Mason jars of homegrown highlight the surplus of backyard weed that’s out there. Some homegrowers say they can’t even give their weed away anymore.
By Bonno
Every so often I get an offer that was unfathomable five years ago. Friends who grow their own weed have so much surplus, they want to share it for free.
The four-plant limit per household may sound puny but these guys have way more cannabis tucked away than they can give away.
One of them showed me eight mason jars filled with bud—all but one of them containing weed he grew in his garden last summer. He brought part of his stash to a ski-week gathering with friends from Nelson.
“I show up with a mason jar of my pot. Another shows up with a bunch of cookies and bags of pot for each of us. The third guy shows up with his stuff,” he laughs. “We’re all friends trying to get rid of this shit. We couldn’t give it away.”
Another Kelowna friend has harvested more than four pounds of product from his garden since home-growing was legalized in 2018. Tom (not his real name) smokes, makes edibles and, coincidentally, hands out one-litre mason jars stuffed with quality weed to any friend who’ll have it. He’s barely dented the supply he stores in his large sealed containers.
Tom also gets free weed from others. When his old boss sold his Kelowna house last fall, he harvested everything he grew before moving to the Coast.
“Before he left, he brought me a mason jar full of bud with the label on it of what it was. You go to someone’s house, you used to bring a bottle of wine. Now you bring a jar of weed,” Tom says.
"I’m over 60 and stopped smoking cannabis years ago. But this apparent bounty of bhang got me thinking. If every Canadian household can grow up to four plants at a time, isn’t there a glut of supply? How can cannabis retail stores survive when they compete not only with the black market and illegal shops, but hobby growers who consume less than they produce?"
Last year 11 per cent of Canadians who obtained dried weed in the previous month got it for free, according to the 2021 Canadian Cannabis survey of 10,000 respondents. Eight per cent grew their own or had it grown for them.
