do not believe the violence in Central

and Southern American Countries are funded by Moronic Americans to lazy to buy a friggin' pot, soil and a grow light?

Hey, i don't give a darn if you want to free base arsenic, it's your body.

But pretending the violence does not exist is the height if immaturity by itself.

Sure they can turn a blind eye like yourself, it's not like real people are being slaughtered so a few self absorbed twits can get a buzz.

[Warren DeMontague]

50. No, actually, I don't believe very many Americans -even the morons- are smoking shitty mex weed.

I think it's possible that undocumented Mexicans in the US are smoking some of that shitty mex weed, but even those numbers are probably going down too.

The drug violence in Central America is almost entirely driven by cocaine. Oh, I know, "Drugz is Drugz is Drugz, at least that's what they told me in DARE class"... except, they're not. To suggest that a hippie at a Widespread Panic show is somehow contributing to central american violence by smoking buds from Mendocino or Humboldt county, is just asinine--- but it reflects the increasing desperation with which some are struggling to scrape together any sort of rational narrative for an obviously unjust, idiotic policy, i.e. the drug war.

And what is "driving the violence", at the core, is the exact same thing that produced Al Capone and tommygun-wielding gangsters in the 1920s.

Prohibition, pure and simple.

[Riftaxe]

51. Nice try on trying to shift the blame

As for the rest, trying picking up a newspaper, which is more common...ton's of Marijuana or 2 lbs of coke?

Drop the buzz, and be pretty damned glad I not allowed post pictures and videos of the violence the deadheads embrace with some sort of sexual glee. No sane person would continue their fun otherwise.

I don't care what people want to do to get a buzz, the fact that the pot users have such such a narcissistic and misanthropic view of the world does not change reality.

But hey, the dead mostly cannot even say mommy or daddy, only mamá & papá, makes it much less real, eh?

As far as prohibition goes, the same remedy is available to us, people are just to darn lazy to use it. Which of course absolutely justifies things.

Do i believe a simple plant should be outlawed, actually no I think it is pretty damned silly.

Heck, California in a few years will outproduce in Marijuana all the crops all of South and Central America anyways.

Can i see someone smoking a joint they did not grow, and see them as inhumane cold hearted misanthropic bastards? (reality is on my side in this)

As i mentioned previously grow your own.

[Warren DeMontague]

52. Nice try, yourself.

I haven't smoked pot in over a decade, so you can save that finger-wagging shit for someone else.

"the deadheads embrace with some sexual glee" ... who the fuck is writing your god-damn material? Do you drive a car? How much fucking violence worldwide are you enabling with your sick sexual petroleum addiction, Jocko?

[RainDog]

53. ...

[Webster Green]

18. Yeah, it's a major issue for me.

I've been a cannabis activist since 1966, and I had a 9 month round of chemotherapy in 1978.

It's a big deal for some people.

[i_sometimes]

10. We have not

seen any crackdowns in Oregon, why is that? And yes, the market in California is way up, like double from just a year ago. But locally, indoor has stayed right at 150-200 for top shelf meds and at 100 for our outdoor this year. I know more than a few 'keep it illegal growers', all south of me in NorCal.
I will say that mexiweed is gone, haven't seen or heard of it since '09.
Good riddance.
Heroin is back though.
Hmmm...

[tabasco]

11. 100,000 Americans become felons every year for growing pot.

Keep that in mind.

[cstanleytech]

13. Actually its the war on drugs by congress and the senate as Obama cannot repeal laws.

[Webster Green]

14. Of course that is true.

But he can set priorities for the DOJ. He has chosen to ramp up the war on pot.

He is clueless.

[cstanleytech]

16. He can set "some" sure but does that mean he can totally ignore the law? I do not believe so.

[Webster Green]

17. OK then.

Whatever.

[Warren DeMontague]

19. What would it take to change the categorization of marijuana from Schedule 1?

I don't think you need congress for that.

[cstanleytech]

21. I suppose he could try but i suspect congress would get even more

Last edited Sun Jan 1, 2012, 02:58 AM - Edit history (1)

anal retentive than they have been since the republicans retook it and probably use the power of the purse to pressure him to undo it.

[RainDog]

23. doesn't require Congress AT ALL

Congress put the scheduling of drugs into the hands of the DEA and the FDA.

Congress could pass a law to decriminalize, but they are not needed to change the incorrect scheduling.

As much as some people here don't like to hear it, this administration has it within its power to begin rescheduling tomorrow. but they won't do this - for whatever reasons - I don't think it has to do with a belief that cannabis has no medical value - they aren't stupid.

More likely it's fear the right wingers will try to paint democrats as "soft on drugs" and it's the money that supports the continued scheduling because it favors certain businesses to keep cannabis as a schedule 1 substance.

If someone really wanted to, it's possible to find out who is giving money to keep the WoD going.

[Upton]

20. All Obama had to do..is keep his promise..

"I would not have the Justice Department prosecuting and raiding medical marijuana users. It's not a good use of our resources."

http://granitestaters.com/candidates/barack_obama.html

Something he hasn't done...

[cstanleytech]

24. And you never, ever made a statement of course about something you would do

and then had to go back on it.....right? I mean I know I have had to when something came up but then I am only human.

[Warren DeMontague]

25. what "came up"?

What sudden pressing need came along for him to use OUR tax dollars to haul pot smoking cancer grannies off to prison, despite his promises to lay off medical marijuana?

I'm sorry, but this isn't being unable to drop off the dry cleaning because you got a flat tire. This is a deliberate, inexcusable move on the part of someone who knows better.

[cstanleytech]

28. Congress switched hands for one, the dems also lost some senate seats

Plus the republicans from day one when Obama was sworn in pretty much vowed to make his job as difficult as they could even if it meant the country would suffer and then you had the issue of some dems in office siding with the republicans.
All in all those things are bound to have an effect.

[Warren DeMontague]

29. excuses

a majority of people in this country support legalizing pot. A HUGE majority support leaving medical marijuana users the hell alone.

People from all over the spectrum have called for long-overdue sanity in the drug war, and incessant demands for 'fiscal austerity' have only offered MORE cover to the President, had he chose to challenge the status quo. If anything, there CERTAINLY has been no pressure from the GOP congress- or anyone else- to escalate the war on chemo-sick pot patients.

Again. Inexcusable, and like the rest of the idiotic drug war, completely wasteful and unnecessary.

[cstanleytech]

33. No, its called "facts".

And honestly making pot legal is imo kinda low on the long list of things that need to be addressed like fixing the economy, pulling us eventually out of the two Bush wars, fixing the tax problem (that being that corporations like GE dont pay theirs), securing medicare and social security from destruction at the hands of the republicans, finding new sources of energy, trying to provide medical care for everyone regardless of how much money they have and thats just a few of the things that need to be addressed imo before pot.

[Warren DeMontague]

35. There's no facts, there. I think pissing away $60 Billion a year- NOT incl. costs of incarceration-

'fighting' pot smoking is a massive unnecessary DRAIN on the economy that needs 'fixing'. Not to mention the potential boon a pot industry - which could easily rival the California wine industry, for instance- could bring to places like California, once legal, regulated, and taxed.

I'm sure for the cancer grannies who are currently being hassled by DEA Swat teams, this is not a minor priority that can be put off endlessly. And there has been NO drastic change in the scenery pertaining to this issue -no matter who controls congress- that justifies the clear duplicity and broken promises of President on this.

[RainDog]

38. I don't think the facts are on your side

the war on drugs has cost the U.S. TRILLIONS since Nixon began it.

here's a list of people who called to end the war on drugs on its 40th anniversary this year... a list full of internationally and nationally prominent politicians, thinkers and business persons.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/117052

please be sure to check out this list. what the world is saying is the U.S. needs to lead on this issue because the U.S. was instrumental in forcing the UN Convention on cannabis and all other drugs on the rest of the world.

Legalizing cannabis would open new markets across sectors - including energy sources. Hemp, the non-psychotropic variety of cannabis, is the fastest growing biomass available, requires little to no pesticides, and could fuel entire cities with something that is carbon neutral.

Cannabis is essential for some people's medical care and surival (you should read the story about Peter McWilliams if you think this is an exaggeration) and is known as one of the best medicines for people with MS, epilespy and migraines - not to mention its secondary use for people undergoing chemo.

If the govt. moved from spending money on a failed war on drugs to taxing the sale of cannabis like they do alcohol or cigarettes, money that would go to sustain unsustainable policy could instead go to fund essential state and local services.

The problem is with people who can't think outside the box - people like you who see this as one small issue when the reality is that this prohibition is an economic, medical, energy, civil rights and govt legitimacy issue, to name some of the most prominent.

Cannabis law is used to impose racist incarceration on vast numbers of Americans - whose criminal records then make it harder for them to get jobs - for mere possession of something less harmful than alcohol.

If you think racism doesn't matter, you're wrong there, too.

iow, those who say this is a little nothing issue seem to have no clue.

[cstanleytech]

40. Except I am not arguing that the "war" on drugs should continue

nor that I support the so called "war" on drugs.
What I am doing is trying to point out that Obama can only do so much at one time and some things take precedent over others.

[RainDog]

41. but the reality is that national-level pols are wedded to bad policy

no matter what side of the aisle, except for a few cases.

the reality is that it's easier to continue bad law than to face criticism from right wingers - not because that change would be so difficult, but because such actions would give idiots something to talk about with other idiots.

the reality is that all Obama needs to do is tell the DEA or Holder that he agrees with the American Medical Asso. and thinks it's time to hold hearing on scheduling - that's one small step that would make a huge difference.

The truth is that this issue is coming to a showdown between states and the federal govt anyway, whether any national pol wants it or not. The reason for this is because no federal-level pol will go against the police state DEA. But at the state level, people are saying "ENOUGH OF THIS BULLSHIT."

What happens is that federal-level pols just look like they are more responsive to religious nutcases than average Americans.

[Occulus]

32. Obama could pardon them all at any time.

[cstanleytech]

34. From federal crimes, yes.

Doubt he will though as I do not recall any president really granting a pardon to those that truly deserve and or need it.

[JNelson6563]

31. It's the opposite here

With medical pot legal here in MI everyone fancies themselves a grower. There is tons of pot out there and it at least started out as medical grade (the strain). Of course those who don't know what they are doing put out lesser quality stuff but even so, it's been many moons since I've seen run-of-the-mill pot and the prices! my gawd it's cheap!

I wonder if I should credit Obama?

Julie

[Webster Green]

45. Yes, and like most trends, California leads the way.

Stand by for the shit to hit the fan.

We enjoyed 15 years of what you describe. It's coming to an end very quickly now.

[JNelson6563]

46. This just passed by referendum in 2008 GE

Though most don't trust the system and are off the radar anyway. The fascists in Lansing do what they can to hinder things but such a thing cannot be stopped.

We need a national referendum on this issue, now.

Julie

[Eliminator]

37. Delete this thread before they tombstone you

Look, I agree with you about pot and all, and you're probably not actually being serious here, but you're essentially admitting to and encouraging illegal activity here. I'm just saying.

[RainDog]

39. this op is sarcasm

mixed with a little world weariness.

surely DU has a sense of the ridiculous.

if you want to read about the way in which laws concerning such things tend to boomerang, you should check out Michael Pollan's piece that shows how Reagan fueled the big push toward hybridization.

here's a link http://www.democraticunderground.com/117042

[Webster Green]

44. Indeed it is.

Couldn't have explained it better myself.

[i_sometimes]

42. Illegal where?

I am sitting in my hot tub within 40 feet of a 12 plant grow room.
Perfectly legal, you can tell by the County inspection permit for the electrical work, the paperwork from the local Sheriff and the licenses on the walls.
Not all of us live in backwards states.

[former9thward]

43. Illegal in the U.S. It is currently a federal crime.

All of the paperwork from the local Sheriff is meaningless to the U.S. Attorney if he/she wants to go after you.

[i_sometimes]

47. And soon as Obama respects States rights...

But you see, no one is bothering with Oregon, why is that? I know of huge legal grows here and none of us have had letters, no dispensaries have been hit. And we have at least a few hundred.
So for all intents and purposes, we are legal to grow.
I do wish we had a President that lived up to his word but as long as the Feds stay the fuck out of here...

[former9thward]

48. Different U.S. Attorney's offices have different priorities.

There are limited resources in these offices. So they have to set priorities. When I was in law school I worked at a U.S. Attorney office and we would not even touch a case unless it involved at least $500,000. It may be the U.S. Attorney office in Oregon has a different agenda than offices in California. Where I live (AZ) the U.S. Attorney has threatened to go after state workers who license medical marijuana facilities even though the state's voters passed the law.

[Warren DeMontague]

54. And what a fucking wonderful use of our tax dollars, too

Our schools are crumbling, our roads and bridges are falling apart, we can't pay our bills... but somehow there's an endless spigot of drug war gravy train cash to make sure some cancer granny doesn't have a grow light in her closet.

YIPPEEE!!!$$$!!!!!!