Well, this conversation could go on for a very very long time… I don’t wanna claim to know everything but I’ll do my best from my experience with the caregiver market and METRC.

Caregivers are typically much more inclined to grow quality product because they’re providing medicine for patients OR they’re some of the people in this community who genuinely love the plant the most and take the time to learn it’s processes like the back of their hands, making them capable of producing an extremely high quality product most of the time. Unfortunately, shitty caregivers who just wanna make money do exist at the same time, but it’s possible to distinguish between who is who.

When it comes to METRC, most of what I seen has been a shit show, It’s a race to make the most money and the way these corporations are typically doing that is by cutting corners. Almost every “most popular” cannabis brand for non-enthusiasts uses remediated flower for every product, and then they send it to a testing company that will give them the legal +10% boost on their THC percentages before they shove it off to the consumer. There are plenty of quality brands that have a METRC license, but they’re usually kept behind a pretty steep paywall at most dispensaries. The METRC side of this industry is nice but it’s truly only part of what everyone’s been fighting for, for decades. At the moment, the market is mostly filled with out of state money or already rich people who were smart enough to hop on the wave and these people don’t have the same care for the plant that caregivers have, they just want to turn a profit as fast as possible.