Description

The California economy is in trouble, but there's at least one industry in the state that's booming: medical marijuana. Even though medical marijuana has been legal in California since 1996, the people working in the industry continue to operate in the shadows of legal uncertainty. Dispensary owners and growers live in constant fear of being raided by federal agents who maintain that marijuana, medicinal or otherwise, remains illegal under federal law.

Transcript

iGROW Medical Marijuana: California Growth Industry Eddie Piatt: iGROW slogan here is there’s no such thing as a $10,000 tomato. Correspondent: Medical Marijuana is big business in California. There are several hundred thousand medical marijuana patients in the state and pot entrepreneurs are working hard to meet the ever increasing demand. To learn more about the marijuana cultivation business we went to open Californians both to the people at iGrow the first hydroponics super store in the United States. Eddie Piatt: iGrow is a 15,000 square foot retails store that’s open in January of 2010 and we basically are you know not hiding in the dark hydroponic retail service to where you can come in and watch and consult with you and discuss you growing your medical marijuana. Zeta Ceti: Well my name is Zeta Ceti and I’m the senior technician here at iGrow and basically I go and do consultations. I build and do installations anywhere from the smallest level to the commercial level. I also design and build different state of the year grower and different state of the yard systems here in Oakland at iGrow. Okay this is where it all really starts because you grew up your mom plants and you take these cuttings and you take these cuttings you stick them in cloning gel and you stick them in these little neoprene collars. Now these neoprene collars they actually hold the stem in place okay and you set it on top of here and you have like only like an inch of stem underneath here and increase the perfect rooting environment this is next humid and on the top you want to have any mold problems like you do with gums or anything like that so as to not lock the air going on the top so it produces clones every 8 to 10 days. And this is what’s called a Grow Tech here. its’ got this silver lining called mylar and basically we have a 4x4 train with a thousand watt lighter on the top of it. There’s a reservoir down here that fills up this tray and what the system is called is called the Ebb N flow system basically it’s coined from the tides of the ocean and so it fills up, feeds the plants and it drains back down for this type of system here I would say if I was going to do see a green and pack 20 of them in here and have like high intensity lighting I would probably bank for like 2 ounces per plant. My pack is like just would cost anywhere you know with the light, the tray and to anywhere like between a thousand to 12,000 dollars which will return way much more. We also have a turn machine here too as well on this turn machine is a pretty elaborate turn machine we basically don’t have to do any trimming at all. You just take your plant and you put it through there and it separates everything. It separates your key that separates your leaves and it comes out with the final product with blue berry little manicuring at the end so it actually takes place of 20 trimmers. Cutting system is actually $12,000 for this only because its really elaborate system. Correspondent: I grow with obviously the place to go if you want to grow medical marijuana but what if you want to grow a lot of medical marijuana and you want to do it discretely without working very hard. Eddie Piatt: Well I grow is actually with rough technologies to produce 53 foot 40 foot and 29 foot modular grow units and what these are trailers are completely outfitted as a gross space where we drop them of to you and then its plug a play turn key system to where you just add water. Put up electricity and your good to grow. Zeta Ceti: That system the design is pretty unbelievable. It’s really nice to turn key solution. It’s very good for pretty much anybody that’s starting growing whether you’re the novice or whether you’re the advanced user. We make it towards completely – proof. Eddie Piatt: Currently our standards are 18 lights Ebb N flow system with a separate room for cloning, mothering as well as many upgrades available as well and customizable to your growing needs. Certain upgrades or security systems and totally integrated monitoring to where you can actually from your iPhone control your pH balance as well as view your growth. The 53 footers are starting at 70,000without the upgrades. Zeta Ceti: Some of the customers that we’ve sold it to you had a yield anywhere between 30 and 40 pounds. Correspondent: Okay lets get this straight the trailer cost 70,000 dollars and you can produce around 30 pounds every few months. If you can sell a pound for around 3,000 bucks then you’re making a profit after your very first harvest those of you watching this you don’t Oakland maybe wondering how that Oakland City Council can allow a place like I grow to open up shop in their City. Eddie Piatt: Oakland has been from the very beginning of medical marijuana bending epicenter of everything you know it was the first place actually have the dispensaries here and you know the City council and legislation in Oakland has been really for the medical marijuana industry as well so they really poured it at our grand opening. We had council members here at the ribbon cutting ceremony. Correspondent: So what’s next for the City of Oakland? Eddie Piatt: The Oakland City council just recently proved last week allowing 4 permitted large cultivations in Oakland which is ground breaking for the City of Oakland and it has been legislation that has been kind of organizing the past year and what it would allow for Oakland is actually regulates and tax cultivation of medical marijuana. Zeta Ceti: It’s going on right now. You know and its going on illegally and it’s going on everywhere but you know they wanted. The city of Oakland wants to be able to permit it and be able to control it more all the way from seed to harvest to patient consumption. Eddie Piatt: And how we’re getting involved is we’re actually Dar Mann and Derrick Peterson. The two founders of Growtech are going after one of the permits for that. We’re a group of entrepreneurs that are going after this permit because we just want to do something great for the medical marijuana industry as well as for the City of Oakland. You know we plan to give back as much as 20 million dollars in philanthropies and grants in the City of Oakland to help different community organizations as well as the taxes. Zeta Ceti: I’m actually one of the designers of one of these facilities. We’re designing it like eco-friendly very green of course. You know with lots of different state of the art technology to be able to make it toward. It runs you know perfectly and smoothly. Correspondent: Dream come true for you? Zeta Ceti: Yeah absolutely and yeah I think it’s a great stuff work. I really do I mean like its going to be a model for the rest of the country. Eddie Piatt: The City of Oakland has really done something great by passing our legislation. Correspondent: What if you want to get involved with the industry but you don’t have a green thumb. Not too worry iGrow is rebranding the company as We Grow and franchising opportunities are available now. For reason TV I’m Paul Feine.