Craft Over Corporate

One thing we hear from time to time in our store from people who enjoyed cannabis prior to legalization is that they don’t want to support “Government Weed”. We’d like to clear the air on this- while the government IS collecting significant (read: too much) tax revenue from the legal cannabis market and tax reform is desperately needed in this industry, the government is not actually growing cannabis themselves.

As said best in a recent Instagram post by Village Bloomer’s @village_bloomer Andrea Dobbs (paraphrased):

“Government Weed” could be considered cannabis purchased directly from government stores (unlike Alberta, some provinces have government run cannabis retail outlets) or cannabis that is grown “factory farm” style by large corporations. These large-scale operations pay very little attention to what the flower needs, rather the flower has to conform to a very strict growing and production schedule that is centred around the company’s quarterly earnings schedules. These companies are most often publicly traded, have a full C-suite of executives and joined the industry strictly to make as much money as possible by using predatory tactics to drive out competition in typical corporate mentality fashion.

By contrast, craft cannabis producers tend to be smaller, independently owned businesses (often family/friend owned). Many producers who produce small-batch craft cannabis have transitioned from legacy market and are using more sustainable practices, growing in small-batches, tending to their plants by hand, using organic growing methods, and are hand-harvesting/trimming, cold curing, and unlike the larger factory farmed cannabis growers, they are not using pesticides or irradiating their products.

Next time you are buying cannabis, we suggest you do a little research, find out where your cannabis comes from, look into the producers of your products to find out a little more about their growing methods and see who it is you are supporting. We vote with our dollars and you can choose to support government or publicly traded retailers who typically sell lower quality, mass-produced cannabis products, OR you can support independent retailers and growers who are often mom & pop businesses, many of whom who got into the industry for the love of the plant and are invested in presenting their customers with the highest quality products on the market.