It’s been a dumpster fire of a year, not just for the 6% of the 1% who contracted The ’Rona and died. But, for, well, everyone. Pot farms burned down, as fires torched Oregon. Pot shops closed down, as fires torched Portland. Pot roast became pot pie, as 4th of July celebrations were outlawed. But, the biggest casualties for cannabis consumers were as follows...
While much more accessible to the average retail investor than ever before, the stock market isn’t exactly a get-rich-quick scheme—especially when it when it comes to cannabis. The big thing a few years ago was "weed stock," which meant buying anything with the word "cannabis" in the name. Of note, Canadian cannabis companies were all the rage, because, with the exception of our first two amendments, Canada tends to legalize things faster than the U.S. This is probably due to regulation (or, maybe just because Canada’s leader is a weed-smoking teenager), but regardless of why, Canadian pot stocks were huge. In fact, if you got into Aurora Cannabis four years ago at $22 per share, you would have held on until it reached $115 a year or two later, right? And, you would have sold at the top, correct? Good, because that $115 per share is now worth...wait for it...$4.20 per share. I’m not kidding (go look...I submitted this article in mid-October, 2020). So much for a long-term investment.
Why is this any different than any other pump-and-dump stock trade? Well, I’m pushing 41 years old. This means that I was smoking weed right around the time that Doggystyle hit the record stores and I was paying, oh, fifty bucks for an eighth of some top shelf "kill bud" and/or "chronic." For reference, a pack of smokes was $1.89 (plus whatever the homeless guy’s beer cost). Today, a pack of smokes is roughly five times that, but weed? Well, I wake up to text messages from dispensaries, promising $75 ounces that make the best stuff I smoked in middle school look like literal dirt. Sure, I was probably being taxed for buying pot as a teenager, but there is no way that anyone in 1994 would have ever been high enough to sell ounces at less than a few hundred bucks. This is the first reason that cannabis stocks are a dumb bet—it’s a literal weed and it’s not going to be in short supply anytime soon, especially now that it’s legal to grow in schools and daycares.
A second issue, one that most retail financial investors never take into account, is a weird conspiracy theory called "supply and demand." With low supply and high demand, comes profit. But, with a literal weed and a priced-in market (as in, few people started smoking pot after it became legal—they just started admitting to it), the supply is through the roof (in some cases, literally) and the demand is, well...remember how most kids started smoking pot? Because it was cool, edgy and against the rules? Well, now your mom picks it up on the way back from Starbucks. No one is "taking up pot" this year. Clearly, the kids aren’t dying from brownies and trap music isn’t geared toward the same crowd that likes reggae. As fucked up as it is to admit, fentanyl would be a much better investment, in terms of supply-and-demand economics related to controlled substances [at the time of publication, the author of does not own any fentanyl holdings, in physical or paper form, and this is not to be taken as financial advice].
I get it. This stuff can cure everything from neck pain to cancer, and I use it for...well, I have no idea what it’s fixing (but, I’m sure it’s helping). Still, C.B.D. is to cannabis what social justice is to pop culture—it’s not meant to replace the source material, let alone become the standard. But, sadly, it has taken the same course, infesting every head shop and pot dispensary between here and wherever weed is still illegal (Utah, maybe). I didn’t come to Herbal Holistic Natural Canna-Remedy Hut to be given a lecture about what’s good for society and how I can use the newest product to better reset my emotional balance—I came here for two blunts, which I plan on smoking to numb my brain from the irritation caused by people arguing about social justice on social media—I’m smoking weed to be anti-social. "This is a good massage oil for stress." Shut the fuck up and give me something that will cause me to fall asleep while jacking off.
C.B.D. is basically vape, without any nicotine. You just have to trust that it’s good for you and give the girl at the register money, so she can buy more green hair dye. And, I swear to God, if I ever buy another box of "edibles" that contains less T.H.C. than a Jonas Brothers concert, I’m going to just start drinking at the movies again. After all, there is no way I can sit through Captain Marvel sober.
Okay, let me take a few steps back and clarify something: I’m actually fine with real social justice. You know, the kind that works. I, personally, feel that any "activism" going on right now in Portland is performative and has less to do with [insert cause here] than it does "Orange Man bad." Without getting too political, I don’t recall the time that Rosa Parks yelled about some dude spreading his legs too far apart on the bus, nor can I seem to locate the speech in which M.L.K. Jr. spoke of his dream in which "black children, white children and children of all colors would all have miniature hierarchies and asterisk-laden conspiracy theories, used to assign privilege points and determine who was the most equal." I’m more of the "free the black guys sitting in jail for a joint" type of radical—I know, a total milktoast centrist, who thrives on a diet of bran flakes and Tim Pool videos.
Why in the absolute hell are there still black people sitting in jail for pot, while at the same time, pot shops are doing Black Friday sales? Let’s take a step back and realize that, while activists yell about slavery and indigenous land (arguably very valid points), they’re forgetting that these things happened centuries ago. Again, not saying that they’re not valid—but, the average brother who got popped with a blunt in, oh, 1998, is probably rotting in a cell, located directly across the street from a "recreational cannabis" dispensary that now offers door-to-door services via an iPhone app. This person was locked up no less than two Sublime albums ago. Racial inequality, in terms of false imprisonment or inflated sentencing, applies to nonviolent drug offenses in exponentially greater numbers than, say, police shootings. Are police shootings a valid cause for protest? Again, and for the hopefully last time, yes. But, if the argument is that people shouldn’t have their lives taken from them, simply because they committed a victimless crime that would have led to a lighter sentence if they were of lighter skin tone, I think that Bob’s Bud Bus & Breakfast should be first in line to cough up some legal fees for victims of racial bias.
And yet, after they protest a black-owned business for being in the way of their nightly LARP, most of the people "concerned" with racial injustice and slavery will call up Green Goddess Ganja Girls and have some Bernie Sanders Kush delivered to their loft.
Anyways, have a happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
