FEDERAL CANNABIS ARRESTS DIP 24% IN 2022

Advocates are celebrating federal cannabis arrests dropping 24% in 2022

After frequently noting all the cannabis progress happening around the country and the world in recent years, we were a bit caught off guard by the large jump in cannabis arrests during the first year of the Biden administration. That 2021 jump in arrests was the biggest in a decade, as we noted last year. 

This was despite Biden’s promises to pursue decriminalization, now two and a half years ago. Nevertheless, 6,606 people will be arrested by the DEA and partner agencies in 2021. There were further resounding messages from the community that this was the opposite direction we had expected to see cannabis enforcement take in the Biden Administration. 

The 5,061 people arrested on federal cannabis charges last year represent a 24% drop from the year before. It also nearly erases the jump from 2021 when the decade-highs in arrests represented a 25% jump from the year before. 

NORML noted that while arrests were down, seizures trended in the opposite direction. 

The DEA’s Domestic Cannabis Eradication/Suppression Program Statistical Report noted agents and partner agencies confiscated approximately 5.7 million cultivated cannabis plants last year, 37,000 edibles, and 60,000 concentrates. NORML noted that as in the past, most of this enforcement is happening in California. Just over half of all federal cannabis arrests in 2022 took place in California and 88% of all product seized nationally was in The Golden State. 

“California has always exported the majority of its marijuana crop out of state and the adoption of adult-use legalization in the Golden State has done little to change this fact,” acknowledged California NORML Coordinator Dale Gieringer. “Illegal marijuana cultivation will persist in California so long as there remains a substantial demand from other states and as long as interstate commerce remains prohibited by federal law.”

California had the most plants seized by a mile. Of the 5.7 million law enforcement scooped up around the county, 4.9 million were here. We had 16.6 times as many plants confiscated as runner-up Oklahoma. Kentucky and West Virginia rounded out the top four.  

“The reasons we are still seeing relatively high levels of marijuana eradication and interdiction are simple,” said NORML’s Political Director Morgan Fox. “Despite considerable state-level progress, more than half of all U.S. states continue to ban regulated adult-use cannabis markets. Furthermore, the federal government overtaxes state-licensed cannabis businesses and makes it extremely difficult for them to access basic financial services so that they can better compete with unregulated operators.”

Morgan believes the expansion of state markets and fewer hurdles for operators will do a lot more damage to the underground cannabis economy than any enforcement could ever hope to. 

“Spending billions of taxpayers’ dollars to enforce federal cannabis prohibition, putting law enforcement officers in unnecessary danger, and hampering the implementation and effectiveness of state-regulated markets are clearly not the answers to this issue,” Fox said. “Rather, the federal and state governments should work toward furthering sensible policies that facilitate regulated cannabis markets and work to repair the harms caused by nearly a century of prohibition.”

NORTHERN NIGHTS MUSIC FESTIVAL LAUNCHES NEW STRAIN

Known for regularly pioneering cannabis and festivals, Northern Nights Music Festival is doing it again this year with an official strain for its 10th Anniversary. 

Being in the heart of The Emerald Triangle in Humboldt County was always going to make the weekend pretty green, but the festival has really taken its geography to heart over the years. In 2019, Northern Nights was the first music festival to have legal sales and consumption at the event. Last year they upped it a notch with dispensaries at multiple stages so you could still enjoy the tunes while you waited for your weed. 

The festival argues, reasonably, it is continuing that innovation this year by becoming the first festival to create its own strain via a collaboration with Humboldt Seed Company (HSC). 

“The new “Northern Nights” strain furthers the commitment of the organizers to revolutionize the ways that cannabis culture can be showcased in a music festival format while supporting local curators,” festival organizers noted when announcing the strain.

According to Northern Nights, it has been a multi-year process collaborating on this strain with HSC. The offering will be available in seed form for locals to grow on their own, and there will be some flower samples going around, too. 

“The fusion of world-renowned cannabis and elite dance music is something you can only find at Northern Nights Festival. It’s an honor to provide this exclusive cultivar to our extended family at Northern Nights,” Humboldt Seed Company Product Executive Halle Pennington told L.A. Weekly, “We’ve sifted through thousands of unique strain combinations and shared visions to land on this highly curated genetic that we’re thrilled to share at such an amazing event. When two Humboldt legacies meet magic can definitely happen. We can’t wait to be back on the dance floor with our community and enjoy the Northern Nights!” 

Organizers emphasized Northern Nights’ Tree Lounge will be the only place you will be able to consume this very limited batch of Emerald Triangle products. The festival calls the Tree Lounge the event’s cannabis experience, but the whole thing is wildly chiller than some festivals on federal or county lands with law enforcement literally sniffing their way around. There are few music events where you’ll feel more comfortable smoking anywhere, but make sure to be careful in the Redwoods regardless of how wet it has been this year. The Tree Lounge is getting moved to the center of the festival this year. 

The idea of selling weed in the heart of cannabis country may sound wild, but it makes a lot of sense. Not only do the brands participating in the festival flip some products, but as times get darker and darker for cannabis, it’s all about who you know. The event can serve as a great networking opportunity for cannabis people taking part that don’t mind a little all-night psychedelic fun between joints. 

Another reason it’s a good move? People don’t want to smoke the same weed all the time. Sure there is the “I only smoke my own shit” crowd, but the vast majority of people seem to like trying a diverse array of flavors. That means, just because someone has 20 pounds at home doesn’t necessarily mean they won’t buy an eighth of something they found interesting.

In addition to all the cannabis stuff and cool giant trees, the festival is generally a great time. It will take Cook’s Valley Campground from July 14 to July 16 deep in the Redwoods. The lineup so far includes Big Gigantic, G Jones, Mura Masa, TOKiMONSTA, Dr. Fresch, Bipolar Sunshine, Coco & Breezy, Nala, Elephant Heart, Night Tales, Daily Bread, Mary Droppinz, Random Rab, Forester, Megan Hamilton, EAZYBAKED, Moontricks, Dos, Lapa, and More

Tickets are on sale now. 

FIG FARMS DOUBLES UP AT SOCAL CANNABIS CUP

Fig Farms continued its 2023 run of excellence by winning two out of three flower categories at the High Times SoCal Cannabis Cup.

The victories came in the Indica and Hybrid categories. Animal Face won in the hybrid category after winning best indoor flower at the 2022 Emerald Cup. Blue Face won the Indica category a few months after winning both best indoor flower and best indoor at this year’s Emerald Cup. This is just further validation for the work Keith and Chloe Healy are doing with their team of monster growers in Oakland. 

The Blue Face took home two top prizes this year and is absolute rockstar cannabis. Fig Farms describes the aroma as a combination of acetone, tree bark and pickled ginger. The Animal Face that took home the top hybrid is absolute gas and fuel terps. I judged the hybrid category it won. I saved the Animal Face for last to see if anything would top it. Nothing did, but the same could be said for the 20 Emerald Cup flower judges who didn’t see a strain or farm when they picked Blue Face, just the heat in the jar and a number. Regardless of mine being labeled, we came to the same conclusion on Fig’s different flavors. 

Animal Face

Fig Farms finds itself among a small group of people who have been holding strong in certain contests for the last few years. It raises the question from others as to whether these contests are even worth it. Do they matter?

“They do for sure. We got offered space in Oakland the next day after we won the Cannabis Cup,” Keith Healy, Fig Farms founder and CEO, told L.A. Weekly.

They were negotiating on an Oakland location and one in Sacramento. 

“The day after winning we got offered the Oakland space,” Healy said. “I wouldn’t have been as confident to perform. I wouldn’t have been as confident to pull it off.”

Fig has been selective in the contests it has entered in the years since that win. But after winning The Emerald Cup earlier this year, it returned to the Cannabis Cup for the first time since that 2017 victory that changed everything. Fig was certainly thrilled with the results of its comeback. 

“To win two out of three was just mind-blowing and honestly confusing since, like you win the Emerald Cup and High Times, trying to explain to somebody like a stranger that these things aren’t easy,” Healy said emphasizing he doesn’t have the confidence of being some egomaniac. 

The catch-22 of that lack of confidence Healy claims is that he only enters his absolute flame. By the time he’s convinced it’s fire, it probably is, as opposed to someone that needs that new hype strain to keep their thing going. So it’s easy to understand why everything they entered this year, in everything, did so well.

Blue Face

We asked Healy which of the accolades the farm has received in recent years meant the most to him.

“I think being on stage with Chloe while she was pregnant at the Emerald Cup win in 2022 was pretty incredible because that was the first time that I’ve been able to share a stage with her,” he replied. 

Healy went on to note that another thing that has made each win special was the timing. Just like the 2017 win got him into that new space, these other wins have each meant something in the moment.  

“Every single one has come at a time when I needed it,” Healy said. “That kind of time where it’s like the confidence to push forward on the next task, whether that’s building out more space or it’s just the confidence to keep doing what I’m doing.

The High Times win meant a lot to Fig because it was so different from the win at The Emerald Cup. High Times is essentially people’s choice compared to the expert panel The Emerald Cup brings in for judging. We joked with Healy about how many cup kits he bought, he laughed and noted just one to try the other flavors. 

Despite their continued dominance, Animal Face and Blue Face need to keep an eye on their shoulders. Fig recently worked with Zeclair and their whole catalog. We got to check out the pheno hunt a few weeks before it was chopped down. Everything was absolute heat and you can expect some crazy Z terps from Fig Farms soon. 

THE FIDEL’S X CARROTS DROP WINS EARLY 2023

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

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

Topping 2022

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

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

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

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

The Box

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

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

Where Fashion Meets Weed

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Courtesy of NASA

Hash Holes Go to Mars With Jiko+

Jimi Devine August 18, 2023 Cannabis

Can tech-backed oversupply ruin clout? We’re about to find out with the new Jiko+ Donut Maker designed by a former NASA engineer.

The creators of the Jiko+ are looking to conquer one of the points in the cannabis supply chain people have not been able to automate up to this point. Sure there have been infused preroll machines, but they were never a true donut, or as we call them now, hash hole. The tech attached to those machines was mostly needles attached to a heating element that would shoot the concentrate into each joint evenly as it removed the needle. A lot of the time the material being used in these infused prerolls, both the flower and hash, was between garbage and subpar.

On many occasions, those infused prerolls were simply an attempt to bump the price of their contents by trying to make them sound nicer. These kinds of preroll entities have existed since the early 2010s because, for every more educated connoisseur that knew they were garbage, there were a few part-time puffers that knew they wanted to get “messed up.” Add to that the fact prerolls have continued to grow their market share as a whole in the years since legalization and it’s easy to see why there are some shady folks that remain commercially viable.  

There is an argument to be made that darkness before the light partially helped rocket hash holes into the stratosphere. We were so used to how bad it had gotten with infused prerolls that when we finally started seeing small batch artisan hash holes after Fidel brought the premise back from Barcelona, it was like a hype lightning storm that came out of nowhere. Overnight, the most expensive prerolls in the state were hand-rolled small-batch prerolls filled with exotic rosins and equally high-end flowers. 

Since hash holes came out the gate so strong, it was easy to see who was skimping on quality. To this point, they’ve remained a daily boutique thing. 

When I asked Fidel what he thought of something like the Jiko+, he simply replied wondering why someone would need to roll 800 hash holes in an hour. What will the top-shelf preroll market turn into?

Or, will the hardware truly even be able to compare to Calirofnia’s best rollers? You could even say the hash hole hype helped breathe this new generation of famous rollers that took off after the pandemic. The Brunos, the CGOs, and others who have conquered the space, are turning into legit cannabis celebrities and influencers around the world. When I was at Hash Hole Island earlier this week up north outside Sacramento, I met people from Texas and New York that just flew in to smoke hash holes. The last time I was in Africa, I saw Bruno’s star power firsthand as some of the local hitters were simply giddy to see him. Can a machine recreate this kind of culture?

I don’t know. But once you get past the philosophical questions about maintaining the boutique aspect of hash holes, the Jiko+ is admittedly pretty dope. It accommodates various joint and blunt sizes that range from one to three grams. The amount of hash inside of each range from .2 to a full gram. 

“Up until now, crafting these intricate, infused prerolls by hand required labor-intensive processes that lacked scalability, consistency and dependability. We’re proud to have developed the technology and equipment that both brands and consumers will appreciate and enjoy,” says Nohtal Partansky, co-founder and CEO of Sorting Robotics.

Partansky is a former engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. While there, he worked on the MOXIE project. That instrument is currently on the surface of Mars producing oxygen from the Martian atmosphere. That kind of hardware is obviously critical for any future exploration of the red planet. 

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THE CANNABIS TRENDS WE’RE BUYING IN 2024

This week we’re excited about what’s to come for the cannabis industry in 2024. 

Last week we covered the fact that life is less than perfect in cannabis while highlighting some of the things we believed caused a lot of our headaches in 2023. This week, the opposite. We’re highlighting the things we think are going to help everyone turn it around. 

Finally Fixing LA’s Equity Program 

Here in Los Angeles, one of the biggest calls to action from the cannabis industry for the new mayor’s office continues to be the repair of the L.A. Social Equity Program. It was awesome to see 100 Social Equity Individual Applicants were randomly selected to apply for retail cannabis licenses last month, but the couple hundred people who invested their lives into putting their ducks in a row for the program are going to demand more. And while the new mayor’s office is separate from the scandals of the fall, they may have to pay the bill if a class action lawsuit ends up developing from the then-racist city council having original control over the program that drained so many coffers. 

Standardized Testing?

It originally looked like we would have standardized lab testing this year. It seems a little hazy at the moment, but we wanted to put it on here to push the idea. Currently, cannabis labs have no fixed standard operating procedures. A lot of the time they’re just following the instructions for whatever hardware they bought. Then adjust the standard operating procedure to their liking. That’s where you see the variations in testing numbers from lab to lab. The idea of people shopping around their cannabis at labs to get the best numbers possible is a real thing. This is more so an issue with potency and terpene testing as opposed to heavy metals and pesticides.

Wider Access in America

It’s critical that California cultivators get access to more shelf space soon. While the state continues to drag a bit, the idea of stocking shelves all over the world with cannabis grown in California is appealing to people. The first shelves will probably be domestic, and step one is having as many states with legal access to cannabis as possible for when that day comes. And it’s not that far out. Some regulators figure it will be a few more years. Whenever it is, it’ll certainly make people’s lives a lot easier. We don’t think it will happen this year, but we’ll be talking about the mechanics of it by December a lot. 

The Pace of Change is Fast

I know it’s going to take some time for the other stuff I mentioned, but it’s easy to see how fast things are moving for cannabis all over the world. It’s like a snowball with a rocket sled behind it pushing it even faster as it grows and grows rolling down the mountain. Now is everyone hoping to get sucked up by the snowball a saint? Doubtful. But the bigger the snowball gets, the more opportunities there will be for nice people to take part. Plenty of people entering the cannabis space now aren’t haters, they were just scared to go to jail back in the day.