The only bad thing is the socially unacceptable shadow that it casts on high tech gardening.

High profit crops are needed to push the state of the art environmental control designs forward and costs down for other crops; which will become increasingly common as systems mature and costs decline below that of traditional production methods.

> unacceptable

Since pot is legal to grow (either freely or with a medical license) in California, Colorado, Washington, Oregon, New Mexico, Nevada, Alaska, Arizona, Massachusetts, Michigan, Maine, Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, Montana, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, Florida, D.C., and Hawaii, I'm not sure it's so "unacceptable" anymore.

I get really tired of the voluntary blind spot people adopt about this. Legalization is happening for medicinal reasons, and for economic/justice reasons. Not because people everywhere decided it's good for you recreationally. It's not this binary thing where all of a sudden it's the same as, like, knitting as a hobby. Growing it also doesn't inhabit the same moral space as growing wine grapes in your back yard, or even brewing beer in your garage.

> Growing it also doesn't inhabit the same moral space as growing wine grapes in your back yard, or even brewing beer in your garage.

Says you. I fail to see any reason see why wine making is morally better than growing cannabis, or why alcohol use would be morally better than cannabis use.

One might be more common, but it's certainly not more moral to do.

Having seen both the short and long term effects of both (sadly), I'd say alcohol is way more immoral in an universal (not social standard) sense.

All I know, and what I think he's saying is that if I were to tell my friends and family that I grew that (which I don't) they would all redicule and/ore disown me.

And a lot of people I know would be in the same boat. Is everyone like that no of course not, but I'd venture to say a significant portion of people are(not necessarily majority, but a lot)

Maybe. The problem here is, unfortunately, in several incidents, merely shopping at a hydroponics shop has been enough for police to put you on a "suspicion of growing marijuana" list. (Example here: http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/pinellas-hydroponi...)

In the states that have legalized marijuana to some extent, this may be less of a problem these days. That still leaves a large amount of states where this may still be an issue, and potentially create hassles. Kansas is not on your list, for instance, and it was pretty easy to Google a similar incident there: http://www.kctv5.com/story/23951053/leawood-family-seeks-7-m...

This is unfortunate, because high tech gardening absolutely has applications beyond weed. Even if it's more niche / luxury (for instance, restaurants having indoor gardens to ensure a supply of super-fresh veggies and herbs) or hobbyist (like the African violet grower comment below... even largely idiot-proof versions like the Aerogardens exist for this market) due to the economics... these applications do exist.

Right, I should have said frowned upon as the legislative tides are slowly changing. Only 8 / 50 states are recreationally legal and even in these states employers still use drug testing as a pre employment filter indicating some level of social stigma still exists.

http://norml.org/states

> Only 8 / 50

The rate of growth is something else to consider. From two states (Colorado and Washington) last year to at least three more this year (MA, ME and CA). And I didn't even notice that DC, NV and OR crept in as well.

Yes, some social stigma exists, but it's on its way out. But I agree with you as far as: It may never reach full U.S.-Wide legalization. And employers may never get over it.

Note though, that medical as > 50% adoption by state in the U.S.

Source: http://norml.org/laws

Including CBD only medical states, > 85% have some form of medicinal; only Texas, Idaho, South Dakota, and Kansas have no form of legalization if you include hemp.

The profitability being high it promotes bad engineering "who cares how much it costs, who cares about the electric bill, you can buy a thousand heads of organic lettuce with profits after selling the weed". Then people try to grow lettuce directly instead of using weed as an intermediary and its not nearly as successful therefore the whole idea must suck or something. Although with better engineering, perhaps indoor lettuce growing could be technically and economically successful if the entire marketplace of weed wasn't stacked up against it.

Sort of a bad money pushes out good money scenario. If it weren't for profitable indoor weed farmers, you'd have higher technology level indoor successful lettuce farmers, and eating is more important to the world than getting high.

Its a scalability argument... when used restaurant fryer oil is free, turning it into free biodiesel is a win, until restaurants start selling used oil and making exclusive deals until its cheaper for everyone to burn diesel instead of making biodiesel, at which point the schemes collapse and used oil again becomes worthless trash. You can feed "A" hippie by selling indoor grown weed and buying produce at the store but you can't feed a planet by having everyone grow indoor weed and buy produce (from who?) at the store. Eventually everyone into weed is going to grow their own and the market will collapse until no one can grow indoor weed and the cycle might repeat.

>Sort of a bad money pushes out good money scenario. If it weren't for profitable indoor weed farmers, you'd have higher technology level indoor successful lettuce farmers, and eating is more important to the world than getting high.

I think you've got it completely backwards, if it weren't for the indoor weed farmers making the market, there would be little development in indoor farming at all.

The amount of electricity can easily be gathered at zero marginal cost via small scale photovoltaic setup.