“The Porno, The Hitchhiker & The Weed,” the most recent episode of Viceland’s Vice Does America, will bring viewers to Denver as hosts Abdullah Saeed, Will Cooper and Martina de Alba visit the Denver Relief grow operation and discuss marijuana legalization.
This was not Saeed’s first foray into the world of marijuana. He has reported on cannabis policy and culture for Vice since 2012. In addition to his work as a producer on Viceland, he also hosts Bong Appetit, a series about cannabis edibles.
In November California voters will have a chance to legalize recreational marijuana — and speculators are licking their lips at the prospect of a green rush in the Golden State. One analysis says California’s legal pot revenues could more than double — from $2.7 billion in 2015 to $6.6 billion in 2020 — if we fully legalize cannabis.
But in the biggest marijuana market in the United States (the city of Los Angeles has more dispensaries than the entire state of Colorado), the industry’s growth could lag, even if recreational weed is passed by voters.
An organization that represents the majority of legit (medical) marijuana shops in L.A. is pushing to cap the city’s number of dispensaries — medical or not — at 135. The organization, the United Cannabis Business Alliance (UCBA), has just filed its initiative language with the L.A. City Attorney’s Office …
Home gardening in Washington D.C. just got a lot more fun.
The following is excerpted from the newsletter WeedWeek. Get your free and confidential subscription at WeedWeek.net.
Washington D.C. consultant Natalie Carver has started a business assisting home growers. “She rolls her joints with rosemary, lavender, and mullein, a bronchial dilator used by Native Americans in spiritual ceremonies.”
A rabbi and an African-American pastor are among the parties competing for grow licenses in Maryland.
The German bestseller “ High Hitler: Drugs in the Third Reich,” is being translated into English.
Product Earth Expo, the U.K.’s largest cannabis convention, took place for the second time. An Australian man called the cops on his father for burning his crop.
There has been a resurgence of the red cannabis associated with Calabria, the rugged “toe” of Italy. In another piece, Leafly’s Enrico Fletzer asks if legalization is coming to Naples, where organized crime controls the market. Fletzer also calls Bologna the “ Hemp capital of Europe.”
Rival pro-legalization groups had an altercation outside the Vancouver Art Gallery. An organizer with Cannabis Culture said he was attacked by someone wielding a yoga mat. I’m just juvenile enough to mention that western Canada’s premiere art museum is known as “ the VAG.”
Washington D.C. consultant Natalie Carver has started a business assisting home growers. “She rolls her joints with rosemary, lavender, and mullein, a bronchial dilator used by Native Americans in spiritual ceremonies.”
Contrary to internet rumors, doughnut chain Tim Hortons will not start selling pot next year.
The video game Hemp Inc. resembles Farmville, with one predictable difference. Vice also interviews some female dealers.
The new 419.99 mile markers on Interstate 70 in Colorado, do not get stolen as often as their 420 mile predecessors.
Olympics-branded weed is available in Rio.
The marijuana legalization initiative that will be on the November ballot in California is a disappointment to many in the cannabis decriminalization movement. California NORML, the granddaddy of political pot groups, has not fully endorsed it.
These critics say that Proposition 64, which will allow Californians 21 and older to possess up to one ounce of marijuana, is about as conservative as it could be without defeating the very purpose of legalization, which is allowing folks to enjoy weed without fear of arrest.
Just your average, .32-gram joint here.
The following is excerpted from the newsletter WeedWeek. Get your free and confidential subscription at WeedWeek.net.
A ProPublica investigation finds that field drug tests widely-used by police are unreliable and can turn up false positives.
A study in JAMA Psychiatry found that cannabis use disrupts the reward processing mechanism in the brain. The journal editorializes that more research into the plant’s effects on the brain is urgently needed.
Smoking cannabis and tobacco together, a practice more common in Europe than the U.S., may contribute to dependency on both, a study found. See the study here.
In Canada, border authorities have cracked down on shipments of CBD oil. In Australia, some children with epilepsy will have access to the CBD-based drug Epidiolex before trials are complete.
The average joint contains .32 grams of marijuana, researchers have learned. This is an important figure for tax assessments and public health studies, the Washington Post says.
The .32 number was obtained by a statistical analysis of arrest data. In the past, researchers have tried to learn it by asking subjects to compare joint-size to common objects or having subjects roll joints with oregano.
Uruguay’s law allows pharmacists to sell weed, but most don’t want to. A small political party in Japan wants to lift the national ban on MED research.
Synthetic cannabis is still very dangerous.
President Obama’s clemency initiative has commuted the sentences of more than 300 offenders with a focus on non-violent drug offenders. The New Yorker asks why nearly 12,000 prisoner petitions remain undecided.
A case in South Dakota highlights the practice of urine tests obtained by force, with a catheter. State Attorney General Marty Jackley (R) defended the practice on legal grounds, but said “I don’t think anyone wants to go through that methodology.”
The Texas Tribune tells the story of a U.S. Border Patrol agent who got romantically involved with a marijuana smuggler.
The Kind profiles Jeff Mizanskey, who until his release last year was the only man in Missouri serving life for a non-violent marijuana offense. He spent 21 years in prison.
Jay Scott, sporting a brown ponytail and a shirt that exposes his tattoos, walks through Habatat Galleries in West Palm Beach, past Dale Chihuly’s fluorescent, coral-like cylinders and William Morris’ display of ancient tools. The 39-year-old weaves among pieces created by some of the world’s most renowned glass artists and then stops at the back of the store. Then he picks up a spiky blue alien sculpture.
His partner Lindsey, who inherited the gallery from her retired parents in 2009, flashes a coy smile as Jay twirls the $20,000 piece, revealing its bright colors and elaborate workmanship. But this one is different. It’s “functional,” Jay says.
In other words, it’s a bong. And Scott is far from the only South Florida glassblower making a killing in the luxury bong market.
The TAG program tests marijuana for things like fungus and mildew.
Starting today, you can purchase weed that’s been given a quality-assurance grade.
Created by the Trichome Institute, a Colorado-based company dedicated to science, education and certification, the Trichome Assurance Grade (TAG) system analyzes potentially unhealthy, even dangerous, parts of marijuana for which the government doesn’t require testing.
Big-money investors are starting to see the upside in going “green.”
Following Microsoft’s recent partnership with Kind Financial, Google may want to go green as well. John Lord, CEO of LivWell, a large vertically-integrated producer in Colorado, said the search giant had reached out to him. (On The Cannabist Show, Lord discusses the implications of industry-hated tax provision 280E.)
Venture capitalists are shaking off the stigma. The Bloomberg article contains the tidbit that New York’s health department uses Oracle software to monitor its MED program.
Jim Hagedorn, CEO of publicly-traded Scotts Miracle-Gro, said he want’s to “Invest, like, half a billion in the pot business…It is the biggest thing I’ve ever seen in lawn and garden.” Since 2015, Scotts has spent $255M acquiring companies that make soil, fertilizers, lighting and hydroponics. He pledges to invest $150M more this year.
Ohio is considering a cashless system — think pre-paid debit cards — for its newly legalized MED industry.
Colorado company Helix TCS acquired online wholesale platform Cannabase for an undisclosed sum. Wholesale prices are falling fast in Colorado.
Stock in Insys Therapeutics jumped after the FDA approved its cannabis-derived drug.
Want to take your weed-snob knowledge to the next level? Under president Max Montrose and CEO Jim Nathanson, theTrichome Institute offers a series of cannabis courses, culminating with the “weed sommelier,” or interpening, class.
In his interpening — technically “interpreting terpenes” — class, Montrose regularly guides cannabis enthusiasts through the ins and outs of cannabis. For four solid hours, everyone from managers of dispensaries to growers, budtenders and owners learns how to pick up a plant and detect everything they need to know about the cannabis from its smell, bud structure and leaves. If you pay attention and pass a test at the end of the class, you’ll win official certification as a weed sommelier.
With The Stoner’s Coloring Book, Jared Hoffman has created the first adult coloring book designed specifically with stoners in mind. Hoffman, a graduate of Cornell University now living in Brooklyn, worked with artists around the world to compiled over forty illustrations designed for “high-minded” individuals. Hoffman’s goal was not just to create a fun, creative outlet, however, but also to provide a tool to inspire an open discussion of marijuana and legalization.
Westword recently talked with Hoffman about his just-released book, the artists behind it, and how a coloring book might help bring us closer to national legalization.