As our Ask a Stoner columnist noted this week, flying with marijuana is still not okay despite a TSA glitch that briefly suggested otherwise. But a new survey suggests that it’s happening a lot anyway. The report from MissTravel.com, which calls itself “the world’s first travel dating website,” shows that more than half the respondents have taken cannabis with them on a domestic flight. But that number tumbles for people traveling internationally.
Flying with marijuana has long been a hot topic among Westword readers. But the subject flared up nationally earlier this month, when the Marijuana Majority’s Tom Angell, a frequent interviewee in this space, tweeted the following: “Trump TSA marks marijuana as less restrictive on planes than alcohol over 140 proof, bottled water, corkscrews & recreational oxygen.”
A new study on marijuana use and attitudes toward legalization was released earlier this week — just in time for 4/20. During the first week of March, the Marist Poll conducted the Weed & the American Family survey, funded by Yahoo News and focusing on the impact of marijuana use on relationships and the family.
The survey found that more than half of the adults in America have tried marijuana at least once in their lives. Nearly 55 million people in this country currently use marijuana; 35 million consume monthly, 20 million consume yearly, and 78 million have tried it but aren’t using it right now. That adds up to 22 percent of Americans using marijuana, and 63 percent of those using marijuana regularly. Of the respondents who are users, 54 percent are parents and 30 percent are parents with children younger than 18.
For most users, it’s a social activity; 88 percent of the respondents say they consume with their close friends. The survey also determined that there are almost as many marijuana users in the U.S. as there are cigarette smokers.
Weed geeks love to test the same strain at different dispensaries. The Grow-Off is a type of Pepsi challenge whose results show which shops specialize in flavor, potency and yield — and which shops to avoid altogether. Last summer, when it was announced that over forty of Colorado’s commercial cannabis growers would be pitted against each other using the same mystery genetics, I couldn’t decide what I wanted to know more — who would win, or what the special strain was.
It took more than half a year, but the results are finally in: The secret mandatory ingredient was Race Fuel OG (also known as Race Fuel), a mix of High Octane OG and Face Off OG, two OG-heavy strains with names that leave little to the imagination. The Herbal Cure in Denver took home first for flavor and potency, while mountain-based High Country Healing saw the most yield.
As difficult as the scoring probably was, I would have paid a lot of money to be a judge on that panel. Luckily, some of the participating dispensaries are now selling their cuts of Race Fuel to the public. A quick whiff of the strain’s diesel and OG scents, which are like a combination of citrus cleaner and gasoline, will make tokers realize just how fortunate they are.
Update: After the publication of this post, Scott Pack provided us with additional information that’s intended to show he did nothing to defraud the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against him and acted in a manner that was completely legal and ethical. See it below, following our previous coverage.
Original post: Attorney Matthew Buck has filed a lawsuit in what he calls “the largest fraud case in the history of Colorado’s marijuana industry.” This contention is rejected by Scott Pack, the entrepreneur at the center of it.
No criminal charges have been pressed against Pack at this writing. But in the complaint, on view below, Buck’s clients, Pierre and Christophe Raygot, claim to have been bilked out of $500,000 by Pack and Rudy Saenz, the latter of whom was among sixteen people indicted last month in what prosecutors describe as a massive operation that grew marijuana for distribution outside Colorado. And Buck maintains that seventeen additional investors were also taken by Pack and Saenz; he estimates the total losses at more than $5.3 million.
“We’ve never seen anything close to this” in the Colorado cannabis business, Buck says. “I’ve never seen investments this great fail, let alone fraud on this scale. And our law firm” — Corry & Associates — “has been doing this for seventeen years,” since the approval, in the year 2000, of Amendment 20, which legalized medical marijuana in the state.
Our calendar is getting loaded for 4/20. Alongside more now-traditional events, such as the 420 Rally at Civic Center Park and Snoop Dogg’s annual Wellness Retreat show, there are some new ones on the roster, including a spring dinner put on by the Mason Jar Event Group, its first in the Mile High City.
Mason Jar is the “high society” organizer of the most coveted cannabis pairing dinners around. Think sun-soaked tables where Top Chef-worthy food is passed around along with joints, bongs and vaporizers; where the cannabis-industry elite, who appear the exact opposite of stoner stereotypes, thrive inside their own bubble.
4/20 has been a sacred holiday since the ’70s, and with Colorado leading the way on recreational legalization, Denver has become ground zero for the celebration. Whether it’s your first time in town for the big day or you’re a veteran, here are some tips on how to survive 4/20 at Civic Center Park and beyond:
1. Don’t carry more than an ounce
When you leave for the day, make sure you’re carrying no more than the legal amount of marijuana. If you’re planning to stop by a dispensary during the day, carry less than the legal amount so you don’t go over. In Colorado, it’s legal for adults 21 and up to possess one ounce of THC — flower, concentrates, edibles, whatever. Just make sure the total amount of THC does not go over one ounce.
Tomorrow, April 20, the latest edition of the Denver 4/20 Rally will hit Civic Center Park. The event, which gets under way at 10 a.m., is expected to draw approximately 50,000 people, and there’ll be plenty of food and music courtesy of DJs, local hip-hop groups and headliner 2 Chainz, who’ll emcee the annual 4:20 p.m. countdown. But what do attendees really need to know? We asked Miguel Lopez, the man behind the bash. Here’s his personal Denver 4/20 Rally top ten.
“Some people are very lucky — everything they touch works for them,” laments Steve Horwitz, owner of Ganja Gourmet. “But for whatever reason, ever since I opened this business I’ve had a black cloud around me. Pretty much nothing has worked the way it should have or could have.”
Horwitz, a seasoned salesman in his fifties with a hearty Long Island accent and a gold chain around his neck, doesn’t take no for an answer, though; he just shifts his approach and tries again. Over the past eight years — the period during which the marijuana industry exploded in Denver — he’s changed his business model four times. He opened Ganja Gourmet at 1810 South Broadway in late 2009 as a medical marijuana restaurant (and one of the first spots William Breathes reviewed), turned it into a takeout joint in 2010, transformed it into a medical dispensary in 2011, then changed it into a medical/recreational store in 2015. Now, to keep up with the times, Horwitz is gearing up to stamp his candy logo on wholesale edibles and partner with a smoke room once social consumption is allowed.
There are only two types of regular pot smokers: those who smoke a little extra on 4/20, and liars.
I get it: A lot of you are grownups now and much too busy to dedicate an entire day to cannabis. Me, too. But even if you’re years removed from your gravity bong days and only puffing a few times a week, indulging a little extra on the day of all haze is nothing to be ashamed of.
As a 4/20 veteran with a big-boy job for a few years now, I’ve learned how to appropriately ring in the holiday without being a dirtbag – and, most important, without rubbing shoulders with dirtbags. Want to celebrate 4/20 like an adult? Follow a few of these steps and you’ll feel a lot less shameful Friday morning.
Up in Tallahassee, state legislators are doing everything they can to undermine medical marijuana in Florida. Voters backed medical pot by more than 70 percent in November, and yet lawmakers responded by inviting the same guy who spent millions trying to defeat the measure to help write the new rules.
But despite all those statehouse shenanigans, medical pot dispensaries are finally a reality in Miami-Dade. Miami’s first legal storefront dispensary opened last week near the airport, and across the bay, commissioners will vote Wednesday on where three dispensaries could open in Miami Beach.
For now, the Trulieve dispensary is operating under rules passed between 2014-15, allowing low-THC products for a limited number of ailments and full marijuana products for terminally ill patients. The shop has a variety of marijuana-based medicines — from vaporizers to pills to tinctures — for qualifying patients.