NY’S FIRST DISPENSARY DID $12 MILLION IN 6 MONTHS

Every year there is even cooler stuff available for cannabis consumers on 4/20. 

It will be no different in 2023. There is a wide array of new products and strains sure to take our breath away in the coming months. Here are our must-have products for 4/20/23 next week: 

Puffco Wizard

Courtesy of Puffco

While the Gandalf-style pipe is nothing new, Starfish Designs was famous for pumping them out back in the day, in the past, glass versions have generally been designed for flower. With Puffco’s new Wizard attachment to complement the Proxy, you’ll now be able to smoke hash Gandalf, too. While it looks cool, some people find that little bit of extra space compared to the stock Proxy attachment rips a little bit smoother. The Wizard is $99.99,

Talking Terps Clothing

Courtesy of Talking Terps

Few artists have been able to get the cannabis scene as excited at the concept of high-end art as Talking Terps. Their knack for limited editions and luxury now sees their products gracing the offices and homes of some of the coolest folks in the cannabis space. Some recent hits include the Terp Fetti sweatpants. They look like one of those delicious vanilla confetti cakes but are super comfy to match. We haven’t tried them out yet, but the new footholders they’re about to drop look pretty sick, too.  

Globmops Slurper Cleaner

Globmops are nothing new, the company has long been one of the two main titans of cleaning your quartz after a dab with a lab-grade cotton swab that’s spun a lot tighter than a Q-tip, so you don’t have to worry about it breaking up and leaving behind anything on your quartz banger. But now, Glopmops has a Slurper Cleaner design perfect for Terp Slurpers. They’re kind of a hassle to clean with the standard Globmops so a lot of people would dunk them in iso after every dab; this will make it a bit quicker. 

Wizard Trees Seeds

Courtesy of Wizard Trees

Wizard Trees is one of the most celebrated cannabis farms in California in recent years. While they had traditionally been known for making excellent selections in pheno hunts and then producing great flower, they’re now making an even deeper jump into genetics with their first seed drop ever. It was initially timed with the Spannabis festivities. The drop is available at WizardTreesGenetics.com and there are a lot of RS-11 crosses on the list that are easy to get hyped about. 

Free Seed Day

With the timing of this year’s 4/20 issue, we’re thrilled to be able to let you know you can get out to Free Seed Day this Saturday, May 15, at Masonic’s on Fairfax. The day is a celebration of all things Los Angeles cannabis genetics. We dove into its three-year evolution with Masonic Smoker last week. As the name entails, there will be plenty of free seeds to go around with bags ready for the first 1,000 people that come out. But even if they run out of the official bags, you can expect to not leave empty-handed if you really love seeds. 

Oni Flowers

Courtesy of One

The long-awaited first drop of flowers from the legendary Oni Seed Co hit California dispensary shelves in recent months. So far the flower is holding up, as more people around the state get access. The phenos were selected from a big pheno hunt, when you pop a lot of seeds, of Oni’s storied genetics collection. Two of our favorites so far have been the Zahiti Rainbow and Purple Something, the latter helping fill a bit of the purple void in the marketplace at the moment. 

Brothers Broadleaf

Florida-based Brothers Broadleaf has exploded onto the blunt scene over the past couple of years. We were originally put on to them by Adam Ill at Kushstock a few years ago. In the time since it was like watching a snowball roll down the hill with all of their varieties becoming a massive hit. Even the discount Dudz line made up of imperfect leaves is considered among the top of the game. You can use discount code “JimiD15” to get 15% off on Dudz. 

Preferred Gardens

As we highlighted in our explanation about what makes mixed-light cannabis awesome earlier this year, Preferred Gardens is among the most respected names in all of cannabis cultivation. This can be said for both indoor and mixed-light greenhouse operations. They’ve now taken the act on to Florida with more states on deck, but fear not, the weed here at home is still heat. It feels like it’s been a couple of years since we’ve seen something competitive with Preferred in that $35 an-eighth price bracket. 

L.A. Family Farms

L.A. Family Farms winning The Transbay Challenge

Known for both the quality of their flowers and concentrates, L.A. Family Farms continues to shine locally. The Rainbow Belts rosin the farm won Transbay with was some of our favorite hash of 2022 for sure. In addition to all the great product, L.A. Family Farms’ logo is a common sight at cool events around town, its team in attendance, or sponsoring stuff based in the more authentic wing of the Los Angeles cannabis industry. 

Doja Pak Coffin Candy

Doja Pak continues to revolutionize the way Los Angeles looks at Thursday night, as the strain premiers continue to be a massive hit with L.A.’s headiest. Their latest big new strain is a doozie. Coffin Candy is technically (Runtz x (Z x (Gelato 33 x 18 Coffins)). With Doja going all in on supporting the new flavor, we have high school expectations, given their epic run of curating hitters over the last few years. 

Runtz Wraps

Already Runtz up your life? No worries gang, now you can Runtz up your blunts, too. Runts’ new line of Dominican leaves for rolling blunts is awesome. First off, you get six in a pack. For most five packs of blunts, I end up tossing one. Since you never have to toss out the loose leaves, it basically works out to two free blunts in every pack. They are also very stretchy compared to most blunts and forgiving. 

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.

Photos by Jimi Devine

WE HIT THE MR. GRAY, DEPPE, DARBY, BEN DAVID SKULL IN HUMBOLDT

Imagine you are sitting in the woods of Humboldt County enjoying some of the finest cannabis the galaxy has to offer and then out of nowhere one of the most legendary pieces of glass art anyone has ever smoked out of gets put on the table.

That is precisely what happened last weekend. And not only did we get to see it, we got to hit it, too. 

The skull is a collaboration of Mr. Gray, Scott Deppe, Darby Holm and Ben David. It is considered by many to be the nicest piece of glass ever created for the sake of cannabis consumption. I consider myself among that crowd. Since 2014 when Scott Deppe first posted it to his Instagram, it has absolutely captivated hash and glass enthusiasts all over the world.

It’s not just a looker, the Mothership Torus encased within the skull is an absolute ripper. I found out the hard way. This past weekend it was set up with a dual hookah hose attachment so two people could hit it at once. And back when it was first created, terp slurpers weren’t a thing yet. One might argue a decade later, the skull is in its final form as the masses are able to enjoy it with the best quartz tech to date. 

And man did that tech rip. Mr. Gray loaded up a glob of hash for me to smoke out of his most legendary creation. He asked me how big I wanted to go and I said medium. As the beads of sweat started to drop down my brow halfway through, I began to get the impression that he may in fact have gone a little chunkier than a medium. The next 15 minutes were a journey through time and space. 

At one point minutes after that fateful rip, I was just sitting there on the couch fried and this really nice lady came up and gave me this crazy crystal pendant and said thank you for coming up to Humboldt. I just remember trying to piece together a thank you as I sat there melting, and by the time I stood up five minutes later, I couldn’t even remember what that lady looked like. So if you’re that lady, thank you again!

Following my recovery, I stood with the crowd of folks who lined up around the skull to watch everyone rip it. It was fun to watch the expressions of people as they walked in and looked at the table mesmerized. As cool as the pictures are, it’s hard to capture the way the natural light kisses the glass — it is really something special, even on an overcast day like when we saw it. It was a really headie crowd in general. A lot of people knew exactly what they were looking at, even though it was the first time they had ever seen the skull in person. 

After they took it all in, they lined up to hit it. One person noted that by the time they arrived at the party at 6:30, it seemed the skull had laid a path of destruction through the crowd. The Mr. Gray-loaded dabs had people somewhere between Mars and Jupiter.

While I was in no condition to ask him at the moment, as I headed back south from Humboldt on Sunday, I reached out to Mr. Gray to get his take on how iconic the skull continues to be all these years later. 

“To most people when they think of a glass pipe, they think of a bong they use or their first spoon, but I think of something more elaborate,” Mr Gray told L.A Weekly. “ Here in Humboldt, I have immersed myself in glass to the point of no return. 

Even with the full-on immersion in cannabis culture, Mr Gray emphasized this one holds a special place in my heart. 

“It’s a Holy Grail every time I serve someone a dab,” Mr. Gray said of the joy on people’s faces. “I believe it elevates their mind, body and spirit, and I hope it makes it slightly easier being in these human bodies.”

Jacob from Have Hash, one of the most award-winning hash companies globally over the last year, explained how we all ended up getting to hit the skull.

“I apprenticed for Mr. Gray in between farm work when I had just moved to Humboldt, so we’re buddies,” Jacob told L.A. Weekly, “He now works with my friend Zach who does One World Humboldt, a new heady gallery that holds the piece, and I figured it would be a great opportunity to bring it out so I asked em if they wanted to.”

It was awesome.

YOU CAN’T ENFORCE AWAY LEGAL CANNABIS PROBLEMS

Cannabis operators have faced the short end of the stick time and time again in the legal marketplace, but leaning back on the Drug War tactics of prohibition is never the answer. 

The plague of operators who have never smoked heat in their lives bashing people who never got the shot they wanted in the marketplace continues to grow. Most of the time, the people taking these shots at the traditional underground market are well-funded operators. They use “enforcement of the law” as a catch-all phrase to narc on the streets from state to state. The lack of enforcement, as they see it, is the root of their headaches. This is regardless of their product quality. 

It’s a lot easier to blame someone else to your investors. Those who have been participating in cannabis markets the longest have become the target of that ire. In the worst circumstances, they’d try and convince you all the cannabis grown outside of the legal marketplace is loaded with pesticides that will kill you and sold to you by an international drug trafficking entity. Sure, there’s some nasty weed and sketchy folks in the mix, but painting the entire marketplace with that brush? Sad. Disingenuous. So many things come to mind. 

But here in California, those painters may have pushed us into a new era of enforcement that’s going to bring us back to something a lot closer to the dark ages of cannabis. California’s legalization rollout has gone less than ideal. The original plan to transition the underground market to a new regulated one changed quickly following legalization. 

In the merger of Prop 64 and the state’s forthcoming medical cannabis regulations that would have gone into effect had Prop 64 failed, certain protections for small farmers were lost. The biggest was the prevention of the permit stacking that led to the mega farms that priced mom and pops out of the game on both sides of the market.  

There is a sublayer of people in all this that pretends to hate the underground market while backdooring products from mega grows through sketchy distribution companies. These distributors are the plausible deniability between you and your weed in New York, should shit hit the fan. The mom and pops getting hit the hardest by enforcement this summer rarely will have access to such wider distribution networks technically tapped into the legal market. 

The mechanism for this shitty deliverance will likely be the new Effort to Prevent Illicit Cannabis (EPIC) program. The program is essentially a rebranding of the state’s 40-year-old Campaign Against Marijuana Planting (CAMP). A major difference will be the way the actual enforcement efforts are directed. 

Attorney General Rob Bonta noted when announcing EPIC that his reforms would be focused on the environmental, labor, and economic impacts of illegal cultivation. Much of the resources directed to CAMP went to monitoring the national forests of Northern California for grows during the peak of the growing season, but the EPIC program will have a permanent presence going forward.

One aspect of the program is the fact that it’s expected enforcement on unlicensed gardens located on private parcels will pick up a lot this year. As it destroyed 30 million cannabis plants over the decades, many times there wasn’t anyone in the forest to charge. With the move to heavier enforcement on private parcels, we’re bound to see more people facing legal trouble.

It’s being viewed as a double-edged sword by many up north. As they hear of the risk of enforcement, many laugh, presuming it can’t be anything compared to what they faced during the hardest era of enforcement up north. They also expect the enforcement will see prices bounce back up. 

It might have never gotten to this point of increased enforcement had the farmers had a real shot in the first place. And as the last 40 years have proven, you can’t enforce cannabis out of California, especially when it’s more popular than ever.  

WHAT THE KILLERS ARE GROWING 2023

It’s that time of year when we ask our favorite cannabis brands and people what they’re most excited to grow this year. 

The early stress tests are done for the season and folks are getting ready to put their new winning phenos into full blast. While this happens all the time indoors, the work outdoor cultivators do in March and April will help set the standard for the quality they’ll be chopping down when Croptober hits. 

Here is what people told us when we asked them what they are hyped on. Here is what they told us:

Fidels

Fidel in the garden. Courtesy of Fidels.

Runtz x Jealousy, multiple banger phenos hunted, now being scaled up to the masses. The cool thing about this project is that it’s not bread by me, it’s bread by Julio aka @nineweeksharvest. Julio and I had a Genuine conversation. He’s an amazing breeder and pure soul! He blessed me with Runtz X Jealousy. 

We hunted over 60 beans and had many selections that look, smell and smoke phenomenal. I’m excited to share these selections with the masses and have them scaled up properly.

Masonic 

Oh man, Karma Genetics, The great gardener, Barbara bud hybrids, and some of the stuff I’ve chucked along the way. I already went down a lot of the landrace rabbit hole.

Rez from DNA Genetics

I’m hyped about the ’93 Octane crosses. Super heavy gas. I’m looking for that borderline rancid, super offensive-pungent, baby Shit level funk.

Capulator

Diamond Lungs Co-Op grow. 70 pheno hunters, 888 beans. Also, Vintage Sunset Cheese, Gas and Cheese, and Caps Frozen Oranges. I’m on a hot one right now.  

Ryan from Doja Pak

So basically, Duke of Erb and I started with a strawberry diesel from Res Dog, pollinated it with a Northern Lights male selected a male and pollinated an OG18 Pheno that we hunted from DNA. That cross was named 18 Coffins.

We worked the line through the generations and hit the Gelato 33 from the Bakery with pollen from an F318 coffins male. That cross was called Strawberry Gelato. The female keeper was put into production and then the male we collected pollen and dusted the original Zkittlez. This cross was named Strawberry Zkillato. Planta grows this cut currently.

The SZ Male pollinated a LCG/Runtz and then we selected multiple keepers; Planta runs 1 and Dave from Preferred Gardens runs another. We again selected a male and hit our whole lineup. Those are the crosses I’m selling and selecting now. 

Anna from CAM

Things I’m running that are new. Grape Gas, Lemon Cherry Gelato x Permanent Marker, Animal cookies x Z, Devil driver (Melonade x sundae driver ), Pure Kush and Rozay. 

Erin from Royal Key Organics

Gelapop, Velvet, Candy Walls hash, new seeds and new potential from Equilibrium Genetics.

Drew from Green Dawg

Green weed 2023! D1 is my biggest recent push. I’m not disclosing genetics officially, but it’s the closest thing I’ve had to a real Sour Diesel/Dubb flavor profile in a decade. It’s an anti-candy. We hunted her from seed. Everything else was hay except her. I think she’s special and is going to do numbers this year.

Sour Wavez

Surefire and I have something special coming up, haven’t named it… RS11 x sherbanger F1 male. Besides that, some stuff I bred: Gelloz (gelatti x OZX), Betrayal (Zkittelz x OZX), Real Ricky Bobby (Xeno x OZX), Chess not checkers (Pink Z x OZX), Sidepiece (Pure Kush x OZX).

Besides that I’m growing Sherbanger (Boston roots), Sour diesel (karma bx2), I have four different OGs, Permanent marker via Doja pak, Zazul (Archive), Detroit runtz (Tiki) and from Mendoja the Larry Z and Cherry pie x OZK .

Kevin Jodrey 

I’m hyped about the older cultivar revival Purple city coming out with ssh kali mist hybrids.

Cypher going to weave the red Lebanese x puck into his work. On the east coast you have the piff haze crew going hard in that direction.

You got Sjoerd Brooks lighting up in lake county and has the haze valley nursery coming online. Equatorials modified for our area but still retaining the traits that made them legendary. No one young ever got to smoke them and Brooks is a bad motherfucker.

It’s not so much a specific plant as a feel. Herb from an era where the quality of the effect was what drove the sale more so than the amount of hype. You see the work being woven into a lot as well. 

The stores are losing so much ground to the trap because they live and die off of the distribution model. That model is a safe bet. Purple color only. Over 26% only. That leaves about 30 plants that every nursery in the state sells and forces every grower to compete with each other for shelf space. Customers are bored. 

I’m flying to Jamaica tomorrow to document Charles Scott’s operation for a company I’m helping to build in Massachusetts. A lifetime of equatorials being sifted for what will work best in today’s world. I’m stoked because the crop is outdoors full sun organic and at 18′ latitude, so we can see what they look like in their natural environment. 

Those selections will be sifted indoors and released in a market where that kind of effect is desired and needed. 

Fieldz from Zkittlez

Braindropz, gelonoidz, wapanga, NYZ., zyrup. All of our own gear of coarse. 

Champelli

Stuff that is smoking and is killer. I have a few OG back crosses. I’m excited about bringing back that real gas for body smoke mostly green weed, but I also have a few different candy Z crosses that are neither overly zee or overly candy leaning basically their own thing New flavors I like it when stuff comes out and it’s not leaning too heavy on one thing or relying on one Terp it’s always Pass when they get together become friends and decide to have a new expression of flavor. That’s the most exciting part creating something you could actually call newish.

The Village – Symbiotic Genetics

We are really excited about the Gassy Taffy line collab with Grow Low Key. There is a Grease Bucket x Gassy Taffy pheno that is extremely promising, very gassy. We are calling it Benzina, which is gas in Italian. Also the Amarelo x Gassy Taffy I’m really excited about and that’s going to be called Ego Death. Also the Candied Bananas which is Z2 x Banana Punch, Z2 is Zkittles bag seed. 

Mike from Fig Farms 

The flowers I’m most excited about right now are in-house crosses that recently graduated to production. The next two that will be released are crosses to Figment pollen, both are outstanding.

The first cross, Kush Mint Cookies x Figment #5, has an overwhelming Original Cookies terp presence that really pulls at the olfactory memory. The second cross, Blue Face x Figment #7, has an undeniable exotic Fig Farms look with a complex gas profile that we can’t wait to share. You are going to continue to see a lot of Fig crosses coming from us in 2023. The pollen and the winning female plants that we’ve been collecting and testing are like colors on a painter’s palette. Our palette’s range is deep, and we are using our palette to create the next generation of classics.

THE SPANNABIS 2023 TRAVEL DIARY

Spannabis 2023 once again proved to be a can’t-miss international event, as cannabis access levels continue to rise around the world. 

It was fair to say, this year proved Spannabis had exited the pandemic slump in its 19th edition. It certainly felt a lot more crowded than last year, as visitors interacted with the 280 exhibitors, 500 companies and nearly 5,000 cannabis industry professionals at the show. Prior to the pandemic, attendance numbers had been as high as 35,000.

It’s important to note all the things that happen in the orbit of Spannabis. While the main show over the weekend is massive, there are a lot of big annual events taking place throughout the week also drawing tons of attention. A lot of that attention goes to hash. The week of Spannabis is essentially home to the biggest flower and hash contests in the world outside of America. The week also features Spain’s largest business conference, the Barcelona edition of The International Cannabis Business Conference.

As for the contests, they offer a few different formats. The weekend of Spannabis is dotted with awards shows starting on Wednesday with Ego Clash, all the way through to The Secret Session’s Sunday contest announcement. Other contests throughout the week included Masters of Rosin and the Spanish Champions Cup hosted by Spannabis. A win in any of those contests is one of the biggest things you can do in cannabis.

The Ego Clash originally was founded in California and made its way to Spain in the late 2010s. After its founding by Brandon Parker of 3rd Gen Family, one of the most award-winning farms in cannabis, The Ego Clash quickly vaulted itself to the top of the mountain in a world flooded with cannabis events. 

This year’s Barcelona Ego Clash may be the most surprising yet. While many big-name Americans would make the trip, Bask Family Farms took home the top prize in flower. BTY Terplandia was the highest-scoring American flower in second, and the stacked trophy shelf over at Growers with Attitude would round out the podium.

Ego Clash Flower Judging

But many consider the hash the star of the show at The Ego Clash. Top honors in the hash category went to Ogre Farms. A Half-American team placed second in this category, too, with The Emerald Cup’s personal-use winner Wooksauce Winery. Dochazed came in third place.

The top prize in rosin went to Have Hash. This was their second time winning The Ego Clash and they would place third later in the week at Masters of Rosin. 

Things started to feel a lot more European after The Ego Clash ended on Wednesday. Partly because a lot of Europeans get there on Thursday for Spannabis setup while Americans making the trip tend to spend closer to a week or longer.

A packed Friday at Spannabis.

Friday would prove to be mobbed. One of the things about events like Spannabis that feature seed companies is the best gear goes early. People will take the day off work to get there early in hopes of buying a pack of seeds that holds their Golden Ticket.

This year felt like it featured more American seed drops than ever. Many of them were people we traditionally think of for their quality of production and not breeding. The list of American seed drops includes Los Angeles top-shelf regulars like The Terp Hogz, Wizard Trees, Cali-X, and Doja, on top of the traditional breeders you would expect to see in Spain. 

Friday also would feel like the most business-heavy day. Many people were searching out those conversations they needed to have with their industry peers before the weekend was in full gear. 

Among the craziest business things we saw was Athena’s mobile tissue culture system. Farmers will be able to do in the middle of a field what they once needed a lab for. It won’t clean your genetics like meristem work in a lab will, but it will certainly make preserving genetics that much more accessible. 

Saturday and Sunday felt very similar. They were both packed-to-the-wall celebrations of cannabis. Saturday certainly seemed the most crowded of the three days.

It’s a safe bet as more and more countries continue to reform their marijuana laws, the 20th edition of Spannabis next year will be simply massive.