Marijuana Helping to Produce Millionaires

Jeremy Moberg looks through a microscope to study a plant.

“Thrips,” he says to a man near him. “We’ll get rid of those with neem oil.”

Moberg saw the pest while cultivating in his garden. Moberg is not your average scientist. In fact, he owns a cannabis farm that is worth millions of dollars in Washington state, USA, where marijuana was legalized recreationally in 2012. His knowledge comes from experience. For the last twenty years, he has been illegally growing marijuana nine the woods, hiding from police. The smell of cannabis is definitely strong at the farm, where there are dozens of people maintaining the garden.

“You’re trimming too closely,” he says to a worker. “Leave it shaggier and go faster.”

Moberg is doing very well. He had made more than $3 million in the last two years when he began his business. But he adds that prices have decreased since there are so many operating businesses. In addition, there are high taxes and costs for maintenance that cut his profitability. Even then, he owns a few houses and occasionally goes out.

Moberg admits that he is a “product of circumstance, the right person at the right time.” Some time ago, he was doing well. He was an ecologist with a degree in environmental science degree and stopped to grow marijuana to win his daughter in a custody battle. However, he was fired and then struggled to make ends meet. He almost lost his house, got out of a relationship, and was arrested. At the moment, Moberg is operating a legal business, producing and making 900 kilograms of cannabis annually that he sells to dispensaries opening up across the state.

“It felt so good when the vote passed to legalize,” Moberg stated. “We drank and sat in the hot tub in the snow. We totally partied. The next morning my pipe, my beer, my weed were still there. I remembered saying: ‘This is going to be huge.’”