Photos courtesy CAM

CAM SPREADS THE HEAT FARTHER SOUTH THAN EVER

We’re catching up with one of the biggest hitters in California, as she continues to spread her SoCal footprint, Anna Willey of CAM.

Willey is about as famed a female minority legacy operator as it gets. She got her start as a child on the underground NYC delivery scene. Eventually, she would open one of the most popular shops in Colorado. But she knew if she really wanted to crush it long-term, she’d have to move to California. After a short stint in the bay, she’d landed in Sacramento. From there, she coordinates CAM’s statewide growth.

She’s proud to be where she’s at, but you won’t hear her tooting her own horn much, as she surveys the devastation in the cannabis industry. 

“Well, I think that it’s a really, really hard time for legacy operators,” Willey told L.A. Weekly. “There’s so much pride in saying we’re going to bootstrap it and do it on our own.”

But it’s a different time. Running houses and small warehouses was dope. But to start partaking in the economy of scale as cannabis continues to grow, you’re going to be able to need to access funding. 

“When you’re talking to investors. I don’t think people have to mention that oh, by the way, you’ll be giving 62% away to the state, federal and local governments,” Willey said. “So I think that you kind of just got a warehouse and got to lease wherever you could. But you know, 4% tax, I mean, these are just huge. This is like what usual normal business it would make to survive.”

Willey with Hudson from Airfield Supply

But bootstrapping is possible with the heat. She pointed to No Till Kings and Fig Farms as great examples. She emphasized that all of these companies took some risks and owners figured out some parts of the businesses that they might have not been that great in, that sole person, and kind of built a team around people that are good as those parts of the business. 

Our conversation turned to the lack of middle ground in cannabis right now. Sometimes it feels like everyone is either crushing or closing. She believes there should have been a lot more room to be successful in the middle of the pack. 

“Yeah, maybe they’re not like knocking out of the park, but they’re doing what they love. They’re putting out a great product. They’re paying their people, they’re putting food on the table, and they’re doing it as a community,” Willey said, “It’s heartbreaking to watch that smaller farms maybe not have the opportunity to be around next year; it is really, really sad.”

There weren’t a lot of women in cannabis, and when Willey got started there weren’t a lot of brown people either, given the targeted enforcement they faced over cannabis. Especially in her hometown of NYC prior to legalization, just look at all the ACLU data from over the years.

But times have changed a lot. We asked Willey if she thought it was easier for a person like her to get in the game now than when she first did.

“I think that I think for women and for minorities or for anyone that I think it’s, I think it’s getting easier, and it’s getting better than it ever has been,” she replied. “I will say that there’s so much opportunity for people that want it. And I didn’t think it was that bad then either. So I think I’m always looking at it from the perspective of a kind of work ethic.”

Willey emphasized to farms that are struggling that whatever you can do to stay in business for another year is going to give you the best opportunity to win. She said you never know what’s right around the corner, just look how many people the COVID boom helped keep afloat. 

We asked Willey when she first got the chance to do business with women that looked like her.

“I would honestly say not until I came to California. In Colorado, it was my fellow peers, dudes. I think that there are a lot of home-growers in Colorado that kind of either cobble together a couple of bucks or did it with their friends and opened up a shop. It was a lot more peer-oriented than it is now,” Willey said. 

Keep an eye out for CAM flowers all over SoCal. It’s some of the best bang for the buck in the state and absolute heat. My favorite at the moment is the Biscotti BX1, but the Kush Mints has won a lot of stuff. 

DEATH ROW CANNABIS LAUNCH SHOWS SNOOP DOGG BRINGING IN THE EXPERTS

We sat down with the team at Death Row Cannabis last Friday as the world learned about the iconic Los Angeles record label and brand’s move into the cannabis space. 

Last February, word got out Snoop Dogg had acquired Death Row Records. At the time, Snoop Dogg was excited to take the reins of the brand he had started his career with and the rest of us were curious to see the types of things he’d do with it. Any rough patches the brand’s identity had been through over the past 30 years were essentially cleaned up with the purchase, given Snoop Dogg’s distance from everything and general mainstream likability. Remember the Super Bowl blunt?! What a guy. 

After pulling the Death Row catalog from underpaying music streaming services and streamlining the rest of the company, a few months after the purchase the iconic label started eyeballing the cannabis industry. That culminated with last Friday’s release of their first flower drop. We sat down to chat with two of the people running point for Snoop Dogg on the project, his longtime sound engineer and cannabis inspector Shaggy and AK.

AK will be bringing a lot of heat to the table. Six years ago he came down to California on the hunt for funding something up in Washington. A year later he’d make the move seeing the obvious opportunity for people that speak flame in California’s emerging legal industry. He’d even end up taking part in the Wizard Trees pheno hunt where the RS-11 and Studio 54 phenos were selected, arguably the most influential hunt of the last few years. He kept the #3 for himself, swearing to this day it’s the best one. AK still owns a fertilizer company with Scott from Wizard Trees. 

Death Row Cannabis Was Years in the Making

AK would go on to become VP of cultivation for TRP. Founded in 2019, the company has quickly amassed a footprint of 14 states growing for companies like Cookies and Dr. Greenthumb. But even before TRP was founded a few years ago or the Death Row Records purchase, AK had been working on a deal with Snoop Dogg. Arguably the most mainstream cannabis consumer in America next to his literal pals Willie Nelson and Martha Stewart, the latter now with her own CBD company. 

“I ended up working for TRP, I’ve been within the last year and a half, about three or four months ago Shaggy reached out to me and said, yo Dogg hit me up, asking if you’d still be interested in doing something with us,” AK told L.A. Weekly explaining how the deal finally came to fruition.  

As they started pondering the possibilities, Shaggy quickly realized the lack of red tape at Death Row Records compared to doing another “celebrity line” with the boss. And while last Friday’s launch was certainly intertwined with its new owner heavily in the cannabis news cycle, they still did a good job pushing the Death Row identity to the forefront. 

The launch packaging for Death Row Cannabis.

AK had his foot on the gas over the last three months in the buildup. From designing the brand’s identity and packaging to promo to selecting the weed, he had it all covered. While they did look at a lot of cannabis, much of it was grown at their distribution partner’s facility.

“There’s a grow here at the distro, as well, and that’s where three out of the four strains that we’re gonna drop were grown around here by us using my nutrient line,” AK said. “I personally wasn’t involved in growing it, but we literally run the same program. The guys that built that garden and I have done consultations together. And I’m here all the time, so I’m not hands-on but I’m hands-on, if that makes sense.”

AK also emphasized the brand won’t be exclusive to the $60 price point. A big part of the plan is making sure the brand is accessible to all. 

“Even if we have more affordable price points we’re still not going to put boof in those bags,” AK emphasized. “I can go get fire ass deps that rival indoor, like fakers (The stuff nice enough to tell east coast people it’s indoor) and then price them correctly instead of just trying to hit people as fakers and gouge them on it.”

The four flower stains for launch will be Tropicanna Cookies, SFV OG, LA Runtz, and Strawberry Gary. TRP-affiliated shops will be the first to get them in San Diego, Brentwood and San Bernardino. They’re shooting to get the number of stores up to 50 to 100 in the first quarter, but are much more focused on making sure the consumer understands they’re getting heat and it has some real grassroots people behind it. 

Snoop Dogg’s Specialist

Shaggy, who is leading the effort for Snoop Dogg’s team, has been working with him as a recording engineer since he was 19, he’s 33 now. Over those years, he started helping Snoop Dogg source his flower and taking the responsibilities that come with it, specifically, making sure it’s proper. If someone showed up to the studio with something that wasn’t up to standard, it was up to Shaggy to be the heartbreaker.

“And so that just rolled over when he started doing some cannabis initiatives. He put me and Tiffany in charge of, you know, getting some of his cannabis initiatives up and going. I know a lot of people like AK,” Shaggy explained to L.A. Weekly. 

We asked Shaggy when Snoop Dogg knew it was time to pull the trigger on something like Death Row Cannabis given the plethora of pot opportunities that must have been piling up at his door over the years.

Shaggy argues Death Row Cannabis made sense, and the brand has been going through a lot since the purchase. Now we know that most of that time some kind of cannabis discussions were happening in the background, but since February, Death Row has started to revive its merch line with spins on old concert T-shirts and into NFT-embedded albums.  

“With the cannabis market, it just made sense, because like AK said, right now a lot of the celebrity brands come out and they hit the really high price point and they don’t offer the value for what you’re paying for,” Shaggy explained. “Like the best price point is like that 30 to 40 range, you know, maybe like $45 because, like this top tier stuff is just too expensive and it’s not always operating to value you know, I’ve been very disappointed you know.”

Shaggy admitted to getting out into the rec market a bit more over the last year as things came together. He regularly left with $65 dollars worth of disappointment as he sees it. His experiences with growers over the years have convinced him that good weed doesn’t have to be really expensive and cheap weed doesn’t have to be bad. 

“There’s weed that’s not as expensive, that’s really really good. And basically with us, we want to kind of help stimulate the culture, a little bit of a miseducated culture, and kind of give them good flower at a good price showing that this is possible,” Shaggy said.

VIBES AND THE LAST PRISONER PROJECT DROP RELEASE PAPERS

Vibes and The Last Prisoner Project are releasing a new line of papers advocating for the release of cannabis prisoners. 

Founded by Cookies co-founder and rapper Berner, Vibes has carved a place for itself in the higher-end rolling paper scene traditionally dominated by Raw’s unbleached papers and Elements. Regardless of how difficult it is to truly claim a chunk of the rolling paper market, Vibes was able to pull it off. A variety of sizes and offerings you just don’t see from the competition also helped put the company on the map. 

Vibes will now turn that energy to aid the Last Prisoner Project(LPP). At the end of July, Vibes and LPP launched Release Papers in collaboration with the creatives at Mother. The papers now serve as the heart of an advocacy campaign looking to push the continued release of cannabis prisoners. 

“So many people are still locked up with lengthy sentences related to cannabis. While at the same time, so many states have made up their mind that cannabis should be legal, and those states are where those people are still serving time, which makes absolutely no sense,” Berner said when announcing the effort. “Campaigns like this are part of who I am, we have to speak up, stand next to and support causes like Last Prisoner Project. I’ve helped raise awareness for Richard Delisi, Corvain Cooper and soon, Robert Deals. There are so many more people to fight for, and I need your help to fight for their freedom.” 

The collaborators went on to note 72% of Americans support cannabis pardons for the numerous folks serving time for nonviolent cannabis offenses.

The general ethos of the campaign is to use RELEASE PAPERS as an educational tool that will also get the public to engage in advocating for those still behind bars. The papers will include the name of one of the four prisoners featured in the pack. They are:

• Edwin Rubis, currently serving a 40-year sentence in Talladega, Alabama, for a victimless offense
• Hector McGurk, serving a life sentence in Victorville, California, without the possibility of parole for a nonviolent marijuana offense
• Moe Taher, sentenced to 25 years in prison in Welch, West Virginia, for selling cannabis
• Ricardo Ashmeade, serving a 22-year sentence in Pollock, Louisiana, for a victimless offense. Despite a reclassification of a California conviction from a felony to a misdemeanor, the federal courts have refused to resentence him.

The collaborators noted inside the pack people will find a QR code directing them to release-papers.com. The site gives supporters the opportunity to sign the Cannabis Clemency Now petition urging President Biden to release federal cannabis prisoners. Site visitors also will be able to participate in the letter-writing program supporting the featured inmates. 

I work at a dispensary that used to organize letter-writing campaigns for Eddy Lepp, one of California’s most famous medical cannabis prisoners. He always notes how thankful he was when mail call came and it showed how much people cared about his fight. It’s not unreasonable to think the same could be said for the four prisoners featured in this campaign. 

“Vibes Release Papers are helping illuminate the injustice our constituents continue

to face, even as more states legalize cannabis. President Biden has the power to right

history and free Edwin, Hector, Moe and Ricardo with the stroke of a pen, says

Stephanie Shepard, LPP board member and director of advocacy. “We are grateful to

have Vibes join our fight, as we keep advocating until everyone still incarcerated for

cannabis is fully free.”

A portion of the profits also will go back to the Last Prisoner Project to support its efforts in calling on President Biden to grant clemency to the tens of thousands of individuals currently incarcerated due to federal cannabis-related convictions.

THE FIDEL’S X CARROTS DROP WINS EARLY 2024

Fidel’s x Carrots is proving to be the hottest cannabis industry clothing drop of Q1.

As we’ve covered many times here at L.A. Weekly, Shant “Fidel” Damirdjian is one of the local faces shining during these dark times in the cannabis industry. He had a wild 2022 with his victory over some of the best cultivators in the world at Transbay Challenge IV — the Hash Hole exploded to the most famed ‘preroll” in California if you’re even comfortable calling it that, and he opened up his own cultivation spot in the desert without the help of the corporate oppressor. A great year for anyone in cannabis.

Topping 2022

So how does he top it? He comes out of the gates early in 2023 with a fantastic collaboration with Anwar Carrots. Carrots got into the fashion game in 2007; in 2015, he’d launch the Carrots by Anwar line. Vibrant oranges among other colors with stylized carrots and rabbits are par for the course with the popular menswear line.

The collaboration with Fidel’s started just over a year and a half ago. 

“Anwar blessed us with complete creative control the entire project,” Damirdjian told L.A. Weekly. “Dabber Dan and I, my right-hand man, designed every bit of the box. Even the bags the clothing was in. Even the cut and sew on the hoodies.”

They would eventually settle on a 50/50 cotton and bamboo blend made in Los Angeles and find that bright orange they were looking for, after some trial and error over the last 18 months.

The Box

Each box in the limited edition of 500 includes the hoodies and sweatpants set made, screen printed and packaged in LA. There also is a Fidel’s x Carrots T-shirt, headwear, four Croc Jibbets, a commemorative 3D printed carrot with a hash hole, and a half ounce of Fidel’s popular weed.

It’s very fair to argue the cannabis aspects of the box are easily worth more than half its $600 price tag. 

Where Fashion Meets Weed

After the entertainment industry, many would argue cannabis and fashion is where Los Angeles has some of its biggest global influence. We asked Damirdjian his take on that sentiment.

“100% it’s something you don’t see done often; if it has, it didn’t catch my attention and I apologize,” Damirdjian replied. “But I feel like fashion and cannabis have so much to do with one another. They are different audiences within the same audience. It’s a great thing to work with another cannabis company and within our community, but to branch out of it to get the attention of people in the clothing industry, it’s amazing.

Damirdjian argues it triggers so much more love crossing his audience and Anwar’s audience he’s built over the years. He appreciates how wowed people from both sides of the fence have been after months of effort trying to get it right to their vision.

Damirdjian is excited about what’s next; don’t expect to see these boxes again. 

“This is like one and done. I’m trying to touch as many people that follow my following, Anwar’s following with this,” Damirdjian said. “This cost $600 for the box; it’s not something that everyone can afford. But the true collector is getting so much in the box. I’m not just taking money from the consumer, I’m giving so much more.”

Again, a lot of it comes back to being a unique spirit in a crowded space for Damirdjian. 

He knows everyone’s trying to do something different. He considers the Carrots collaboration a sought-after project for anyone, and when he got the chance, he was not letting it slip through his fingers. 

“It took so much time, finances and we did it with so much cadence, but it opened up a lot of doors for me now. I can already see it this early on. I can’t wait till more people consume it,” Damirdjian said, 

2023 WAVE OF CANNABIS BILLS FILED IN SACRAMENTO

Numerous cannabis-related bills were filed in Sacramento this week. 

There is still a lot of work to do to fix California’s cannabis industry as many hold on by a thread. That work is reflected in the annual wave of cannabis bills we see this time of year. 2023 will be no exception, as lawmakers look to cover everything from the expansion of the regulatory task force to where to put the tags on your plants. 

Here are many of the bills we saw filed this week. There are a few more we’ll dive deeper into next week.

AB 993

The main purpose of this bill is to expand the state’s cannabis task force. Currently, there is not a seat at the table for either the Civil Rights Department within the Business, Consumer Services, and Housing Agency or the Department of Industrial Relations within the Labor and Workforce Development Agency. These are essentially worker protection agencies that enforce civil rights laws when it comes to employment and housing access or push for a better quality of life and working conditions for the state’s labor force. The task force already includes The Department of Cannabis Control, CDTFA, the Department of Fish and Wildlife, the water board, CHP, The Labor and Workforce Development Agency, and the Department of Justice. It would also include representatives from municipalities that opt into the task force. 

SB 622

This bill would change the technical wording on how the mandated unique identifier can be attached to plants. The current language requires the tags to be attached at the base of the plant. This would make it easier for any going big. Some of the largest outdoor plants have literal tree trunks you have to saw; it’s better for the plant to attach it to one of those stems shooting off the side. So again, they’re just changing a few words around, but it makes sense. 

AB 766

This bill is dedicated to anyone who has ever had to call someone five times over an invoice. It’s meant to empower the legislator to set maximum terms by which someone can sell cannabis on credit, create penalties and a course of action for the failure to pay invoices on time, and empower the DCC with the powers needed to ensure timely payments throughout the supply chain. 

AB 1126

This bill would crack down on people attempting to falsely represent cannabis products as licensed. Specifically, it emphasizes, the use of the cannabis universal symbol to push unlicensed products could cost you up to $30,000. While using the symbol was noted given how prolific it’s been on unlicensed cannabis packaging, any claim or representation of a product as licensed cannabis that’s not could land you in hot water. The good news? If you have a permit, you’ll only be charged $5,000 for pretending something was legit, meaning there is an argument to go legal just for the sake of discounted fines. 

AB 1111

This bill on the surface seems pretty straightforward in blocking appointees from the governor from taking part in the industry but, in fact, could possibly hinder the efforts to save California cannabis. Prop 64 prevents the DCC director and members of the Cannabis Control Appeals Panel from engaging in certain cannabis activities. The effort to add appointees to the list could prevent actual experts that have been successful in California’s industry from coming in and helping to fix things. Would you want someone that knows how to run a thousand lights trying to help save the day or a random political appointee in compliance with AB-1111?

SB 540

This bill would have the DCC reevaluate packaging regulations based on evolving science. The DCC would have to determine by July of 2025 if the current standards are still up to the task. As of January 2030, they’d have to reevaluate any changes to determine if any new concerns based on science need to also be added to packaging. The bill would also require the DCC to form an advisory committee dedicated to this subject of evolving label accuracy in the years to come. 

AB 741

Filed earlier this week, AB 741 would prohibit the California FAIR Plan Association from refusing to issue, canceling, or refusing to renew coverage over an applicant or policyholder possessing or previously possessed a legal amount of cannabis. Regardless of whether it was flowers, hash, or living cannabis plants, or because the applicant or policyholder had ever had a commercial cannabis licensee.

Keep an eye out for more coverage of cannabis bills coming out of Sacramento this year.

BANGKOK DISPENSARIES ARE OPENING UP SHOP QUICK

Over the last few months, L.A. Weekly has spent more time in Bangkok, Thailand covering the developing cannabis scene than anyone.

Thailand took the international cannabis scene by storm last June when it announced it would be decriminalizing cannabis after having first made a move to legalize medical cannabis in 2018. Thais were initially suspect of decrim, but once they saw the government start letting people out of prison for cannabis offenses, they knew it was about to be on. 

And boy was it. In the months since it’s now estimated that Bangkok has opened north of 700 to 800 dispensaries with another opening every few days. The first budtender that helped us on our second trip at the 24-hour Thai Terps lounge told us he was preparing to open up his own shop in the next few weeks.

The common number tossed around on how much it costs to start a full retail storefront at the moment is about 500,000 Thai Baht. That’s the equivalent of just over $15,000 USD. This has led to a surge of cannabis access in Thailand that is more reminiscent of Oklahoma than California. It was a lot easier to get a permit out the gate in Oklahoma before they started to tighten things up than it ever was in California. Remember the METRC protests!! Thai influencers are now protesting the fact shops are writing ID numbers down, imagine what they would think of full track and trace. 

On our first trip to Thailand just before The Emerald Cup, our biggest mistake was not visiting Sokhumweed. While we were there in November, JJ-NYC of Top Dawg Seeds invited me to come to rage with him and Arjan from Green House Seed Co. That originally put it on my radar.

When we arrived at the shop unannounced, its founder Beer spotted us quickly. The dude just loves weed. He took us over to view a spread of portraits from the Cookies opening a week prior that he’d got printed fast enough to have Berner sign one before leaving after the big launch in Bangkok. That’s how much Beer loves weed. 

“I opened a day early in June,” Beer told L.A. Weekly with a laugh. “What were they going to do? Throw me in prison for 12 hours?”

Beer was part of the legislative effort to push cannabis reform in Thailand, so with his eye on the ball, he got things rolling on Sokhumweed a couple of months prior to opening.

“So after witnessing this policy develop over the last seven years, I got the keys to the shop about three days before we opened,” Beer said before noting the shop is working with about 15 farms at the moment, many run by Beer’s longtime friends he’s excited to support. 

Sukhomweed’s founder Beer.

Another thing Thailand has in common with Oklahoma is the fact most of the best weed ever seen there is from California. Not all of it, but the vast majority. 

This had led to this weird situation where people don’t believe the heat is grown in Thailand. I was carrying around some absolutely gas Double Dawg, some of the best fuel/petrol aromas  I’ve ever seen outside the U.S. When I showed it to Thais, they tried to convince me it was the fresh stuff from California. So to an extent, the weed in Thailand got good so fast that they don’t even believe it. 

But it’s also fair for folks to question things a bit. Sure, the best stuff coming from California is absolutely balls-to-the-wall heat, but it’s few and far between. Most of the California stuff is product from mid-2022 that people had trouble moving in the flooded U.S. market. And a lot of that year-old stuff is in fact better than some of the Thai product being grown without any real standard operating procedures known for producing heat here in the U.S.

But regardless, the demand is there for the local product. Most coming into Sokhumweed are looking for Thai-grown cannabis. For those wondering what local strains to keep an eye out for, Beer argues the Freaky Buddha is one the best hybridizations of a Thai landrace at the moment.

Beer made the Freaky Buddha from a Thai landrace and Freakshow. Freakshow is famous for its unique look. While the nine seeds of Freaky Buddah he popped had a lot of males, he’s thankful he found a winner. 

Another similarity between the United States and Thailand? The government weed sucks. On our second visit, we stopped by a facility growing medical cannabis for the government. It was probably a pinch nicer than the things that have come out of the University of Mississippi, but it could not compare to the other indoor operations we saw in Bangkok. 

Here is the documentary on our first trip to Bangkok in November.