U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions tossed some more shade on marijuana last week, adding to growing concerns that a federal crackdown is looming for the $7 billion industry. Speaking about efforts to combat violent crime and “restore public safety” before a group of state and local law enforcement in Richmond, Virginia, on March 15, Sessions […]
The Week in Weed
Posted inLetters + Opinion
The Strain Name Game
Quibbling over how we can brand cannabis using Humboldt as a signifier of the sticky icky is not new. In August of 2016 the county launched its track-and-trace program, allowing local growers to stamp their product with proof of origin. In January, state Sen. Mike McGuire introduced a bill that would strengthen existing wording in […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Quick Withdraw
Attendees at this year’s High Times Cannabis Cup in Las Vegas, Nevada, were dealt a double blow of disappointment last weekend when organizers announced at the last minute there would be no marijuana allowed at the event, then canceled the second day due to high winds. The change came after U.S. Attorney Daniel Bogden sent […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
The Smell Test
What’s that smell? It’s a question that apparently carries a lot less legal significance than it once did. Up until recently in California, a whiff of the sticky icky was enough to give a police officer probable cause to search your vehicle or home. But Proposition 64 and the legalization of possession and cultivation of […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Inebriation by Automation
When former President Barack Obama struck a somber tone in his farewell speech last month, it’s unlikely many in the hills of Humboldt took much notice. “The next wave of economic dislocations won’t come from overseas,” the then-president warned. “It will come from the relentless pace of automation that makes a lot of good, middle-class […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Gubernatorial Advice
Fresh off a report that legal recreational marijuana sales reached $1.3 billion in his state last year, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper dropped by Sacramento to advise California lawmakers on the state’s rollout of recreational regulation. Speaking before a Senate Governance and Finance Committee hearing chaired by North Coast state Sen. Mike McGuire, Hickenlooper said he […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Weed and Prejudice
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a musical group visiting Humboldt County must be in want of getting very, very high. Who hasn’t been to a show here where the singer opens by complimenting our cannabis? Sunday’s highly anticipated Run the Jewels concert was no different, with DJ Nick Hook starting his set by […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Market Forces
Forbes just released its retrospective on 2016 in the cannabis market and, if you’ve got resin on your fingers and dirt under your nails, the news isn’t good. America’s preeminent business magazine estimates the wholesale price of marijuana fell last year from $2,500 to between $1,000 and $1,486 per pound, with some dispensaries offering recreational […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
The Gateway Nug
There’s a reason people find the phrase “gateway drug” so polarizing. It was popularized in the Reagan era, a time notorious for both misinformation and backward attitudes toward drug treatment and harm reduction. The narrative of cannabis as a gateway drug in anti-drug messaging relied largely on a reducto ad absurdum slippery slope of logical […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
The Cannabis Conundrum
When I began my brief career as a drug and alcohol counselor (2010-2012), I had learned to define sobriety along some pretty stark lines: Either you were abstinent from all psychoactive substances or you weren’t. Sober people don’t take medicine that doesn’t have their name on the label. Sober people don’t occasionally take psilocybin mushroom […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Cloudy Sessions
Humboldt County marijuana growers hoping a typo would grant them a reprieve from paying the twice-yearly excise tax overwhelmingly passed by voters in November are going to be disappointed. When 65 percent of county voters passed Measure S, imposing a $1 to $3 per-square foot tax on commercial grows, they apparently missed a potentially crucial […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
So You Want to Start/Stop Smoking Weed
So You Want to Start Smoking Weed Kids, put this down. Your brains don’t finish developing until you’re 24, and while statistically you’re probably going to start getting high long before then, science suggests you’re way better off not doing so. If you learn to handle negative emotions and stress without getting high, drunk or […]