Marijuana Majority |
Marijuana Majority |
Graphic: Emilie_Ann_McGregor |
40th Anniversary of President Nixon’s Declaration of a ‘War On Drugs’ Will Be Marked By Thursday Press Conference
There are abundant examples of celebrities trying to profit off legal cannabis while the less famous sit behind bars, but some of the OGs of cannabis culture are putting their money where their mouths are. Eric Rachmany, guitarist and singer for Rebelution, is using his national solo tour as a way to raise awareness and money for those imprisoned for cannabis charges.
The strain name game is a fun, complicated mess of cannabis genetics, nomenclature and overzealous salespeople. You can find strains named after celebrities, candy, presidents, mountain ranges and everything in between.
Following a 2016 event that was postponed because of a snowstorm and finally staged a month later, the 2017 Denver 4/20 Rally is scheduled to take place on the actual date of April 20 for the first time in four years. That means it should happen on a Thursday instead of a weekend, but this timing hasn’t caused promoter Santino Walter of Civic Center Park Productions to lower his expectations for the gathering, which is centered around a free concert headlined by 2 Chainz.
“I think it’s going to be huge,” Walter says. “Denver is still the biggest destination to travel to and legally buy and consume retail cannabis for 4/20. You can see it in the way the hotels are already booked out, the cost of flights out here, how flights are booked up, the amount of superstar celebrities who will be in our city the four or five days of 4/20 weekend. So I think we’re probably going to have the largest event we’ve ever had.”
It follows an infamous raid..
Here’s your daily round-up of pot-news, excerpted from the newsletter WeedWeek. Download WeedWeek’s free 2016 election guide here.
Santa Ana, Calif. paid $100,000 to a the dispensary raided by police in 2015, and agreed to drop misdemeanor charges against employees, in exchange for them agreeing not to sue. Three officers face charges after surveillance footage recorded them mocking an amputee and playing darts during the raid. They argued that they shouldn’t be charged since they believed they had disabled all of the dispensary’s video cameras.
The world of weed is open for business, and celebrities are capitalizing on it. From Merle Haggard, who died before his strains hit the market, to Wiz Khalifa and Snoop Dog, who performed together at Red Rocks for the 4/20 celebration in 2014, celebrities are flocking to Colorado to join the cannabis revolution. Here are six of them:
BPBNT courtesy of Cheryl Shuman. |
Cheryl Shuman posing for photos in a garden she likely doesn’t actually tend. |
Cheryl Shuman runs the Beverly Hills Cannabis Club out of L.A., which she says sells one of the first designer brands of pot (never mind that there apparently isn’t an actual dispensary). Her product runs $750 an ounce and comes wrapped in 14-carat gold (no word on if anyone is naive enough to actually pay that). New dupes customers often get star treatment: Chefs will come to their mansions to prepare cannabis-infused meals.
In fact, Shuman claims her entire clientele is star-studded. She says she’s sold to celebrities like Justin Timberlake, who told Playboy in 2011 that he “absolutely” smokes. Other clients have to be kept on the down-low, and the business lacks a brick-and-mortar location in the Hollywood Hills. (She claims a lot, actually, and some say she’s full of it). Now the self-professed “Martha Stewart of marijuana” wants to start a political Super PAC of pot-smoking mommies in Florida to help get medical marijuana passed this November. Read more at the Broward-Palm Beach New Times.
As we reported earlier this week, Asian movie star Jaycee Chan, son of legendary Kung Fu film icon Jackie Chan, was arrested in his home in Beijing last week with about 3.5 ounces of herb.
While you might expect the star of the legendary Drunken Master to offer his sympathies in public for his son Jaycee, Jackie Chan – who is now the official Chinese Police Narcotics Control Ambassador – says he is saddened and ashamed.
Stoners using Twitter to spread the good word of the ganja may be influencing the youth of America to get high on marijuana. At least this appears to be the consensus of a recent study from the Washington University School of Medicine, which finds that social media messages pertaining to marijuana are reaching hundreds of thousands children in the United States every day.