Growing for a dispensary

Hey all- Longtime grower, first time poster at cannabis.com.

Can someone who is informed, not just guessing, confirm or deny that the process for growing for a dispensary in Arizona will be the same or similar to the process that Colorado or California have?

I've been working my ass off to prepare to apply for a dispensary license here in Central Arizona, but honestly, my love for the plant would be better suited to growing at home, either as a caregiver or as a dispensary agent.

But thus far, I see nothing more than guesses from people that growers will be able to contract with dispensaries, since that's how it works in CO and CA.

At the end of the day, what I'm saying is that I would probably bail on my dispensary plans and investors if I felt confident that I would be able to grow for a dispensary.

Thanks in advance.

MoHo

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Originally Posted by MoHoGrow

Hey all- Longtime grower, first time poster at cannabis.com.

Can someone who is informed, not just guessing, confirm or deny that the process for growing for a dispensary in Arizona will be the same or similar to the process that Colorado or California have?

I've been working my ass off to prepare to apply for a dispensary license here in Central Arizona, but honestly, my love for the plant would be better suited to growing at home, either as a caregiver or as a dispensary agent.

But thus far, I see nothing more than guesses from people that growers will be able to contract with dispensaries, since that's how it works in CO and CA.

At the end of the day, what I'm saying is that I would probably bail on my dispensary plans and investors if I felt confident that I would be able to grow for a dispensary.

Thanks in advance.

MoHo

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Under current provisions in the state of Arizona a caregiver or patient may donate their un used or overage surplus to a dispensary and be reimbursed for the "cost" of the product ONLY, not labor. The official first draft of the rules will be available from AZDHS on Dec 17th for public comment. You can also leave a comment for them at their youtube channel.

Also there are many people that are interested in opening a dispensary that are either not familiar with how a not for profit is structured or have an inaccurate estimate of start up costs. The advice I am giving everyone is sit down and make a business plan draft. Then have someone else check it out for you. Then if you have the needed 100K-200K in capitol, call a lawyer and get moving.

We have had two investors back out and three more come in to replace their capitol, peoples attitudes change quickly unless their heart is really into it.

The best way to make sure you get a job as a grower is volunteer or have your investors talk with other investors that need a grower.

Good Luck to You

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Originally Posted by AZCSceo

you have gotten good info but not all accurate. to answer the question can you grow for a dispensary? You can not be on a dispensary payroll unless your an agent for them. You can negotiate with a dispensary in regards to your harvest prices. Growing styles vary from the cheap to the very pricey and that is between you and them. there is some room for adjustment.

Almost everyone in AZ will be allowed to grow the first year, we are in the process of adding a collective to our website now to connect growers with patients when the trigger gets pulled in April.

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Whats the story on "Almost everyone in AZ will be allowed to grow the first year" Why only a year? is that information coming from AZDHS?

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Originally Posted by AZCSceo

Under current provisions in the state of Arizona a caregiver or patient may donate their un used or overage surplus to a dispensary and be reimbursed for the "cost" of the product ONLY, not labor. The official first draft of the rules will be available from AZDHS on Dec 17th for public comment. You can also leave a comment for them at their youtube channel.

Also there are many people that are interested in opening a dispensary that are either not familiar with how a not for profit is structured or have an inaccurate estimate of start up costs. The advice I am giving everyone is sit down and make a business plan draft. Then have someone else check it out for you. Then if you have the needed 100K-200K in capitol, call a lawyer and get moving.

We have had two investors back out and three more come in to replace their capitol, peoples attitudes change quickly unless their heart is really into it.

The best way to make sure you get a job as a grower is volunteer or have your investors talk with other investors that need a grower.

Good Luck to You

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Thank you kindly.

We've already secured $90K or so and are quite a ways along in our quest for a license (which we realize is a long shot, but plan to go for it). I am confident I could get a dispensary off the ground for $90K and our business plan draft supports that notion thus far, but I also feel pretty confident that anyone lucky enough to be granted a license is going to have investors who were denied a license coming out of the woodwork wanting to get involved.

You are so right about people changing their minds; we've had 6-8 interested lendors tota; 5 of them have gotten cold feet. Not everyone is cut out for this type of investment.

So I'm not a grower looking for a job so much as I am a potential dispensary co-director who is starting to feel like there are too many sharks and thieves in the dispensary industry and not enough truly talented, compassionate, generous people who know the true meaning of community.

So if I am better served on a personal level by offering my master growing talents and top shelf organic medicine to a broader swath of dispensaries/individual, I may end up going down that road in lieu of operating a dispensary here in Yavapai Co.

However, I do not see yet where Prop 203 allows for independent growers to contract with dispensaries to grow their medicine, as is the case in other MMJ states. It sounds to me more like each dispensary will need a salaried FT master grower to head up the cultivation facility and then 1-3 assistant growers to support him/her.

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Originally Posted by nazman

Whats the story on "Almost everyone in AZ will be allowed to grow the first year" Why only a year? is that information coming from AZDHS?

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Will Humble and AZDHS have no resources to monitor patients and caregivers. This has been expressed publicly sometime ago.

See, if you register for a card and live next door to my dispensary that is not operational until AFTER you receive your card, and there is no dispensary within 25 miles of you when your card gets approved you will be able to grow until your card is renewed the next year.

By this time there will be an operational dispensary within 25 miles of you more than likely and your ability to grow will be revoked.

If your Will humble your going to place a dispensary everywhere you can to cover as much of the populous as possible and then start over lapping.

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Originally Posted by MoHoGrow

Thank you kindly.

We've already secured $90K or so and are quite a ways along in our quest for a license (which we realize is a long shot, but plan to go for it). I am confident I could get a dispensary off the ground for $90K and our business plan draft supports that notion thus far, but I also feel pretty confident that anyone lucky enough to be granted a license is going to have investors who were denied a license coming out of the woodwork wanting to get involved.

You are so right about people changing their minds; we've had 6-8 interested lendors tota; 5 of them have gotten cold feet. Not everyone is cut out for this type of investment.

So I'm not a grower looking for a job so much as I am a potential dispensary co-director who is starting to feel like there are too many sharks and thieves in the dispensary industry and not enough truly talented, compassionate, generous people who know the true meaning of community.

So if I am better served on a personal level by offering my master growing talents and top shelf organic medicine to a broader swath of dispensaries/individual, I may end up going down that road in lieu of operating a dispensary here in Yavapai Co.

However, I do not see yet where Prop 203 allows for independent growers to contract with dispensaries to grow their medicine, as is the case in other MMJ states. It sounds to me more like each dispensary will need a salaried FT master grower to head up the cultivation facility and then 1-3 assistant growers to support him/her.

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Maybe we should talk. You can open a dispensary for about $140,000 roughly. You need the software and IT people to install and test it, can't forgot you have to integrate with AZDHS servers. A decent grow room will run 10K watts or better in the flowering room, that's a $45K system and the electrical costs are about $1800/month for 3 months while your growing crop #1. Security system required by AZDHS will run you about $10K. First you have to get through all the paper work and legal fee's. Incorporation, business license, CBA fees, etc. That will run about 10K as well. Rent on average size dispensary (if you can find a location) is going to run $2K/month for at least 6 months while you crop out and cure, that's 12K. And the same for the grow facility if not double that (depending on location) so that's around $24K. So now we're at $100K. $5K for the application fee. Misc. such as power upgrades by utility company for the grow facility, counters and what not for the dispensary, computers, first month/last month, misc. other deposits.

Also, does AZDHS know you by now? Have you been to meetings? Are you posting on their blog? Their Youtube? Are you representing in the local media? It is going to take a lot to get a permit. A good business plan is a must but you'll need more. A little co operation with the local mayor and what not can go a long way.

I hope some of this helps. Us little guys need to pull together to stop the big money from getting bigger if ya know what I mean. I have investors (2) right now that will each commit $60K. They have a STRONG business plan.

Good morning!

Thanks again. Very helpful and also great to have a dialogue with someone with a little experience.

My experience has been of an illegal persuasion (not currently) and while we have been navigating the waters just fine, we are building from the ground up and it's difficult. While I have been successful at launching a small business, my expertise is in gardening and I don't agree that a cultivation facility build-out will be $45K. I think $25K is more likely. Of course it depends on the business plan and mine involves limiting the number of patients and focusing on supreme quality of medicine, so I would imagine that my facility would be 1/2 the size of what most are planning on.

For all the rest, i.e. IT, electrical, plumbing, construction, fine woodworking, security system, legal, etc.... one of our business plan's strengths is that we live in a community where we have many contacts and close friendships with tradesmen, City employees, CoC. Frankly, if I were trying to do this in any town where I wasn't "in" with the right people, I would have considered bailing on my plans last year instead of now.

You make a great point about AZ DHS getting to recognizing our names. I am not completely convinced that it will make a difference, but is something we have neglected to put a lot of effort into, as we have been waiting for the public comment period. We have posted on the Director's blog. We need to refocus our efforts on that, you are right.

I believe passionately in the power of community, partnership and cooperation. Call me a hippie. :) The intense competition and lack of collaboration I have witnessed in other MMJ states sickens me. If I end up operating a dispensary, I will partner with other like-minded, socially-responsible cannabis businesses (including other dispensaries), sharing successes, sharing genetics, sharing resources... I'm not sure what AZCS is all about, but I am very amenable to the idea of banding together and collaborating. I am not interested in the many outfits I've spoken with already who are asking $5-10K for their assistance.

The knowledge and power to help patients should be shared freely and anyone whose angle diverges from that, I'm not interested in working with.

Feel free to check us out,

AZCS Home

We started as an organization that decided to "watch over" AZ as the "green rush" hit us.

We dropped a dime on Kind Clinics after they claimed to have insider info and close ties to Will and his staff.

We dropped a dime on Medical Marijuana LLC for running classes on opening a dispensary, when in fact the classes contained less info than would be found in this thread.

And last but not least, Allan Sobol. We dropped way more than a dime on this guy. More like a fifty dollar bill.

Our staff scans the net and media daily keeping a watchful eye over AZ.

We we're approached in regards to opening a dispensary under our name "AZCS" and thats when we dove into the other aspects. I had already developed a business plan for some friends over the course of the last two years. A plan they paid me to develop and then they dropped out. One of them tried to buy my business plan outright and the AZCS name for $50K.

yet, here I am. Still doing what we promised AZ, keeping things FAIR.


please check out our site which is modeled after the business plan. We have been in close contact (as close as they let us) with AZDHS and the city in which we propose our dispensary be built. So far, they like us.

One of the reason is we threatened to abolish the black market weed industry in our town. With prices around $250/oz the street dealers will be out of business shortly. Our comment is on the AZDHS YouTube channel. We called out EVERY dispensary operator and challenged them to make the price of their product actually reflect the cost to produce it. Let's just say we we're not welcome by most after those comments.

I'm an old hippie as well and I will be damned if someone starts "corporatizing" or "commercializing" our mmj industry on my watch. We want people from AZ working in our AZ dispensaries. We want to create jobs (63 to be exact) in the town the dispensaries go in. And first and foremost,
we have publicly announced several things;

#1- Our G.R.O. Program Public Proposal to AZDHS
#2- Our facility will produce "Phoenix Tears" at the commercial level.
#3- Our facility offers "the Even Trade Program" for indigent patients. they can trade local community service hours for medication.

No patient should ever go untreated due to financial reasons. EVER!


:rastasmoke:

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Originally Posted by AZCSceo

Feel free to check us out,

AZCS Home

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I admit to being gun-shy and very skeptical at this point. My partners and I have spoken to 5-6 outfits by now who want ridiculous amounts of money to "help" us get a license. The lowest was $5K and the highest was $50K! If there are people out there putting their $50K towards paying someone to "help" them instead of putting it into the coffers to support the business during the first two years, they are idiots. And NONE of these outfits will tell you exactly how it is that they have "inside connections" or "insider knowledge" that is worth thousands of dollars to anyone. They want you to pay without telling you what you're paying for.

So what are you guys offering and what are you charging for the services?

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We started as an organization that decided to "watch over" AZ as the "green rush" hit us.

We dropped a dime on Kind Clinics after they claimed to have insider info and close ties to Will and his staff.

We dropped a dime on Medical Marijuana LLC for running classes on opening a dispensary, when in fact the classes contained less info than would be found in this thread.

And last but not least, Allan Sobol. We dropped way more than a dime on this guy. More like a fifty dollar bill.

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On behalf of us all, thank you.

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One of the reason is we threatened to abolish the black market weed industry in our town. With prices around $250/oz the street dealers will be out of business shortly.

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Our plan parallels yours in this regard. Our revenue projections are based on $200-250 ounces. I've always operated under the assumption that top shelf organically grown and carefully processed buds are worth $150-250 per ounce. I'll leave it at that. :)

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#1- Our G.R.O. Program Public Proposal to AZDHS

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Is this available somewhere? I haven't run across it yet.

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#3- Our facility offers "the Even Trade Program" for indigent patients. they can trade local community service hours for medication.

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Excellent. Our bp includes paying employees to volunteer in the community for 8 hrs every month and a "scholarship" program whereby people who are struggling financially can be sponsored by the community/dispensary/members. But I really like the idea of those folks being able to volunteer in the community and earn credit at the dispensary. Wonderful.

Beyond just helping our brothers and sisters who need cannabis and deserve to be able to access it safely, I see this as a great opportunity to do some really big things for my hometown. Gaia knows that Arizona towns can use all the help they can get.

for the G.R.O. Proposal: AZCSU


we have Q&A sessions at Caramba's in Phoenix on Friday's between 2-4. This week is out because we have family and freinds coming into the airport at that time. These sessions are free. We are willing to answer ANY question about dispensaries and how to open one.

We have spent just about three years working on these plans and answers and they are free. if we like you. So far there was one McWeed shop wanna be that was turned away from our meetings. That's it.


602-488-1899 is my cell # if you would like to talk sometime this weekend.