First year of legal home grow yields big returns for these medical cannabis patients
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Growing cannabis at home has been “pretty darn rewarding” for Joseph Diaz.
He’s one of many Minnesotans who are medical patients that are growing their own cannabis after Minnesota legalized home grow and recreational use last year. Diaz, 36, has been growing cannabis in the basement of his home in Brooklyn Center since last summer.
While the state’s new cannabis laws have expanded who can qualify to be a medical patient and the number of patients in the state has increased in the past year, some medical patients are turning to growing their own to save money, control quality and spark joy.
“It’s just a lot cheaper and it’s kind of a better product. It’s similar in my mind to like, say growing your own tomatoes or something like that. You know exactly what went into it. And in most cases, it tends to be better than what you get from the store,” Diaz said.
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Diaz was diagnosed with autism in 2021 and, shortly after, his wife was diagnosed with ADHD. Both also suffer from anxiety and depression and find that cannabis helps with being in overstimulated environments or finishing simple tasks, like getting groceries.
Diaz has been a medical cannabis patient since 2021.
“For my wife’s 30th birthday, we decided to give cannabis a shot,” said Diaz. “It didn’t take long for the benefits to become apparent. I’ve never touched alcohol, but my wife cut back on it drastically after discovering cannabis. It’s just a far better experience. Both of our moods started improving with use.”
Brooklyn Center couple ‘over the moon’ after first attempt at home growing
Diaz is a daily cannabis user. His trips to the local medical dispensary typically cost between $200 to $300, and he and his wife would stock up so they didn’t have to go back for a few months. But when Diaz switched to using primarily cannabis flower last year, his trips to the dispensary increased to once a month.
“At a certain point it’s like ‘Oh man, this is kind of getting a little expensive.’ And there’s always deals, most cases you’re never paying full price. But we quickly realized this is putting a ding in the bank account,” said Diaz.
With little to no experience in gardening, Diaz bought books to help him learn how to grow cannabis in his basement. Since planting his first seeds last summer, he’s finished two grow cycles.
In total, he’s grown 1.25 pounds of dried flower to supply him, his wife, friends and family. Compared to prices of his local dispensary Green Goods, Diaz said that’s equivalent to spending about $4,000.
“It has been a very rewarding hobby,” said Diaz. “After that first grow and seeing the results and seeing how much I got, and then smoking it for the first time — my wife and I both were just over the moon with how well it turned out.”
For his next grow, Diaz is experimenting with growing a strain that has a 1:1 ratio of THC and CBD. The local medical dispensaries only carry flower with a small percentage of CBD and high THC.
“The goal was to find a strain that I can use during the day to relax me during stressful situations and not inhibit me at all,” said Diaz.
Stigma against cannabis still lingers for Roseville dad of three teenagers
Others like Tim Heisel of Roseville waited a while after legalization to start growing his own cannabis. Heisel has been a medical patient since last year and uses cannabis to treat his PTSD and anxiety, and also help with sleep management.
“I have a master’s degree in plant biology — this is like my wheelhouse. I’ve loved it. It’s a super fast growing, very aggressive growing plant. Once you get it going, it’s like you can kind of punish the plant and it will recover and grow bigger and grow fast and it’s fun even if somebody isn’t necessarily interested in consuming cannabis.”
Heisel is 42 and lives in Roseville with his wife and three teenagers. He just finished his first grow, which he started in March.
He’s been growing cannabis in his basement. Oddly enough, since Heisel is a skilled grower, he said a challenging part of home growing actually has just been talking to his teens about it.
“Even at the time when I was, you know, a kid in elementary school, and we would have these DARE programs, we all knew it was a joke. And then you get to adulthood, and it’s legal now in our state, and we still are like, weird about it. We feel like this is something shameful that we have to hide and the kids are like, we don’t care and it’s legal,” said Heisel.
His first attempt at growing with one cannabis plant yielded 92 grams of dried flower. He said the initial $700 investment for the first grow, including seeds and equipment, will be paid off with his second grow.
He plans to continue growing cannabis out of his basement and has even regained interest in starting up new plants in his garden.
