For those that have been in the cannabis industry their entire lives, we all know the challenges presented to the “legacy” market, better described as the black market. It’s really heartbreaking to go through all the trials and tribulations of the working in the black market, fighting for legalization and then once the US starts to legalize they royally fuck it up, like many things the government does in this country. Specifically by allowing very unsafe product to be produced.
For a lot of younger consumers I feel for them, they have no idea what good cannabis actually is. I see the constant posts on social media with the rock looking buds clearly mass produced, grown for density almost certainly with the implementation of cancer causing, landscape industry developed plant growth regulators. Every comment on these posts is something to the effect of “oh fire” or “that’s that gas!” (scoff, eye roll). Firstly if you think something “looks fire” you’re already lost the plot.
Unless you know how the bud is grown, have a discerning nose and can pull the bud apart to see the density and the adhesiveness (something that doesn’t exist when using PGRs in my experience) you really have no idea. Oh it gets you high? No shit, when was the last time you got bud from somewhere and it didn’t get you high off your ass? The game has changed and apparently if the bud is black or purple and caked in trichomes no one seems to give a shit how it’s grown, even if it’s a year old $60 / oz trash from Michigan that if not purchased will end up in the actual trash (where it belongs).
So why am I saying all this and what does it have to do with SevenFive Farm? I’ll tell you, SevenFive Farm is a disgusting grow in Boulder CO that I had the displeasure of working at for over a year. My firsthand experience with this place showed me (along with working at a few other commercial grows) just how egregious the conditions are in these grow facilities. Not just from the perspective of the plants themselves but also the conditions that people are forced to labor under.
PGRs
I could write for days about the horrible things I saw in this grow, but I want to be concise so I’ll keep my ranting to a minimum. Firstly we used Plant Growth Regulators, which I’ve written extensively about (find my blog post on it from the hyperlink). Long story short these were developed for landscapers for plant uniformity, NOT TO BE CONSUMED by ANYONE!! There are some tell tale signs that you are smoking cannabis containing PGRs, the first is you fucked up and bought it at a dispensary in the US, the second is the bud looks like rocks as it’s so dense it hardly resembles a plant, thirdly it’s usually really spongy in consistency and usually isn’t very sticky. Now while not all dispensaries use these PGRs I would say in my extensive experience smoking cannabis in 18 legal states over 90% use them. And if it wasn’t poisonous I would use them too, as you can quadruple your yields in the same cubic foot area.
Pesticides
Have you seen the movie Outbreak? It’s about the Ebola virus becoming airborne in a 1990’s pandemic blockbuster. You remember the hazmat suits that they wear? That is what you will find people wearing in dispensary grows when they are spraying the plants with God knows what chemicals. The room will be sealed off to everyone complete with a skull and crossbones sign on the door. Fun fact, tobacco contains several hundred carcinogens when raw, upon combustion those carcinogens multiply to tens of thousands, could you imagine what smoking this hazmat weed will do to you long term?
Environmental
We dumped toxic chemical directly into the ground from this grow and no one seemed to care, Boulder CO has some of the strictest environmental laws in the country, but alas the farm was able to do this with impunity.
Employee Safety
After several employees got very ill from breathing in an extreme amount of mold, several of the workers asked about workers compensation as they were no longer able to work. The company’s response? Fire everyone.
They also illegally ignored Boulder County’s mandatory mask mandate during Covid and as a result almost the entire staff got Covid.
Government Regulatory Inefficiency
I spend an hour (on my birthday of all days) filing a full report with Colorado’s MED (Marijuana enforcement division) detailing specifically all the things I mentioned above, the result? Nothing, they continued to push poison onto the masses of people foolish enough to smoke their shit.
While you may think this is an isolated incident, I saw most if not all of the same practices implemented in the other commercial grows I worked at. Also in the unfortunate circumstance that I do have to go into a dispensary to buy weed I can tell from breaking it sup and smoking it that it is significantly inferior to what I’ve grown personally.
So for the record FUCK SevenFive farm the people that ran it like Hannah McGregor, who conveniently is trying to distance herself from company by not mentioning she worked there.
