About 1900 lbs of marijuana seized near my home.  The local paper(online version not available) some of the plants were cultivated, some not. The plants were visible from the road, but most people didn't realize what was growing. Based on the article, mj is about $1000/pound, is that right?

From the Minneaplis paper:

www.startribune.com/stories/462/5628385.html

7,000 marijuana plants destroyed in Steele County
September 22, 2005 WEED0922
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Investigators cut down and destroyed 7,000 marijuana plants found Wednesday in a Steele County soybean field, denying dealers a potential $190,000 haul from the sale of the plants, authorities said.

The discovery was one of the largest in recent years.

"You could see them from the road, and eventually what happened was that there were people going out there and harvesting the plants, and that's how we got onto that they were there," said Sgt. Roger Schroeder of the Northfield Police Department and the unit commander of the South Central Drug Investigation Unit.

The plants, some of them 8 feet tall and towering above the beans, were growing in a concentrated area and appeared to have been cultivated, Schroeder said. Investigators questioned the landowner, but determined that someone else was tending the marijuana without the farmer's knowledge.

"They had no idea the plants were there," Schroeder said.

Edit due to spelling

Depends on whether it was kindbud or not

Around 1K/lb is about right.

Like most commodities, it depends largely on the community, the quality and the bulk discount. An eighth ounce of mexican dirt regularly goes for $20.00-$30.00 around here but good hydroponically grown indoor can easily go for as much as $35.00-$60.00 per gram. In the Chicago Burbs, high quality hydroponic indoor fetches about $300.00 per ounce, give or take. If you are hard up, you could pay as much as $10.00 for a joint of low quality dirt or ditch weed.

On the other hand, if you buy it by the pound in south west Texas near the border, you can find mexican dirt for $200/pound or less. Like anything, if you buy a larger quantity, you tend to pay less money per pound.

In short, there are a lot of variables that determine what a given amount of dope is worth.

eta: the weight of the plants is NOT indicative of the weight of the product that can be produced for street sale. Uncultivated marijuana is generally worthless to a user but some sellers blend it with quality product to pump up the volume of the product or sell it to make easy money from unsuspecting buyers.

Marijuana grown outdoors tends to not be premium product and therefore commands a much lower price than quality product of the same weight.

Quoted: $87

That's some cheap bud.

field grown is probably more schwag than kindbud, with that many plants i highly doubt they took time and care, so wholesale i say 150-250 a pound in 10lb packages but 1900lb if sold at once would run prolly 100 a pound, maybe less.

1900X64X$40

1900 pounds captured

64 quarter oz bags per pound

$40 per quarter oz bag

$48,640,000

Street value is around $800 to maybe even $1600 ish.

Quoted: Quoted: $87 That's some cheap bud.

Yea. Someone's mixing your pot with horse shit.

$190,000 dang.. that's about what a kilo of cocaine gets in San Francisco (not bad considering a kilo in Columbia costs $500.)

Take out the stalks, the stems, everything but the leaves and buds, then mostly dry it.  It won't weight nearly as much.  Still it's a huge haul of pot.

Quoted: Like most commodities, it depends largely on the community, the quality and the bulk discount. An eighth ounce of mexican dirt regularly goes for $20.00-$30.00 around here but good hydroponically grown indoor can easily go for as much as $35.00-$60.00 per gram. In the Chicago Burbs, high quality hydroponic indoor fetches about $300.00 per ounce, give or take. If you are hard up, you could pay as much as $10.00 for a joint of low quality dirt or ditch weed. On the other hand, if you buy it by the pound in south west Texas near the border, you can find mexican dirt for $200/pound or less. Like anything, if you buy a larger quantity, you tend to pay less money per pound. In short, there are a lot of variables that determine what a given amount of dope is worth.

Damn.....smoke much?........

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: $87 That's some cheap bud. Yea. Someone's mixing your pot with horse shit. $190,000 dang.. that's about what a kilo of cocaine gets in San Francisco (not bad considering a kilo in Columbia costs $500.)

$190K for a Kilo??? You must be joking....

even if you buy it by the oz in this area you're looking at 1K/oz. 32oz/lb and 2.2 lbs/kilo. That's a LOOOONG way from 190K. I imagine it'd be a helluva lot less in SF but I don't operate there so I have no clue.

Quoted: Damn.....smoke much?........

Those days are gone but work keeps me in the loop on these things.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: $87 That's some cheap bud. Yea. Someone's mixing your pot with horse shit. $190,000 dang.. that's about what a kilo of cocaine gets in San Francisco (not bad considering a kilo in Columbia costs $500.)

If a key goes for $200K out there, I am DEFINITELY in the wrong bidness!

Quoted: $190K for a Kilo??? You must be joking.... even if you buy it by the oz in this area you're looking at 1K/oz. 32oz/lb and 2.2 lbs/kilo. That's a LOOOONG way from 190K. I imagine it'd be a helluva lot less in SF but I don't operate there do I have no clue.

According to an ex LEO friend of mine (heavy in the gangs - assigned to several different gang units for about 30 years) the going price for a kilo of cocaine is... (Stress: I don't know this personally - second hand but trustworthy information)

Columbia - $500
Los Angeles - $130,000
San Francisco - $180,000 - 190,000
Oaklahoma - $220,000

Apparently there was a problem with the heroin trade a few years back, something called pure white from China. Pure stuff, had addicts all over California shooting up and falling down dead from an overdose (estimated 10 - 15x more potent than the other available stuff), and coming from China, it was cheaper.. they thought they were getting a killer deal.. they were partially right

ETA: this is all pure, uncut numbers..

Quoted: Quoted: $190K for a Kilo??? You must be joking.... even if you buy it by the oz in this area you're looking at 1K/oz. 32oz/lb and 2.2 lbs/kilo. That's a LOOOONG way from 190K. I imagine it'd be a helluva lot less in SF but I don't operate there do I have no clue. According to an ex LEO friend of mine (heavy in the gangs - assigned to several different gang units for about 30 years) the going price for a kilo of cocaine is... (Stress: I don't know this personally - second hand but trustworthy information) Columbia - $500 Los Angeles - $130,000 San Francisco - $180,000 - 190,000 Oaklahoma - $220,000 Apparently there was a problem with the heroin trade a few years back, something called pure white from China. Pure stuff, had addicts all over California shooting up and falling down dead from an overdose (estimated 10 - 15x more potent than the other available stuff), and coming from China, it was cheaper.. they thought they were getting a killer deal.. they were partially right

Like I said, I don't know about those areas. I can only speak for here. It would seem to me that a rural area like here would have higher prices because of a diminshed supply.

The more you buy, the less it costs. Two local guys recently got popped with 6 pounds of blow and I can guarantee they didn't pay that much. Maybe they should have been shipping their shit to San Fran.

I would accept that a kilo is worth $190k rocked up and sold in dime bags but I can't fathom 190k kilos of powder bought by the kilo. Most of the trafficking around here doesn't deal in much more than ounce qunatities but I am confident in the per ounce figures I gave you for this market. I would expect that you would pay less than 1k/oz ($70,400 per kilo) if purchased by the kilo. *shrug*

Ya gotta figure that the police want to make their bust look as impressive as they can.
It's been mentioned here, I'll expound.

It's a given that a fair joint weighs in at around at about a gram.

If they get $10 for a gram, well, you can see how the numbers get inflated.

Quoted: Like most commodities, it depends largely on the community, the quality and the bulk discount. An eighth ounce of mexican dirt regularly goes for $20.00-$30.00 around here but good hydroponically grown indoor can easily go for as much as $35.00-$60.00 per gram. In the Chicago Burbs, high quality hydroponic indoor fetches about $300.00 per ounce, give or take. If you are hard up, you could pay as much as $10.00 for a joint of low quality dirt or ditch weed. On the other hand, if you buy it by the pound in south west Texas near the border, you can find mexican dirt for $200/pound or less. Like anything, if you buy a larger quantity, you tend to pay less money per pound. In short, there are a lot of variables that determine what a given amount of dope is worth. eta: the weight of the plants is NOT indicative of the weight of the product that can be produced for street sale. Uncultivated marijuana is generally worthless to a user but some sellers blend it with quality product to pump up the volume of the product or sell it to make easy money from unsuspecting buyers. Marijuana grown outdoors tends to not be premium product and therefore commands a much lower price than quality product of the same weight.

What he and others have said. The cops regularly seize tons of stuff that is basically ditch weed and commonly estimate the value at thousands of dollars per pound. Hemp, BTW, was grown as a regular agricultural crop in that area until the 1940s, and there are still large fields of wild (and worthless) cannabis all over the US. After all, it doesn't make very good cop PR for them to admit that they just spent the day cutting down a bunch of worthless weeds. The public will never know the difference, so they exaggerate as much as they think they can.

I saw one article years ago where they seized eleven pounds of weed and said it was worth $55 million dollars. That was in the 1970s when $55 million was still a lot of money. Cops typically estimate the value as the highest value for the lowest possible weight.

Even if it is good stuff, they would lose about three quarters of the harvested weight right off the bat in the process of drying and separating out the stems and leaves. If they harvested 1900 pounds then they would be doing damn good to get 500 pounds of saleable weed out of it. In fact, they would probably be lucky if they got 250 pounds. Figure that the cops often pull them up by the roots and measure the whole root and dirt ball in that total and you can cut that estimate down even further.

Then there is the consideration of wholesale versus retail prices. The retail prices he gives above are fair estimates, but that's what the retailer gets, not the wholesaler.

So, who knows, really, but certainly not anything close to what the cops estimated.

Quoted: What he and others have said. The cops regularly seize tons of stuff that is basically ditch weed and commonly estimate the value at thousands of dollars per pound. Hemp, BTW, was grown as a regular agricultural crop in that area until the 1940s, and there are still large fields of wild (and worthless) cannabis all over the US. After all, it doesn't make very good cop PR for them to admit that they just spent the day cutting down a bunch of worthless weeds. The public will never know the difference, so they exaggerate as much as they think they can. I saw one article years ago where they seized eleven pounds of weed and said it was worth $55 million dollars. That was in the 1970s when $55 million was still a lot of money. Cops typically estimate the value as the highest value for the lowest possible weight. Even if it is good stuff, they would lose about three quarters of the harvested weight right off the bat in the process of drying and separating out the stems and leaves. If they harvested 1900 pounds then they would be doing damn good to get 500 pounds of saleable weed out of it. In fact, they would probably be lucky if they got 250 pounds. Figure that the cops often pull them up by the roots and measure the whole root and dirt ball in that total and you can cut that estimate down even further. Then there is the consideration of wholesale versus retail prices. The retail prices he gives above are fair estimates, but that's what the retailer gets, not the wholesaler. So, who knows, really, but certainly not anything close to what the cops estimated.

That's what I was wondering, it appears to be inflated value. You're also correct about it being cultivated here, the town were I went to high school had the remnants of a hemp plant on the edge of town. Most of the fields on that end of town were planted in hemp. It now grows wild here, although rare. A high school friend's father nce got a letter from the state informing him of a noxious weed which needed to be removed. If not done by a certain date, the state would remove it for a rediculous fee. They went to the location on the farm indicated in the letter and there was a 7 foot tall MJ plant growing there.

I know a guy that sold a particluar strain of bud retail for $4300 a pound.  Craziness.

I'm guessing that whole haul is worth a couple grand (if hash is extracted), plus a whole bunch of rope.

Retail, indoor pot that's the standard in my town is about $5,000.  But that's if it's dealt out by 1/8th oz bags.  

Quoted: Quoted: $190K for a Kilo??? You must be joking.... even if you buy it by the oz in this area you're looking at 1K/oz. 32oz/lb and 2.2 lbs/kilo. That's a LOOOONG way from 190K. I imagine it'd be a helluva lot less in SF but I don't operate there do I have no clue. According to an ex LEO friend of mine (heavy in the gangs - assigned to several different gang units for about 30 years) the going price for a kilo of cocaine is... (Stress: I don't know this personally - second hand but trustworthy information) Columbia - $500 Los Angeles - $130,000 San Francisco - $180,000 - 190,000 Oaklahoma - $220,000 Apparently there was a problem with the heroin trade a few years back, something called pure white from China. Pure stuff, had addicts all over California shooting up and falling down dead from an overdose (estimated 10 - 15x more potent than the other available stuff), and coming from China, it was cheaper.. they thought they were getting a killer deal.. they were partially right ETA: this is all pure, uncut numbers..

That seems way off. The highest price I have heard in the last so-many years for coke is $100 per gram retail -- which equates to a little less than $100,000 for a kilo, assuming you sold it by the gram.  As near as I have heard, retail prices have been significantly less than that for a long time.

If it is sold at the key level, I had someone ask me if I was interested in kilos of coke at about the $10,000-15,000 range. (I wasn't interested at any price.)

As already stated, cops inflate prices hugely. Why? Because it is good PR. If they gave real prices then somebody might notice they are spending more in tax dollars seiziing the stuff than they would have paid if they just went out and bought it.

down in south texas you can get an ounce of schwag for $30, hydro or kb will run from $20-$25 a gram.  we have tons and tons of seisures down here and when i read about it in the papers the numbers always seem really rediculous, but ive never taken the time to actually think about it and do the math.

Quoted: That's what I was wondering, it appears to be inflated value. You're also correct about it being cultivated here, the town were I went to high school had the remnants of a hemp plant on the edge of town. Most of the fields on that end of town were planted in hemp. It now grows wild here, although rare. A high school friend's father nce got a letter from the state informing him of a noxious weed which needed to be removed. If not done by a certain date, the state would remove it for a rediculous fee. They went to the location on the farm indicated in the letter and there was a 7 foot tall MJ plant growing there.

They had a program in the 1960s to try to get farmers to eradicate it but the farmers basically told them to fuck off because it was too much work and expense. They estimated there was more than 50,000 acres of the stuff in Kansas alone.

A quick calculation, using the police figures, tells me that was about 457 TRILLION dollars worth of marijuana in just one state. If you figure that state was just ten percent of the total (and it was probably less than that) then the total value of the marijuana crop has to be at least 5 QUADRILLION dollars. The sales tax alone on that would pay off the national debt several times over.

Your friend's experience shows how ridiculous this whole thing is. If it was really marijuana, why would they send a letter rather than just pull it up themselves? If it was really marijuana and they sent your friend a letter, why wouldn't somebody just harvest it and sell it?

If it was hemp, then what was the point of even sending the letter?  Why is an inert plant like that a "noxious weed"? Government policies on marijuana make no sense at all.