It’s a Miracle

Most people know Scotts’ Miracle-Gro products can help you grow big fat tomatoes and a lush lawn of green grass.

But the company’s CEO recently announced that Miracle-Gro might be interested in targeting another kind of grass: marijuana.

Well, not just ANY marijuana, and certainly not your garden-variety marijuana for those who tend those kinds of, you know, gardens. No, this would be for LEGAL medical marijuana growers living in the 16 states – including Colorado since 2000 – that have a medical marijuana law on the books.

Miracle-Gro’s somewhat-against-the-grain CEO, Jim Hagedorn, said he is exploring the possibility of targeting medical marijuana – a market now estimated at $1.7 billion in sales this year – as a new way to help grow the Marysville, Ohio-based lawn-and-garden business.

“I want to target the pot market,” Hagedorn said in a Wall Street Journal story, not mincing his words. “There’s no good reason we haven’t.”

Well, some might say there IS a good reason, which is the fact that marijuana is still illegal in 34 states and at the federal level. And while the Obama administration has tended to not go after legal growers, there is still that – let’s say stigma – which major, well-known commercial companies fear having attached to them if they become too publicly associated with marijuana.

Don’t want to offend the little old lady gardeners, don’t you know…

Now, with a name like Miracle-Gro, the puns and tongue-in-cheek ad copy about using the mixture to grow bigger and healthier pot plants would be easy to write. “Want bigger, more potent buds? Just spray on Miracle-Gro and you’ll be enjoying a smoother, mellower smoke in no time!” the ads might say.

James Whitmore, Miracle-Gro’s old school former spokesman, would be spinning in his grave.

Hagedorn told The Wall Street Journal his company is doing well – with sales rising 5 percent last year to $2.9 billion. But Scotts’ sales rely heavily on three major retailers – Home Depot, Lowe’s and Wal-Mart – and those retailers aren’t expanding much these days due to a slowdown in consumer spending.

Ergo, the company’s eyeballing of the medical marijuana market.

Colorado is one place that might be profitable for a Miracle-Gro medical marijuana product. The state is the second biggest sales market (far behind California) at an estimated $244 million this year.

That’s a lot of pot-ential customers.

But Scotts would have to be subtle in its marketing approach. One idea is to buy niche soil companies and sell a Miracle-Gro marijuana soil mixture through those niche brands.

Hagedorn also said he is concerned that growers might be turned off by the idea of using a staid product like Miracle-Gro, although Miracle-Gro products have reportedly been found at illegal grow raids.

Some Journal article readers – apparently in-the-know on such things — commented that the newest Miracle-Gro product is not a particularly good mixture for growing pot.

So if Scotts does move forward on a Miracle-Gro for medical marijuana, it will likely have to tweak its formula some.

Still, that would be a small price to pay to enter a market that’s growing every day.

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