The Ammiano bill[Ammiano_Bill_AB_390] proposes a fee of $50 on each ounce of marijuana sold. Is this reasonable? How does this compare to the cost per ounce of marijuana in a world without prohibition?
It takes no particular technology to grow marijuana, it's a plant that grows easily in the manner of any other plant. There is some expertise required in its cultivation and this is where the main cost is.
A typical indoor homegrow operation for personal use will yield a pound or two every 3 to 4 months, or 3 to 8 pounds per year. Startup costs for such a grow amount to around $500, including: some nice self-watering pots, adequate grow lights, soil, and plants.
Recurring costs include new soil, nutrients, seeds, water, and electricty. Amortizing the startup costs over 5 years, the total cost for a small homegrow operation is around $6 per ounce. All this is assuming you can get 4 pounds a year out of 10 plants, you're amortizing startup costs over 5 years, you've got 160 watts of grow lights, your electricity costs $0.15/kw-hr, and you spend $50/quarter in other costs. Any of these variables can change, changing the cost of the final product.
So that's for a small personal grow of 10 plants that can be tended in one's spare time, maybe 10 minutes a day at most. If you scale this up to 500 plants, which is a reasonable number for one person to be able to tend, you could make around $150,000 a year after costs if you sold it for $50/ounce.
This seems like a reasonable amount for a small entrepreneur to make, so we can assume that $50/ounce is a good middle baseline for the cost of legal marijuana. Some people might be able to get it down to $20/ounce, some excellent grower might be able to command $100/ounce. It's doubtful that marijuana will be dirt cheap, nor is it likely to be anywhere near the $500/ounce some marijuana receives today.
In this light, the Ammiano tax of $50/ounce seems unreasonably high. A figure of $10/ounce would be more likely to avoid the kind of black market that has risen up around cigarettes, and sometimes alcohol.
To figure out the operating costs of your lighting when you're learning how to grow weed from websites like http://www.howtogrowweed420.com, ensure that you take the lights combined wattage, and divide it by 1000 to get the kilowatts used. With this number you then multiply it by whatever financial charge your electricity company charges per kilowatt hour.