Fun fact: I made my debut as an auctioneer at the Artist Tree’s disco-themed Studio 420 Pride fundraiser last week in West Hollywood. Not so fun fact: Super-baked people and high-pressure auction tactics aren’t the best mix.

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Oh, plenty of fun was had, to be sure. And the auction did end up raising $1,800 for Project Angel Food (an L.A.-based non-profit that prepares and delivers medically tailored meals to individuals facing critical and life-threatening illnesses). But, at the end of the evening, some of the coolest pieces of art remained unsold and still others never even made it to the auction block. For this I blame (in the best possible way) the ample availability — and enthusiastic consumption — of weed products from sponsors like Jetty Extracts, Henry’s Original and Uncle Arnie’s, the last of which was slinging dosed drinks from slushie machines on the consumption lounge patio. (“It’s the year of the cannabis beverage!” the brand’s drink-slinger told me, a fact that, based on the popularity of those slushie machines, I have no reason to doubt.)

But there’s an upside for you — and Project Angel Food — in the altered auction fail; the remaining lots are now being showcased at the Artist Tree’s website and can be snapped up at opening-bid prices — no paddle and no pressure involved. Here’s how:

Go to theartisttree.com/auction-studio420/ to scroll through the remaining lots (anything without a red-and-gold SOLD banner is still in play). Once you’ve found a piece you want, note the opening bid, click the red Donation Page button near the top of that very same page and complete your purchase. Then, email adrianah@theartisttree.com straightaway and Adriana will confirm your donation, slap a SOLD banner on the auction site and make sure your goods get to you in s timely manner. (Note that art that’s currently on display won’t be available for pick up until after the current show is over in August.)

Among the pieces on offer: two framed photographs of “WeHo Jesus” by Ryan K. Henisey ($200 each), a faux turd in a box of grass (also $200, “No Shit,” is from mixed-media pop artist Cassidy Barnes’ series titled “The Other Side”), a painting featuring a hummingbird, handcuffs and magic mushrooms (“Summer of Love |Bad Romance,” $200, by artist and the Artist Tree’s curator-in-chief Katie Brightside) and a 7-inch, 45 RPM vinyl record bedazzled in swirls of pink Swarovski crystals by crystal-obsessed artist and fashion designer Disco Daddy and signed by him on the back ($300).

If all of the remaining lots sell for their listed opening bids — feel free to donate more; every additional $10 means another delivered meal — that’ll add $1,250 to the coffers of Project Angel Food. That pencils out to almost four and a half months of meals.

Food for thought, no?

Fair warning, since Hiii magazine commissioned me to write this fascinating piece, you’re going to need to click through to their website to read the rest (or do it now to prevent scrollus interruptus if you prefer. Either way, it’s free!)

When the first issue of High Times magazine hit the street in June 1974, it changed the cannabis media landscape forever. It’s credited with giving a community a voice, capturing a movement in real time, creating a reliable repository for spreading outlaw knowledge, and even providing a monthly snapshot of illicit drug prices around the country.

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Today, thanks to a profound shift in the plant’s legal status, it’s almost impossible to imagine the flow of information in the before times. How did the weed heads get their reliable intel? How did they connect and organize? Where did they turn for the straight dope on all things dope?

Some of those answers, as well as some firsthand insight into High Times’ early crawl out of the primordial ooze of ideation, fell into my hands recently — literally — in a tiny, second-floor apartment in San Francisco’s Cow Hollow neighborhood. I was there to meet with Michael and Michelle Aldrich, an 80-something couple instrumental in the early push for legalization who had contacted me about working with them on their memoirs. At one point, Michael gingerly handed me a thin ‘zine-style booklet with a swirling hand-drawn psychedelic circle on the cover. Above it was the title The Marijuana Review, dated Oct.-Dec. 1968.

[You can read the story in its entirety at the Hiii magazine website here.]

“Counterproductive, incoherent and unenforceable” for the win

While there are still, as of this writing, still a fair number of votes to be tallied before the most high-profile contests from Tuesday’s statewide direct primary election are fully sorted (the top two gubernatorial candidates are currently Republican Steve Hilton with 27.5% of the vote, Democrat Xavier Becerra with 25.6% of the vote and the L.A. mayor’s race is currently showing incumbent Democrat Karen Bass in first at 34.97% and Republican Spencer Pratt in second with 29.91% of the vote — in both contests, the top two candidates will battle it out in the general election in November) but there’s one vote that wasn’t even close: L.A. residents overwhelming voted in favor of Measure CB, the proposal to tax unlicensed cannabis businesses, 70.42% to 29.58% with the majority of votes cast.

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This is not surprising. Given how the measure was worded on the ballot and how little most folks understand of the cannabis business landscape in the city, at first blush it seemed like a good idea to “level the playing field” by making the illegal shops pay the same taxes the legal ones are on the hook for. I say this as one of those people who thought a “yes” vote was a no-brainer until I sought out some expert opinions.

I won’t rehash (see what I did there?) all the things that make Measure CB so “counterproductive, incoherent and unenforceable” (in the words of cannabis consultant Hirsh Jain) since you can read (or re-read) it here because the people have spoken, voting day has come and gone and now it’s on the city to actually collect the taxes, which adds a whopping 30% to dispensaries purchases, though it’s worth resurfacing this quote from dispensary owner and policy director of Social Equity L.A. Chris Martinez points to how, exactly, these taxes are to be collected:

“They have to self-report,” Martinez pointed out, “and they’ve made a career about not reporting anything. So, what type of resources is the city going to use to identify these operators, and what type of resources is the city going to have to use to go after these guys that don’t pay their taxes?”

Riddle me that, Batman.

Pop by the GIFH Garden Club at LatinX with Plants on June 7

On a more upbeat note, my friends over at the Grow It From Home are returning to LatinX with Plants in Boyle Heights this Sunday for a free garden club gathering that will take place from 1 to 3 p.m. “Bring your plants and flower and goodies to swap and enjoy some 🪴 conversation with like-minded gardeners,” co-founder Emily Gogol posted to GIFH Insta on Wednesday. If you’ve got the bandwidth, I highly recommend making the effort for two reasons. First, and if you’re newbie ganja gardener who might have some plants stretching toward the sun these days, youre bound to learn something valuable. Second, it’s the kind of confab where anything can (and does) happen. Case in point: A year ago this weekend I trekked over to that plant shop just east of DTLA and serendipitously found myself making CBD salves and rubbing elbows with weed nuns. Unfortunately, I won’t be there this time around, since I’ll be otherwise occupied trying to surprise my Bride of 23 years with an anniversary pineapple. (It’s a whole thing, and it gets harder and harder to surprise her every year.) Yes, that’s right, we got married on SIX SEVEN!

I spent part of my Memorial Day weekend going over the eight-page ballot for the upcoming June 2 statewide election (three of those pages were just candidates for governor but still) and found myself stymied by a proposal I realize I should have had a handle on: Measure CB, which proposes taxing unlicensed cannabis businesses in the city of Los Angeles. The language of the proposition sure sounds compelling. Here it is in its entirety:

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APPLYING CANNABIS BUSINESS TAXES TO UNLICENSED CANNABIS BUSINESSES.

Shall an ordinance be adopted to apply the City’s existing cannabis business taxes to unlicensed cannabis businesses at current rates (10% on cannabis sales; 5% on medical cannabis sales; 2% on manufacturing, cultivation or other commercialization; 1 % on transportation, testing or research); generating approximately $30-35 million annually for general City services, such as street/sidewalk repairs, 911 emergency response, fire protection, and parks, until ended by voters?

I mean, who wouldn’t want a cool extra $35 million a year for sidewalk repair and parks, am I right? And then there’s the whole leveling-the-playing-field argument, which appealed to my sense of fair play.

I had it all figured out — or thought I did until I started texting with my favorite cookbook author and cannabis confiseuse Vanessa Lavorato who had a decidedly different take on it than I did. Since Vanessa is no slouch in the pot policy department herself, this made me realize I needed to seek guidance from folks who know more about this than either of us do. My first call was to cannabis consulting firm Ananda Strategy’s Hirsh Jain who lives and breathes this stuff for a living. And he had … some thoughts.

“It’s counterproductive, incoherent and unenforceable”

“I would sum up Measure CB as counterproductive, incoherent and unenforceable,” Jain said. “It’s counterproductive because what it risks doing is normalizing and legitimizing the illicit market rather than shrinking it,” He explained. When you create a formal tax framework for illegal operators, the city is implicitly signaling that unlicensed cannabis businesses are permanent participants in the marketplace instead of illegal businesses that should ultimately transition into the regulated system.

“I’ll also say that the proposal may unintentionally discourage the transition into the legal market, because if illicit operators are allowed to continue operating with lower compliance costs by merely paying some form of taxes, then there isn’t really an economic incentive to become fully licensed.”

“It’s also incoherent. If this measure passes, it will create like some pretty meaningful legal and administrative contradictions from the city’s perspective; they would essentially be attempting to tax businesses that remain unlawful under state and local laws, and that creates an inherent tension from the city’s perspective between their goals of revenue collection and their existing ongoing enforcement obligations. So the city’s going to be in this really awkward — but more than awkward, incoherent —position of literally taxing operators at the same time they’re trying to shut them down.”

“And finally,” Jain said, “I think it’s going to prove very difficult to enforce because most illicit operators already evade existing cannabis taxes and regulations. Do we have any reason to believe that businesses operating outside the law and flouting the law would suddenly begin accurately reporting their revenues or voluntarily complying with this new tax regime?”

Jain says that instead of achieving the hoped-for parity and fairness between licensed and unlicensed cannabis businesses, what Measure CB would do is “basically create a two-tiered system that still disadvantages the compliant businesses. … I think what’s being lost here is that this measure does does nothing to address the actual structural drivers of the illicit market, why the illicit market exists. What are the core problems in L.A.? Excessive taxation, high compliance costs and slow permitting. When you tax illegal shops without fixing the underlying structural issues that gave rise to the illegal shops in the first place, that suggests that this is a symbolic measure rather than a meaningful market solution.”

“Nothing that quick is ever done right in the city”

Jain isn’t the only one with concerns. “I do feel it’s a little misleading for the way it’s been written and presented,” says Luis Rivera, founder of the non-profit Social Equity LA and owner of a social equity delivery license. “I mean, who doesn’t want to tax illegal shops? However, it undermines Prop 64, which the voters approved to have a legal cannabis industry. Now you’re allowing this whole wave of people to come in and there’s no parity in terms of what we have had to go through to get our licenses and be able to operate, and where they’re starting from.”

His biggest concern, he says, is that the ramifications of the measure haven’t fully been thought through. “This went from being presented to the City Council to the CAO’s office to being ratified by the mayor in less than a month. Nothing that quick is ever done right in the city, so we do feel there are a lot of gaps and there are a lot better ways to have addressed the illegal market. This is kind of a budget-gap-filler and we don’t feel that it will play out in practice.”

For one example of that, dispensary owner and Social Equity L.A.’s policy director Chris Martinez points to how, exactly, these taxes are to be collected. “They have to self-report,” he says. “and they’ve made a career about not reporting anything. So, what type of resources is the city going to use to identify these operators, and what type of resources is the city going to have to use to go after these guys that don’t pay their taxes?”

And, like Jain, Rivera and Martinez feel that the measure does a disservice to the struggling dispensaries that have spent a lot of time, energy and money to comply with the law. “A lot of legal license operators who’ve jumped through all the loops to get operational are still struggling and have gotten behind on their taxes,’ says Martinez. “Now they have a huge tax liability, and they’re required to either move forward with a payment plan or risk losing their license. Meanwhile, these unlicensed shops are essentially getting the OK. It’s like ‘Hey, whatever back taxes you haven’t paid, we’re not going to pay attention to that. We’ll allow you guys to move forward as long as you pay these taxes moving forward.”

“It will shut doors”

I asked Rivera and Martinez what they thought the impact would be if Measure CB passes.

“It will shut doors,” Rivera said emphatically. “I would say that 90% of the people I know that are social equity [license holders] that went through this process have shut their doors already. This will [really impact] that last 10%. It’s already too hard to compete with an illegal market because of the overhead, the overregulation, and the 35 to 40% in taxes. … For those of us who are already struggling to have more competition, and for [that competition] to have lower startup costs and operational expenses, there’s just no way to compete.”

Cast your ballot by mail or in person by June 2, 2026. Visit LAVOTE.GOV for a full list of locations and hours of all participating ballot drop boxes and vote centers.

Today (May 26), in honor of what would have been jazz legend Miles Davis’ 100th birthday, the estate of the late trumpeter, composer and bandleader (who shuffled off this mortal coil in 1991) and L.A.-based, low-dose herb company Dad Grass announced they’ve collaborated on a limited-edition, THC-infused beverage inspired by Davis’ landmark 1970 album Bitches Brew. You can pre-order the new drink starting today (with one big exception which I’ll get to below) through June 2 with shipping starting on August 1.

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The Dad Grass website describes the flavor of the Miles Davis Bitches Brew THC Drink this way: “guava and hibiscus lead the sip, layered with floral notes, bittersweet cacao, and bright lemon.” Available in either 3 milligram or 10 milligram doses of hemp-derived THC, each can also contains 6 milligrams of CBD and 2200 milligrams of Lion’s Mane. (8-packs of 12-ounce cans are $44 and $48 respectively before shipping.)

Although I vastly prefer to sample the things I write about first, I’m sharing the news with you now because today — the same day the press release dropped into my inbox — is Davis’ actual centennial birthday.

Interestingly, despite the slightly NSFW-sounding name, it’s not the only beverage out there paying homage to Davis’ Grammy-winning album; Groundwork Coffee’s Bitches Brew blend has been the morning cup of choice here at home for the better part of a decade now.

Here’s the rub, though: Although the 2018 Farm Bill made hemp-derived THC products federally legal to sell and ship to your doorstep — a loophole that is currently scheduled to close in November 2026 — since September of 2024 hemp products containing THC have been illegal under state law. Which means the only Bitches Brew bevvy legally available in the Golden State is the one that’ll have you blasting high notes in the morning and not the one that will help you power down at day’s end.

Ain’t that a … brew.

Let me start by admitting that the last thing I wanted to do on the Thursday before 4/20 was drive to Atwater Village and get horizontal with half a hundred pajama-clad cool kids in a mattress showroom. (The invitation encouraged guests to “arrive in their most elevated loungewear or pajamas” — and I was having none of it.)

But I did it anyway (the drive, not the pajamas), because I wanted to pay my respects to to the perennially-peppy-pink- and-platinum PR princess Alice Moon whose twice-a-month Moon Soul Sound Baths have been selling out (60 to a bath) at the mattress shop fronting Glendale Boulevard and generating the kind of buzz that landed her in a feature story in that newspaper I used to work at.

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Advised to arrive by 7:50 p.m. for the 8 p.m. sound bath, I crossed the threshold at the click of 8:01, fists balled in rage at being unable to find a legal parking spot in a four block radius. Luckily the crystal bowls had yet to sing. Unluckily, the first person I encountered decided to comment on my lack of sleep wear. “I sleep naked,” I smile-lied as little red lightbulbs went off behind my eyes. “So I decided against it.”

With that, I rolled my quickly growing ball of rage straight back to the last remaining open mattress in the far northeast corner of the store next to a creaky wooden staircase and directly under an HVAC vent large enough to create its own weather system. Once there, I slapped a sticky half-moon-shaped, Kanha-branded under-eye patch under each peeper, pulled a silky sleep mask (emblazoned with “Sweet Kanha Dreams” across the front) over my eyes and prostrated myself on a porch-sized mattress. There wasn’t a snowball’s chance in Palmdale I’d get my relax on, I thought, laying here as I was, back-spooned by the day’s frustrations.

But then something happened. Not right away. Not even in the first 15 or 20 minutes of the 40- to 45-minute sound bath. But somewhere in that back nine of the stretch, the vibrations loosened things up. My frustrations stopped spooning me, flipping the other direction like a spurned spouse on the losing end of a just-before-bedtime argument. My fists unclenched. My breathing slowed. I felt my body sink (or maybe melt) into the mattress topper. Then, before I knew it, it was over.

When Moon signaled that it was time to roust ourselves, I removed my eye mask almost sheepishly and realized I’d been quasi-slumber partying with a veritable who’s who of the weed world — Hiii magazine founders Rob Hill and Pam Patterson, cannabis tastemaker Rachel Burkons, munchie influencer and social media star VibeWithChu aka “the stoner that cooks” and pajama-clad Angela Cheng, the Global Chief Marketing Officer of Kanha’s parent company Sunderstorm. With my day’s frustrations freshly tossed out with the (sound) bath water, I was a new man. I was reinvigorated. After chatting amiably and exchanging pleasantries with my canna-compatriots (something I had feared, at the outset, my blustery arrival mood would have made challenging), I bounced the mattress store — but not before dropping a sample of Kanha’s new Dream gummy in my freebie canvas tote bag. (I mean, that’s why we were there, right?)

I didn’t think much about my frustrating-turned-relaxing once-upon-a-mattress adventure for the next few days. (In fairness, this was the Thursday night right before 4/20 weekend so things were … hectic). Then, on 4/20-eve, I popped one of the Dream gummies into my mouth right before bed as a hedge against the more-scary-than-usual Sunday scaries. I didn’t even make it through the “Hacks” previous-episode recap before slipping into slumberland. And, when I woke up on Monday morning, I felt a lot like I did right after the sound bath — reinvigorated and ready to face the world.

Since everyone and their metabolism has a different relationship with edibles, I can’t say with any certainty you’ll have the kind of experience I did. What I can say with certainty is the following: Kanha’s new Moonlight Berry Dream gummies are a 1:1:1 ratio of 10 milligrams each of CBN (a cannabinoid prized for its sleep-inducing qualities), THC and CBD. They also contain sleepmaxxing adaptogens like chamomile, passion flower and reishi mushrooms.

Perhaps what’s more important is what they don’t contain — sugar, relying instead on a combination of allulose (a fancy sugar alternative) and monk fruit for a pop of sweetness. (I didn’t realize this until the Kanha folks mentioned it, but sugar’s ability to drive energy spikes and trigger cortisol production can disrupt the body’s natural melatonin cycle and impair the ability to fall and stay asleep.)

If you’re one of the one in three adults who do not get the recommended amount of uninterrupted sleep, it could be for all kinds of reasons. If the culprit is the sugar in your bedtime gummy, trying Kanha’s new gummy could be the answer. If you suspect your mattress is the root of the problem, you can suss that out — and chill out — by buying a ticket to a Moon Soul Sound Bath at the Atwater Village Mattress Central (the next one is scheduled for May 9).

Just one piece of advice: Leave yourself plenty of time to find a parking spot.

This morning, I woke up to an email inbox rapidly filling with quick takes on news that acting Attorney General Todd Blanche had posted to X that the Department of Justice was “immediately rescheduling FDA-approved marijuana and state-licensed marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III” and “ordering a new, expedited hearing with set deadlines, to fully reschedule marijuana.”

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What, exactly, does that that mean for the businesses, researchers, patients, prisoners and recreational cannabis consumers? To quote the title of a short-lived Denise Richards reality TV series: “it’s complicated.”

That’s for several reasons. First of all, a tweet (I can’t bring myself to call it “an X”) isn’t the order itself and the order (which you can — and should — read in its entirety here) runs a full 33 pages. (Observation: Alcohol prohibition in the U.S. was repealed in 1933. Coincidence?)

Second, as it makes very clear at the outset, the order, which is a follow-through on the president’s Dec. 18, 2025, executive order on the topic, only covers “drug products containing marijuana that have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act” [emphasis added]. Which is pretty narrow, since, according to the FDA’s website, it has ”approved one cannabis-derived drug product: Epidiolex (cannabidiol), and three synthetic cannabis-related drug products: Marinol (dronabinol), Syndros (dronabinol), and Cesamet (nabilone).”

A little further on, the definition explicitly includes “marijuana as defined in the CSA, marijuana extracts, and delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol and other compounds derived from the marijuana plant (other than the mature stalks and seeds) that falls outside the definition of hemp, to the extent that any of these are included in an FDA-approved drug product or are subject to a state-issued license to manufacture, distribute, and/or dispense marijuana or products containing marijuana for medical purposes (”state medical marijuana license”).” [emphasis added]

I’m no lawyer (far from it), but my reading is that products regulated under a state-issued medical marijuana license are similarly shifted into Schedule III.

Narrow as it is, for state-level businesses that do qualify under the order, it could be a very big deal indeed. That’s because Section 280E of the Internal Revenue Code prohibits businesses from deducting otherwise established business expenses from gross income associated with the trafficking of Schedule I or II substances and the order (way down on page 17) notes: “as a consequence of this rule, state licensees will no longer be subject to the deduction disallowance imposed by Section 280E of the Internal Revenue Code.”

Then (even further down on page 23), the order serves up this intriguing nugget: “The Administrator encourages the Secretary of the Treasury to consider providing retrospective relief from Section 280E liability for taxable years in which a state licensee operated under a state medical marijuana license.” Which seems to say (again the disclaimer about me not being a lawyer) that a California medical marijuana licensee that had not been able to deduct legitimate business expenses since 1996 (the year California passed Proposition 215) might be able to get almost 30 years’ worth of those deductions back. I have no way of calculating what that kind of money might look like but it’s no small chunk of change.

The second half of acting AG Blanche’s tweet — about a “new, expedited hearing, with set deadlines, to fully n expedited hearing on fully reschedul[ing] marijuana,” isn’t mentioned in that order, but rather is referenced in this DOJ press release and this official notice published in the Federal Register, which sets the beginning of that hearing for June 29, 2026. That, I think, is where things will really start to get interesting, since there are lot of vested interests on both sides of permanent, full rescheduling.

But, just because there aren’t any huge, immediate changes for most of the state-legal cannabis businesses across the country, the people in states without legal access or, even more importantly, those behind bars for their non-violent interactions with the plant, that doesn’t mean todays news shouldn’t be celebrated. It definitely should — but only as a symbolic first step, the firing of the starting gun and the start of a push to change more laws and more minds and get this over the finish line once and for all.

As veteran cannabis journalist, drug policy architect and Grasslands PR and marketing agency founder and CEO Ricardo Baca put it in part in a social media post this morning — and which I’m repeating here because I couldn’t put it any better myself:

“My biggest takeaway is simple: Policy shifts change business and investment behavior,” he wrote.

That’s why this matters so much.”

So, while we all wait to see what fruits of change the seeds planted today eventually bear, I suggest you get off the sidelines and get yourself educated on the topic and steel yourself for the fight(s) ahead. Don’t know where to start? For a more granular, comprehensive first-pass look at today’s news in particular, I suggest starting with two pieces: this one by High Times magazine’s EIC Javier Hasse and this one posted by the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), which has been fighting the fight since 1970. (While you’re there, why not go ahead and make a donation? Helping them will end up helping us all.) NORML’s particularly good at dialing down the hype, clearing the smoke and giving us, for lack of a better phrase, the straight dope.

In the battle to legalize and destigmatize, it’s now full-on go time!

Call it a tale of two holidays: The Oakland Blazers, a cannabis-themed alt-identity of the Pioneer League champion Oakland Ballers that was announced 19 days ago as an April Fools’ Day joke has rounded the bases into full-blown reality on 4/20, with the team’s announcement a few minutes ago via Instagram that it is now taking pre-orders for fan merchandise that includes two styles of ball cap, a trucker hat and a jersey with “Oakland Blazers” across the front, a pot leaf on the left shoulder and the number 510 (a nod to the East Bay area code that includes Oakland) on the back.

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That’s not the only update from Raimondi Park, either. According to the Oakland Ballers VP of Communications & Fan Entertainment Casey Pratt, the team has partnered with Oakland-based Oaksterdam University to donate a portion of every merch sale to the cannabis education organization’s Oaksterdam Nonprofit for Education (ONE) as well as emblazon “Oaksterdam” on the back of the team’s on-field jerseys where “Oakland” usually appears.

“Oakland just got a little more elevated,” Oaksterdam University’s Executive Chancellor Dale Sky Jones said in a prepared statement about the partnership. “I’m proud to partner with the Oakland Ballers as they become the Oaksterdam Blazers this 4/20 season. Two legendary institutions, one powerful story.

This isn’t just a fun alternate identity or a clever name, it’s a celebration of the culture, resilience, and innovation that define The Town. From the early days of Prop 215 to today’s ongoing fight for sensible policy, Oakland has always led the way. Seeing the Ballers embrace that legacy as the Oaksterdam Blazers sends a powerful message: legal, responsible cannabis culture belongs in the mainstream as a safe alternative for adults in our everyday celebrations.

We look forward to working together to make this a national story that highlights education, equity, and unapologetic Oakland pride. Let’s pack the Green Bowl section at Raimondi Park and show the country what happens when two Oakland originals come together. Oakland is known worldwide for our legendary cannabis and Oaksterdam is the birthplace of the multi-billion dollar industry. It is fitting that the epic champion Ballers become the Blazers and honor this legacy.”

The hats ($29.99 to $39.99) and jerseys ($69.99), all in a colorway described as “Green Haze / Granddaddy Purple / Orange Blaze” are available now for a limited-time-only preorder at shop.oaklandballers.com. Pratt said he expects orders placed today to ship in five to 10 weeks, but noted “it’ll get much faster as production ramps up.”

As for when the Blazers might make their on-field debut, Pratt said plans were “not fully baked yet” (his words, not mine) but said the team was considering two already scheduled theme nights at Raimondi Park as contenders: June 26 — Possum! (Phish night) when they square off against the Yuba-Sutter Freebirds and July 31 — Grateful Dead Night when they face the RedPocket Mobiles.

With the first of those two Friday games just nine weeks and four days away, if you place your order today, chances are pretty good you’ll be rocking your Blazers merch by the time the team takes the field at Raimondi Park — no miracle needed.

I can’t think of a better person paint the picture of their perfect pot party in the run-up to 4/20 than veteran cannabis journalist and weed historian David Bienenstock. We’ve been in each others’ irregular orbit for more than 17 years (which is equivalent to about a century in non-weed-writer years) and every single time we cross paths, the former High Times editor, author of “How to Smoke Pot (Properly): A Highbrow Guide to Getting High” and host of the “Great Moments in Weed History” podcast manages to teach me something about the world of the magical plant.

In honor of the most recent project on his CV— the dropping-on-4/20, Jimmy-Kimmel-executive-produced Hulu short documentary anthology series “4x20 Quick Hits,” on which he worked as a consulting producer — we hopped on a video call so I could find out what his ultimate (and wholly hypothetical) sit-down smoke-up might look like. What he sketched out was a far-flung, monstrously memorable, history- and hash-heavy sesh that absolutely did not disappoint. Here it is in his own words:

PLACE: “Nepal ticks a lot of boxes”

“I picked Nepal specifically for a couple of reasons. That’s an expensive trip, so this [exercise] seems like my best bet to get there. And, being a weed historian, I wanted to go some place that 1) from every picture I’ve seen, is just magnificently beautiful and 2) also represents the connection of cannabis all the way back to the ancient world and through the history of spirituality as well. When we start to look at weed history back that far, it’s less and less documented the further back you go, and it’s been so obscured and suppressed, yet we can find the roots of it in spiritual uses [there] that [predate] the medicinal uses. So Nepal ticks a lot of boxes and it’s definitely a dream of a lifetime trip for me.

As far as where specifically? I’d just find a local connoisseur and put myself in their hands. As stoners like to say, “I know a place.” The great part about traveling with the love of weed in your heart is meeting stoners, making some friends and putting yourself in their hands, so that’s what I’d do.

PEOPLE: Bob Marley, Tom Forçade, Carl Sagan, Brownie Mary and Ganjasaurus Rex

As a weed historian, I feel like it’s no one living [in the mix]. I think a great sesh would include Bob Marley; smoking weed and listening to Bob Marley really informed my politics, informed my sense of music and culture, and he was sort of the first avatar for me, of a person who really repped the plant — obviously — but did so in such a thoughtful way, in a political way … I would say Bob Marley is sort of my ultimate formative weed person.

Then I would have to go with [High Times founder] Tom Forçade. I was employed by his legacy very happily for a decade, he was somebody who I think had a brilliant, prescient idea of what weed was all about at that time, and who took the ideals of the underground press movement and brought them to weed and used weed as a way to reach people who were maybe outside of politics and bring them into the culture.

I also picked [cannabis activist] Brownie Mary, somebody who did so much for other people but also, by all accounts, swore like a sailor and was a very tough person with a really great sense of humor. I feel like she’d fit in really well with the group I’m putting together. And [astronomer/author] Carl Sagan; an incredible mind, an incredible visionary and somebody who thinks very expansively, but also speaks to people in a way that’s very accessible to them. If you’re going to have a 3 a.m. stoned dorm-room conversation, could there be anybody better than Carl Sagan?

The fifth one is a little bit of a curveball: I’m going to go with Ganjasaurus Rex the mythical weed Godzilla from the film [of the same name] because, first of all, I think it would just blow our minds to see her emerge on the horizon. And I think of all the stories I’ve ever covered in my time, that’s the one I felt most passionately about. It’s such an unknown story, it’s goofy fun and it was a film that was made in 1987 in southern Humboldt County during the time of the CAMP raids and the rural community protested and pushed back by making this low-budget feature. It’s actually the topic of one the Hulu [series] episodes.

PRODUCT: Grab life by the temple balls

Well, we’re in Nepal so we’re gonna have to have Nepalese temple balls, probably the most mythologized, legendary [form of] hashish. This is traditionally produced hashish we’re talking about, separate from modern-day BHO or rosin. It’s a handmade, artisanal product and if you go back to accounts of the Hippie Trail of people traveling through that part of the world, a lot of times, Nepal was the ultimate destination of those journeys and the White Castle hamburger of these hippies on the Hippie Trail, if you will, was getting their hands on the temple ball hashish.

PARAPHERNALIA: Snodgrass glass

I’m going to give myself a little artistic license here; It might clog up the works, but I’m going to say we’re smoking it out of a glass pipe blown by Bob Snodgrass, the godfather of glass, who really started the whole movement. He would go around to Grateful Dead [concert parking] lots and set up his glass-blowing equipment, make pipes and sell them on tour. A lot of people got their first introduction to what’s called functional art glass that way. And then his apprentices, direct and indirect, spread that craft. And Jason Harris, who’s profiled in one of these [Hulu] documentaries, went to Eugene, Oregon, and apprenticed for [Snodgrass]. What better implement for [smoking] some Nepalese temple balls?

PARTING GIFT: A cup of mint tea with honey

Something that I think is culturally appropriate to the setting we’ve created would be little cup of mint tea with honey, which would feel very nice on the throat. My first hash-smoking experiences were in Amsterdam, working on the [High Times] Cannabis Cup back in the day. The coffee shops would have all kinds of hash on menu — from India, Morocco and Nepal — and, along with it, the menu would have these mint teas with honey, which really hit the spot after you’ve been hitting the hash.

The four, 20-minute documentaries in “4x20 : Quick Hits” start streaming on Hulu on April 20, 2026. You can watch the trailer now on YouTube.

A half-baked idea, repurposed as a last-minute April Fools’ Day joke, to temporarily turn the Oakland Ballers into the herb-green, pot-leaf-emblazoned Oakland Blazers has been such a big hit with fans that the baseball team has decided to officially adopt the alternate identity in the upcoming season.

“Maybe it’s the first April Fools’ Day joke that we now have to do in real life,” Ballers co-founder and CEO Paul Freedman told me in a phone interview on April 2, less than 30 hours after the following message was posted to the team’s official Instagram account shortly past noon on April 1:

“We’ve been thinking .. Oakland deserves something a little more elevated. Introducing the Oakland Blazers. An alt identity inspired by The Town’s culture, creativity, and innovation.

Come pack the Green Bowl section at Raimondi Park.

April Fools.

Or should we really do this?”

Accompanying the post was a rendering (see above) of a bright green baseball uniform with purple and and orange accent colors, the Ballers name replaced with Blazers and a seven-bladed pot-leaf patch at the left shoulder.

The Blazers Origin Story

According to Casey Pratt, the Oakland Ballers VP of Communications & Fan Entertainment, while the decision to pull a fast one on fans was a last-minute ask by Freedman, the seed for the herbal-leaning alt-identity was actually planted about eight months ago during a team podcast conversation involving Pratt, Ballers catcher Tyler Lozano and tattoo artist (and Ballers press box fixture) Ben Verhoek. I mention this not only because you can watch the precise moment it happens here, but also because Verhoek, owner of Pastime Tattoo in San Leandro, designed the Blazer uniforms that appeared in the April Fools’ Day post.

Pratt said fan response to the joke was immediate and the message was clear.

“Yeah, it was very well received — it completely exploded,” he said. “We thought that people would love it, but, we didn’t think they’d love it as much as they did. It was just a parade of [posted] comments from people saying things like ‘I would buy that immediately.’ At first we were just happy to see the response.”

But then, Pratt said, the comments kept coming. And, at some point, a few hours into the joke, Pratt realized that a genuine smokin’ alt-identity for the team — pot-leaf-emblazoned jerseys and all — actually had legs.

“It’s expensive to outfit your entire team in a new uniform and we’d just gotten new uniforms celebrating our championship,” he explained. “So, at first we thought maybe we could find a sponsor that would like help us do this. Then it kept blowing up, and blowing up. At some point we realized we could probably sell enough hats and jerseys to offset whatever it would cost us to create these.”

From Joke to Reality

Early the next day, the Ballers fully committed to the gag with a follow-up comment.

“OK. We hear you. 420 comments on this post and we’ll actually do it. Pass the word on the left hand side.”

By 2:44 p.m. on April 2 (barely 26 hours after making the joke that lit up their social media feed like Snoop Dogg on Willie Nelson’s bus) the Ballers posted to their Insta feed that they were full steam ahead.

(In case you’re unfamiliar with the concept, minor league baseball teams have a custom of occasionally adopting alternate identities or alter egos that temporarily replace a team’s primary branding to honor a specific cause or theme. Existing alt-identity uniforms for the Ballers, an independent minor league team that joined the Pioneer League in 2024 (and became its championship team in 2025) , include Los Peloteros, which honors the the city’s Hispanic community, and the Oakland Stands Up clenched-fist-holding-a-baseball jersey created in collaboration with the Black Panther Party Alumni Legacy Network.)

Beyond the fact that the Blazers alt-identity is definitely going to happen, details are as hazy as a hotboxing bullpen.

“Honestly, this was a plan that wasn’t a plan,” Freedman told me during our April 2 phone call. “And we’re less than 24 hours into our plan that wasn’t a plan, so we’re still kind of figuring it out. But we’re committed to doing it. The when and the where of it — and when the merch will be available for fans, which I think is what they’re most excited for — we don’t know yet.”

Pratt added that despite fans fervently expressing their desire for a 4/20 drop, the manufacturing turnaround time of five to six weeks — and the fact that the Ballers’ season opener at Raimondi Park won’t be until May 19 — make that a non-starter. In the meantime, he urged fans to head over to a dedicated Oakland Blazers landing page to sign up for alerts and news blasts about the new alt-identity.

Design Details, Cultural Fit and Destigmatization

While we all wait for word about that merch drop (and let’s face it, that stuff is going to sell), here’s a little more on those uniforms and why they’re a good fit for Oaktown:

Verhoek mentioned (and Pratt confirmed) that in a departure from the rendering first posted online, the Blazers’ ballcap, which uses the “O” version of the Ballers logo instead of the more familiar “B,” will incorporate a pot-leaf design as seen in the rendering below.

Verhoek also cited a very specific colorway inspiration.

“I chose light green, purple and orange, because the strain Granddaddy Purple was really popular around the time Oaksterdam University and the decriminalization [movement] were starting to get really big around here,” he explained. ”So those colors always kind of remind me of that strain and that era.”

Freedman also cited the city’s historic connection to cannabis in explaining how what started as a throwaway joke was an appropriate homage. “Oakland has been at the forefront of the cannabis legalization movement and [cannabis] has been a big part of Oakland, culture and the music industry and the arts industry,” he said. “And our outfield wall signs promote alcohol, and weed’s better for you so we have no problem representing that part of our values.”

Verhoek said that when the Ballers do eventually take the field tricked out as the Blazers, he’ll take it as a win in the effort to destigmatize the plant.

“I think maybe this is a step towards a little bit more acceptance of cannabis within the mainstream culture of baseball,” he said, “It’s crazy to me that there’s still a stigma about something that has way less negative side effects [than alcohol]. So it’s good to see this a baby step in the direction of acceptance, especially in a place like Oakland, which has always been groundbreaking in that realm.”

How to Be a Blazer Forever

And if that Oakland Blazers pot-leaf logo really resonates with you, Verhoek said you’ll eventually be able to make it permanent.

“Every year [Pastime Tattoo does] a free Oakland Ballers tattoo event,” he said. “And we are going to be giving away different sheets of Ballers designs every Tuesday home game for Tattoo Tuesdays leading up to the end of the season when we have the event. And, yeah, I’m going to throw that design on there for sure.”

Now that’s a Baller[s] move.

The nostalgic stoner road trip documentary that is “Cheech & Chong’s Last Movie” (which may — or may not — actually be their last big-screen outing together) has a destination: Paramount+.

That makes the duo’s cinematic journey a round trip of sorts, since Paramount Pictures released their first film together 48 years ago, a symbolism not lost on the film’s director.

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“We’re coming home,” director David Bushell is quoted as saying in a March 26 announcement from the studioo. “Cheech & Chong’s first movie ‘Up In Smoke’ was released by Paramount back in 1978. We cannot think of a better partner to premiere ‘Cheech & Chong’s Last Movie’ on streaming. They Keep Smokin’!”

(In case you’re curious — because I was — the subsequent movies were distributed by Universal Pictures (1980’s “Cheech & Chong’s Next Movie”), Columbia Pictures, (1981’s “Nice Dreams” and 1982’s “Things Are Tough All Over”), Paramount Pictures (which got a second hit at the C&C joint being passed around Hollywood with 1983’s “Still Smokin’”), Orion Pictures (“Cheech & Chong’s The Corsican Brothers” in 1984) and 20th Century Fox (2013’s “Cheech & Chong’s Animated Movie”).)

Also symbolic? The timing; “Last Movie, which premiered at South by Southwest in 2024, hit movie theaters in late April 2025 and has been available for digital download since late May 2025, is set to start streaming on Paramount+ Premium on … 4/20.

I’ll admit it up front: This is one of those kitchen-sink posts where I’m just going to mention a whole bunch of things rattling around in my brain after last week’s pop up to the Hall of Flowers trade show in Ventura. So buckle up.

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Style in the Aisles

Although fashion and style hasn’t been my primary beat for awhile, it’s still one of the lenses through which I look at the world, and I’m continually amazed at how little really stylish stuff there is in the magical plant space. That’s why the things I discovered at two booths in particular caught my eye. The first find was at the Ongrok booth where I’d gone to inquire about a sleek, 21st-century-style version of the cigarette case used to store pre-rolled joints. (I’d noticed the Airtight Pocket Case at MJBizCon back in December but it hadn’t rolled out to market yet.) That’s where I encountered the minimalist double-walled beaker-shaped waterpipe pictured below.

“It’s Scandinavian-inspired,” the person staffing the booth told me. “And it’s new.” I don’t know from Scandinavian inspiration to be honest, and I need another bong like I need another hole in my head but this thing is definitely middle-of-the-coffee-table stylish.

The other high-style (literally and figuratively) find was the assortment of artwork I discovered on display at the High Art Studios booth.

NorCal-based Doug Mau and his collective of artists take inspiration from vintage travel posters, fruit crate art and classic advertising to serve up cultivar-themed images that the company sells on posters, T-shirts, rolling trays, aluminum signs, clocks and more. Pineapple Express, for example, is served up as either a cartoony, pineapple-headed high flier (above left) or a Don Draperesque luxury air traveler staring wistfully at the Hawaiian islands (above right). Elsewhere at the booth, an image paying homage to Skywalker OG features a funambulist walking an invisible tightrope between striped circus tents, a goggles-wearing primate shilling for Gorilla Glue #4 and a buxom magician surrounded by playing cards conjuring the aesthetic of Girl Scout Cookies. If you’re looking for a nifty gift for the weed head in your life, their website is worth checking out. (Especially since, as it notes on its About Us page, the company is “committed to donating 10% of [its] annual net profits to organizations that provide research and services to families who benefit from the effects of medical marijuana.”)

Fun fact: High Art Studios’ 420-inspired artwork even got the stamp of approval from Hollywood set-dressers; Mau told me that 11 of their posters (including the five designs mentioned above) were used to decorate the walls of Ruth’s Alternative Caring, the dispensary at the center of the short-lived Netflix pot comedy “Disjointed.”

BeautyWhoBurns Rolls the HOF Logo

Not all of my favorite art was found on the show floor, though. Lured to an offsite, post-show Cannabis Chamber of Commerce networking mixer by the promise of free tacos (courtesy of MJBiz), I found myself sitting next to (for the second time that day) BeautyWhoBurns cannabis media strategist and joint-rolling artist Victoria Burkard. The first time we connected was a couple hundred yards past the orange cuboid Hall of Flowers logo at the Ventura County Fairgrounds. This time, on the back patio of Social Tap just down the road, Burkard was brandishing a miniature version of the familiar HOF logo with a twist. A couple of twists, to be more precise, since what she was holding aloft for my viewing pleasure was actually an orange-colored, glass-tipped soy-sauce-packet-shaped joint.

“How long did it take you to roll that?” asked the guy (me) who can hardly roll an old-school doobie on a good day, much less craft a trade-show logo out of one.

“A couple of days,” she replied.

I never got to see that joint in action (we were on the patio of a public drinking establishment, so sparking it up would have been bad form), but when it was finally fired up, I bet it was a true … beauty to burn.

What the #$%& is National Hash Hole Day?

Someone else I ended up chatting with at the mixer (I don’t remember his name, tbh, but I do remember he lives in Nebraska because we discussed recreational cannabis isn’t currently legal there) clued me in on a new “holiday” I hadn’t heard of: National Hash Hole Day.

The name “hash hole” refers to a type of joint (sometimes called a donut joint) that’s rolled with a strip of cannabis concentrate running running through the center, and my new friend informed me that it’s been celebrated for the last three years on November 30.

“Why November 30?” I asked.

“Because it’s 1130, which is 420 plus 710!” he replied as if he’d just solved the Collatz conjecture on the back of a napkin. 4/20, of course, is the OG of stoner holidays, which has its roots in the early 1970s with 7/10 (aka National Dab Day or “Oil Day”) joining the party in the early 2010s when someone figured out that if you turn the number 710 on its head it kind of resembles an allcaps version of the word OIL. A quick check of the Nebraskan’s calendar math (trust but verify!) confirmed this date addition to be accurate. He added that the new holiday just notched its third year in existence in November of 2025.

So move over National Mason Jar Day and National Meth Awareness Day, (both of which are also celebrated on Nov. 30) and make room for the hoisting of the hash hole!

Introducing the Quote of the Week

Back when I was editor of the weekly Manchester Journal newspaper, we had a fun little tradition where we would pick one perfect quote (perfectly on point, funny, outrageous or some combination of the three) from that week’s issue and showcase it, without context, in the upper righthand corner of the front page. In that spirit, I present an overheard QOTW from Cannabis Chamber mixer. It comes by way of someone involved in the cannabis accounting and advisory space.

Spying my my reporter’s notebook, he quipped me the following:

“This is the only business where doing the right thing is wrong.”

Sure, there’s some nuance to it and a whole lot of caveats, but he’s not wrong by a long shot. So the guy in the cannabis accounting and advice business gets the inaugural High Adam QOTW.

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At Humboldt Family Farms, for example, founder Scott Vasterling has been giving people what they want via what he calls (in a concept wine drinkers will understand immediately) “intentional blends.” As he explains in the video above, it’s essentially creating a flavor profile and varying cannabinoid levels by blending two different cultivars together in a pre-roll joint. One of those blends, a combination of Cherry West and Sapphire Tsu dubbed Cherry Tsu (9% THC and 6.5% CDB) has become HFF’s second-bestselling pre-roll, Vasterling says.

On the hardware side, the blend trend is epitomized by Helio Supply’s line up of on-the-spot mix-and-match hardware which includes two-tank and three-tank vaporizer options and the Plug — an oil tank that vaguely resembles a clarinet mouthpiece and has a place to plug in a pre-rolled joint. Each draw creates a kind of infusion-on-demand, combining the smoke from the joint with the vapor from the oil.

Helio’s founder, Jared Lavitt said the innovations were a response to market trends. “People want more oil, more flavor [and] more options,” he says in the above video. “It never ends.”

Here’s to folks like Lavitt and Vasterling putting in the hard work to give the people what they want.

Blend on!

I spent most of last Saturday sitting in the West Hollywood city council chambers taking in the line-up of featured speakers and panel discussions that comprised the first-ever Cannabis, Culture & Change Change conference organized by Emerald Village West Hollywood, the city’s cannabis-industry marketing and tourism initiative. Since the EV folks tapped me to write a little recap of the day and you csn read it there, I won’t rehash the whole thing herea (See what I did there?) But I did want to highlight something that stuck with me — the dire need for coalition-building in the cannabis space.

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The reason it stuck with me is because I’ve always seen — and personally experienced — cannabis through the lens of community. When the pandemic sucked the joy out of sharing a joint with a stranger, I felt it acutely. And I like to imagine that when anyone, anywhere lights the magical plant on fire and breathes deeply, they’re tapping into some kind of mystical shared root system. (Yeah, I know, it sounds super stony when you read it on the page like that, but think about it — just for a hot second — next time you’re blazing and then get back to me.)

I’m not totally naive and actually started to realize the entire THC tribe wasn’t rowing in the same direction back in November in the aftermath of the Big Beautiful Bill’s effort to close the hemp loophole opened by the 2018 Farm Bill. (An immediate coalition-building response did come at the time in the form of the One Plant Alliance, which is worth checking out.) Still, I found it noteworthy that several of Saturday’s speakers pointed to the lack of a united front as an impediment to meaningful reform.

“We as the cannabis industry do need lobbying help — politically,” said AHHS dispensary owner Jason Beck toward the end of the Science and Economics of Medical Cannabis panel, “to bring on other allies that are more sophisticated and have the lobbying dollars like Total Wine [& More], Circle K, Target and all these big-box retailers that are going and starting to sell [hemp-derived] cannabis beverages. I’m not a fan of [cannabis] beverages but [the issue is] bringing these businesses to the table and turning people who would not have been our allies into our allies — and they have real lobbying dollars.”

“Coalition-building is one of the most important things we have to do as an industry,” added fellow panelist, Planted podcaster Sara Payan who then stage-whispered the quiet part out loud. “We have not been very good at it.”

More talk of coalition-building — came during the Gay Liberation & Cannabis Legalization panel, where Ian Rassman (who as both the executive director and president of LA NORML and Executive Vice Chair of the Cannabis Chamber of Commerce is essentially a one-man canna-coalition, am I right?) talked about effort to establish international cannabis chambers of commerce.

“I’m doing a lot of coalition-building right now with the Canada’s Chamber of Commerce,” he said, “and we’re launching chapters all around the world — in Europe and Latin America and Africa … [We’re] really getting the industry involved, reaching out to the people who are here, [who are] showing up to work in the industry and who want to make money in the industry. All these people have to come together and build little organizations so we can all find each other and we can figure out how to lift each other up and promote each other.”

It turns out I wasn’t the only one who left the event with coalition-building on the brain. On the way out, I ran onto Chela and Dave Coennen, an L.A. couple who run a cannabis-centered coaching service for folks navigating cancer, dementia care and end-of-life issues. When I met them on the way in at the beginning of the day, Chela told me they were attending in hopes of tapping into a network of like-minded activists. So now that it was over, I asked if she had accomplished that mission

“Absolutely,” Chela said. “I connected with many people moving in the same direction — or trying to, or wanting to.”

Was there, I followed up, anything she was going to do differently as a result of attending the conference? She nodded her head enthusiastically.

“I already new that we would need to reach out to a wider coalition of people to move our agenda forward,” she said. “But this just really hammered home. We need to find where we have those commonalities and speak the same language.”

For example, if I’m talking to people who are very religious, I should enlighten them that cannabis is mentioned something like 11 times in the Old Testament … and it’s one of the main ingredients in anointing oil. So we can reach out to very religious people that way.”

I agree. It’s beyond time for the cannabis community to build the coalition it deserves. At the end of the day whether you’re talking about hemp or weed it’s the exact same plant — and we need to start acting like it.

Even though I’ve never smoked the legendary cultivar Strawberry Cough, I have certainly heard it — it’s one of those names that’s familiar enough herb heads and non-herb heads alike that it can be used as shorthand for weed without actually saying “weed." (I’m imaging Danny McBride’s Kenny Powers character uttering a pejorative “Have a little more Strawberry Cough there Smokey Robinson”). There was a Nike SB Dunk Strawberry Cough shoe in 2020 (a collaboration with illustrator Todd Bratrud), Belgian dubstep duo Ganja White Night released a song with that name in 2010 as did Chicago post-punk trio FACS (sample lyric: Wasn't the spring time cruel?/ Strawberry cough / You do it until you cannot) in 2021. But the pop-culture reference that arguably took it next level to begin with was Michael Caine’s on-screen utterance in the 2006 film “Children of Men.” (See the clip here.)

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From there it pretty much took the “Pineapple Express” route from screen to street stardom to where we are today. (Fun story: Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg say they made up that cultivar name — an homage to a tropical weather system — for their 2008 stoner comedy of the same name. Then it became a real thing after the fact.)

Today, an Instagram account called nuggnotes, which does meticulously researched, impressively sourced origin-story deep dives into some of the most famous cultivars out there (Bubba Kush, Sunset Sherbet, Maui Wowie to name just a few) on the ‘Gram and YouTube, caught my eye with the recent mention that Strawberry Cough (so named for its strawberry smell and the way it expands in the lungs) can be traced back to two guys (Jon Daniels and Jeff Cavanagh) who met at the University of Vermont in Burlington, Vermont, in 1994. A clone from the fruit of their labors eventually made its way west (I won’t spoil how) and eventually became the famed strain we know today.

Since my own weed origin story also has its roots “Groovy UV,” I quickly plopped down in front of my computer, clamped on my headphones and fired up the 20 minute and 38 second episode on YouTube. I won’t spoil the details — or steal nuggnotes’ thunder (or traffic) — because it’s a truly fascinating story that deserves the full listen (despite using either AI-generated audio or hiring two of the most preternaturally polished human voices you’ll ever let near your ears).

I take the whole thing as proof positive that you can get your weed-world start at the University of Vermont, make the move west and become a big deal.

I guess all I need to do now is get Michael Caine to utter my name on the big screen, right?

In all fairness, I would have gone to a colonoscopy Tuesday night just to avoid the longest State of the Union address in modern history. Thanks to a clever bit of (perhaps unintentional) counter-programming — a surreal, subversive and immersive Culver City movie premiere party — my sanity (and my colon) made it through the evening unassaulted.

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The film was “Operation Taco Gary’s” the feature movie writing and directing debut by Funny or Die co-founder Michael Kvamme the movie is classic buddy quest comedy in the same mold as those embarked upon by Harold and Kumar, Jake and Elwood and Cheech and Chong. In this case, the duo on the quest are a pair of estranged brothers Luke (“Schitt’s Creek” veterinarian Dustin Milligan) and Danny (Simon Rex), an off-his-meds conspiracy-theory addict and chaos agent of the highest order. The quest? Make it across the country — and the border — to Ottawa aided by a badger (a northern-border version of the human-smuggling coyote) played by Brenda Song and a wild-haired doofus named Klyle (yes, with a second “l”) played by Tony Cavalero (the mullet-haired doofus Keef from “The Righteous Gemstones”).

As in all good buddy quest comedies, they’re pursued, distracted and occasionally thwarted by a grab-bag of shadowy ne’er-do-wells and bad actors. In this instance, one of those bad actors is actor Jason Biggs (played with great relish by … actor Jason Biggs) and his henchman played by Arturo Castro. The titular Taco Gary’s? It’s a DMZ of sorts, alien gathering spot and visual throughline for the film, the smiling sombrero-wearing mascot and red and green color scheme is splashed across signs, T-shirts and fast-food wrappers throughout whenever and wherever shenanigans are afoot. And there are a lot of shenanigans afoot. (Did I mention there are double-donged aliens? There are double-donged aliens.)

I’m no film critic, but I’d wager that the heavy-handed use of recurring jokes, callbacks, quirky comedy and the “embrace the chaos” message of the movie will, over time, make the chaos-o-rito that is “Taco Gary’s” a cult favorite. (Especially if your cult believes that a metropolis of squid people lives beneath Santa Fe, New Mexico.) The movie starts showing at local theaters February 28.

The premiere leaned into the on-screen vibe thanks to faux protesters (faux-testers?) outside the venue holding signs that proclaimed “THE MOON IS FLAT,” “SIMON REX KILLED 2PAC” and “STOP PUTTING MICROCHIPS IN OUR TEETH.” Although there weren’t any actual tacos on hand, there were a whole lot of Taco Gary’s fast-food bags for guests. The contents? A curated bag of goodies sourced from Kip Morrison and Associates’ roster of cannabis clients including Rockstar (a pre-roll joint), Gelato (infused sugar cone tips) and Sinful, whose 50 ml shooter bottle of Pepto-Bismol colored liquid prompted a warning. “Be careful,” said the chap who handed me my bag, “that drink has a 100 milligrams of THC in it.” (Mercy on any poor soul shooting their shot unaware.)

Since weed isn’t part of the movie’s plot — top billing there goes to a frequently deployed preloaded ketamine syringe and a brick of cocaine — I asked the guy who organized the premiere party, Rotten Science’s Kevin Nodel, for the back story.

“‘Operation Taco Gary’s’ is not overtly a stoner comedy,” Nodel told me, “but low-budget comedy always attracts a young, experimental audience that aligns really well with the weed market. And we knew that it would go hand-in-hand, which clearly it is because everyone’s been excited.”

And by what metric would Nodel consider the party part off the premiere a success?

“Not enough people are thinking about just creating a good hang,” he said. “So the metric for me is how many people have fun with it, and how many people are going to be talking about it in the office the next day? That alone is going to create excitement [around the movie.]

There are a ton of stars here. There are a ton of producers here. There are lots of [entertainment] executives here,” he continued. “And if they liked the hang, they’re gonna say something tomorrow.”

A few minutes later, I passed Macaulay Culkin (he’s engaged to the movie’s badger Brenda Song) and toastmaster extraordinaire Jeffrey Ross headed into the theater before finding myself elbow-to-elbow with award-winning actor Paul Walter Hauser (who took home a Golden Globe and an Emmy for his turn as a creepy murderer in “Blackbird”). So I took the opportunity to get his opinion. He told me that even though he isn’t a cannabis consumer, he’s bullish on the gift-bag idea.

“Giving away free weed at a movie premiere is one of the greatest things ever!” he said with a wide, enthusiastic smile.

His words, not mine.

A list of theaters showing “Operation Taco Gary’s” (including the Alamo Drafthouse in DTLA) as well as additional information about the movie can be found here.

The Artist Tree, a gallery-meets-dispensary concept with a dozen doors across California, plans to hide more than a hundred pieces of art in and around those shops as part of International Art & Found Day next month.

A first-time sponsor of the event, created seven years ago by Canadian artist Courtney Senior, The Artist Tree aims to collect the original artworks from donating artists (some of whom have had their works showcased on the dispensaries’ walls in the past) and then distribute them — wrapped, stickered and hashtagged with #ArtandFoundDay — on March 12.

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Wrapped in brown paper and bearing a colorful “Free Art” tag (similar to the one pictured above right), the pieces of art will be surreptitiously tucked away on dispensary shelves — as well as the immediate neighborhoods surrounding them — as part of a long-running global initiative to make art more accessible.

All you need to do to participate in the one-day, worldwide treasure hunt is keep those red eyes peeled while making your way to or from your closest Artist Tree location, four of which are in the greater L.A. area, including in West Hollywood and Hawthorne shops which have onsite consumption lounges. (A list of all dozen doors across the state can be found online at theartisttree.com.) For a little competitive edge, art-seekers can find day-of clues posted to the @theartisttree Instagram account.

To date, the participating artists include The Artist Tree’s in-house art curator Katie Brightside (in charge of programming for 10 of the 12 galleries), who has donated 10 pieces, and artist and customer experience specialist Alfonso Juarez who is contributing an original painting to the cause.

Oh, and if you’re an artist who wants to creative output to The Artist Tree’s one-day, high-art, hide-and-seek adventure for the worldwide effort, you can start the process by filling out the form here.

According to the International Art & Found Day’s website, there are currently 1102 artists in 24 countries in the mix for 2026.

Are you a Golden State ganja green thumb with a knack for growing backyard bud? If so, the California Cannabis Awards is giving you a chance to prove your pot prowess thanks to a newly added Home Grow – Flower competition.

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According to the organization’s February 23 announcement, the new competition category is “designed to recognize cannabis flower cultivated by California residents for personal, non-commercial use,” and will be judged using the same methods and criteria as the professionally grown flower in the annual agricultural event that awards an assortment of gold, silver and bronze medals in the run up to the California State Fair in mid-July where best-of-the-best Golden Bear awards are handed out.

If you think you’re home harvest has what it takes, where’s what you need to know — and do — to officially enter the competition:

How much time do I have to grow my potentially award-winning weed?

The submission window for the home grow competition — and the rest of the 2026 California Cannabis Awards categories — is open through May 22, 2026. That means your magical plant needs to have been grown, harvested, dried and cured by then.

The reality of this deadline is that this year’s award-winning weed has almost certainly already been harvested.

How much does it cost?

Each submission requires a $250 entry fee, which covers laboratory testing, chemometric analysis and eligibility for medal awards.

What do I need to do?

Start by filling out the official California Cannabis Awards entry form completely (incomplete forms won’t be accepted). Then, create an SC Labs account either through the link in the registration portal or by going directly to www.sclabs.com.

Next, seal and label seven grams of cannabis flower per entry according to SC Labs’ submission requirements and schedule your sample(s) to be picked up by the lab folks.

What will SC Labs be testing for?

The lab’s analysis will look at potency, terpene concentration and cannabinoid concentration and generate a chemometric report (think of it as a kind of chemical fingerprint), which will be the basis for competition scoring. This is important because the competition medals will be awarded exclusively on those laboratory results.

What categories will medals be awarded in?

Gold, silver and bronze hardware will be handed out in the following categories:

• The highest concentration of the following six specific terpenes: limonene, myrcene, beta-caryophyllene, pinene, ocimene and terpinolene

• The co-dominant terpene profile MCL (Myrcene-Caryophyllene-Limonene)

• Total terpene concentration

• Primary cannabinoids CBG and CBD

• Overall cannabinoid concentration

Is this the same criteria used for judging the professionally farmed flower categories?

Kind of. The chemotype-based sub-categories are the exact same ones used for judging commercial flower entries. The only difference is that the Home Grow entries won’t be separated by cultivation method; sun-grown, indoor and mixed-light submissions will compete together within each category.

Once I’ve submitted my entry, then what?

All gold medal winners in the Home Grow competition will be invited to participate in a live, on-site judging panel held on Saturday, July 25 at the California State Fair to compete for a Golden Bear trophy and the title of “Best Home Grow in California.”

This is crucial: Since the panel of expert judges — the same ones judging the commercial flower categories — will need to sample the gold-medal herb, it’s important that all entrants keep an additional 14 grams of product on hand until the medal winners are announced.

Where can I find out more information?

An extensive competition guide as well as additional information about the 2026 California Cannabis Awards can be found online at www.calcannabisawards.com/awards.

For most of the time I’ve been writing about cannabis professionally, I’ve kept just two publications within arm’s reach on my desk. One is Jack Herer’s “The Emperor Wears No Clothes,” and the other is Oaksterdam University’s “Cannabis Terminology Style Guide.” A few months ago, though, I added a third: “Reefer Wellness: Understanding Cannabis Science, Culture, & Medicine” (DK, June 2025) by cannabis research scientist and educator Dr. Riley Kirk (known by the handle Cannabichem to her 500K+ TikTok followers). Here are a few reasons why I added it to my close-at-hand baker’s bookshelf, and why you should consider adding it to yours:

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It’s a powerful, fact-based antidote to “Reefer Madness” misinformation

The title hints at the 1936 anti-herb film and Kirk’s introduction makes the connection explicit: the book’s aim is to turn “the notion of propaganda-ridden ‘Reefer Madness” upside down” by using hard science and a whole lot of good, old-fashioned facts. And this book’s 208 pages is chock full of them from the first chapter (“Nature & Drugs”) to the last (“Intentional Consumption & Navigating a Dispensary”).

She’s been there and done that

Early on in “Wellness,” Kirk makes it a point of assuring readers that weed-wise she doesn’t just talk the talk but also walks the walk. “There is not a product type or consumption method that I will discuss in this book that I haven’t tried myself,” she writes in the book’s introduction. To some people that may not seem like a big deal, but to anyone who has had to suffer hearing a scientist who has never hit a joint describing the plant’s pharmacological effects, it’s a big deal indeed.

It explains the why behind the high

How does the endocannabinoid system work? What’s the difference between cannabinoid receptors CB1 and CB2? What do enzymes have to do with the whole thing? What does the shape of a molecule have to do with getting the munchies? Why do edibles hit differently? In “Wellness,” Kirk doesn’t just make the science behind how we get high accessible, she also makes it relatable. Which is no easy feat.

It’s like a textbook — but in good way

Do you remember those middle-school textbooks that made you want to learn because of how approachable they made learning new stuff? “Reefer Wellness” is laid out the same way, with even the densest science-heavy text broken into easy-to- comprehend info bites and accompanied by lots of eye-catching illustrations to keep your eyes from glazing over.

Adding to the textbook-but-make-it-fun feel are the “smoke break” recaps that end each chapter and the “Nugs of Knowledge” info boxes scattered throughout, which serve up entertaining bite-size factoids guaranteed to make you the focus-puller of your next group sesh. Topics range from the U.S. government obtaining a patent for the cannabinoid CBG, an explainer on botanical- vs cannabis-derived terpenes, why smoking a roach feels different from smoking a joint and the science behind why THC-infused lozenges or hard candies dissolved in the mouth can hit faster than an edible in the stomach.

My favorite knowledge nug involves explaining that the fatty nature of cannabinoids is why THC is most often infused into fatty things like butter or oil (which I already knew) and then takes the extra step of pointing out that bongs and bubblers work for the same reason. “[C]annabinoids won’t dissolve in water,” Kirk writes, “but some of the other junk in smoke will!”

Did I mention that I love this book?

In short, I love this book and everything that’s in it and, in my opinion, anyone who puts cannabis into their system on a regular basis owes it to themselves to put it on their must-read list. I guarantee that no matter how weed-smart you think you are, you’ll definitely find something new worth knowing (and probably a lot of somethings) between the covers of “Reefer Wellness.”

(Pro tip: If you order a copy here, she’ll autograph it for you.)

The Old Farmer’s Almanac garnered some serious attention on canna-centric social media last month when it was noticed that the devil’s lettuce had been added to the OFA’s online Planting and Gardening Guide for the first time — listed right there between candytuft and cantaloupes.

“That quiet inclusion,” wrote Beard Bros Media, “marks a cultural milestone — and one that reflects how deeply cannabis has become normalized over the past several decades.”

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When I headed over to the almanac’s website to check it out for myself (the below spring planting advice is based on my SoCal ZIP Code) I was surprised to find that the cannabis entry actually hyperlinks to a landing page titled “How to Grow Cannabis Indoors and Outdoors: The Complete Plant Guide” featuring a robust bumper crop of gardening advice.

The lead article is “How to Start Growing a Weed Plant From Seed” written by Melissa Moore, a cannabis professor and horticulture coordinator at SUNY Niagara, and two of the articles linked at the bottom of the page (one on picking the best feminized seeds and another on autoflower seeds) were penned by Parker Curtis, a cultivation expert and educator with Florida-based Homegrown Cannabis Co. (remember that company’s name, I’ll be coming back to it).

Since I’m not used to turning to the Old Farmer’s Almanac for my herb-growing advice (ever since writing about the USDA-grant-funded Grow It From Home gardening workshop program a few years back, I’ve been been lucky enough to get my weed wisdom firsthand from Oregon-based commercial hemp farmer Emily Gogol), I didn’t know how exactly how long the 234-year-old publication had been catering to the ganja greenthumb crowd. Was this as brand new as the gushing on the socials made it seem? Or has it been part of the esteemed publication’s crop rotation in the past and we somehow missed it?

To get the straight dope, I hopped on a Zoom call to ask the almanac’s editor-in-chief Carol Connare who told me it’s actually a little bit of both. It turns out that hemp (which we all know is the exact same plant) has been part of the Old Farmer’s Almanac coverage since founding editor Robert B. Thomas published the first issue back in 1792. Connare pointed me to a handful of mentions in that issue including this planting guidance for February 1793:

Look to your bees.

See to your doves.

Begin to get out your hemp and flax , as the days begin to moderate.

“I can find regular mentions of hemp in editions throughout the 1800s,” Connare added, “and only one after 1920 , in 1967, which was a reference again to flax/hemp as feed crops.”

After that, she said, cannabis went MIA from the pages of the Old Farmer’s Almanac until just a few years back.

“When I became editor here in 2023, we were just working on the 2024 Garden Guide and there was this story [in play],” Connare said as she held a print copy of Melissa Moore’s “how to grow” story from the 2024 guide up to her webcam. “My predecessor really didn’t want to put it in there,” she continued, “but I had come from Massachusetts, where everybody grew — and I grew — and people were asking for information so we responded to that [ask]. … Our readers are interested in herbal remedies of all kinds, and growing their own food and so [we decided] let’s give them the information.”

“We added cannabis to the planting calendar last November,” she explained, “at the same time we launched the cannabis grower’s guide, which was based on the 2024 story in the annual Garden Guide print edition.”

So the Old Farmer’s Almanac’s relationship with the cannabis plant isn’t exactly new. What is new and noteworthy, though, is that the most recent print edition of the annual OFA proper — the one with the distinctive old-timey yellow cover that was published in September 2025, contains a full-page cannabis ad for the Homegrown Cannabis Co. (I told you I’d be coming back to it). There’s also a smaller ad for the same company later in the almanac (on page 73 if you have a copy of it kicking around) along with a few gardening tips. (Example: “Surround your cannabis with fragrant thyme to attract pollinators and vibrant marigolds to naturally repel pests.”)

In the battle to normalize and destigmatize the magical plant, I agree that cannabis’ inclusion in the print version (in September 2025) and online seasonal planting and gardening guide (beginning in November 2025) are both very symbolic and very visible wins. But the quality of the information? Unfortunately, it isn’t where it should be for such a trusted gardener’s go-to. Some of it is head-scratchingly confusing and some of it feels like its repeating internet-mined misinformation.

Case in point, this curious advice for when to start your indoor plants: “Start seeds in late winter or early spring (February-March).”

“No,” said hemp farmer Emily Gogol who I’d asked to eyeball the OFA’s advice, “the whole point with indoor is that you can grow anytime you want! I can’t believe I just read that.”

Gogol pointed out a couple other places — some big and some small — where the guidance was sub-par. Among them: germinating a cannabis seed by dropping it in a glass of warm water (one of the article’s three suggested methods), which she called “insane” (I was embarrassed to admit to Gogol that I’d been doing this — wrong — for years in my own home-grow efforts) and the advice to wait to transfer plants from inside to outside until three to four weeks before summer solstice. (“I think they’re confused about light cycles,” she said.)

“I love that they tried, I love that they’re speaking to backyard gardeners,” Gogol said. “There’s a lot of great information — maybe 90% of it is great but it’s very conflicting. But I think any kind of traditional gardening acknowledgement on cannabis for the home grower feels nice and I appreciate that times a million. It makes me so incredibly happy.”

I agree with Gogol that we should celebrate this as a symbolic win it is and not let the perfect be the enemy of the good advice-wise. And, if The Old Farmer’s Almanac wants to up its herb gardening game for next year’s edition?

“I’d be happy to write it for them,” Gogol said.