The way we smoke weed has gone through some pretty rapid changes over the past few decades—dabs, pre-rolls, vape pens, and plenty of USB-C charged devices that will instantly vaporize your favorite flower or concentrate. So why are you still mixing tobacco into your joints?

Weed is too good to fuck up with a heavy sprinkle of American Spirit and you’re lying to yourself with every attempt to justify the outdated blend. It’s time to move beyond spliffs. 

People have been smoking spliffs—joints rolled with a mix of cannabis and tobacco—since the first documented instance of weed being rolled in Guadalajara, Mexico circa 1856. The tradition continued across the globe, with hash frequently mixed with tobacco and rolled for easy consumption. These days, spliffs are still popular across the U.S. Sure, it’s more prevalent in some places than others, but I know heavy stoners from New York to L.A. and plenty in between who keep a pack of cigs or pouch of loose leaf in their smoking kits at all times.

Times change though, and as we barrel headfirst into 2023, the excuses left for spliffing your weed are growing thinner than a king size rice paper. 

The most common reason I get when I ask people why they still add tobacco to their weed is that it “burns better,” and to that, I say this: learn how to roll better joints. If your joints are burning unevenly without tobacco, that’s a you problem, not a weed problem. Try packing it a little tighter, try pulling on it a little lighter, roll practice joints over and over until your fingers turn green and every single one looks, lights, and burns perfectly—it will be worth it, I promise. 

Next, spliff smokers will say that tobacco helps save them weed and therefore money. But weed is cheaper than it’s ever been and only getting cheaper while tobacco is only getting more expensive, with many cities and states adding higher and higher taxes for cigarettes and loose leaf. It might make some slight economic sense, but unless you’re spliffing top-shelf flower (we’ll get to that) you can probably afford to roll without tobacco; try buying shake or pre-ground weed if you need to make your bag stretch. If you’re really looking to make your favorite strain last, mix in some shake or mids with your exotics—just think of it as spliffing your joint with more weed.

What about the argument that adding tobacco to your weed gets you higher? First, I don’t believe that smoking less of the plant that does get you high and replacing it with the plant that doesn’t get you high will result in you getting higher. You know what will definitely get you higher? More weed. Don’t trust my back of the napkin math? Here’s a peer-reviewed study that says the same thing. 

Funny enough, I have also heard the opposite explanation, that weed alone is simply too intoxicating, and that tobacco helps to ease the effects. In that instance, I simply recommend smoking less weed.

Most importantly though, stop spliffing your weed because it completely changes the flavor of your flower. 

Decades of arduous, focused, illegal cannabis breeding have created a plant that is potent and flavorful with a constantly evolving menu of unique varieties. Tobacco and weed mixed just fine in the flavorless days of brick weed and densely packed black hash, but the way weed smells, tastes, and smokes in 2023? It’s a thing of art. Why dilute that experience?

I have slightly more patience for blunts, mainly because they do not disguise the presence of tobacco like a spliff does, and because they don’t ruin the flavor of the weed quite as much, but at the end of the day, sacrificing any amount of terp profile for the sake of a nicotine buzz is still kind of a bummer in my book. 

I’m not here to judge your tobacco consumption, smoke 10 cigarettes right before we smoke a joint and another half a pack after, all good, I’m just here to defend weed. 

You might need tobacco, but weed doesn’t. 

The post Put Down the Tobacco—We Have Surpassed the Need for Spliffs appeared first on High Times.

9:45 – Wake up. Some kid throws fire works outside my apartment window. He normally does it during the night. Now it’s in the morning. Progress, I guess?

9:55 – Feed that cats. This must be done as early as possible, or I feel they may revolt and come for my eyes. Gotta keep Hali and Eevee happy, for my eyes’ sake.

10:00 – For breakfast I want French toast, 3 eggs and bacon. But my fat ass needs to be healthy for this new year, so we are doing two plain scrambled eggs. Starting the day off bland. Lets go!

10:15 – Pop a 5 mg edible for my morning walk. I don’t wanna get too high because I have therapy later. Nice excuse for candy in the morning; don’t tell my diet. 

10:20 – Time for my morning walk with my buddy and great comic Torio Van Grol. Gottta get my 10k steps in, while also editing a stand up clip as we walk. Stand up clips are the new life blood of the industry, one IG/TIKTOK clip can make you famous. PRAISE BE TO THE ALGORITHM! LET ITS GLORY SHINE UPON ME!

11:00 – Get home, and pound two glasses of water, per my New Year’s diet rules. Post stand up clip on all social media platforms, fingers crossed this is the one that makes me famous.

11:15 – Therapy – oh no, I got too high and my zoom therapy is freaking me out. Feels like I’m telling my problems to someone on Chat Roulette, sometimes the future sucks.

12:00 – Fuck the clip I posted is bombing on TikTok and YouTube. But did kinda hit on IG and Facebook. Should I delete it? Will that make the algorithm god happy? Should I start doing shitty crowd work clips? But I don’t care how long people have been dating, or what they do for a living. Damn, imma load the Puffco with some live Resin a fan gave me last night. I start scrolling Instagram for a while, man I love this Puffco.

12:15 – I’m stoned outta my gourd watching a NBA TV condensed Sacramento Kings game from last night. I open my phone and get ready to start writing some jokes. (All day every day, I’m constantly thinking about stand-up. How I can get better, what can be a new joke, and what can’t. So, throughout the day, I’ll jot down jokes in my notes app on my iPhone. Normally the premise and a few little tags I thought were funny. Some of these are good, and some are hot dog shit. A few days later I’ll sit down and go through all the jokes with fresh eyes. The good ones I’ll write on a waterproof note pad before I take a shower.)

12:30 – Take a shit while smoking a joint. This is almost an art form; it’s a dangerous game to ash between your legs. But someone’s gotta do it, and I’m just the man for the job. Rolled up some Alien Labs for this special occasion.

12:40 – Time for my long shower. This is where the magic happens, this is how I write. I bring in the waterproof note pad with the water proof pencil. I got it on Amazon; it’s the coolest thing ever. I look at the set list I made on the note pad, and I start riffing. If I come up with anything good, I’ll write it on the waterproof note pad. I dunno why, but I’ve always gotten the best ideas in the shower. The water sounds like applause. I feel like superstar in the shower. An Arena comic. Oh shit, forgot I gotta clean up my beard too. Got a big night tonight.

1:00 – The final stage of writing is taking the note pad with the notes from me riffing in the shower, and rewrite the jokes back into my phone, and create a set list of the jokes I’m going to do tonight. A set list is extremely important to me, and it can change how my sets will go. Some people go on stage and just fuck around. I’m very technical and stick to my set list unless something comes up in the audience. It allows me to not forget a joke I wanted to work on. A set list is important because you don’t wanna start with something too dirty, or weird because you may lose the crowd. I do a set list like a sandwich. I start with some good faithful jokes that I know work, so I can get the audience on my side. Then I go into the newer stuff in the middle of the set, and I end with my best current joke to leave the audience with a good taste in their mouths. All this sandwich talk is making me hungry. Time for lunch.

1:15 – Reheat the meal plan lunch I made for the week. I hate meal planning because I’m always eating the same thing every day, and I don’t really like 3-day-old food. But alas I’m fat, and need to lose weight, so here goes ground turkey, rice, and asparagus for the third day in a row. How exciting. Starting to think I’d rather just be husky.

1:30 – Now it’s reward time. I like to roll something called the Steve Furey Special. Wonder where I got that name? I take a Grabba Leaf, and iron it w a little kief. The heat from the iron flattens out the Grabba Leaf and gets the keef to stick to the wrap. I then break up the weed by hand (I feel like over-ground weed clogs the blunt.) I add some Tutti hash, and some Raw Garden diamonds. Lastly, I take some live resin sauce and put about a ½ inch bar across the Grabba Leaf. Now, is this overkill? Sure. But I may change the name of the blunt to The Oscars, cuz it slaps harder than Will Smith. This will be the last time I smoke before my shows tonight. Used to love to be high outta my mind on stage, but now that I’m older I gotta be a lil’ more coherent. And if I smoke too much I can almost find a disconnect of stage. I only finish half the blunt.

1:45 – I play a rotation of games. Normally  Madden, 2K, FIFA, Elden Ring, and Cyperpunk 2077. People hate on Cyberpunk, but I think it lightweight slaps. I love sports and open world RPG games. I hate people telling me what to do—probably why I became a comic, huh shoulda talked about this in therapy.

2:30 – Start research for my podcast This Week in Crime with Saul Trujillo. It’s a super fun podcast where we try and find the funniest crimes, and make fun of them as much as possible. It’s a battle of jokes about some pretty dark stuff, with one of my best buds. It’s a good time.

3:30 – Head out for the day and put the half a Steve Furey blunt in my pocket. Then drive to The Comedy Store.

4:00 -Record the podcast w/ Jon Sosis at the Comedy Store Studios.

5:00 – Drive to The Set Up at Citizen Public Market in Culver City. Driving is a huge part of L.A. comedy and most of the time takes longer than you’ll be on stage. But at least I’m in my car and not on a train with some homeless dude jerking off. Not that that’s a bad thing, just not in the mood today.

5:30 – Set up show – First show of the night is a show I co-produce w/ Richard Sarvate, Abhay & Zack Chapaloni. It’s every Wednesday at 8 pm and Sunday at 5:30 pm. Getting enough stage time as an L.A. comic can be hard, because you’re literally competing for stage time with the biggest comics in the world. So being able to do this show twice a week with some of my best buds is priceless. Also doesn’t hurt that they serve one of the best burgers in L.A. Sadly, I get the salad because, you know, the diet.

7:30 – Drive to M.I.’s Westside Comedy Theater in Santa Monica.

8:00 – Westside Comedy Theater is a diamond in diamonds. I’d say the rough, but nothing about Santa Monica is rough. Chris Gorbos runs a great club, and I get to watch Jesus Trejo crush it. Always a good time.

9:30 – Drive to The Comedy Store.

10:14 – The Comedy Store is my favorite place on Earth, and the best place to watch a show. Its one of the only shows in the world where you’ll get 2 arena comics, 4 theater comics, 5 fantastic comics you’ve never heard of, and one guy near the end who’ll make you think “maybe I could do this.” I have a Main Room spot at 11:00. So I grab my drink—a tequila repo and soda with three limes—then head to the green room. This drink is great, and I use the same cup all night. Because once the cup is more limes than alcohol, I know I’ve had my fill. Its science.

11:15 – I head to the Secret Comedy Store Back Bar to meet fantastic comedian, friend, and stoner Frank Castillo, Oni Seeds and Masonic Seeds to Puffco, drink beers, and smoke blunts. Holy shit, these guys always got the good stuff.

12:00 – I realize I’m way too hammered to drive so I leave my car at The Store, and get an Uber home. 

12:15 – I say fuck the diet, I’ll start again next year. On the way home, I have my Uber driver drop me off at my favorite taco cart and I’ll just walk the rest of the way. I order 3 al pastor and one asada taco, tortillas well done and a large Horchata. I judge a taco cart by two things, the al pastor trompo and if they make their own tortillas. This one does both. I am happy.

12:30 – Walk home drunkenly holding the knife in my pocket (cuz these L.A. streets are wild), and a horchata in the other hand. Find half of Steve Furey blunt in my Carhartt jacket! Damn, must have smelt like a Rolling Loud green room all night. Light said blunt. Walk home. God, I love this city.

1:30 – Kiss girlfriend on her head before I pass out.

The post A Day in the Life of an L.A. Club Comic appeared first on High Times.

Even the Wall Street guys are pissed, so you know it’s bad. Usually, when the culture is upset, it’s because of dynamics that have big business grinning while the little guys get crushed. In this current climate, everyone is hurting. Jesse Redmond, a former hedge fund manager who writes the Green Giants newsletter, which details retail cannabis stocks investing, tweeted yesterday, “New all-time low on $MSOS. The ETF has dropped 88% over the past 686 days and is down 46% MTD. It will take an 830% return to get back to the all-time high.” MSOS is a fund that includes some of the most recognizable publicly traded multi-state operators, like Curaleaf, Trulieve, Green Thumb, and Verano.

The main reason they’re so pissed (this time) is because of repeated stalling on legislative action at the federal level, the most recent of which was SAFE banking’s demise. The Republican blocking of that legislation, while harmful to some actors in the cannabis space, is indicative of a much larger problem, one that affects everyone who touches cannabis in any way: weed is still politically radioactive for some factions of power, despite remaining overwhelmingly popular with voters. Because of this, a common refrain among advocates of all stripes is that federal legalization won’t come anytime soon unless Biden decides to truly go “Dank Brandon” beyond his half-assed pardon of federal marijuana prisoners incarcerated for possession (of which, there are not many).

That’s bad news for everyone. But things are infinitely worse for those on the ground, especially growers. California is, once again, experiencing oversupply, now with a bumper crop to boot, worsening the already severe problem exacerbated by high taxes. “Growers in states such as California, Colorado, Michigan and Washington [are] already seeing rock-bottom wholesale prices, a flood of cheaper, outdoor-grown flower hitting the market in the coming months could push prices even lower,” reported MJBizDaily’s Bart Schaneman in November. Also in California, a debt bubble exists in its supply chain, which finds retailers, distributors, and growers unable to pay taxes and bills. Currently, the state reports around $500 million are owed in taxes.

In New York, which just began legal adult-use sales, operators have been scrambling to keep up with ever-shifting legislation to get to that recreationally legal moment. A thriving grey market — arguably New York’s golden era of weed, for which I’m sure many will be one day nostalgic — threatens the health of said legalization, but the truth is there’s never been a better time for the average New Yorker to get killer buds. It remains to be seen how the above-board landscape will fare. So far, it hasn’t been great: a lawsuit threatens to overturn residency requirements for operators, holding up some would-be licensees from selling. The first 36 approved licenses in the state, which would benefit from a $200 million state social equity fund, have not received funding nor notification of how they might, stalling their openings. As of Dec 29, the first day of legal sales in the state, only one licensee can open.

Workers aren’t doing much better. Layoffs at companies like Dutchie, Weedmaps, Leafly, Curaleaf, Trulieve, The Parent Company, Leaflink, and many more abound. One worker died at a Trulieve processing facility in Massachusetts. Who knows how many other casualties there were in the greyer segments of the market.

As for the culture, it’s hard to argue that the mood is anything but down. Attendance at big events that attract more than just suits, like Hall of Flowers or the Emerald Cup Harvest Ball, was lighter this season — folks just don’t have the cash or are busy putting out literal and proverbial fires. A mold scandal infected a new grower-focused cannabis competition in Oklahoma, and so on. Many players are dropping out of the legal market, some unable to survive while others lost their taste for the rat race. Others in the traditional market gave up on the legal one years ago, and some never even tried to join up, sensing that things would likely go sideways. 

Now other long-time pot advocates are abandoning support for certain aspects of legalization based on well-founded fears that the market is headed toward an inevitable monopoly. Reporter (and High Times alum) Mary Jane Gibson asks, “is legal weed doomed to be run by big business?” In her Vox piece, she reports that activists and advocates, including some from NORML, find that certain laws will just be twisted to suit the needs of corporations, like the aforementioned SAFE banking measure, or efforts to reschedule cannabis at the federal level. She details the efforts by organizations like the nonprofit Coalition for Cannabis Policy, Education, and Regulation (CPEAR), whose goal is to “advance a comprehensive federal regulatory framework for cannabis.” She mentions the group is funded by tobacco and alcohol brands, like, “Altria, the parent company of Philip Morris USA; the Molson Coors Beverage Company; Constellation Brands, the conglomerate behind Corona and Modelo; and the National Association of Convenience Stores, among others.”

But the die-hards persist, as they always have. Grassroots events, like Transbay Challenge, The New York Growers Cup, and Ego Clash, are still well-attended, representing an OG culture segment that won’t fold, regardless of whatever legalization hurls its way. The people are still imbibing, as they always have, I found while reporting for the New York Times earlier this fall, making the most of time-honored practices, accessibility and market challenges be damned. There’s hope there, for sure, however niche it may be.

If there are silver linings, it’s the same as there always will be in the age of legal cannabis: a few more states legalized this year, and fewer people are going to jail for the plant than ever. Brittney Griner came home. Consumers who lacked solid access to the traditional market now have other avenues to obtain weed. That it comes at a much higher price, especially for medical patients, and with degrees of varying quality (not to mention questionable testing results) puts some dull on that shine, however. 

Dominic Corva, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Cannabis Studies Program Director at Cal Poly Humboldt, said he agreed with me that it’s a bad time in the history of cannabis culture. He especially feels for those in the legacy world: those who stayed, and those who made a run for legality based on the state’s promises that heading out of the shadows would benefit them.

“Because alternative livelihoods are disappearing at a time when they are desperately needed. How do you ride out the global polycrisis without a resilient informal economy?” he asks, referring to the variety of social and economic ills our society faces — not just in the cannabis universe. “The cannabis countercultural economy flourished because it was a refuge from the ‘Rat Race to the Bottom’ ruining everything since the 1980s, including the dissolution of previously significant formal social safety nets. Now we have neither. ‘Get racing, rats’ could be the slogan of actually existing cannabis legalization.”

There’s not much more to say than that. I bid adieu to 2022 and welcome 2023 with open arms. To better days ahead — I’m not sure when those will be or what they’ll look like, but I hope for them all the same.

The post The Vibes Are Off appeared first on High Times.

Why Afghani & Equatorial Are Doomed

Let’s face it, America isn’t actually the most accepting place in the world. Although we love to dub ourselves as the world’s melting pot, we’re actually far better at drawing lines than finding common ground. Because of this, I don’t think nomenclature like Afghani and Equatorial will ever be commonly accepted because it sounds foreign to most of our citizens. In fact, I’d argue if many people fully understood what they were saying with “Indica” (Latin for “Of India”) they’d probably use that a lot less too – because most of what they’re cultivating isn’t actually from India, it’s from America. Even further, “Sativa” in Latin means “cultivated” – so they’re both Sativa by definition. And by species, but that’s another story.

It’s worth noting that cultivars that formerly had “Afghan” in their name have all seemed to drop it in recent years. I am willing to bet that started post-9/11, but I wouldn’t know. I was 11 at that point. I’ve only heard about the mythical Afghani varietals, but I know a lot of Kush. Maybe I’m looking too far into it, but assuming America to be a racist place seems to be on the nose.

But more than that, what people are TYPICALLY trying to describe with Indica & Sativa – or Afghani & Equatorial, as proposed – is the effect the plant will provide, not the place it was from. While I get there’s correlation there, aren’t we leading consumers down the wrong path with that type of information anyway, since we know most of the effects are driven by terpenes and the other psychoactive chemistry found within the plant? To me this isn’t as black or white as it is a color wheel. That said, if we have to break it into two specific groups…

Stimulating vs. Sedative

What about categorizing them as stimulating or sedating? This way there’s variance, for sure, but to me, that’s what we’re really trying to say with the forbidden bro-science, right? We’re trying to tell you if it will get you lifted, or stoned. If you’ll be energized or couch-locked, so aren’t these more appropriate terms anyway? Eventually I believe this is what terpene science will tell us, and where we’ll really be able to get prescriptive with effects consumers can expect, but for now I believe this encompasses what we have been trying to say in a more accurate way.

That said, determining which of these categories said products will fall into can’t only rely on the information we’ve had in the past. For example, we know short and fat plants can sometimes present a profile that is closer to what we consider historically Sativa, even though the plant looks Indica, as Todd McCormick suggested for your piece, so there is far more research required for this to become a perfect system. And while we’re here, traditional science today says we pretty much only have anecdotal evidence to prove the effectiveness of terpenes, but any regular consumer knows smoking something that smells like gas will cool you down, so we’re in some degree of a holding pattern while the research picks up.

My only worry here is that these are still complicated terms for some. Not to sound like an asshole but some people need it to be super simple to understand, and we need this to be approachable. So I have another proposal, and this one may be more digestible for that lot.

Uppers & Downers

I choose this because it’s familiar terminology for drug users of all types. While there’s admittedly a ton of gray area here, as most of what we’re dealing with is a hybrid anyway, is there a simpler way to dumb it down? People commonly know most alcohol is a downer, but that tequila riles you up. They typically know that a Xanax puts you to sleep while Adderall will keep you up, so why not lean into what’s already understood? What’s actually wrong with likening our vice to other more common, and today socially accepted, ones? 

Looking past it’s usage across other drugispheres, does it get any easier for the layman to understand? We’re already using things like arrows up and down to describe how products will make us feel, so why not take it all the way? I understand this will be complex for hybrid classifications, but there’s someone out there who’s been saying “This is a 70% Sativa, 30% Indica,” so I’m sure that guy would love to decide just how much of an angle each of those are pointing.

Obviously there’s no clear right answer here, but I think it’s important we keep evolving this conversation, especially as the scientific understanding increases. Not only will this help us to be more accurate, but it will actually help people understand what they’re getting if they’re not as well versed as you or I. We’re not doing anyone any favors by continuing to push the misinformation, and we don’t know the unintended consequences this lack of understanding can have down the line. Look at THC percentage, and states that are now taxing products over a certain limit. It really sucks to have to pay for someone else’s stupidity, especially for something that your consumer doesn’t understand and doesn’t actually want – despite what they may think or say. 

Thoughts?

For those reading at home, what are you thinking? Do either of these make sense to you? Do you have a better solution? Feel free to respond below or in the comments on social media to join the discussion, and help us crack this. While I don’t think either of us have proposed perfect solutions, I think any are better than where we’re at today – and being better tomorrow than we were today is the best we can hope to do.

The post We’re Making This Too Complicated (An ‘Indicas and Sativas Are For Dummies’ Response) appeared first on High Times.

I didn’t plan on writing this. It was definitely not on my list of upcoming topics for WEIRDOS, and while I do believe most of those ideas are probably more fitting for the column, in light of recent events, I wanted to share some thoughts on creativity, originality, and forging your own path. A lot of people ask me how I push my ideas through to fruition, how I overcome professional hurdles, and how I deal with all the associated negativity, so I wanted to answer that in a more long form and public way. It’s the end of the year and I’m feeling introspective, maybe this will be helpful to someone. If not, at least it’ll be cathartic for me. There’s no one telling me what to do here, I’m trying my best. This is how I see it, take it or leave it.

Creating The Life You Want

I learned pretty young that with a bit of creativity it was relatively easy to get the simple things I wanted. For the sake of relating here, things like weed, or access, became a game of reverse engineering from the destination I desired. I would start with the goal, and then think of all the possible ways I could imagine to get there – ruling out the ridiculous or obscene in real time, and usually presenting a few solid paths for further inspection. Eventually I’d land on the one that felt like the most unusual, but creative, constantly betting on myself that the surprise and delight of a new perspective could cover the tolls, so to speak. It’s fair to say that in most cases, with perseverance, I reached my destination.

Of course, soon after I learned not all wants were simple. Things like love, happiness, or wealth, aren’t as easy to acquire as a dub. There’s an unwritten rule book to most games in life, and these, like business, are no exception. I believe many of the details of the most complex human issues remain somewhat a mystery despite being understood by many largely because the ‘powers that be’ so to speak don’t really want us to know how to win. They want us to work, not read. Being born into essentially the ‘human labor’ class, it was shoved down my throat from the second I was conscious that I had to work long and hard to get any type of ahead. That you start at the bottom and work your way up. That some entry level employee ends up CEO. It’s the only way, they said. What a crock of shit that was. Everyone left out the unfair advantages some players receive, like being born with a high IQ, into a well off family, or even just being white. They forget to tell you that MOST don’t ever get that key role, or even a proper thanks for playing. Fortunately, born with some of these advantages, I figured that by evolving the math I had worked out in my head for simple wants that had worked thus far I could skip past a lot of the bullshit. Essentially that a new way could prove to be the best way, if you will. Maybe even a model for others. So once again, I started betting on myself and skipping the lesson plan. This was both a blessing and a curse, but I’ll get more into that later.

Finding the Path

Now, I’m not pretending I have all the answers here, I’m just some schmuck like you, but I’ve been pretty fortunate so far trusting my instincts and staying true to what I believe to be the best course for whatever situation, so I want to tell you a bit more about the how and why of who I am so you can see how this approach has paid off. I know they force feed us a specific future from the time we’re very young, but that’s not all there is.

When I was a kid I loved music. I wanted to go to concerts all the time. I wanted to live in ‘the scene’. But I was broke – like couldn’t keep a dollar long enough to make two, and while my parents aptly covered all my needs, they couldn’t fund that addiction. So how could I get into shows? The solution I came up with was by making myself valuable to the artists, or the label. At first this was as simple as designing AIM icons for the bands I liked who would simply gift me tickets to their local date as a thank you – which is AOL Instant Messenger, basically early texting for those of you born after the new millennium, and then it turned into street teaming, where it became my job to be in the venues holding the shows I wanted to see. From that I flipped to managing the street teams, interfacing directly with label management, and once even acted as a US address to receive merch boxes for touring artists worried about getting them through customs. (I’m not going into more details on that because I don’t want to create a liability for my parents whose house I was living in at the time, but hopefully we’re past whatever statute of limitations exist for whatever offense that would be.) 

The point is, whatever I could do to be helpful was more effective for me than saving funds to go to the shows, and the new experiences provided new opportunities for me to flourish I would’ve never seen from the start. Eventually I learned that artists needed help with representation – the why behind managers and agents – and realized I could help my friends who were chasing their dreams with a scaled back version of those services, making them seem more professional while also giving them the tools to do these things themselves. I saw it as a community service. That quickly turned into producing my own events. This is starting to sound like a fucking autobiography, but I say all this to say, by the time I was 17 I had done most of the shit I thought was my bucket list. I had to start dreaming bigger. 

Manifestation

This is probably when the concept of manifestation first came into my purview. I realized that all I had done so far was basically from sheer willpower. I had no special skills going in. No one told me how or to do any of the stuff I had done thus far, in fact often the opposite, but I was already surpassing my own expectations, so why let off the gas? It was my instincts that moved me to California, and made me respond to the weird Craigslist post that introduced me to my mentor and my first real agency job, which landed the High Times gig literally in my lap. But it was seeing and believing the opportunities I needed were out there before knowing what they were. I’ve never said this publicly, but when I was like 19 I got invited to be a judge at The Harvest Cup in New York because I had gotten a rep for sniffing out (and selling) quality buds. That was right around the time I was getting into this concept. Hand to god, the first thing I can remember consciously manifesting was ‘One day I’m going to judge the real Cannabis Cup, for High Times’… now here we are.

My friend Joey swears by manifestation. He will literally scribe the word, and his desires, into his artwork. Though I’ve only known him a few years, I’ve watched him seemingly pull rewards from the universe. This is admittedly insane, but I truly believe a good chunk of the success of BAYC came from his willpower alone. Had I trusted his instincts I would likely be much more well off now. (As an aside, I sent him this piece to see what he thought and if I could use a piece of his work as the cover shot and he sent back the artwork featured (posted again below) which he made fresh specifically for this – talk about manifesting greatness.) My late friend Jesse said he was going to be a chef, much to the chagrin of his record executive father. Somehow he took a simple concept and in a few years spun himself into a cultural icon before his passing, solely through his own wit. Most cultivators literally built their name out of dedication and dirt. I say this to say, you don’t have to take my story as gospel, but these are a few quick others I consider proof that trusting yourself, and being the most authentic you you can be, is the best path to success.

Happy Little Accidents

Now while I say all that, we all know life is far from a perfect story. Just because you set your destination doesn’t mean you’ll get there, and the route is rarely as well-paved as it seems from the directions. You will undoubtedly encounter hurdles you never expected, and in the moment they will seem bigger than anything you’ve overcome before. Trust me, when you’re 20 years old and you’ve signed a contract guaranteeing someone $6,000, when you barely have $500 to your name (less than your rent), is not stress you expect when you set out to do something cool. But challenges also provide opportunities, and as they say, pressure makes diamonds.

That money I just mentioned? It was for the first big production I was doing in New York City. It was for a dubstep artist called Borgore from Israel before that scene had really broken into the states. It was booked for a Wednesday in December. At the last minute there was a blizzard. We had only sold I think like 126 tickets when the snow started falling.

Crystallizing

For those doing the math, it wasn’t looking good. I was ripping my hair out, but we couldn’t cancel. We had faith that what we knew was a good idea would work out in the end, or at least set the stage for the future. Worst case we’d learn an expensive lesson and be in debt for a while, but it wouldn’t kill us. 

But we got really lucky, it paid off massively. It was a 650-person room that ended up selling close to 800 tickets. Over 600 of that was walk up – in thigh high snow piles on a weeknight. Now I’m not saying that was smart, but it worked out – and had we not done it there’s no way the venue managers would have introduced me to all those labels as some sort of psychic. I was just trusting what I loved, but because it wasn’t en vogue yet, they all doubted it – until they saw their checks.

Now while this is obviously another lesson in trusting your instincts, I chose this example to express that it was the compounded pressure of all those other stressors that really woke me up. The win was that much bigger because we had overcome what seemed like insurmountable odds. We were literally figuring out how we could get a loan, and then ended up earning the largest check I’d ever seen. I cried happy tears driving home for the first time in my life. 

Reality Check

But here’s the thing, after that, winning had gone to my head, and I started to think that I had all the answers. I stopped mapping out a million plans and started going with the first one that came to mind, assuming naturally that it was a winner too. Once you beat one level you want to get on to the next, right? Remember earlier how I mentioned skipping the lesson plan? Well most of my 20’s were spent realizing that if I didn’t at least know what the plan was supposed to be, I wasn’t actually optimizing my path. I had a college degree, but I had barely paid any attention because all my energy was going to efforts outside of the classroom that seemed to be working. And while they were, and in retrospect everything worked out, there were some really rough weeks and months spent trying to figure out things I would have known had I just read the textbook in class. I now love the phrase ‘you don’t know what you don’t know’ because you really don’t, and there’s so much more than whatever it is you think you understand!

So I started reading more, and eventually caring about how business was actually done – not just fundamentally, or morally, but in the real world. It turned out the game was a lot more rigged than I ever anticipated. The way money protects itself, the way institutions shut down the little guy. How both parties are just billionaires who actually need the status quo the way it is to maintain their power, and line their pockets. The deeper I dove and the higher I rose, the darker things seemed.

Paint Away The Pain

The other, and probably most unexpected struggle I’ve encountered on this path is dealing with the negativity from others. Now, sure, I’ve been used to people not believing in me, but people trying to tear me down? For the most part people never cared, but as soon as you start getting attention the envious appear – and they can really fuck with you. 

You see, small people want to bring down people doing what they think are big things. They want you on THEIR level. Or below them, where possible. It’s often just jealousy that you have something they want, as I covered in my ‘Shit Talk’ piece, but adversity is basically guaranteed if you try to do anything new, or different, or potentially better than what exists already. Everybody has opinions they believe to be the most relevant in the world, and remember, bureaucracy especially really hates change. How you respond to it is what truly measures your worth – but I mean this deeper than just your initial reactions. How you respond to any adversity, and spin it either into your advantage, or out of your line of sight, will dictate how far you go with anything in life. It is the only thing that will keep you in the game once you realize it’s likely rigged against you, because not playing isn’t really an option.

Now I will be the first to admit, I am petty but I am working on controlling my ego all around – a process I truly believe is lifelong for everyone, though many haven’t yet understood it. I mentioned judging people based on where I perceive them to be in this process in my episode of First Smoke of the Day, and I’m not sure it was properly understood there, so hopefully this is a bit clearer. It is incredibly hard in the moment not to fire back every time someone makes a witty retort to something I worked hard on, or love. As this week proves I certainly haven’t entirely figured it out, but I’m trying. At the end of the day, that’s all I can do – try to be bigger than any naysayers or doubts, and be better tomorrow than I was today. Try to reverse engineer the world I want to see, be it a life in Los Angeles or a brand’s return to its former glory. That’s the very basic math of how I got here. One step in front of the other, moving toward whatever direction felt right. Whatever gave me that warm feeling inside. Some of that was the desire to do my own thing, and most were influenced by what I deemed the best practices I learned from watching others – there’s a great quote from Chuck Palahniuk from Invisible Monsters that I think is appropriate here:

“Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I’ve ever known.” – Chuck Palahniuk

I believe this to be fundamentally true, but I also believe that how you mesh that blend of influence is where your creativity and originality really begin, and how you stand out. Exploring what I love, and trying to provide value to its various communities is what got me to the seat I’m in. So why would I let anyone not providing that kind of value tell me it’s worthless when I can see first hand the good it does? Why would I let someone else’s idea of what or who I am replace the truth I know of how far I’ve come, and what I’ve overcome? It’s true when they say you’re your own worst enemy, because you can really only limit yourself.

So what do I do now? This. I take what I’m feeling and I write. Or draw, sometimes even paint. I try to point the light on as many great and inspiring things as I can because it’s all I’ve ever known, and it’s always worked for me. It’s not over, and I’m going to keep doing what feels right because despite all the times in the past people told me I was crazy, or it would ‘never happen’ – even faking the crash landing of a crate of energy drinks onto a college campus for unsuspecting students to find (safely of course) – things worked out for the most part if I didn’t stop at the hurdles. None of this solves the existential dread, but it helps. And when you’re mapping out all the different paths your life could take at any given moment, I highly doubt any of us want to spend any time on the one laden with guilt or regret, right? So just pick your destination, make it something unique to you, and maybe you’ll get there. Maybe you’ll find it’s just your stepping stone, and the universe is saying go bigger. But keep pushing, and make sure you maximize the pursuit of. your passions, because even if you don’t reach what you believe to be your destination, you can wind up somewhere you didn’t know you needed to be. And you’ll have a hell of a story to tell.

The post Finding Myself: Thoughts On Originality, Self Confidence, and Perseverance appeared first on High Times.

There are various reasons they might not have quality marijuana, but much of it will trace back to the points I noted in my last edition of WEIRDOS where I covered the finer points of The Croptober Crisis. The general premise there was a lot of great marijuana gets ruined after it’s chopped down, both indoor and outdoor. It’s just extra bad in October because so many people screw up their weed at once like a school of fish taking a left turn into a trash can. 

But now we’re a couple of months removed from those hiccups and the excuses are drying up. By now, those in the worst shape realize it’s going to be tough. They need to start finding something to blame. 

The first choice for many? The traditional market. 

They argue that the market that has existed for 60 years is the reason their boof won’t sell. While in contrast, many of their most successful competitors came from that very market only to cut their piece of the pie in legal cannabis. The busters hate them the most due to the authenticity they see and know they’ll never need to buy.

But even then, you’d never hear the numerous legacy operators that couldn’t survive the perils of the California marketplace blame the traditional marketplace they had emerged from for their problems. They blame taxes, crime, and overregulation, not the box going to New York that was growing in Billy’s eight lighter. 

The new faces have basically taken the exact opposite approach. It’s not the shortcomings of their efforts and the system that have led to their situation in their eyes but the consumer who wants better cannabis. Sure there are the companies that fill shelves instead of them with a quality product, but why blame those who have jumped through the same hoops and beat them fair and square?

It’s much easier to point to the scarier beast of the underground market that we’ve come to call the traditional one. One of the newest common practices is pointing to trace amounts of anything scary and using it to paint blanket pictures of the market. Much of the time, if the bar had been lower and burden lighter the people growing all the unregulated marijuana wouldn’t have been left behind to do what they did until the market crashed. 

Following the crash of the market, currently you can find $100 pounds between San Francisco and Arcata, Humboldt County’s coastal population center. A lot of the people that live off that famed stretch of coastline grew cannabis for decades and didn’t plant this year. Many of those left love the land they live on. A big factor in the demise of the peers was the flood of legal cannabis that entered the traditional market after sales.

So when you hear the less than-successful corporate entity bashing the traditional market, it’s important to highlight that their peers are the ones growing a lot of the worst products that will find its way to the streets. They act like it’s these dangerous people flooding the streets with cannabis making it impossible for them to be an effective business model. 

The worst offenders will point to the dangers of cannabis on the streets compared to theirs. But in reality, we haven’t seen any real danger in the traditional market since the vape crisis that emerged from underground producers using a cutting agent that decimated many people’s lungs; it was arguably the biggest PR nightmare in the short history of legal cannabis despite the fact that the products harming people weren’t regulated.

Trying to attach all the flowers on the street to that danger is trash. Are there nefarious operators growing cannabis without using the best practices we would prefer? Sure, on both sides of the market. But to claim that all the weed that’s grown without a permit is somehow guaranteed to be more dangerous than the mids you were able to produce is just obnoxious. 

So if I could make one recommendation, don’t support those companies that blame the streets for their problems.

The post Only Busters Try To Disenfranchise the Heat appeared first on High Times.

Adam: As a cannabis consumer for over two decades I’ve seen many marketing ploys to attract customers to buy products. From catchy trendy names to fancy colorful packaging, I’ve seen it all. But what really irks me are the liars. Lying to a customer for a buck is the lowest of lows. Which brings me to the pre-roll section of your favorite shop. Hemp Wraps are NOT Blunts.

Jon: For those uninformed, Blunts are a consumer favorite way to smoke. It’s basically a big joint wrapped in a tobacco leaf – be it a Dutch Master, Backwood, Brothers Broadleaf, or Grabba. Not only does tobacco provide an additional head high (especially to those not usually smoking tobacco), but blunts are typically much bigger than your average joint. For a heavy consumer it’s become a preference, and they’re great for group smoking.

A: I’m not sure if people still use a dictionary or know what one is. A dictionary is a book of reference that we used to use to look up the definition of a word. What words mean. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary the definition of a blunt is: “a hollowed-out cigar filled with marijuana.” A cigar is, according to the dictionary: “a small roll of tobacco leaf for smoking.” Where is hemp in all of this? Exactly. Hemp wraps are not blunts. Hemp wraps are hemp wraps. You don’t call joints blunts and you don’t call blunts joints. So why do they call hemp wraps blunts? Buzzwords. People are attracted to trending terms.

J: To be fair, hemp wraps are filling a need on the rec market because due to hasty legislation tobacco can not be paired with cannabis in the legal retail environment. That’s right, they legalized while directly writing out a subset of the market. Seems like a common story with the rush to rec. So while it’s a buzzword, it’s also because those brands can’t legally sell blunts in stores. The trap though…

A: Still, Using buzzwords to attract the pre-educated is not right. And the negative stigma blunt smokers get is appalling. From being ridiculed at seshes, getting told that it’s “unhealthy smoke” to “you are wasting weed rolling it in a blunt.” Throughout history and in most cultures cannabis gets mixed with tobacco and/or herbs. Amsterdam coffee shops offer you a free blend of herbs to mix with cannabis. You can smell the spliffs in the air in Barcelona coffee shops, the Middle East mixes it with hash. USA seems to be the only country that frowns on mixing cannabis with other plants. 

J: I think it’s deeper than just cannabis with that though. We know tobacco kills people. I think that’s probably why they wrote the legislation that way. But it does ignore age-old habits. Europeans would never allow this, but the powers that be probably think they’re both protecting consumers and the activists don’t want to be associated with big tobacco – understandably.

A: So why use the term blunt for a “healthier” option? Hemp wrap companies and pre-roll brands need to recognize that they have been lying this whole time and are selling HEMP wraps and not blunts. Here’s an idea, hemp Joints.

J: I don’t know that we can call them joints either though. It’s trying to be a cigar. It’s bigger than your typical joint. Maybe a hemp cannon?

A: According to the dictionary, it defines a joint as “a marijuana cigarette.” Obviously the term marijuana cigarette won’t be accepted by the community even though cigarettes are defined as “a slender roll of cut tobacco enclosed in paper and meant to be smoked; also: a similar roll of another substance (such as marijuana).”

I understand certain words are more appealing than others in terms of marketing and selling but is it right to lie to a consumer and change the definition of what a word means? 

J: While that’s kind of arguing semantics, I do see what you’re saying. Rec consumers are looking to fill the gap left by the tobacco ban in the rec market; they’re just a little overzealous right now. They’re discounting the ‘why’ of blunts to fill the markets needs, but as with the rest of the industry there’s still plenty of room for improvement!

A: As a proud blunt smoker who enjoys the mixing of the masculine energy of the tobacco plant with the feminine energy of the cannabis plant, I do not appreciate culture vultures and other brands using the term blunt for there midsy-ass pre-rolls. 

J: You’re on the money there. I’d go so far as to say MOST of the available pre-rolls on the market aren’t coming close to providing the optimal experience – this is a lot of times just creating a bigger mess with excess cuttings they’re desperate to monetize.

A: All I’m saying is the next time someone offers you a hit of a blunt make sure it’s a tobacco blunt and if it’s not, kindly correct them and let them know it’s a hemp wrap. They’re not smoking what they think they are. Let’s start spreading correct information and using the proper terms for our community.

J: As with much of the industry – using misnomers isn’t helping any of us. Being accurate in your claims will lead to a healthier and happier industry for us all!

The post Hemp Wraps Are NOT Blunts appeared first on High Times.

I grew up just outside the Emerald Triangle and I’ve spent the better part of the last 10 years working on grows, trimming, making hash rosin, growing for myself, and everything in between. I’ve been robbed, threatened, extorted, and nearly killed more times than I can remember. Not ONCE during that time did I ever see any of you pocket-protector-wearing, rule-following weirdos in those hills risking life and limb with the rest of us. 

I really need to get this off my chest because this bush league shit has gone too far. A multibillion-dollar industry existed for 60+ years in the shadows because YOU sorry fuckers, or your parents for that matter, insisted that it remain there. Your friends didn’t go to prison for growing a plant, ours did. You didn’t have to risk multiple felony charges every time you got in your car, we did. A lot of growers still do for that matter. Weed has been legal in California since 2018 and I can’t even smoke a joint in my backyard without overhearing my neighbor tell her children that we’re disgusting. 

All that hard work, all the high risk for minimal reward, all the helicopters coming in to terrorize actual children in the middle of the night for DECADES was all for nothing because you people swooped in with your war machines (Excel spreadsheets) and left the victims of the drug war out to starve. Still to this day people in the triangle who don’t even grow weed have helicopters circling directly above their backyards every single year. Does that seem normal to anyone? Does it seem fair that the legacy growers, in lieu of compensation or even basic acknowledgement for their work, have received abatement notices and annual police raids instead? 

To make matters worse, the rural communities that built the cannabis industry and quietly flourished alongside it had their businesses and livelihoods taken by a bunch of asshole lizard people from Palo Alto. Do you know how many of my favorite hill restaurants closed down in the last 10 years? I’m not even exaggerating when I say it’s at least five. They’re all being bled dry. Even the non-growers who just want to live in the mountains are struggling. Cannabis is the backbone of rural America whether anyone wants it to be or not and rural America is not doing well right now.

Now, all you skim-milk-drinking cretins are going to your respective state legislatures whining all the livelong day about the black market stealing your business. First of all, losing business to someone playing with less than 100 plants when you’re playing with thousands of lights and millions of dollars is pathetic. Second of all, can you even blame the black market? Why would any financially literate person want to throw their hat into legal weed in 2022? Anyone who graduated the third grade can understand what a red downward arrow on a graph means. All the farmers “taking your business” are breaking even at best every year for the same reason I’m writing this article: we simply love cannabis and we don’t want you anywhere near it.

For the sake of efficiency and to be perfectly clear who I’m referring to, if I’m ever be crowned King for the day anyone who makes the following list will be charged with high treason and sent to Madagascar to be used in barbaric, gene-splicing experimentation:

• Everyone on LinkedIn. Every last damn one of you.
• All you Patrick Bateman-esque suits spending thousands of dollars on booths at every event only to lose money every quarter because all of your products fall on deaf ears.
• Weed journalists that have never worked for a cannabis company and barely smoke if they smoke at all. 
• Anyone who uses the term “scalability” (You also qualify for this if Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida” starts playing in your head when you jerk off).
• Anyone who has never committed so much as one misdemeanor or petty crime in the name of the cannabis industry.
• Marketing vultures who pester cannabis journalists to cover MSO’s. You’re a thieving band of godless Tik-Tokers and I’d rather eat a live hornet’s nest than do your PR for you.
• Concentrate makers who continue to make CRC and distillate despite being unloved by God and their own children.
• If your name happens to be Chad, I realize this is a “couple of bad eggs” situation but I’m sorry, you all need to go 
• Every single one of you assholes who made felons out of multiple generations of people only to show up once the risk was gone and say “nice house, we’ll be moving in now.”

Everyone on that list is walking up steps we all built with our bare hands and simultaneously complaining that the steps aren’t up to code. Now we have metric shit tonnes of garbage cannabis that doesn’t sell, events you can’t smoke at, and that headass CEO who won’t let it go that almost nobody wants to drink their weed. I don’t even remember his name. 

I don’t remember any of your names for that matter. I don’t remember your knock off strains or your god awful, mold-infused pre-rolls. I don’t remember your renamed Gelatos and I especially don’t remember strains with a Z in the name that don’t taste anything like real Z. I don’t want your business, I don’t want you reading my stories, I frankly just don’t want any of you here at all. 

That said, I’m fully aware this is how things are and how they’re going to stay. But to the specific group I’m talking about, let me assure you that your days making a viable income playing this poor man’s game of copycat are numbered. Everyone that we consider “big money” in weed right now sucked in whatever industry they started in so they figured they’d bring their same dazzlingly average business tactics to an industry full of pot-smoking illiterates and clean up nicely. Doesn’t seem to be going too well for most of you does it? It’ll be going even worse for you when federal legalization happens and the real money comes in. 

Now to be fair, it’s going well for almost no one right now, but the OG’s who have been out here risking everything every season just to grow the best weed they can will all survive for years to come because they’ve all seen much worse than this and they have a customer base that is loyal to a fault. I’m talking about brands like Alien Labs, Ember Valley, 710 Labs, Jungle Boys, Jelly Wizard, Fidel’s, anyone with access to real cuts of Zkittlez because they earned them, and a bunch of other people I don’t feel like remembering because I just took a gigantic dab and I can’t breathe. 

The point is every single company I named has skin in the game. They have a reputation that precedes them which lets me know they deserve to be playing at the level they are. A lot of cannabis journalists don’t even cover companies that produce true quality. I’m not sure why. Maybe they don’t smoke enough, maybe they’re too busy asking the CEO of Tilray to autograph their copy of Rich Dad Poor Dad. The world may never know.

There are growers known all over the world who refuse to run more than 10 lights per room because they are that concerned with quality. They’re growing the loudest weed this side of the Mississippi but the only people that know about them are the people who understand what quality is. The real smokers will always pay twice as much to their buddy with a one light tent if the weed is better, and it almost always is. The price of real top shelf pounds from trusted brands is still extremely high and those $1,200 dollar organic ounces you hear about in L.A. are one hundred percent real (even if they are overhyped). You can’t fake the love!

That’s the part about cannabis that these suits don’t seem to understand. They’re trying to rerock weed to appeal to people who don’t smoke it. Rather than reinvent the wheel, just grow some good weed! Market to heavy smokers who want to take half gram dabs to the face from sunup to sundown instead of this weirdo boutique shit where we’re supposed to pretend like we can feel 10 milligrams of dogshit distillate in sparkling water. The only reason the black market is still around is because it’s obviously doing a better job. 

I’m not here to be a complete pessimist. I love everyone, man. I even love all you second-rate, online-business-school bunch of Mark Cuban wannabes. I do. I just don’t want you taking jobs and money away from MY people. The ones who are in this because it’s what they love. Anyone who truly does what they love to do does not have the option to seek alternative employment and you all keep taking their damn jobs. 

However, if you just happened to show up late to the party, I can’t be upset with you for that. Just show some respect! Hire people who did time on illegal grows or time in prison or both. But don’t show up at our house like a walking, talking version of that Steve Buscemi “Hello fellow kids” meme and expect the people who built the damn house to just bend over for you. 

So what should all these paper pushers and chronic bedwetters do to earn their place? Well, leaving promptly would be a good start because you all appear to be hemorrhaging money and I’m sure most of your wives are cheating on you by now so you probably have bigger fish to fry than continuing to drive eighth prices up and pound prices into the dirt. I think I speak for the majority of the heads when I say, we got it from here. As kindly, respectfully, and cordially as I can possibly muster: can you all please just fuck off? 

In all seriousness though, this part is going to feel like a kick in the dick: at the end of the day we all need each other. The OG’s can grow some serious fire but living in the shadows for decades means they’re not good at abiding by the structure that the legal market demands. The legacy market needs the legal market to help it step into the light a bit and the legal market needs the legacy market because it has no idea which way is up or down without the experience of people who have been doing this their whole lives.

However, I want to be as clear as possible when I say you all need us more than we need you. We did fine for years without you and we’ll continue to out-perform and undercut you at every turn until you give us a rule book we can live with. That’s all I’m asking for. Release the weed prisoners, give the legacy market a substantial leg up in the legal market, require these big MSO’s to hire felons, vote for direct-to-consumer sales, and stop taxing growers back into the Stone Age so they can afford to feed their families. 

If you’d like to skip all that and earn my respect directly, I have a quicker method you can try: take a full-gram dab of some black or brown 2013 BHO style wax on video and email me the footage. I want to see pain in your eyes before I give you a pass.

The post WHO THE F*#K ARE YOU PEOPLE? appeared first on High Times.

A Gap in the Industry

When we look at other industries, from wine to fine dining, there are rigorous standards in place that allow for a clearly defined spectrum of desirability: the higher-end is easily discernable from the lower, and if not, there are trusted professionals who can differentiate for us. Establishing categories around quality not only helps us create better products, it facilitates a process by which people can study, discuss, and uplift their industry as a whole. 

For too long, cannabis has remained an insider’s game, with plugs and self-proclaimed experts defining trends by capitalizing on hype without due consideration to quality. It’s time for us as an industry to elevate ourselves—not just by getting high, but by adding a layer of sophistication that can increase our appeal by encouraging mainstream accessibility and acceptance worldwide. 

How Did We Get Here?

Well to be frank: money. Livelihoods are built on opinion, and the persistence of certain opinions has generated quite a lot of income in our industry. For example: let’s say a buyer acquires a pound of purple weed that, besides its coveted color, has little potency, resin content, or terpenes. Naturally the buyer will hype the color as the bud’s telltale sign of quality to push their product on consumers, even when these markers of desirability have zero to do with the actual quality of what’s being offered. 

Now that’s the small-time broker I refer to, but even more dangerous are the mega-suppliers who end up doing the same thing. Their play is obvious: where quality is lacking, use hype to fill the gap. Grow purple bud that lacks on every other metric, but decree that purple is best and if it’s za it has to be dark. 

In this vicious cycle of guileful growers and cunning plugs determining what’s in style, cannabis becomes akin to quick and cheap fashion, where the latest trend is king and quality the court jester.

Mock Standardization

Currently the industry hides behind two sources of standards: lab testing with rocket-high THC percentages and the previously mentioned self-proclaimed gurus who prop up hype and spread myths. 

When it comes to THC percentages, consumers will tend to gravitate towards higher numbers, seeing those numbers as guarantees of quality. But here’s the thing: the amount of THC in a given strain as determined by lab testing is not a good metric of potency. I have, for instance, come across strains that have tested as low as 14% THC with terpene contents breaking the 5% whose effects will floor a seasoned smoker, while others that have tested at 30%+ impart a far less visceral high. 

At the same time, the desire to achieve those higher and higher measures of THC introduces a whole other kettle of fish: THC additives in the post production process that are now streamlined into products to increase the bud’s testing. You’d be shocked to see the amount of distillate and CRC sprayed and soaked onto flowers and joints across the market.

But lab-tested potency alone isn’t enough; it has to be propped up by a healthy dose of hype, conveniently provided by our so-called “gurus,” a never-ending march of clout-chasers standing in line for the mic, lying in wait for their 15 minutes of fame. Cop a flashy IG handle and spout some opinions, and suddenly you’re a consultant, expert, or critic on all the finer things cannabis-related. Yet I’ve seen a total lack of willingness on the part of so many of these individuals to make the true sacrifice needed to be an authentic and accurate critic, requirements we’ll discuss later on in the article.

With Fractured Standards In Place, Myths Abound 

Color

Let’s start with the color of the cannabis, something we touched on briefly with those pretty purps without potency. For years we’ve already seen major market shifts based solely on how the bud looks from a color perspective. I mean I get it—color’s great. I like a wide variety of colors in my fruits and veggies, but while a purple sweet potato is cool, there’s no denying orange ones are delicious too. It’s all a matter of aesthetic preference. And if we’re really talking about the visually striking aspect of a cannabis flower, there are metrics far more indicative of the plant’s health and quality of growth then simply the color—such as dense resin content, large trichome heads, and trim quality.

In certain cases buds that are in fact meant to be green, such as OG’s, are turned darker on purpose in order to achieve those lucrative shades, with incorrect room temperatures and environmental settings actually stressing out the plant. This ironically ends up rendering them of lesser quality than the same strain grown to its proper potential and color. Not to say, of course, there aren’t naturally occurring darker buds that are delicious, tasty, and gorgeous to look at. But again it’s a preference; the bottom line is that color isn’t a tell-tale sign of anything at all, really. 

Density

Density of buds is the next issue at hand. The amount of times I’ve witnessed ignorance around how bud density is a sign of its quality is astounding. I’d say genetics is the most important factor for bud density, and while a strain that’s meant to be dense but comes out fluffy is a sign of poor growth and quality, there are many strains that simply aren’t dense at all but can still be some of the highest quality cannabis around. In fact I’d say that a strain that was meant to have a little bit of a looser structure but is instead hard as a rock can be a sign that a heavy amount of PGR (plant growth regulator) hormones are being used, which decreases the quality of that strain in spite of its newfound density. 

Ash 

And finally, the myth to end all myths: ash color, which, along with pretty much everything ash-related, will from here on out be known as General Custy’s Last Stand. It’s truly one of the most ill-informed myths, and yet it’s the hill the biggest mob of pot bros have chosen to die on, spouting their ash-related views with the conviction of a scientific expert.

But here’s the truth: decades ago, Big Tobacco decided they needed to whitewash their cancer-causing poison, choosing to formulate the perfect chemical additives that, when put into cigarettes, would make their ash burn nice and white. Because of course white equals pure equals clean equals not the thing that killed your grandpa or your Great Uncle Bob. 

And clearly these Big Tobacco folk know where the real za is, because this silliness has infiltrated our industry with a vengeance that’s been hard to shake. All too often we hear white-ash diehards demonizing a darker burning bud, claiming the dark ash means it wasn’t flushed properly, cured correctly, has too many heavy metals, and so many more absurd notions. Ash color has far more to do with the mineral content absorbed by each plant and temperature at which the flower burns, and that differs from strain to strain. 

That’s all there is to it: ash color is an aesthetic preference and not, as the diehards want you to believe, a statement on quality. 

The Path Forward

So what’s the cure for all that ails us? 

Connoisseurship. Real pot critics. Most importantly, people who are willing to create systems in place to truly put quality to the test. Smoking 50+ blunts at a Cannabis Cup and then saying you know what’s fire is a pretty flimsy claim to expertise. What we need, instead, is the opposite: people who are passionate about cannabis and its effects but are willing to sacrifice immediate and frequent highs in favor of spreading out experiences. Basically, we need people who have the ability to actually differentiate. You can’t fill a cup of water that’s already full, just like you can’t properly test cannabis when you don’t know if it’s the 10^th or 12^th joint of the evening.

Just as food critics must maintain sensitive and broad palates, and sommeliers spit out sips and clear their taste buds between wines, true cannabis critics need to find ways of consumption that maximize their ability to evaluate flavor and effects. 

This ultimately would mean less over-consumption and more meaningful and intentional habits, ones that emulate the highest standards of any professional attempting to bring forth the finer notes and nuances of their subject, the product they’re testing. We need experts willing to study the broadest spectrum of terpenes, their individual flavors, and how these terpenes affect the mind, body, and spirit; how they interact with one another, and how they mix with different levels and types of cannabinoids. 

The days of linear and narrow evaluations (think indica versus sativa) will hopefully come to an end, and truly unique and specific experiences can be coaxed out of the cannabis world to elevate it in ways we couldn’t even dream of. Imagine the perfect visual and auditory sequences mixed with impeccable strain selections, grown as well as can be, bringing out next-level experiences for people who love cannabis (not to mention providing professional and safe introductions to newcomers who might be curious but scared). 

Such an aim toward curation and appreciation centered around standardized quality would bring on a paradigm shift in the cannabis world, one that would benefit all who consume this lovely plant. 

How Connoisseurship Would Shape Consumer Choices

Once these true connoisseurs start coming out of the woodwork and gaining their well-deserved notoriety, I believe they’ll have the power to shift consumer choices in a major way. At this given moment the cannabis world is a fickle fiend, endlessly flip-flopping between OG’s and purples, fruit and gas, gas and candy, candy and funk, and so on and so forth. The trends come and go, and what’s popular is far from a statement on quality. As with fast fashion, the quality of the fabric—or in this case, the bud—isn’t in question, but rather concern with what’s in style (aka the strain of the month). 

Just as in the worlds of wine and fine dining, cannabis must prioritize quality over popularity. Regardless of whether it’s a steak or a bottle of wine, if the chef or winemaker excels at their craft, then what they do becomes less important than the way they do it. Quality and the expertise that produces it becomes key. So for analogy’s sake, just like you’d get the chicken (let’s say OG) from the Michelin-starred restaurant vs the ribeye (let’s say Runtz) from the chain-run steakhouse next door, you’d hopefully be able to pick your cannabis in a similar manner. Knowing that even though you love Runtz, that OG grown by the Michelin-starred producer would be an experience worth remembering.

In the end, tastes and minds will expand, with consumers picking their strains not just because it’s a flavor they like, but as well because of the source and the way it was grown. Too often I see people fall back on reductionism when they talk about genetics, thinking since they’ve tried a strain once they now know whether it’s good or not. But in fact if you consume two identical phenotypes from two different cultivators, they can express so differently it’s like consuming two different products altogether. 

With the advent of the true pot critic will rise the true chefs of the industry. Consumers will better be able to gauge quality outside of the “oh that strain’s good I’ve tried it before” metric, one that has failed countless people time and again. Crappy OG is still garbage even if you are an OG lover, and a perfectly grown Gelato is still amazing even in a market flooded with inferior-grown Gelato phenotypes. In fact I believe most often people fall in love with a strain because they had a chance to taste an exceptionally-grown version of it as one of their first experiences with that cultivar. As a cultivator, I can definitely tell you one of the best things you can hear from a consumer is that they’ve never had a specific strain in that way before. That’s when the producer takes the quality and puts it centerfold, above and beyond any preconceptions about the strain, reshaping the experience altogether. 

None of this is to say there’s anything wrong with preference; I myself have my own go-to’s. I’m saying that finding the best-quality version of what you love will elevate it to a higher level than ever before. And to chase quality, we need standards. Without them, we’re stuck, chained to an endless loop of hype, forever consuming subpar weed in pursuit of the latest flavor of the week, just so we can think we are za za boyzz. 

The post Standards, Not as High as We Are appeared first on High Times.

I’m just going to come right out and say it: the traditional market isn’t going anywhere. Ever. And the recreational market isn’t harmed by it, in fact, its whole existence, at least since rec, and in the future when full legalization drops, is in spite of it. 

There’s a multitude of reasons why the traditional market is here forever, like over regulation and taxes, but the long and short of it boils down to this: the rec market simply doesn’t cater to its consumer the way the traditional market does. Until the quality of the product, or concern for the end user, matches that of the ‘lifers’, we’re simply talking about two different ball games, despite the fact that they’re playing with the same equipment.

Stoking the Fear

Now sure, there are going to be a bunch of newjack corporate types who pop out of the ether to warn us about all the pesticides and ‘poisons’ that are seemingly rampant on the traditional market, but here’s the truth: I’ve been smoking that weed since the early 2000’s, and it’s still better than what you’ve got in your shop 90% of the time, despite your best efforts. Now, that’s coming from someone who used to buy ‘exos’ off a guy we later found out was spraying the nugs with Raid, so trust me when I tell you there are consumers who have no problem risking life and limb to get high. It’s true that one of my friends went blind briefly, but we all survived. And we kept smoking.

The anti-traditional cannabis mall cops have been trying hard to get that danger fear to stick for years. We had reefer madness, we had vapegate, we even have people believing that stoners were actively and in-your-town giving out drugs to kids intentionally on Halloween year after year. (I say intentionally bc I’m absolutely positive it’s happened accidentally before, but it’s not some conspiracy. Consumers want to consume, not force others to.) And the sheep eat it up, and even believe that this plant is not only a danger to them, but their kids. Since laws started passing in our favor the institutions that be now warn kids everywhere about the dangers of the ‘traditional market’, and encourage that you buy your cannabis in a legal store, like a good little capitalist. Well let me tell you something folks, sure some of the stuff you’ll find in the traditional market is molded, or didn’t pass testing, but it’s also where you’ll find the best of the best. I don’t know anyone who got into this game because people were telling us it was a great idea… we came out of love for the plant.

So why, in all of the propagandists’ expertise, would I ever want to buy from someone WITHOUT that type of love for the plant? That type of sacrifice? I get that not everyone is at my level of obsession, but doesn’t it seem to make sense that those would be the type of people you’d want to buy from? Those who dedicated their life to it, not just jumped on the new money train? My policy has always been to try and buy drugs from the guy who looks like he thinks he’s an actual wizard. He’s got that good. If it’s not clear why yet, keep reading – it will be.

Vulture Capitalism (or Why You’re Not Getting High On Your Supply)

A normal person is probably asking themselves: if the legal players don’t care about the game they’re playing, why are they in it? The answer, my friends, is simple. Greed. 

Over the past few years we’ve seen countless articles highlighting the ‘opportunity’ of the cannabis market. You know, the one they used to lock our OG’s up for. Well NOW it’s a multi-billion dollar opportunity – and people are celebrating the ‘new’ industry as if there wasn’t decades of effort that got us to this point. I digress, but the point is now that the Wall Street Journal is touting how many B’s there are to be made, all the suits ears perked up, and they started playing the game they know.

Now, here’s the big difference between the game we love and the one they’re playing: playing for margin is almost never about maximizing value for the end user. So for all those caregivers who cared about providing you with the best quality medicine for your ailments, there’s now a gang of mostly washed-out corporate types who think you’re the new prey for their cheap CPG bullshit. So they’ve built the size and scale facilities the operators who have been around can’t possibly compete with, hoping they could wash them out in favor of cheaper, flashier branded low end.

The catch is, cannabis isn’t some easily repeatable plastic good. It’s produce. So while all the new players are racing to automate and produce a gazillion pounds for less than you’d pay for an ounce on the street, it’s surprising no one has looked toward other fruit based industries for guidance. I know machine trimming sounds cost effective, but ask yourself, why does Tropicana still have fruit pickers?

The Lungs of Experience, and the Rise of Expertise

Lifers know the plant is much more than a set it and forget it type business. That’s part of the reason, in my opinion, why so few celebrity plays have been effective thus far. It takes a LOT of effort to produce world class products, and while you may be able to do it once, it’s even harder to maintain the quality your base has come to expect. Sure from the outside it’s easy to think we’re all flocking to flashy mylars and influencers, but the kingmaker in this game is and has always been the flower.

Automation, though cost effective, can remove the human element required to produce truly great cannabis. Even worse, the lack of experience from the new jacks are forcing production for bud size and total weight over the cultivar expressions true heads look for. Sure some of it looks great on Instagram, but we’re talking about something people have to smoke. They’re going to handle it, and if it’s mids it’s not that hard to tell. Sure you can probably make the sale once off of good marketing, but retaining a consumer – especially in a market with this many options – is very difficult. 

Comparatively, you’re now competing against people who actually consume the products they’re pushing. And I don’t mean that in a passive when-I’m-in-the-mood sense, I mean religiously. They wake up with it, they eat their meals with it. Without that kind of dedication you simply haven’t tried & tested your products in the way your consumer will. 

And not only that, they’re smoking everything else to see how they stack up. While most legal players probably think they produce the best weed in the world, it’s USUALLY because that’s all they’re smoking. Just because it’s coming to you easily, and for free, doesn’t mean that’s all that’s out there. Far from it.

All that said, the most important part of any sales process is the consumer, right? Well these legacy guys actually know theirs. Well, too. Not through a budtender, or through an Instagram page, but through having boots on the ground. By being where they live. By living their life. You look at an operator like Doja Pak – the guy is everywhere. With that comes real, meaningful interaction with your clients. You can truly learn what they like, and what they don’t. You can’t get that from a boardroom. The reason someone like Doja is winning is because he himself can tell what the market will like, rather than wishing on a prayer. He doesn’t even need to grow it.

And trust me, when they don’t, the traditional dealers hear that too. Directly from the consumer. They have to hear all the colorful language that comes from someone who feels like they were ripped off. The ones who want to keep their base adjust accordingly. Imagine that, catering to your consumer.

The Cheat Code of the Future

The one question I always have for the scale guys is, while I totally understand better margins look great to investors, how do you reckon with the fact that the smallest batch stuff always sells for the highest? Nevermind what price you’re hoping to go for, but if it’s clear the market responds to premium products, and exclusivity, how can having a market depleting supply seem like a victory in the eyes of your consumers? 

Consumers don’t just want anything, and they certainly don’t want trash. Sure they might fall for it right now, because they’re still excited about the access, and they don’t know any better yet – but it doesn’t take long to learn that mids make you feel lousy, and primo elevates your existence. All of those investors you’re pitching are great, but some of them are potential consumers, too. And even if they’re not, you’re going to need someone to buy this stuff if you want to make any money. The value conversation is coming before long, and it’s not going to go the way the vast majority of the MSO and mega-grow types are hoping. I liken this again to oranges – if Tropicana’s got sour, or just weren’t sweet anymore, do you think people would still buy them?

Fighting for our right is getting old, and we’re at a moment in time when consumers are FINALLY getting access to the thing they’ve loved for decades. Don’t spoil the fun with some bullshit. If you want to get into the game, empower someone who actually knows what they’re doing. I promise it’s a better move for your business anyway. After all, the price for tops is better than ever, despite becoming harder to find in the sea of nonsense. Once this race to the bottom truly bottoms out there’s going to be a rude awakening for most of the legal operators, but you know what? The trap will still be thriving.

The post The Trap Is Forever: Why the Traditional Market Isn’t Hurting Your Pretendo, an Essay appeared first on High Times.