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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. 

THE FIDEL’S X CARROTS DROP WINS EARLY 2024

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, 

BANGKOK DISPENSARIES ARE OPENING UP SHOP QUICK

Over the last few months, L.A. Weekly has spent more time in Bangkok, Thailand covering the developing cannabis scene than anyone.

Thailand took the international cannabis scene by storm last June when it announced it would be decriminalizing cannabis after having first made a move to legalize medical cannabis in 2018. Thais were initially suspect of decrim, but once they saw the government start letting people out of prison for cannabis offenses, they knew it was about to be on. 

And boy was it. In the months since it’s now estimated that Bangkok has opened north of 700 to 800 dispensaries with another opening every few days. The first budtender that helped us on our second trip at the 24-hour Thai Terps lounge told us he was preparing to open up his own shop in the next few weeks.

The common number tossed around on how much it costs to start a full retail storefront at the moment is about 500,000 Thai Baht. That’s the equivalent of just over $15,000 USD. This has led to a surge of cannabis access in Thailand that is more reminiscent of Oklahoma than California. It was a lot easier to get a permit out the gate in Oklahoma before they started to tighten things up than it ever was in California. Remember the METRC protests!! Thai influencers are now protesting the fact shops are writing ID numbers down, imagine what they would think of full track and trace. 

On our first trip to Thailand just before The Emerald Cup, our biggest mistake was not visiting Sokhumweed. While we were there in November, JJ-NYC of Top Dawg Seeds invited me to come to rage with him and Arjan from Green House Seed Co. That originally put it on my radar.

When we arrived at the shop unannounced, its founder Beer spotted us quickly. The dude just loves weed. He took us over to view a spread of portraits from the Cookies opening a week prior that he’d got printed fast enough to have Berner sign one before leaving after the big launch in Bangkok. That’s how much Beer loves weed. 

“I opened a day early in June,” Beer told L.A. Weekly with a laugh. “What were they going to do? Throw me in prison for 12 hours?”

Beer was part of the legislative effort to push cannabis reform in Thailand, so with his eye on the ball, he got things rolling on Sokhumweed a couple of months prior to opening.

“So after witnessing this policy develop over the last seven years, I got the keys to the shop about three days before we opened,” Beer said before noting the shop is working with about 15 farms at the moment, many run by Beer’s longtime friends he’s excited to support. 

Sukhomweed’s founder Beer.

Another thing Thailand has in common with Oklahoma is the fact most of the best weed ever seen there is from California. Not all of it, but the vast majority. 

This had led to this weird situation where people don’t believe the heat is grown in Thailand. I was carrying around some absolutely gas Double Dawg, some of the best fuel/petrol aromas  I’ve ever seen outside the U.S. When I showed it to Thais, they tried to convince me it was the fresh stuff from California. So to an extent, the weed in Thailand got good so fast that they don’t even believe it. 

But it’s also fair for folks to question things a bit. Sure, the best stuff coming from California is absolutely balls-to-the-wall heat, but it’s few and far between. Most of the California stuff is product from mid-2022 that people had trouble moving in the flooded U.S. market. And a lot of that year-old stuff is in fact better than some of the Thai product being grown without any real standard operating procedures known for producing heat here in the U.S.

But regardless, the demand is there for the local product. Most coming into Sokhumweed are looking for Thai-grown cannabis. For those wondering what local strains to keep an eye out for, Beer argues the Freaky Buddha is one the best hybridizations of a Thai landrace at the moment.

Beer made the Freaky Buddha from a Thai landrace and Freakshow. Freakshow is famous for its unique look. While the nine seeds of Freaky Buddah he popped had a lot of males, he’s thankful he found a winner. 

Another similarity between the United States and Thailand? The government weed sucks. On our second visit, we stopped by a facility growing medical cannabis for the government. It was probably a pinch nicer than the things that have come out of the University of Mississippi, but it could not compare to the other indoor operations we saw in Bangkok. 

Here is the documentary on our first trip to Bangkok in November.

CANNABIS CRIME WAVES RETURN FOR 2024

The cannabis industry is currently in the midst of a massive crime wave. 

In the nearly three years since thieves used the George Floyd protests as cover to kick off one of the most devastating crime waves the cannabis industry has ever seen, there have been many more. Cannabis businesses continue to be targeted. 

There are various reasons contributing to these waves, but whether it’s the economy, the giant piles of money dispensaries are forced to hoard without bank accounts, or the product that’s easy to move as cannabis continues its national popularity surge, right now is batshit. 

When I’m not writing for L.A. Weekly, I still work at a dispensary. We’ve been hit twice in the last two weeks. We are not alone. We’re hearing reports from San Francisco, Santa Rosa, Sacramento, Benicia and Iselton, and those are just the ones the word has gotten out on. More locally we’ve seen the city’s most prominent LGBT-owned dispensary Green Qween targeted multiple times. Cannabis companies are stuck with the catch-22 of wanting to make more noise about what they see as a lack of protection regardless of tax dollars but don’t want to wave their hands in the air basically saying, “come victimize me because I get no protection.”

And to make it even scarier for the industry, some of these groups are more reminiscent of militias than stick-up kids. Short-style AK-47s you can tuck into your pants have been seen at multiple locations. 

These crews also are beginning to get very good at it. There are believed to be a few roaming the northern part of the state from security camera footage being used to match different groups together. Sometimes they’ve made trips south for weekend-long runs at fresh targets, but for the most part, the largest organized groups seem to frequent north of Salinas up to wine country and then east all the way to the Sierras. 

The owner of The Delta Boyz dispensary in Isleton told us their facility has been hit five times and was among those targeted in the last two weeks. Things have gotten so hot in the small town located between Sacramento and the bay that he wanted to refrain from using his name for his family’s safety.

The crew pulling up.

He compared this recent crime to 2020, but noted there is a big difference. 

“It’s just, it’s not as chaotic. The atmosphere outside is not as chaotic as it was then,” he told L.A. Weekly. “So this is just very organized, dialed in, calculated. It seems this is what they do now. And these crews have been doing it for so long, it seems like they’re getting better and better at it.”

One of the times The Delta Boys got hit it took about 45 seconds for them to take $200,000.

“My dumb ass had all my rosin in one big tote. But that’s how fast they are. They were in and out in 45 seconds,” they said. “Where else are you going to steal like that? You can’t steal from a bank like that. You can’t steal it from a liquor store. You can’t steal it from a warehouse. You got to liquidate any of those. Weed is basically liquid.”

The aftermath.

He further argued he can’t go and shoot somebody as if this was the black market. 

“I have to respect the law because it’s my livelihood. This is everything I’ve ever invested all my money and time into. I can’t blast somebody. There are cameras everywhere. So it’s hard. And they know that. They know, they know we’re not. They know we’re soft targets. They know we can do shit. They know the cops aren’t coming. And it’s just routine now.”

He hopes the state will divert some of the funds it’s using against the black market to defend its legal one. He argues enforcement on black market producers has created a vacuum where they then need to sustain their demand by robbing others. 

GLASS DEALS: ALIEN FLOWER MONKEY GLASS QUARTZ

Los Angeles’ Alien Flower Monkey Glass is crushing it with some of the best deals on American-made quartz deals on the market

We sat down to chat with AFM Glass’s general manager Dimitar Tantchev to hear the ups and downs of the glass game since its founding in 2014 after its owners had already spent years in the scene prior to opening. Over the years, they scaled up production internationally, but are still producing about 20% of their products domestically, most notably, their quartz banger line. 

Quartz bangers are the most time-tested delivery medium of the dab era. In 2008, Hash consumers saw the first skillets for smoking the new hydrocarbon-extracted hash that was a bit more refined than the honey oils that had been going around for years. Titanium nails quickly became the norm in the early 2010s. By 2015, the quartz bucket design of the banger from Quave glass would become the definitive style. Within a few years, different variations were being produced all over the world. 

Lots of other cool quartz smoking mechanisms would come out, the terp slurper among the most successful. But not everyone wants to deal with a marble set every time they want to smoke a little hash. Hell, many don’t even want to heat up a banger with a torch and have switched to electronic dabs with companies like Puffco, Carta, and Ispire, developing their own followings. But many purists still love a quartz banger.

AFM Glass Terp Slurper

Where AFM comes into play is how accessible it’s made domestic bangers. While the price has dipped a bit more in recent years, for most of the 2010s you could expect to pay north of $100 at the bare minimum for good American quartz bangers. AFM has been able to cut that price in half.

Tantchev noted when the AFM was originally founded, one of the goals was to spice up the scientific glass space with a bit more color without going all-in as headie art pieces. When things kicked off originally, the market was still dominated by clear tubes. They found a comfortable position in the business-to-business space hitting mega trade shows, like Champs, where they help retailers from all over America stock their shelves. 

“We kind of produce just really cool, fun, unique and colorful styles,” Tantchev told L.A. Weekly. “We tried to create color combos that kind of just are unique and just create some new styles.”

Between all of the different beakers, tubes, and rigs, Tantchev estimated they were offering just over 50 different styles right now. 

As for why their domestic quartz products come in so far below others? 

“It’s a good question. I think it’s really kind of a supply and demand, and a perceived value. Or maybe not so much both aspects. It depends on who you asked, what is more important? I think there’s definitely the art and like apprenticeship of glassblowing and going out to be far superior quality, not just by being a thicker glass or thinner,” Tantchev said. 

In the end, the deals they are offering come down to the inhouse tech. 

“​​I would say the way to answer your question in the long process of how we’re able to offer the price that we’re offering is, is just by you know, scaling our operation,” Tantchev said. “And we’ve just kind of figured out strategic operations, which were able to save a lot of money and pass that off to our consumers as opposed to taking it into our pockets.”

COLOMBIA STARTS UNIVERSAL CANNABIS HEALTH INSURANCE

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

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

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

Andres Fajardo

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WINTER MIXED-LIGHT CANNABIS HARVESTS ARE SPECIAL

California’s winter-grown mixed-light cannabis is among the best flowers of the year, period. 

The crop falls into two categories. The light-assisted and light-deprivation grown. The first is self-explanatory. The second is the term for farmers controlling the natural light cycle by mechanical means. Most of the stuff growing right now is light-assisted, but there are still a few people without power producing some really flavorful weed up north this time of year. 

The light-deprivation stuff is shortened to deps for simplicity. A lot of dep farmers take the heart of the winter off and still get in three runs a year. But those perpetual light-assisted grows that use the power of the sun year-round are able to just perpetually pump out whatever number of tables on their fixed 52-week schedule. Barring the perils of mother nature, there are farmers using the sun and a little extra light to help through the rainy days and shorter ones are producing crazy high-end cannabis. 

One of the most respected owner-operators in the light-assisted space is David Polley of Preferred Gardens — a lot of people have him with a seat at the table when discussing not only who is growing the best mixed-light cannabis in California, but also in Florida. 

Polley explained that you can run some nice deps in the winter with enough natural light, but the production isn’t there. 

“An expert with Winter Deps would usually only grow cannabis for hash in the winter,” Polley told L.A. Weekly. “Flower production is very limited, but the cannabinoid, terpenes and flavonoids are actually at an all-time high. So fresh frozen (material frozen immediately at harvest for processing) will put out some A1 rosin.” 

Polley explained the basics of his process that’s a bit more commercially viable this time of year. Specifically, light-assisted greenhouses that have climate control and you utilize artificial lighting to increase the daily light integral to increase production during the shorter winter months.

Polley in the garden.

“In Cali, that usually starts in September and ends in March or April,” Polley said, “In my biased opinion, the artificial light mixed with the natural kiss from the sun creates the best medicinal cannabis on the planet. Lab tests show cannabinoids and terpenes much higher under these practices. I love the effects from good light-assisted cannabis.”

Polley further explained that the harness of the California sun during the summer is just too much for all the best stuff in the resins that have developed on the plant. 

“Like it’s extreme during the summer in California and the light levels are through the roof,” Polley said, “so I tried to shade my greenhouses more in the summer than I would anytime to get less light and that’s how you get more of like an exotic flavor.”

He argues what’s going on in the industry right now is people are just trying to pump these plants with so much light intensity via LEDs and whatever else the hottest new tech is.

“They’re just slamming them so they could get four pounds a light, just production, production,” Polley said in distaste. “But, that’s why the quality of more than half of the cultivators is just not it. It’s not what we want because they’re just focused on production.”

Photo courtesy of Preferred Gardens

Polley pointed to great genetics as a key to the flame as he prepares to enter the Arizona market, already having crushed it in two other states. 

“I’m pheno hunting 50 seeds every week. I’ve been doing that for eight-plus years,” Polley said. “What’s crazy is that’s 200 seeds a month and we only come out with three to five winners a year.”

Mendoja Farms is another of the state’s top light-assisted producers. After going hard with four big runs in 2022, owner Justin Wilson is taking a month off from flowering and just maintaining his nursery stock before he revs back up next month. 

As for the quality of the winter products, Wilson argues a lot of it is temperature and how physically far we are from the sun. 

Photo Courtesy of Mendoja Farms

“The winter run seems to have twice the amount of trichomes on them,” Wilson told L.A. Weekly. “I feel that it has to do with just the distance of the sun, how far it is from us, and having to warm the rooms up with propane heat.“

Wilson believes the stress on the plants from too much heat is far more stressful on the plants than on some chilly nights. 

“They just seem to like the cold a little bit better. I wouldn’t say cold. I would say that the colder temperatures where I’m at in Covelo and not dealing with strenuous heat that we do have here during the summer,” Wilson said. 

We asked Wilson if it’s easier to get away from market trends this time of year since the more exotic flavors have a good shot at being so full-flavored.

“Yes, it is for sure,” Wilson replied. “I think you can play around more in the winter because you’re gonna have the flavors coming out more in everything. So you don’t have to stick to those saying name-brand stuff and what everybody else wants. That’s when I kind of do like my trial runs.”

Wilson pointed to the fact that a lot of people do their pheno hunt closer to the middle of the year. It’s a double-edged sword. Those mid-year hunts may not get the same terpene levels as the winter, but they’re being stress-tested by the summer heat through the hunt. Wilson has found stuff that was awesome in the winter, but not able to deal with the heat of summer.

PUFFCO DROPS NEW PROXY DROPLET

Puffco released the Proxy Droplet today adding to its long line of killer accessories. 

This time around, the Puffco team is dropping an accessory to go with their newest device, the Puffco Proxy. 

One of the cool things about the proxy is the number of custom pieces we’ve seen glassblowers all over the world making for it. The stock version is essentially a dry hash piece with a really advanced atomizer. The Proxy’s tech in development was what the 3D chamber was originally based on. 

But the dry rips weren’t for everyone. Puffco took note and developed a water piece attachment for the Proxy not too long after its initial release. The Bub accessory is a hybrid piece you can use with both the Proxy and dry flower, thanks to a bowl you can replace the proxy with. It’s a bit beefy and doesn’t feel as travel-friendly as some of Puffco’s other stuff. 

The Droplet takes us from the more traditional water pipe shape to a more contemporary hash consumption device. It definitely looks like something you would smoke hash out of in 2023. We haven’t had the chance to hit it yet, but we’ve hit a lot of rigs that fancy bottle shapes. They’re rippers.

Puffco described Droplet as, “A premium percolated water filtration piece for the Puffco Proxy. As effective as it is elegant, the Proxy base inserts into the top of the Droplet to deliver cooler, smoother hits with an unforgettable rumble,” the announcement reads. “Droplet’s beautifully hand-blown borosilicate glass displays an ocean blue drop within a clear, gradient-frosted body. Its fluid design flows seamlessly between form and function, fitting comfortably in your hand and on any surface in your home.”

The Droplet does not come with the proxy base unit — you’ll have to grab one of those separately.

It’s easy to have faith in Puffco’s accessories after years of hits. Just look at the hot knife — lots of folks that don’t even rip electronic dabs still use those. That’s the kind of innovation that transcends their own devices. So when they come up with something new for their own hardware, it’s easy to see why people want to get their hands on it. 

The things Puffco has come up with in the past to complement its devices have always been fun. Be it custom colors on the bases or glass, or having Ryan Fitt engineer a crazy recycler, they’ve always felt proper. 

Now that Puffco has gone a bit more on the beefy side in regards to its first Proxy accessories, we’d like to see a water piece a bit more compact for the Proxy — not that the first two aren’t lovely. 

NEW GUIDELINES WANT POT SCREENINGS BEFORE SURGERY

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.

DEATH ROW CANNABIS LAUNCH SHOWS SNOOP DOGG BRINGING IN THE EXPERTS

We sat down with the team at Death Row Cannabis last Friday as the world learned about the iconic Los Angeles record label and brand’s move into the cannabis space. 

Last February, word got out Snoop Dogg had acquired Death Row Records. At the time, Snoop Dogg was excited to take the reins of the brand he had started his career with and the rest of us were curious to see the types of things he’d do with it. Any rough patches the brand’s identity had been through over the past 30 years were essentially cleaned up with the purchase, given Snoop Dogg’s distance from everything and general mainstream likability. Remember the Super Bowl blunt?! What a guy. 

After pulling the Death Row catalog from underpaying music streaming services and streamlining the rest of the company, a few months after the purchase the iconic label started eyeballing the cannabis industry. That culminated with last Friday’s release of their first flower drop. We sat down to chat with two of the people running point for Snoop Dogg on the project, his longtime sound engineer and cannabis inspector Shaggy and AK.

AK will be bringing a lot of heat to the table. Six years ago he came down to California on the hunt for funding something up in Washington. A year later he’d make the move seeing the obvious opportunity for people that speak flame in California’s emerging legal industry. He’d even end up taking part in the Wizard Trees pheno hunt where the RS-11 and Studio 54 phenos were selected, arguably the most influential hunt of the last few years. He kept the #3 for himself, swearing to this day it’s the best one. AK still owns a fertilizer company with Scott from Wizard Trees. 

Death Row Cannabis Was Years in the Making

AK would go on to become VP of cultivation for TRP. Founded in 2019, the company has quickly amassed a footprint of 14 states growing for companies like Cookies and Dr. Greenthumb. But even before TRP was founded a few years ago or the Death Row Records purchase, AK had been working on a deal with Snoop Dogg. Arguably the most mainstream cannabis consumer in America next to his literal pals Willie Nelson and Martha Stewart, the latter now with her own CBD company. 

“I ended up working for TRP, I’ve been within the last year and a half, about three or four months ago Shaggy reached out to me and said, yo Dogg hit me up, asking if you’d still be interested in doing something with us,” AK told L.A. Weekly explaining how the deal finally came to fruition.  

As they started pondering the possibilities, Shaggy quickly realized the lack of red tape at Death Row Records compared to doing another “celebrity line” with the boss. And while last Friday’s launch was certainly intertwined with its new owner heavily in the cannabis news cycle, they still did a good job pushing the Death Row identity to the forefront. 

The launch packaging for Death Row Cannabis.

AK had his foot on the gas over the last three months in the buildup. From designing the brand’s identity and packaging to promo to selecting the weed, he had it all covered. While they did look at a lot of cannabis, much of it was grown at their distribution partner’s facility.

“There’s a grow here at the distro, as well, and that’s where three out of the four strains that we’re gonna drop were grown around here by us using my nutrient line,” AK said. “I personally wasn’t involved in growing it, but we literally run the same program. The guys that built that garden and I have done consultations together. And I’m here all the time, so I’m not hands-on but I’m hands-on, if that makes sense.”

AK also emphasized the brand won’t be exclusive to the $60 price point. A big part of the plan is making sure the brand is accessible to all. 

“Even if we have more affordable price points we’re still not going to put boof in those bags,” AK emphasized. “I can go get fire ass deps that rival indoor, like fakers (The stuff nice enough to tell east coast people it’s indoor) and then price them correctly instead of just trying to hit people as fakers and gouge them on it.”

The four flower stains for launch will be Tropicanna Cookies, SFV OG, LA Runtz, and Strawberry Gary. TRP-affiliated shops will be the first to get them in San Diego, Brentwood and San Bernardino. They’re shooting to get the number of stores up to 50 to 100 in the first quarter, but are much more focused on making sure the consumer understands they’re getting heat and it has some real grassroots people behind it. 

Snoop Dogg’s Specialist

Shaggy, who is leading the effort for Snoop Dogg’s team, has been working with him as a recording engineer since he was 19, he’s 33 now. Over those years, he started helping Snoop Dogg source his flower and taking the responsibilities that come with it, specifically, making sure it’s proper. If someone showed up to the studio with something that wasn’t up to standard, it was up to Shaggy to be the heartbreaker.

“And so that just rolled over when he started doing some cannabis initiatives. He put me and Tiffany in charge of, you know, getting some of his cannabis initiatives up and going. I know a lot of people like AK,” Shaggy explained to L.A. Weekly. 

We asked Shaggy when Snoop Dogg knew it was time to pull the trigger on something like Death Row Cannabis given the plethora of pot opportunities that must have been piling up at his door over the years.

Shaggy argues Death Row Cannabis made sense, and the brand has been going through a lot since the purchase. Now we know that most of that time some kind of cannabis discussions were happening in the background, but since February, Death Row has started to revive its merch line with spins on old concert T-shirts and into NFT-embedded albums.  

“With the cannabis market, it just made sense, because like AK said, right now a lot of the celebrity brands come out and they hit the really high price point and they don’t offer the value for what you’re paying for,” Shaggy explained. “Like the best price point is like that 30 to 40 range, you know, maybe like $45 because, like this top tier stuff is just too expensive and it’s not always operating to value you know, I’ve been very disappointed you know.”

Shaggy admitted to getting out into the rec market a bit more over the last year as things came together. He regularly left with $65 dollars worth of disappointment as he sees it. His experiences with growers over the years have convinced him that good weed doesn’t have to be really expensive and cheap weed doesn’t have to be bad. 

“There’s weed that’s not as expensive, that’s really really good. And basically with us, we want to kind of help stimulate the culture, a little bit of a miseducated culture, and kind of give them good flower at a good price showing that this is possible,” Shaggy said.