CONGRESS PUSHES BACK AGAINST VA ON POT AND PTSD 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…
CONGRESS PUSHES BACK AGAINST VA ON POT AND PTSD
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.
The world’s first Phase One clinical trial investigating the microdosing of LSD showed promise.
During our recent adventure to Microdose’s Wonderland festivities in Miami, we were hit with a mountain of data from another massive year in psychedelic science. Still, MindBio Therapeutics’ clinical work with LSD microdosing was undoubtedly among the most fascinating.
For those not in the know, the clinicians who conducted the research define microdosing as the repeated administration of psychedelics, such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) or psilocybin, in doses below the threshold for overtly altering perception.
Why would researchers want to look into this? Because it’s all the rage of course. But as the trend continues to blow up, science is yet to back a variety of microdosing claims. Even more so in regards to LSD than the very popular and more accessible psilocybin mini trips.
Back in May, MindBio Therapeutics’ parent company Blackhawk Growth noted at the completion of the trial MindBio was still the only organization in the world to have successfully obtained government approvals for a doctor to prescribe LSD to patients to take the drug unsupervised in the community.
“In the same way they would take any other medicine,” the company noted.
The study was led by the University of Auckland. Associate Professor Dr. Suresh Muthukumaraswamy was among those who presented the findings to their psychedelic peers in Miami. Here is a breakdown of the protocol they used.
After finishing the trial in late spring, MindBio would comb through the data collected from 80 participants from over the course of 12 months and 1,102 microdoses. The daily questionnaire showed credible evidence of increased ratings from participants in energy, wellness, creativity, happiness and connectedness on the dose days. The actual doses were 14 ten micrograms of LSD.
A usual dose when you’re looking to have a deeper experience is about one microgram per kilo of body mass. So the 10 microgram dose is enough to get someone that weighs 22 pounds to trip hard. That being said, the first doses were administered under supervision. Once everything was found to be OK, the trial participants administered the rest of the doses at home on their own.
Sometimes the doses had a bit more kick than the participants expected, but most of the time it was not enough to be an issue,
“Many of those surveyed reported experiencing these effects at least once, but few reported them occurring after every dose. Other reports note that negative effects are largely acute and rarely persist in the long term,” the researchers wrote.
There were incidents of adverse events. The number of people in the LSD control group who experienced jitteriness was nearly one in three. While in the placebo group, 7.5% of participants claimed the same thing just at the idea they might have just taken LSD.
But again, the positive results far outweighed a little bit of jitteriness. MindBio was already planning the Phase Two clinical trials well before they released the data. They are hard at work in their attempt at becoming the first to commercialize a psychedelic microdosing regimen.
“We are proud of the incredible work of our scientific team and the completion of this great milestone as we head toward developing game-changing treatments for mental health conditions,” said Frederick Pels, CEO of Blackhawk.
The American Society of Regional Anesthesia (ASRA) and Pain Medicine is calling for cannabis screenings prior to surgery.
The new guidelines come as a result of two years of work at ASRA Pain Medicine. The guidelines noted the idea initially came from cannabis and perioperative medicine special interest groups within the society in November 2020. The group is one of the largest medical societies dedicated to anesthesiology in the world, with 5,000 members in 66 countries.
A smaller working group broke it down into numerous questions to answer, the first of which was if all surgical and procedural patients requiring anesthesia be screened for cannabinoids preoperatively, and if so, what information should be obtained?
The most fundamental part of their answer is a big yes because everything in a patient’s medical and recreational substance history should be taken into account, the guideline authors noted.
“Before surgery, anesthesiologists should ask patients if they use cannabis — whether medicinally or recreationally — and be prepared to possibly change the anesthesia plan or delay the procedure in certain situations,” said Samer Narouze, M.D., Ph.D., senior author and ASRA Pain Medicine president.
Narouze went on to point out that while some people use cannabis therapeutically, studies have shown regular users may have more pain and nausea after surgery, not less, and may need more medications, including opioids, to manage the discomfort. And they’re not fearmongering, they just want the patient and anesthesiologist to be as informed as possible.
“We hope the guidelines will serve as a road map to help better care for patients who use cannabis and need surgery,” Narouze said.
The authors note it wasn’t just the weed they were worried about, but the potential for pesticides, heavy metals, and carcinogens. There are concerns about those adulterants impacting the perioperative effectiveness of the anesthesia.
The authors later broke it down to four main factors to consider on whether someone should stop using cannabis before surgery — it was medical, the dosing and frequency of use, CBD ratios, and how it’s administered.
“A recent consensus-based guideline recommended reducing cannabinoid use 7 days prior to surgery (to less than 1.5 g/day of smoked cannabis, 300 mg/day of CBD oil, 20 mg/day of THC oil) while cautioning not to attempt any tapering strategies within 6 days of elective surgery and not to attempt tapering a day prior to surgery,” the guidelines noted.
The guidelines also noted one of the places the ASRA Pain Medicine will be looking at the relationship between cannabis and anesthesia the most often will be in pregnant women. In 2019, 5.4% of pregnant women reported using marijuana during their pregnancy. The guidelines said a history of occasional or recreational use of marijuana likely does not pose a risk with neuraxial anesthesia for labor analgesia or cesarean delivery.
The authors did note if you were to go into labor within a couple of hours of consuming cannabis there may be increased potential for cardiovascular, anesthetic, and vasopressor interactions.
Purple weed was already a thing when Ken Estes got his hands on Grand Daddy Purple in Mendocino County and brought it back to his grows in the bay area, but that journey south really put the winds in its sails.
We ran into Estes during our recent travels to cover Spannabis and the wider Barcelona club scene. He noted he had spent much of the last decade dealing with his health — this is what originally forced him to take his foot off the gas back in the mid-2010s. But his impact to this day is undeniable. We’d catch back up in California to talk purple a few weeks later.
While not as prominent in the era of 40 new exotic flavors a month, GDP, as Grand Daddy Purple would be known to many, still dots menus up and down California. Prior to the rise of dessert weeds following Cookies hitting the scene, GDP was where people went for a combination of flavor and impact. Even Cookies’ most famous sibling Cherry Pie was the Durban F1 used to make cookies paired to GDP.
But before all that came to be, GDP was the last stop for those looking for high-impact cannabis that wasn’t OG Kush. Some would also argue the purple was a bit more couchlock-heavy than the OG Kush of the time. And while Ken Estes certainly didn’t invent purple weed, he changed the demand level, all while living through the dark ages of cannabis.
And he was loud. Few pushed the limits like Estes. During an event in 2010, he opened a dispensary 20 yards from the steps of Oakland city hall. When he wasn’t executing his business plans, he was hitting city council meetings, eventually opening one of America’s first chains of dispensaries with his Grand Daddy Purple Collective shops in NorCal. His being so “out there” during that era led to frustrations for both his peers and city officials, but folks certainly had a knack for following Ken into town.
Estes’s path to cannabis would start after a motorcycle accident at age 18 in the 1970s paralyzed him from the neck down. Prior to the accident, Estes had been playing soccer at an elite level in California. Pele, in town with the New York Cosmos at the time, gave him a call of support from the hospital’s lobby so he wouldn’t have to fight the crowd there to support Estes in the days following his injury.
Six months into his rehabilitation, he experienced cannabis for the first time with a group of Vietnam veterans who were in the same care facility. This began his lifelong connection to medical cannabis.
“I was a young kid. I was 18. My first personal experience with weed was pretty strong. But I went back to my room and I slept all night. It was the first night in six months I slept all night,” Estes told L.A. Weekly.
He recalls how common the idea of marijuana being medicine was. All the nurses and doctors knew. And he certainly knew it was medicine from his first experience. After that first joint, Estes would end up having eyes on the scene for the next 45 years.
“I’m shocked and surprised where this movement went,” Estes said. “I thought we were just in California getting it for patients. When I started, it was the gay world that came from fighting for gay rights to we have people dying in San Francisco of AIDS. Why can’t they use marijuana? And then Brownie Mary got arrested and that changed the game.”
Mary Jane Rathbun was a San Francisco General Hospital volunteer. She eventually became famous for baking hundreds of brownies a day as the AIDS epidemic hit San Francisco hard. Between 1981 and 1992, she was arrested three times for her famous brownies, but her activism helped push Prop 215 across the finish line. Now, Brownie Mary Day is Aug. 25, in San Francisco.
But we quickly turned back to that first rotation in Vallejo. Since he was still fully paralyzed, the orderly had to hold the joint to his lips for him. But over the next few years, he would work to the point that allowed him to gain some independence.
“It really took me years of intense exercise, but I was an athlete. It was three years, four years, before I really started being able to transfer onto my bed. I could transfer (to) the floor, put my knees together, leaned forward over my legs to transfer back to my chair,” Estes said of his rehabilitation.
That moment he was able to transfer on his own signaled to him he would be capable of living on his own. Marijuana was already his lifestyle well before that day. He was still fully paralyzed the first time his friends took him up to Arcata in Humboldt County.
“I found the Skunk. I found Thai Stick. I found people with Columbian Gold and Panama Red,” Estes said of that first trip at age 19. “I found marijuana so awesome that I wanted the good stuff.”
He’d run into brick weed. The compressed nugs were far from medicine and he knew it. It further motivated him to search for the best options. That first trip north arose from a friend telling him he knew a guy with sensimilla.
“I said, what is sensimilla?” Estes noted with a laugh. “It’s a seedless weed? And it’s green, lime green? Let’s go there.”
The locals hooked him up, given his medical situation. He scored his first pounds of sensimilla for $100 bucks. That would be about $460 today.
As for the traditionally tight community up north, especially during the early era of enforcement, “My disability broke me in. People were very compassionate and they understood medicine,” Estes said.
Estes noted his original host in Humboldt understood the benefits of medical cannabis all too well having recently lost his father to cancer at the time.
“He lost his dad. His dad had cancer. He got help from cannabis. They think it dragged his life another two years, but he swears he was happier. He saw other people who were on pharmaceuticals dying. They were miserable, moaning, and his dad (had) weed on the way out. He really is a compassionate man,” Estes said.
Estes pointed to the statement “all cannabis use is medical.” He said he gets it, to different degrees. But in his case, it wasn’t really up for debate, and the farmers of The Emerald Triangle showed him a lot of love.
Part of it was because they knew in addition to it being for his own medical use, he was paying top dollar. Some of the brown frown was going for between $30-$50 a pound. Estes wanted nothing to do with it.
“When I got the first Skunk, which was fluffy, I had 24 bags. I sold it for $100 a bag and I would buy that. Next time I bought the Skunk it was $200, the next time it was $400 a pound and after that it was $500 a pound,” Estes said.
We asked Estes as he watched the pound price creep up, when did he know it was time to become his own supplier and get in on the cultivation side? He laughed and said it was right around the time he saw that first $500 pound. He’s already been collecting seeds in film containers and noting what they were.
In 1977, he would purchase his first hydroponic system. He said it took him about a decade to get to the point where he is comfortable looking back and saying he was dialed in. To help put that into perspective, the biggest movie of the year in 1987 when Estes started growing heat was Beverly Hills Cop 2.
The first grow went well, but he missed the part about changing the plants’ light cycle to get them to flower. By the time he did, they had been vegging for a couple of months. The plants exploded and he started selling grams for $5 after the harvest.
“I actually started catching a BART to the 51 bus on Market Street. The 51 bus took me over to Haight Street and Stanyan McDonald’s right there. I’d set up with little tiny bags in there. And I could sell down the street over there for 20 bucks,” Estes said. This was around 1984 and 1985.
Estes would move his garden outside. That wasn’t a bad thing — in that era, the best outdoor was widely regarded as the best cannabis available, period. He said it took another decade for the best indoor to start beating out the sungrown.
He saw cannabis grown under High-Pressure Sodium lights for the first time when one of his buddies took a light from a baseball field. Eventually, the HPS lights got a bit more normalized, but there was only one place you could buy them at first. Going in and grabbing more than one light was a red flag to anyone casing the store. Estes and others would send friends and family to grab a light each, until they eventually had enough for whatever size room they were trying to put together.
“If they saw you putting 10 lights in your car, they followed you home. You had a search warrant on your house a week later. So we were all nervous about that,” Estes said.
In the late ‘80s, he moves back indoors and starts building out grow houses. The product would eventually end up in Dennis Peron’s San Francisco dispensary. He would go from a 10-light house to a 100-light operation in Oakland in 1992.
While it was a big jump doing 10 times as many lights, he was confident in his standard operating procedures. He also had a lot of faith in his nutrients and pest management ability, too.
When Peron shut down, Estes went on to work a stint at the Oakland Cannabis Buyers Club. Eventually, Estes decided to open up his first dispensary in Concord in 1997. As Estes went from city council to city council attempting to open more shops in places with no ordinances around medical cannabis, he faced a lot of opposition. Some of the very cities that he went to battle with are now booming cannabis commerce hubs.
But back then, he was attacked by 1990’s and 2000’s NIMBYs, terrified of the thought of cannabis in their town. They would call him things like a street dealer.
“I said you have never spent one time in my house and at my table having dinner with me. You don’t know who I am at all sir, or ma’am. But I was attacked all the time. That was the way they did it back in those days for sure,” Estes recalled.
He said San Mateo was the most vicious municipality of all back then. He estimates he probably opened 20 clubs over the years in different cities.
Estes credits his activism to meeting disabled activist Dan O’Hara. O’Hara rolled his wheelchair across America and the length of the Mississippi River. He was a vocal advocate in Sacramento and Washington D.C., for the disabled. He was even honored by President Jimmy Carter for his efforts, and the Vatican. Estes and O’Hara became friends.
“So I became very, very active, much more of an open activist. It was not a secret. I wasn’t behind the scenes.”
Estes has witnessed every level of cannabis regulation in California. We asked what it was like seeing things go from Prop 215 to the legal era. He thought it was all going to move a lot faster, given how fast he opened a shop in the wake of Prop 215 passing.
“Even though I wasn’t granted a license to have my facility, and I’ve always lasted about one year in these towns, it was enough to start the dialogue, to start the process where other people came behind me pushing, getting attorneys. And next thing you know, there are ordinances,” Estes said.
The conversation would turn toward the purple weed Estes helped turn iconic. Back when he was exposed to purple on his earliest trips to The Emerald Triangle, it didn’t denote some special quality. He’d see the haze Jimi Hendrix made famous in the late 1970s. He said it was good, but it wasn’t great.
But in the early 2000s, he started to notice some purple strains were bomb. The Purple Erkel was high on the list for quality, but it was a very finicky plant to deal with. Estes argues the Erkel is really just Lavender and everyone changed the name.
“It was finicky, but when you smoked it, it was fire. It had that taste,” Estes noted.
In 2003, his relationship with purple would change forever. He was showing his friends Charlie and Sarah, they were Blackfoot and Pomo Indians. The Pomo have a deep history in Mendocino.
The Pomo traditionally lived in what is now the area around Clear Lake, Alexander Valley, and the Russian River watershed. The Pomo spoke seven different dialects while living in small independent communities that relied on hunting, fishing and gathering to meet their needs.
Estes showed the pair some Big Bud x Erkele from Bodhi. A lot of people thought that was the GDP, but it wasn’t. It did do well though, taking home top honors at an early cup in L.A. at one point. This put the purple, and the affection Estes had for it, on Charlie and Sarah’s radar.
During a later trip to visit their home on the Eel River, Estes saw some suits as he was pulling up. He provided the pair with cash from a score he had made that day to keep their home. Charlie would go on to tell some other folks in the tribe about what Estes had done.
Eventually one of the members of the tribe showed Estes what they called Purple Medicine. It was phenomenal.
“He brought it to me. And I had a bright light shined on them. I was like, oh my god, this is amazing. The color was amazing, purple everywhere. But you could have rolled that pound out of the bag like a bowling ball. It all stuck together,” Estes said. “They had it for 18 years. You could peel buds off the pound like velcro.”
A GDP outdoor crop.
Estes wanted to buy as much as he could, but after a few rounds, the tribe didn’t want to do business with him. They gave him the cut of Purple Medicine so he could run it himself. It became what we know today as Grand Daddy Purple. Estes went all in on his new cut and changed all of his operations to GDP. When he couldn’t produce enough in his 200-light operation, he brought it north for his friends to grow, too. Since he was paying $4,000 a pound, they were more than happy to run it for him.
“I know what I got. I’ve got this. This is it. This is to me just like the Grand Poobah. It’s like the grand something, Grand Daddy Purple, and then I high-five Charlie,” Estes said, remembering how he came up with the name.
As he started making the trip more regularly, farmers would wait for him south of Garberville to try and catch him before he spent all his money on someone else’s weed. One time a utility truck flagged him down at night, the pounds were inside the bucket you would use to do maintenance on a telephone pole.
Estes said the best GDP came from all over. It wasn’t a particularly challenging plant to grow, so a lot of different people in various conditions were able to make the most of it.
On his way back from up north he would call his friends’ answering machines and just say Grand Daddy Purple and code word that it was on its way south. Eventually, he would open his shop in Oakland’s former Oaksterdam neighborhood. Oakland loved purple.
“People back then thought purple meant it was overdried or always moist or something. And then there was no purple on any menu,” Estes said.
In the earliest days of trying to convert Oakland to purple, Estes would hand out nugs to the people in line at his competitor and offer refunds to people who bought eighths if they didn’t like it.
“Pretty soon, within six months, we got E40 and Keak Da Sneak are smoking it. It was on Weeds. It was in Pineapple Express. Snoop Dogg said on Howard Stern it was his favorite strain. It was just this crazy blow-up thing. I did kind of have the idea it could happen, but I didn’t know it would happen as fast as it did,” Estes said.
Estes began collecting seeds from the 200 lights. Every run there would be a dozen or so. When he decided it was time to hunt for a male, he had about 60.
“I backcrossed it to stabilize the genetics. I tried to focus on the traits that I like, the rock-hard buds, the nose, the nice branching, the dark green waxy leaves, so that we came up with Ken’s GDP,” Estes explained. He argued some people liked Ken’s GDP better than the original. In the most technical terms, Ken’s GDP was essentially Grand Daddy Purple Bx1.
He also took that male and put it in a room with seven of the bomb strains out at the time. Estes said a lot of people won cups with the seeds that came out of the room. He believes a big chunk of what’s commercially viable in the market dates back to that breeding project.
Estes ended up dealing with a federal case for six years. Nobody wanted to touch him at the time.
“You have to almost like, stop doing what you’re doing to get them to leave you alone,” Estes said. “I remember being in their office in San Francisco and asking, why do I have this target on my back?”
One of the things that caused Estes some headaches was his choice to start declaring his cannabis income on his taxes early. He figured if he was paying his taxes, how could they say it was illegal? Well, they certainly took the money no problem.
“I want all my cases, but it took me six years. I had three federal cases. I got raided in 2005, 2008, and 2009,” Estes noted.
One of his shops was caught up in the massive San Diego sweep of 2009 that saw 13 stores shut down. People would tell Estes they weren’t growing the Purple anymore because he was too hot and he shouldn’t come around.
But the more cultivation in urban settings got normalized, the less he needed people up north to help, as GDP would prove to be an indoor strain. When you run it outside, it’s 80% leaves and 20% buds; thankfully it’s the exact opposite indoors. While it wouldn’t quench the thirsts of the eventual three-pound-a-light crowd on the hunt for maximum dollars, it was always heat.
These days Estes is doing his best to keep GDP alive. He recently had it tissue-cultured. While a popular long-term storage method, tissue culture is also a way to clean a plant of diseases. The freshest piece of the meristem is cut before it has a chance to be infected like the rest of the donor plant. Two people are currently running the clean version of GDP.
“I just want to be the brand ambassador,” Estes closed laughing.
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.
THE FREAK BROTHERS TEAM UP WITH WEEDMAPS FOR SEASON 2
Former LA Weekly cover boys, The Freak Brothers, are teaming up with Weedmaps for in-episode integrations for cannabis enthusiasts, starting with the launch of Season 2 today.
The Freak Brothers have been getting laughs out of cannabis enthusiasts the world over for 55 years. Thanks to WTG Enterprises, the producer of The Freak Brothers and Fox’s streaming platform Tubi, more people than ever have access to the trio’s cannabis-fueled adventures alongside their talking cat.
The production value of the first season was way beyond most cartoons. In addition to great animation, the voice cast featured Woody Harrelson, John Goodman, Pete Davidson, Tiffany Haddish, Adam Devine, Blake Anderson, Andrea Savage, La La Anthony and ScHoolboy Q. All of those big names are returning and they’ll be adding Joe Sikora to the mix for a special guest appearance.
Weedmaps, one of the most recognizable names in cannabis, is obviously hyped to be in this effort to help further cannabis into the mainstream. The announcement noted the actual partnership itself will consist of in-episode integrations in the new season, as well as exclusive “Smoke & Screen” events throughout the U.S., bringing together industry influencers and tastemakers at the intersection of cannabis and entertainment.
“We know comedy has the power to influence culture, and we are excited to partner with The Freak Brothers to amplify our message that weed is something to be celebrated,” said Randa McMinn, chief marketing officer at Weedmaps. “Since our company’s founding, Weedmaps has been committed to elevating stoner culture everywhere, challenging outdated stereotypes and bringing the plant to the forefront of mainstream conversations. Now, 15 years later, to see the Freak Brothers’ characters themselves embrace Weedmaps as their ‘go to’ for weed in the series is indicative of society’s broader acceptance of the plant and the industry at large.”
The team that brought Gilbert Shelton’s creation to the small screen has no qualms about the brothers using Weedmaps to get their hands on their next score.
“Embracing the essence of stoner culture before it was mainstream, Freak Brothers and Weedmaps are united in blazing the trail toward a more inclusive and enlightened cannabis landscape” said Greg Goldner, chief brand & strategy officer of The Freak Brothers. “We’re excited about this partnership as it’s a convergence of the psychedelic past and the digital present, where entertainment meets connection through a shared love for cannabis, while helping shape a future where cannabis culture thrives unapologetically.”
The antics for Season 2 look to be right on par with The Freak Brothers’ previous adventures in adapting to the modern era following a 50-year nap in San Francisco. The creators noted when announcing the deal that this season will include The Freak Brothers hitting their high school reunion, a match of wits with Mark Zuckerberg, settling old scores with Mitch McConnell, and battling Seth Rogen in a Pot Brownie Bake-Off contest.
WTG develops media across multiple platforms from its Beverly Hills office. WTG was founded by studio executives and Hollywood producers Courtney Solomon and Mark Canton and led alongside veteran entertainment executive Greg Goldner.
Back before the rights were secured, Solomon spent months trying to find Gilbert Shelton. After six months of searching for Shelton, Solomon was able to track down Shelton to the outskirts of Paris thanks to his lawyer of 47 years. “Super nice guy named Manfred, and he set up the meeting and I flew out to Paris and spent a couple of days with Gilbert,” Solomon told L.A. Weekly in 2020.
The Freak Brothers Season 2 is free to watch on Tubi. And be sure to keep an eye out for special offers from WeedMaps during the episode.
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.