BRUNO ROLLS TO THE CANARY ISLANDS Bruno Van Holland, one of California’s premier joint rollers, took his act on the road to judge the Canary Champions Cup. As the world exited the pandemic, one of the aspects of the cannabis industry that exploded the fastest was the hand-rolled joint scene. And in addition to the…
BRUNO ROLLS TO THE CANARY ISLANDS
Bruno Van Holland, one of California’s premier joint rollers, took his act on the road to judge the Canary Champions Cup.
As the world exited the pandemic, one of the aspects of the cannabis industry that exploded the fastest was the hand-rolled joint scene. And in addition to the material going into them, the rollers themselves have become the stars of the show. Their ability and access to high-end flowers turned them into more natural likable influencers than the many trying to force it.
Bruno Got in Early
Van Holland is one of a few at the top of the pack. He got in the mix early, and his signature outfits and upbeat attitude quickly made him a staple on the event circuit. At many of the state’s most fantastic weed parties, you’ll find Van Holland posted in a bright corner rolling up cannons.
Given how things have gone for Van Holland, it was no surprise the Canary Champions Cup selected him to judge the pre-rolls.
“My first takeaway is how friendly everybody was,” Van Holland told LA Weekly. “The cannabis community over there is as inviting to us as foreigners – like it was, it was just a welcoming, like the way that they treated us. It felt like an honor just to be there. They treated us great. The first thing that comes to mind is just how well we were welcomed.”
Van Holland added the atmosphere those people are able to create at the social clubs he experienced was really special.
“The vibe there was amazing, the fact that we can go inside of a social club and play pool, smoke and by and by, and all in the same place. It was much different than what I’m used to here,” he added.
What Bruno Witnessed
Van Holland went on to note he appreciated the flower selection. There were many more sativas than he was expecting. He loved the fruit notes found in a lot of them. Given it was his first time hitting cannabis clubs outside America, he was excited to see those California strains that have a spot in his heart.
As for the contest, Bruno liked what he saw.
“In my category, I was impressed with the way that their joints were rolled,” Van Holland said of the entries. “Seeing back rolls is something that I’m not used to seeing here in California. And that hash wrap, I’ve never seen a hash wrap entered into a pre-roll contest before – that was impressive.”
Van Holland added he gets to see the best pre-rolls in the world in California. They are tough to beat. But the ones he saw abroad had their own unique style, which is tough to compare.
Comparing Tenerife to California
Van Holland went on to explain the differences between the sesh scene in California and the clubs in Tenerife.
“I found that people were talking a lot more at these ones. Everybody was kind of sitting around and talking more than the event that I was at today in California,” he said.
Another big difference was the spliffs they smoke.
“So they chain-smoke like crazy, and every couple of minutes, they’re lighting up a new spliff. I thought that the scene there was so much cooler. I thought the way that they had the social club setup was so much cooler than the way that we have the dispensary setup in California,” Van Holland said.
The event organizers were excited to have Van Holland in the mix.
“We were lucky enough to have Bruno in town, the black gloves and friendly smile are iconic. What a wonderful human, always kind and always rolling up just at the right time! He’s a certified hero,” Lawrence from The Canary Champions Cup told L.A. Weekly.
Alien Labs’ Zkittelz strain secured top honors in the new Best Thing Smoking category last weekend’s Zalympix competition hosted by Greenwolf.
The new category’s winner was selected by Proper Doinks in a tournament format.
With a record-breaking number of participants, this edition of Zalympix attracted more entries than all previous events combined. Alien Labs consistently demonstrated its excellence by placing among the top three or winning various categories in the past. However, this triumph marked their most significant achievement yet, as they added another three trophies to their ever-expanding collection.
Speculations arose last week regarding the challenging nature of the competition for Z due to the abundance of Zkittelz hybrids in the mix. Nevertheless, the judges ultimately disagreed, and Zkittelz claimed the highest podium. Since its meteoric rise in 2014, when it dominated the Mendocino Secret Cup and secured a top-five spot at the High Times NorCal Cup, Zkittelz has continued to captivate enthusiasts. It became the first breakthrough strain since Cookies emerged in the late 2000s and would go on to be in the lineage of basically every hype strain that came after.
Before he departed with the trophies for Sacramento, we caught up with Alien Labs’ founder, Ted Lidie. Our conversation began by highlighting the fact that this particular Zkittlez batch contributed the material that produced the original winning rosin entry at this year’s Emerald Cup.
We then delved into Lidie’s decade-long pursuit of winning strains through diligent seed hunts. Like clockwork, he meticulously assesses hundreds of jars every few months, aiming to discover Alien Labs’ next champion. We inquired whether he was disappointed that the victor did not arise from all that effort.
“Definitely, I would have loved to win with one of our own creations,” Lidie told L.A. Weekly. “We’ve spent a decade searching for exceptional genetics, but the past five years have been dedicated to cultivating our distinctive strains.”
Lidie further noted that Alien Labs aims to reach a broader audience compared to Zalympix. As Lidie put it, their selection includes flavors that may not be as trendy, but cater to those seeking the unconventional. He pointed to weird Super Silver Haze crosses as a great example.
During the qualification round, Alien Labs relied on their Area 41 strain, but when it came to the finals, they had approximately two weeks’ notice to make their choice.
“We had to locate a superb flower batch, and that particular strain generated significant hype,” Lidie said. “My QC team, Justin and Jesse, and I had to sample numerous batches to identify the ultimate standout. The Zkittlez batch from the Merced site, cultivated by an outstanding team, truly excelled.”
Lidie promptly acknowledged the high caliber of competition in the event. He expressed his belief that previous editions paled in comparison and commended all participants for delivering their finest work.
“It’s astonishing. If you observe the evolution from the first event to this one, it’s clear that people now have a much better understanding of quality,” Lidie said. “The entries were all exceptional, with consistent white ash and enticing aromas.”
Lidie sees the event as an indicator of overall improvement in quality within the recreational market.
“At least for those of us who participate and care about this industry, we are refining our craft. We won’t let anyone undermine the recreational market because, in the end, it’s the top-tier cultivators who produce the finest cannabis,” Lidie asserted.
We inquired about Lidie’s thoughts on winning what many consider to be the state’s second most esteemed competition, trailing only The Emerald Cup. Lidie highlighted that these events cater to distinct audiences and asserted that the Zalympix victory would have a greater impact in New York City than an Emerald Cup win.
“I’m not criticizing the cup; I’m a judge myself. It’s just that they attract different audiences, and The Emerald Cup holds diverse meanings for different individuals,” Lidie clarified.
Lidie further elaborated on the nuances of indoor judging at Zalympix, emphasizing that participants invest $700 per box, and the judges are accustomed to regularly sampling this caliber of cannabis. This differs from The Emerald Cup, where some judges only smoke indoor strains because they have to for the cup.
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.
THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: TEARS OF THE KINGDOM LIVES UP TO THE MASSIVE HYPE
Link’s latest adventures in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of The Kingdom (TOTK) are everything we were waiting for.
The game has proven a roaring international hit. One common phrase often seen across social media in the past two weeks since the launch is the idea that Breath of The Wild, Zelda’s previous foray on Nintendo’s Switch when the system launched, almost feels like a beta version of what we ended up with in TOTK. How wild is it to call a game that went on to sell 30 million copies since and win a ton of awards a beta test? But it honestly feels kind of accurate with how much TOTK built on the last version of Hyrule we visited six years ago.
The Legacy of Zelda Enthusiasm
There are few dates on the video game calendar that get circled with more enthusiasm than a new Zelda game. Since the first one dropped in 1987, its raving fan base has always wondered what would be next for the franchise that often served with Super Mario Brothers as a flagship game that showed off the capabilities of Nintendo’s hardware from generation to generation. Zelda’s creators Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka were a part of both famous franchises. While it doesn’t quite serve that role in the same fashion given Nintendo has now allowed many more developers to publish games for their hardware in the Switch era, Zelda still very much serves as the benchmark for how much fun you can have on the Switch.
Zelda has turned down the cartoon style from 20 years ago. But the current look and feel still have a very anime feel that looks a lot cleaner than Wind Walker released in 2002. But 2006’s Twilight Princess feels much more similar to what the game looks like today. The modern version feels a lot brighter and more fun, like the way the lava pops with bright red and orange bubbles.
Miyamoto explained some of the thought processes they had as Zelda continued to transition into the 3D format in the 2000s. He noted part of the reason they went for the cartoon look was it made it easier to show expression in the characters. He also wanted it to feel like you were playing a cartoon in 3D, they definitely aced that test.
Breath of The Wild provided a lot of the building blocks for this new sequel on the same generation of hardware six years later. In an interview with Game Informer, Miyamoto noted one of the big jumps as Zelda made the move to the Switch was the nature engine. Exploration has always been a significant backbone of the fun in the play-it-at-your-pace game where you can toss around chickens or make a speed run for the master sword.
“Adventuring and exploring nature is what makes the game,” Miyamoto told Game Informer when the game launched. “I had to relook at what dungeons look like for us and kind of take it out of the dungeon. We spent five years kind of working on that.”
Miyamoto admitted he himself likes the open-world aspect of players creating their own adventures across the storyline over the years but understands there are folks out there that like those deep storylines with a lot of backstories. He thinks this modern generation of Zelda games has done a good job balancing the two.
The Tears of The Kingdom Launch
Over the past few weeks, the world has now had a moment to dive into Hyrule. But the months and years leading up to this moment had a bit of mystery to them. Regardless, once the game hit shelves, it was on.
In just three days, it became the fastest-selling Zelda game of all time. Ten million units moved globally in that first 72 hours, 4 million of them here in North America. That makes it the fastest-selling Nintendo game ever on any system in North America according to Nintendo. A major achievement for the game’s creators.
“Many players are returning to Hyrule with all its new mysteries and possibilities, and with the record-breaking launch of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom for Nintendo Switch, we can’t wait to see what they’ll create in the game and the stories they’ll share next,” said Devon Pritchard, Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of sales, marketing and communications. “We’re grateful for all of our fans who’ve shown their passion for The Legend of Zelda over the years, and these sales numbers for the latest installment continue to show the strong momentum for both the franchise and Nintendo Switch this year.”
Reviews and Livestreams Pumped The Hype
One of the things that helped the massive launch was just how positive all the reviews were. It’s currently sitting at a 95 on Metacritic, the most noted aggregator of video game reviews by a mile. That score puts it as the 49th greatest game of all time per their review system. While 22 other games in history have scored a 95 on the site, TOTK ranks No. 1 one among those games that have scored a 95 since the website was founded over 20 years ago.
Zelda’s 1998 edition Orcana of Time is the number one game of all time on Metacritic as the only game ever to score a 99. The last installment on Switch, Breath of The Wild, ranks No. 14 on the all-time list with the Wii U version coming in No. 26. Twilight Princess is No. 39, and The Wind Walker is No. 44. There are a few on the list after TOTK also. The Gamecube Collectors edition from 2003 came in at No. 54. The Game Boy Advance edition of A Link to The Past came in at No. 59 with Majora’s Mask right behind it at No. 60. Twilight Princess is two spots later at No. 62. A 3DS version also made it. With the TOTK’s reviews getting added to this all-time list, basically one in 10 of the top-reviewed video games of all time on Metacritic is a Zelda game, if you count the two versions of Breath of The Wild as one.
“The fandom behind the Zelda franchise is stronger than ever and to date, Tears of the Kingdom is the best reviewed game of 2023 on Metacritic,” Marc Doyle, Co-Founder of Metacritic told L.A. Weekly. “In fact, it currently ranks in the top 50 games of all time and the number four Zelda game to ever be released.”
We asked Polygon Senior Reporter Nicole Carpenter if she thought the game got scored tougher by critics as a direct sequel.
“I don’t necessarily think it got scored harder, but Breath of the Wild did have a major impact on the industry so there was an expectation for what Tears of the Kingdom would be. The bar was already set high and people expected Tears of the Kingdom to jump over that bar,” Carpenter told L.A. Weekly, “The game sold 10 million copies in a few days so it’s definitely up there for the biggest game of the year. Beyond that, Tears of the Kingdom will be one of most influential games of the year.”
Another thing the newer generation of Zelda games has had play to its favor is the rise of online streaming. The launch has been a hit. According to TwitchTracker.com, over the last week, people have spent 8 million hours watching other people play the game and the streams averaged about 50,000 people watching at any given time. Things peaked on May 11 when 351,714 users were simultaneously watching TOTK streams.
50 Hours In
What?! The Great Deku Tree has a stomachache again?! Sign me up. That’s not even a spoiler at this point, it’s presumable Hyrule’s bad guys at any given moment have had an impact on his acid reflux. Those kinds of expectations are one of the things that have made the series great. Each time we go back, the little things we love are done even better.
We are about 50 hours in. I’ve completed the Wind Temple but have predominantly spent most of my time exploring. I’ve hit about 35 Shrines so far in the process of building up hearts for the main storyline. One of the reasons I’ve hit so many shrines early is because of how fun the new gameplay mechanics make them. The massive refreshing of all the minigames makes each one feel very unique.
Those four new core gameplay mechanics are called Fuse, Ultrahand, Ascend and Recall. Fuse lets you attach objects from the world to each other or your hand after you use Ultrahand to move them around. You’ll use a combination of those powers and the world around you all the time to upgrade your weapons, solve puzzles and even build vehicles.
Ascend adds another vertical element of gameplay in addition to the massive sky map that covers the whole game from above. It allows you to climb through ceilings within reach of the ability and emerge through the floor on the other side.
Recall allows you to move objects and then recreate that object’s movement through time. Say a rock falls down a waterfall you want to go up, you hit the rock with recall and ride it up the waterfall. There are some wild uses for one when it comes to all the puzzles.
There also is a ton of wild physics mechanics attached to the main storyline. As you dive further and further in, you’ll get access to an even wider array of tools to combine with the Ultrahand and Fuse abilities.
With all that, and what feels like triple the game compared to Breath of The Wild, I think the only reason TOTK isn’t higher on the all-time list is that it’s a direct sequel. Regardless, it’s one of the best games ever.
In one of the season’s most unexpected 4/20 collaborations, Puffco and AriZona Beverages are dropping an ice-tea homage edition of the Cupsy.
We have to admit the kings of digital dabs are dropping a collaboration with the 99-cent beverages of my childhood that were not on my bingo card for the holiday season, but we’re ready to party.
“Puffco has long admired AriZona’s unwavering quest to bring affordable, great-tasting beverages to the masses, and we see a lot of synergy in the way we develop our products to celebrate the beautiful flavors of the cannabis plant,” said Roger Volodarsky, CEO and founder of Puffco. “This creative effort is all about marrying our innovative design with AriZona’s iconic cherry blossom print to offer another pathway for people to enjoy a cannabis experience that emphasizes taste.”
The Cupsy is a highly effective stealth smoking apparatus The original looks like a standard coffee cup, so you can just leave it in your cup holder and take bong loads at work all day without anyone looking in and seeing anything sketchy. Not that bongs are sketchy, but there are some square bears in our midst!
Puffco describes the Cupsy as a revolutionary design that pairs an unassuming everyday object with a high-performance cannabis bubbler system. A fair take. While I’m more of a glass tube guy, the Cupsy certainly was a ripper when I took it for a test drive after the original dropped roughly a year ago.
The AriZona Edition of the Cupsy is a lot more vibrant than its stock predecessor. That being said, at first glance, it’s still going to be pretty tricky. It’s got those vibrant pastel colors that make you think of Easter, if you’re not too busy thinking of ice tea. Generally, it’s a refreshing color palette compared to most of the space. The clear glass cup with the iconic AriZona logo on it also is a nice switch from the stainless steel wrapped in plastic in the original. The glass will still be a breeze to clean.
“Everything we do is built on taste. From our label design, to creating great quality products. At AriZona, our customers are our single biggest inspiration,” explains Spencer Vultaggio, chief marketing officer at AriZona Beverages. “Our mission is to bring customers a memorable experience: from ingredients, to unique merch. Puffco is another Brooklyn-born company that is deeply passionate about pushing the boundaries of design, flavor and accessibility, and that’s why we are excited to bring this collaboration to fruition.”
Adding to the fun? This is a true collector’s edition item. Puffco will only be producing 420 of these collaborations in honor of the holiday. It’ll likely be a must-grab item for the real cannabis accessory enthusiasts given how out of left field the collab feels like when you first read about it.
There also is an argument to be made about just how functional the Cupsy design is. There are not a lot of options that short that offer the same quality of percolation. While we’d love to see the bowl grow a little in the next rendition, the Cupsy is firmly planted on our stealth smokers list.
Puffco did this drop to coincide with the 4/20 holiday season, but they also drop new gear year-round. We recently featured the new Wizard attachment for the Proxy on our 4/20 list. It’s one of the best examples of what’s possible at the production scale with the modular system of the Proxy.
I wouldn’t be surprised if these end up selling out in just a day. Puffco SMS users will get a half-hour head start over the nonbelievers at 9 a.m., on 4/20.
The nearly decade-long battle to get American veterans access to medical cannabis continued on Capitol Hill this week.
With the exception of seeing little kids with extreme forms of epilepsy like Dravet’s Syndrome, nothing went further in changing the national conversation around medical cannabis than supporting vets with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This movement was a direct result of first-hand experiences with medical cannabis safety and efficacy when it came to PTSD, as more veterans continue to take their own lives. In its own 2017 study on cannabis and PTSD, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) noted over one-third of patients seeking cannabis for medical purposes list PTSD as the primary reason for the request, and 15% of VA patients at outpatient clinics are using medical cannabis in the last six months.
Cannabis Caucus founder Rep. Earl Blumenauer picked the fight up this week, to get vets access to cannabis. He originally started pushing the effort in 2014. In 2016, things looked great, but the language ended up getting stripped in final negotiations by then-Illinois Senator Mark Kirk.
At the time, Blumenauer noted, “It’s incredibly frustrating and disappointing that despite broad bipartisan, bicameral support, a handful of out-of-touch lawmakers put politics over the well-being of America’s wounded warriors. Our veterans deserve better. We will continue to seek every opportunity to make sure they have fair and equal treatment and the ability to consult with, and seek a recommendation from, their personal VA physician about medical marijuana.”
But things are looking up. On Wednesday, Blumenauer passed an amendment to end the VA’s prohibition on providers assisting veterans in accessing state-legal medical cannabis. Not only did it pass, it passed unanimously in a voice vote. In this heavily divided Congress, surely that is a reasonable sign of how bipartisan supporting veterans is.
After the amendment passed on Wednesday, Blumenauer told L.A. Weekly,
“Veterans in Oregon and across the country have shared with me how medical cannabis has literally saved their lives. It is a gross injustice that the VA continues to prohibit its providers from helping veterans access medical cannabis. My amendment with Brian Mast would finally allow the VA to help veterans complete forms in compliance with state-legal cannabis programs, allowing them to access a far less addictive alternative to opioids in managing PTSD, anxiety, depression, and other chronic conditions.”
Blumenauer also came out against the VA’s move to strongly advocate against medical cannabis as a treatment for PTSD this week. This recommendation came despite the VA noting some participants from its own focus groups, “spoke about the benefits of newer pharmacologic treatments (e.g., ketamine) and were interested in exploring other newer treatments such as psilocybin, cannabis, LSD, and other psychedelics.”
The VA cited that same 2017 study we mentioned before when it came out strongly against using cannabis for PTSD. But that study’s own authors noted there are very few methodologically rigorous studies examining the effects of cannabis in patients with PTSD.
“We found only two observational studies, which suggest that cannabis is potentially associated with neutral effects on PTSD or depression symptom severity, and employment status, and negative effects in terms of violent behavior, drug and alcohol abuse, and suicidal ideation,” the authors noted in their findings. “However, the strength of evidence is rated as insufficient due to the potential for bias in the two included studies in this review and the small number of controlled studies reporting data on benefits and harms of cannabis for treating PTSD symptoms.”
So how can something that notes how limited the information being used is be the ethos for the VA’s prohibition on medical cannabis for PTSD? And with all the discussion around vets and cannabis, how is this still what they are citing in the debate all these years later? How has the VA not pushed this research further in that time period?
In a letter to the VA’s leadership, Blunenauer said, “The Departments of Veterans Affairs and Defense have a long history of claiming the best interest of our veterans and servicemembers only to deny the reality of medical marijuana as a key treatment option for those impacted by post-traumatic stress disorder.”
Blumenauer went on to note the updated June 2023 VA/DoD Clinical Practice Guideline for Management of PTSD perpetuates this misguided denial of services to our nation’s veterans.
“For decades, I have heard from veterans across the country that medical cannabis has been a life-saving treatment for PTSD,” Blumensauer told the VA and DOD leadership. “I urge you to reconsider the antiquated and insufficient recommendation against the use of cannabis or cannabis derivatives in treating patients with PTSD.”
Etienne Fontan of Berkeley Patients Group and Veterans Action Council was pleased with Blumenauer’s success.
“We want to thank Blumeneur and the Cannabis Caucus for keeping true to their words to help veterans gain cannabis access via the VA. Many politicians talk a lot of talk, but very few walk the line like they have for us. We are grateful for their continued support on this issue,” Fontan told L.A. Weekly, “This has been the work of many hands and organizations to get us to this point, and we are not across the line yet. This is a significant first step in the direction that many veterans want to see nationwide. It must still get through the House, and the President must sign it, and we will remain skeptical until the process plays out fully.”
Fontan closed by noting activists have been disappointed too many times in the past with promises that never see fruition.
When announcing the program on Tuesday, the DOJ noted CAPP will provide partner cities and counties DOJ legal support to address illegal cannabis activity through administrative enforcement and nuisance abatement. Essentially, the city or county signs on to ramp up local enforcement and then the DOJ provides extra resources. The DOJ will provide educational materials for locals to build out their programs and provide mechanisms for evidence collection in future statewide enforcement operations that have been umbrellaed under the new Effort to Prevent Illicit Cannabis.
As for enforcement actions, CAPP will provide attorneys to act as administrative prosecutors before local hearing bodies when necessary. CAPP also will provide bodies in general to those smaller municipalities that are just too strapped for cash to do anything. This will include assisting in facilitating administrative procedures and assisting with logistical issues through the use of private process servers, contract code compliance officers, and abatement contractors.
“Complex problems require creative and collaborative solutions,” said Attorney General Rob Bonta. “This innovative new program allows my office to better support local governments in our collective efforts to tackle illegal cannabis activities, and we are confident that this new cost-effective program will have dramatic and measurable effects. I thank the City of Fresno for their partnership and look forward to working together through this new approach to hold participants in the illegal cannabis market accountable.”
Bonta’s office noted the cooperative effort with local jurisdictions leverages the administrative enforcement powers of cities and counties. The DOJ also noted this work being done at the local level will supplement the work of the Department of Cannabis Control and the Governor’s Unified Cannabis Enforcement Task Force. The task force is led by the Department of Cannabis Control and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Fresno’s city attorney is excited to be the test case.
“Our partnership is aimed at assisting the local legitimate cannabis industry and help grow Fresno’s tax base,” said Fresno City Attorney Andrew Janz. “It is my hope that this, first-of-a-kind joint venture between the Fresno City Attorney’s and the Office of the Attorney General will be a model for other large cities. For far too long, these underground operations have targeted children and minors without fear of retribution. This inventive new approach will seek to put an end to that.”
The state seems to be revving up for a higher level of enforcement. You could see the numbers start to bump in Q1 when the Unified Cannabis Enforcement Taskforce announced the amount of product they seized jumped from $32 million to $52 million in just a few months. It’s a safe bet the highest numbers will likely be attached to harvest season this year.
In addition to the jump in the amount of product seized, the plant eradication count went way up. Through the first three months of the year, the task force destroyed 43% more plants than the quarter before. The DCC noted that was despite serving 30% fewer search warrants. The bump was a direct result of targeting large-scale operations with the resources they had available.
Photo courtesy of Attorney General’s Office.