LA’S NEWEST EQUITY POT SHOP OPENS AFTER 5-YEAR BATTLE

FAKE CANNABIS PACKAGING PLAGUES INDUSTRY

One of the worst parts about being an internationally respected cannabis brand? The fakes. 

The further you climb toward the mountaintop, the more people are going to pretend they’re selling your product or just flat-out use the reputation you’ve built with heat and flame to rob others. On a positive note, if you’re at the point people are copying you, then you’ll probably make it through the dumpster fire that California cannabis is in.  

Here in L.A., where much of the weed people are pretending to have is grown, counterfeiting is still an issue. If you go down to the Vape District on Wall Street, you can find all the bags you’ll need to convince people on the other side of the Sierras you got the heat. And most of those people have never seen real Doja, Jungle Boys or Cookies, so just having the logo on the bag is going to go a long way with them.  

According to Doja Pak founder Ryan Bartholomew, they’ve been dealing with people faking their product since 2018, well before things blew up for the brand over the last couple of years since the initial RS-11 drop that made waves. 

“Then, we were doing the cans. Shortly after we released the cans, we started to see cans that were being tagged on IG and they were fake,” Bartholomew told L.A. Weekly. “They were different. We could just tell that the font was off. It was very obvious to us, being the ones that made the cans, they were fake.”

When they made the jump to bags in 2019, it was much of the same problem. First they started to see fake bags float around L.A., then they started to appear online. Even worse, the bags were a bit easier to fake than the cans. So it can be a lot harder to spot the difference until you look inside at the nugs. 

Bartholomew noted the internet helped it become an international problem. Websites like Calipacks.co.uk are currently selling Doja Bags for a little over a quarter. 

“He’s in the UK and he prints… like at this point they’re printing stuff we never even made,” Bartholomew said. “Yesterday this guy was like, are these jars in Switzerland real?” 

A website offering fake Doja packaging.

Bartholomew had to inform that person the jars they were dealing with were fakes.

Doja Pak attempted to create a verification system, but as Bartholomew noted, you got to be pretty headie to scan a QR code on the back of a bag. Doja handled the back end of the verification system and could see just how much people were interacting with it. 

“Beyond the fake product, too, there’s a lot of scam accounts,” Bartholomew said. “There’s Instagram accounts with more followers than mine, Instagram accounts with the exact same amount of followers as mine with the exact same comments, but they have maybe like two K’s”

Bartholomew has people that come up to him all the time at events and they’ll tell him they sent money for an ounce. 

“I’m not asking anyone to send me any money,” he said. “So there’s constant scamming going on every single day. I’ve been saying if we could see the dollar amount of scamming going on every day it would make us throw up in our mouths.”

Bartholomew estimates there are at least one hundred people pretending to be Doja Pak on the hunt for victims. 

One thing that’s been helpful is unique packaging. Doja Pak’s Re:stash has become a unique identifier of the brand you can only get in person at events directly from the Doja Pak team. Additionally, they don’t have to worry about the Re:stash team printing a bunch of fake jars to give out, given the relationship they’ve built with them over the years. 

Another famous L.A. brand that’s faced its fair share of fakers is The Jungle Boys. 

“I mean we’ve definitely dealt with it a lot,“ Ivan from the Jungle Boys told L.A. Weekly from Florida, as they prepare to open their Miami Beach location today. 

Ivan said more than fake products alone, these days people are faking the whole entity. There was even a fake Jungle Boys store across the street from City Hall in New York City. There was also another underground dispensary using their name in a less prominent location. Ivan finds the whole thing pretty wild. 

One thing that will help the Jungle Boys distinguish themselves from the fakes is their new packaging released last month. The new jars are ​BPA-free and made from 100% recyclable plastic. They’re currently handpicking strains to make the jump to the new jars. The first was Strawberries N Later.

COLOMBIA STARTS UNIVERSAL CANNABIS HEALTH INSURANCE

Colombia’s state-funded health insurance now covers medical cannabis. 

Those already operating in the country are obviously hyped as they prepare to meet the uptick in demand. Clever Leaves is one of the best positioned to take advantage of that expected surge. Clever Leaves was founded in 2016 by Andres Fajardo, a longtime business partner, and The Former Drug Policy director of Colombia. Think more of someone that ran the Office of National Drug Control Policy that falls under the executive branch as opposed to the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). 

“We saw an opportunity because the legislation was changing early on and we thought Colombia has what it takes to win in the global cannabis market, given its cost structure and agricultural conditions,” Fajardo told L.A. Weekly from Colombia.

Andres Fajardo

Fajardo and his partners were also excited to have a hands-on way to help further influence the regulations that would be coming down the pipeline and take part in an essential step for the nation’s cannabis history.

While things are happening fast, a lot of that history has long been attached to epic land-race genetics that made their way to the coastal Santa Marta region nearly 1,000 kilometers north of the capital Bogota. The most famous being the Colombian Gold that lived to its name because if the packs made it to the other side of the Caribbean, someone was getting rich. 

While the laws changing in the late 2010s was certainly a factor, the core of the policy that allowed for medical cannabis in Colombia was a law from 1986. 

“The law passed but the decree and the more granular pieces of legislation were not there. But they passed some, some of that in late 2015,” Fajardo explained. “The opportunity opened, we got a license, but then, during 2016 and 2017, there was a change in regulation.”

That change was the breathing room they needed to start the building blocks of a true industry in Colombia. By January of 2018, they had scored some extra capital from the U.S. and were in full swing. They’re now up to 1.8 million square feet of cultivation. 

When they first got the ball rolling, they were only allowed to do extracts. But all that has changed. 

Fajardo argues that most of the cannabis being grown in Colombia right now is being targeted for smokable flowers. Sure, they’re still growing the materials for extract, they’ve been exporting it for a few years already. Now it’s about prepping the next big export, smokable flower. Everything Clever Leaves needs to export flowers has already been enacted over the last two years; it expects to start exports in the first quarter of 2023.  

The biggest markets off the bat for Clever Leaves are expected to be Germany and Australia. 

Fajardo says a lot of the company’s growing pains were experienced in their Portuguese facility back in the day. That is where they learned the important lessons about growing smokable flowers compared to bulk extract biomass, and not the terp-heavy kind stuffed in freezers in California. 

Another thing playing into their favor is, they’ll be able to grow a lot of different cannabis across their cultivation portfolio cheaply in hopes of having something that speaks to everyone. 

“The cost of the Colombian capacity that we have allows us to launch more and more strains more easily than in other countries,” Fajardo said. “So we expect to be expanding our flower portfolio very significantly during 2023 and the years thereafter.”

Fajardo says Colombia’s natural light cycle and weather will play a big factor in that. The days are basically 12 hours of sunlight and darkness each, year-round, and then they just have to adapt for the drier and wetter seasons, which Colombian agriculture is long accustomed to doing. 

Fajardo went on to explain what Colombian patients have had to deal with over the last few years, prior to the federal insurance plan. He believes access has been very difficult for patients, particularly in a country like Colombia, with universal health coverage. The further normalization of the industry is now allowing the industry to build up to meet demand. 

But what makes being a medical cannabis company in a universal healthcare environment tricky? 

“Colombian people are not used to spending out of pocket at all because everything is paid. So when you ask them to pay $6, they are OK. But if you ask them to pay 20, 30, 40 bucks, people will just not do it,” Fajardo said. “Now the question is, is the medicine going to be available and affordable? Now with this change, the market expands abruptly because it’s 50 million people, all of us insured. So that poses a very attractive possibility. “

We should have an idea over the next few months of the level of demand they can expect in the Colombian medical market. 

THE DREADED REBRAND

Rebranding, whether it applies to products or individuals, poses a significant challenge within the cannabis industry.

As the California cannabis sector gradually emerges from the turmoil of recent years, those who contributed to its struggles seek to join the soon-thriving market. They endeavor to conceal their involvement in the previous failures.

The detrimental effects of rebranding permeate every aspect of the marketplace, extending beyond the legal domain.

The Ambition of the Shady Players in the Recreational Market

Individuals who exploited the industry until now, leaving behind the chaos we find ourselves in, are observing the end of the dark times as bulk prices creep up. They are now witnessing the resurgence of value as the post-pandemic price crash subsides. Who would have predicted that the cannabis industry, only three years later, would find itself in such a predicament after experiencing its most prosperous sales period? However, sales eventually began to decline, and numbers were down for years until we started our recent climb out of the hole. 

But back then, prices continued to plummet, with a market oversupply devastating pound prices. If a product made it to the shelves, one prayed that the dispensary could afford to pay the distributor. You would assume that partnering with major distributors would secure access to the most shelves—a safe bet, right? Nevertheless, we recently witnessed the demise of Herbl, causing a considerable loss of livelihoods. As the company was on the brink of collapse, more aware brands swiftly switched distributors, demanding payment for their products directly from retailers. Unfortunately, it seems that the rest are left empty-handed for now.

I spoke with an entrepreneur who faced the perfect storm caused by the collapse of Herbl. First, he claimed that he was charged an additional $30,000 due to discounts on products that were initially paid on delivery with cash. Furthermore, one of his tenants lost everything in the collapse and hasn’t paid rent for two months, struggling to stay afloat. Lastly, the entrepreneur is unable to obtain the products he needs for his shelves until new distributors pick them up or he figures out how to handle distribution himself. Both options are time-consuming.

It is disheartening to consider that those responsible for inflicting these hardships on so many people may evade accountability. While retailers bear some responsibility for not settling their debts, should we allow those who perpetuated an unsustainable system, which lacks bailouts like the banking industry, to absolve themselves of the sweat, money, and time lost in this ordeal?

Certainly, the blame does not lie with the young individuals manning the booths or attempting to sell the products. They had no say in how far the company would stretch itself before the disaster that unfolded this week. Perhaps only a few individuals bear true responsibility. Understanding each person’s role in that current cannabis tragedy is crucial.

Although Herbl stands out as a recent catastrophe, numerous other companies also mistreated people. Some caused harm inadvertently, while others acted out of misplaced self-belief. However, the most egregious offenders are schemers who are eager to reenter the market, while the other two likely bear some trauma from their actions. We must not allow them to return solely to line their pockets and inflict further damage.

However, the issue extends beyond distributors.

Questionable Retail Operators Sold Shelf Space to Busters

These individuals are the ones who secured shelf space at corporate dispensaries, thereby overshadowing small, high-quality businesses through the payment of slotting fees. It is possible that they initiated the concept of slotting fees completely eroded the notion of customers obtaining the best value for their money from location to location. Many of those who managed to secure such positions were unscrupulous individuals with extensive networks of like-minded opportunists. It was an arduous and lengthy process for smaller retailers to establish themselves, unless they held significant influence or connections.

These people who undermined the initial wave of corporate shops are desperate to regain entry before interstate markets open up. They recognize this as their next prime opportunity to latch onto someone else’s value. We must not permit the worst offenders to jeopardize the national rollout. 

City councils played a role in enabling these unscrupulous individuals to thrive while everyone else suffered, lining their own pockets. Consider the immense financial losses incurred by L.A. Equity Program applicants over the years, following the rules set by a city council that was only revealed to be racist through a secret recording. Politicians throughout the state have also contributed to the headaches faced by the cannabis industry. As the market stabilizes and normalizes, it is crucial that these individuals are held accountable indefinitely and prevented from rebranding. Once we forget that they were never on our side to begin with, we may inadvertently allow them to alter the rules.

As for the underground market, the rebranding problem is mostly just people renaming weed. It’s still shady, but less devastating. 

THE YEAR IN GLOBS 2023: OUR FAVORITE HASH FOR 7/10

As the 7/10 holiday approaches, it’s time to recognize California’s standout hash extractors.

This organically formed holiday, distinct from Green Wednesdays or CBD Day, was created by Task Rok and the first-generation globbers to celebrate the rapid progress in the hash space. Not a PR company. Over the past decade, the hash sector has witnessed significant advancements in both technique and hardware and this is when we celebrate it each year. 

Solventless hash, produced using ice, water, and screens instead of volatile gas extraction, has become the reigning king. The hash industry has thrived in the pursuit of new flavors, with the hunt for unique terpenes driving the competitiveness of the companies listed below.

While this year introduces fresh faces, some well-established players make a comeback due to their continued excellence. 

While the tidal wave hasn’t hit the shore yet, there will be a ton of Piattella-style cured water hash this year. It blew up in Spain during the pandemic after Uncle’s Farm put it on the map, a first wave of Americans was exposed in 2022, myself among them. This year there were ten times as many Americans at Spannabis as in 2022, so a lot more people got hyped about it. Many Americans are working on perfecting it, including the popular Professor Sift. His efforts are in the featured photo.

Here are some of our favorite California hash companies from the past year:

Fully Melted

Humboldt’s Fully Melted has been impressing consumers in The Emerald Triangle for some time. Although their Zkittelz initially faced controversy at the Emerald Cup, it gained recognition for its incredible terpenes. Alien Labs even used the same pheno that produced the material to claim The Best Thing Smoking at Zalympix a bit over a month after the cup. Must be pretty fire! Every offering from Fully Melted is definitely worth exploring.

Royal Key Organics

Royal Key Organics successfully transitioned from producing award-winning sauces to crafting exceptional solventless hash in recent years. This is in addition to their world-class flower offerings. Their Arcata facility, now expanded, allows more people to experience the wonders of hash made from plants grown in living soil. Their IOS OG 90u Sift, bred in-house, exemplifies the quality and passion behind their products.

“Selection number 24 instantly took us back to our favorite OGs we and our friends grew in the early 2000’s,” Josh Vert, founder or Royal Key Organics, told L.A. Weekly, “Memory can be a funny thing, so we gave it to OG connoisseurs around the state. Everyone who experienced “HHSFV Dog” no.24 said it checked all of their boxes for smell, taste, smokabilty, high, and bag appeal. They also wanted more, and considered it a fantastic OG in cured flower form. We then named it iOS OG, short for I only smoke OG. 

Kalya

Despite facing numerous challenges, Kalya has consistently excelled in producing high-quality hash. Their recent move to Santa Rosa has brought them smoother operations after dealing with the perils of Oakland over the past few years. They continue to impress with their offerings, such as the delightful Dole Whip they had in their possession when I ran into the team a couple of weeks ago. Some of the nicest rosin I’ve seen this year. 

LA Family Farms

LA Family Farms made headlines last August by securing top honors at The Transbay Challenge, surpassing many renowned names in the industry. Their Cotton Candy Gas, grown and washed in-house, is a highly celebrated new addition. It’s the perfect showcasing of their expertise in creating Los Angeles-based single-source rosin.

Cali-X

Cali-X deserves recognition for its underrated rosin in the recreational market. Each jar of their hash is exceptional and wholly made in Los Angeles. As a “single source” entity, Cali-X turns things they grow themselves into unique flavors that add excitement to the rosin market. A lot of Cali-X’s genetics are exclusive to them, so it makes the thoughts of the flavors they may possess in hash form fascinating. 

Rosin Tech

The 2022 Emerald Cup winners, Rosin Tech, continued to crush throughout the year with their high-quality products. Their foray into hash holes has been successful, firmly establishing them among the finest in the industry. The hash inside their joints steals the show, thanks to the incredibly loud flavors they deliver. Their collaborations with Luma Farms are some of the most prized jars in the spread. 

Moonshine Melts

Moonshine Melts, the hash wing of 3rd Gen Family Farms, has earned numerous accolades and remains one of the most awarded cannabis companies in the space when it comes to the trophies that actually matter. Their Zkittelz is renowned for its exceptional quality. Acquiring their single-source hash is akin to hitting the jackpot. There was a point in the mid-2010s when people had to start with the question of whether they thought it could beat Moonshine Metls before they even entered a contest. Many didn’t risk it. 

Trilogy 710

The team at Trilogy 710 has mastered terpene preservation like few others. Their jars contain some of the juiciest rosin available. In addition to their impressive techniques, their collaborations with renowned breeders promise to deliver exciting new terps to the market. Keep an eye out for their work with Symbiotic Genetics for potentially mind-blowing results.

Cryo Labs

Cryo Labs has gained global influence in recent weeks, with their Gary Payton hash jar making waves at the Mary Jane Berlin festival. They have been pioneers in exploring unique terps, such as Compound Genetics’ Apples & Bananas and Grape Gas. Extractors producing their own material now consider Grape Gas a must-have strain but Cryo Cure was dropping it a year before anyone. 

Have Hash

Hash Hash has rightfully claimed numerous trophies this year. They triumphed in Europe during Spannabis week by winning The Ego Clash Barcelona and securing second place at Masters of Rosin a few days later. Then when they returned to America they won San Francisco’s highly competitive challenge at Hippie Hill. We eagerly anticipate the release of their new flavors from the latest harvest.

Arcata Fire

Not everyone can access raw extracts, so Arcata Fire’s Rosin Syrup is the perfect alternative. Their pens recently claimed top honors in The Emerald Cup’s fiercely competitive Solventless Cartridge category. This achievement is expected to improve the availability of their products across the state in the coming months.

Swollen Heads

Another California company making waves abroad is Swollen Heads. When we linked up with Swollen Heads this spring we got the chance to test all of their terps of the moment. Everything was grown by them and then processed. Each flavor held up against most of what we’re seeing in the market with no problem. We highly recommend trying to get your hands on a jar. 

NEW REPORT: 77% DECLINE IN YOUTH INCARCERATION

The Sentencing Project’s latest report found a 77% decrease in youth held in juvenile justice facilities around the United States. 

The report numbers are based on one-day counts of how many youths are in the facilities. At the turn of the century, the number climbed as high as almost 109,000. Over the past two decades, it has declined to just over 25,000 in a one-day count taken in late October 2020. The number includes those awaiting their court date in detention facilities, youth prisons, residential treatment centers, group homes, or other placement facilities as a court-ordered consequence. 

“The sharp declines in youth arrests and incarceration demonstrate the possibilities for similar success for the adult population, as well. However, the persistent racial and ethnic disparities in the youth justice system highlight the need to address the sources of those disparities wherever they emerge,” The Sentencing Project noted when announcing the new report. 

One of the big takeaways was racism in the criminal justice system doesn’t have a minimum age requirement. Youth from communities of color were far more likely than whites to be detained in the facilities in the counts. 

“In 2019, Black youth were 4.4 times as likely to be incarcerated; Tribal youth were 3.2 times as likely; and Latinx youth were 27% as likely than white youth to be incarcerated,” the authors noted. 

California had one of the worst disparities in the nation. Forty-eight white youths per 100,000 California residents are in placement at some kind of facility. White youths were also much more likely to be offered some kind of diversion program that would see them avoid jail time. At the same time, 488 Black youths are in a correctional facility per 100,000 people. This equates to a 9/1 disparity here in California. The only places worse were The District of Columbia, Connecticut, Nebraska, New Jersey and Wisconsin; in all but Nebraska, Black youth are more than 10 times more likely to be incarcerated. While it’s bad, the disparity dropped 4% in California from 2015 to 2019. 

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, California youths weren’t as horrible per 100,000 residents in 2019 as other states. When it came to larceny, the 74 Californians arrested per 100,000 was a fraction of what other states were seeing; Alabama was over 10 times higher at 785. Drug abuse crimes were a lot lower too, likely due to more progressive approaches to the war on drugs. But the numbers weren’t so good when it came to robberies. The 72 California youths arrested per 100,000 was only topped by Delaware, Illinois and Maryland. 

South Carolina, Tennessee and Nebraska have seen their racial disparities grow by at least one-third over that same window. While Tennessee, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Nevada saw a dip of more than a third in their disparity levels. Three of those states legalized cannabis during that window in some form.  

The Juvenile Justice Information Exchange spoke to the dip youth offenders earlier this year. At the time, the JJIE noted that most juvenile arrests had been dipping in recent years, unfortunately with the exception of murder. Homicide numbers have been on the rise. 

The JJIE noted that less cash going to house youth offenders in the most expensive incarceration options allows those resources to be diverted to alternative placements in the community. This might be group homes or programs that provide rehabilitative and wraparound social services. 

For fiscal year 2023, Congress appropriated $400 million for juvenile justice programs. The Congressional Research Service noted in January that this is the largest appropriation since the $424 million provided in FY2010. The federal government doesn’t administer juvenile justice by itself, it leaves that job to the states. But there are a variety of programs in the Department of Justice that distribute anywhere from $5 Million to $100 million to states depending on their individual need.

Photo: Andy Feliciotti

ADVOCATES WANT CANNABIS DESCHEDULED NOT RESCHEDULED

Last week’s leaked letter from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recommending that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) reclassify cannabis from a Schedule I to a Schedule III controlled substance under federal law was lacking for advocates who want to see it descheduled. 

All of the OG cannabis reformers are weighing in. Congressman Earl Blumenauer has been involved in cannabis reform for 50 years. He founded the Congressional Cannabis Caucus in 2017. 

“This is a step in the right direction, but it is not sufficient. I hope it is followed by more significant reforms,” Blumenauer said. “This is long overdue.”

Blumenauer noted he pushed the Biden Administration to deschedule marijuana last December. Later in the spring, he called for more transparency in the wider Controlled Substances Act scheduling process. 

NORML, the nation’s oldest marijuana reform organization, noted the DEA said as recently as 2016, cannabis had no current accepted medical use regardless of all the babies with Dravet’s Syndrome that started the CBD explosion making national headlines for years at that point. The DEA will have the final say in all of this; we know how it went the last four times. 

NORML’s deputy director and longtime policy ninja, Paul Armentano, weighed in on the letter.

“It will be very interesting to see how DEA responds to this recommendation, given the agency’s historic opposition to any potential change in cannabis’ categorization under federal law,”  Armentano said. “Further, for decades, the agency has utilized its own five-factor criteria for assessing cannabis’ placement in the CSA — criteria that as recently as 2016, the agency claimed that cannabis failed to meet. Since the agency has final say over any rescheduling decision, it is safe to say that this process still remains far from over.”

Like Blumenauer, NORML has been calling for cannabis to be removed from the Controlled Substances Act for years. They recommend doing it in a manner that’s similar to liquor and tobacco. 

“The goal of any federal cannabis policy reform ought to be to address the existing, untenable chasm between federal marijuana policy and the cannabis laws of the majority of US states,” Armentano said. “Rescheduling the cannabis plant to Schedule III of the US Controlled Substances Act fails to adequately address this conflict, as existing state legalization laws — both adult use and medical — will continue to be in conflict with federal regulations, thereby perpetuating the existing divide between state and federal marijuana policies.”

Armentano closed, noting it’s the same level of intellectual dishonesty to categorize cannabis next to anabolic steroids as it is in its current situation on the list next to heroin.

With the US recreational cannabis market worth more than ever, it would seem something is going to have to be done to remedy the situation. Last week, California announced it had taken in just over $5 billion since the legal market kicked off in 2018, New York City’s first shop did $12 million in its first six months, and there are about 50 more data points off the top of my head why states aren’t going to let this fly. 

In the end, descheduling is likely. But the road is going to be a bit longer. And you can expect it to be the result of a future Congress and White House taking some kind of mandated action that the DEA won’t have a say in.