Union leaders are talking about normal union concerns in a dimly lit Arcata bar. There are cocktails all around. They talk about safety, protecting jobs, keeping wages high, changing laws and providing training and education for workers and employers. Although these sound like run-of-the-mill union concerns, this is not your typical union. This is the […]
The Week in Weed
Posted inLetters + Opinion
The Sweet Spot
It was Benjamin Franklin who famously wrote in a 1789 letter that “in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” Well, California pot farmers have largely skirted the second of those for decades and now fear the looming certainty of taxation may bring death to their businesses. The Humboldt […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Big Brands
Microsoft made some tech industry-sized waves this week with the announcement that it’s diving into the marijuana business. Before you get too excited, don’t expect to find any Windows 10 Kush in your next purchase of Microsoft Office. Nonetheless, the $290 billion multinational “broke the corporate taboo on pot,” as the New York Times put […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Worldly Weed
After Grant Scott-Goforth’s parting shot last week debunking the racist connotations of the word “marijuana,” it seemed only fitting to follow up with another column blatantly pandering to the etymology nerds in our readership. We were initially intrigued by the word “bong,” which, according to an online etymology dictionary, comes from the Thai word “baung,” […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
‘Marijuana’ Isn’t Racist
Last year, I watched a room full of white people cheer as a white grower told a panel of white lawmakers that the word “marijuana” was racist. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard that particular line of thinking, and certainly wasn’t the last. It’s been repeated by many in the industry, from gentle reminders […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Bye, Bye Night Sky
Dear neighbors, We live in a lonely place. When I was a kid, I’d sit on our porch with only the radio for company and let the big dark swallow me up. The mountains that framed the Mattole Valley bit into the star-strewn sky like dark, crooked teeth. That wild land, owned by the Bureau […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Greeting the Pot Czarina
A line of more than 100 eager attendees snaked out of the entrance to Arcata’s D Street Neighborhood Center to meet the chief of California’s newly formed Bureau of Medical Marijuana Regulation. The czarina, Lori Ajax, started the meeting, explaining to a mostly jovial crowd that the bureau was in its infancy. “I started with […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Dude, Where’s My Impairment Test?
The American Automobile Association’s name cropped up in several articles this month on the topic of driving while under the influence of marijuana. On the basis of headlines alone, the organization, which often weighs in on issues effecting motorists, appears to have added its influence to a conflicting array of opinions. Tests that examine marijuana […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Leaving Humboldt in the Dust
The sleepy, dusty desert east of Los Angeles may be looking like a threat to Humboldt County’s marijuana industry. While the arid landscape may seem inhospitable to plants, two small cities in the region have been making strides to entice large-scale commercial marijuana farmers. Land prices have skyrocketed in Desert Hot Springs and Adelanto since […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Cannabis in the Centennial State
The Colorado Department of Public Safety released early findings on the effects cannabis legalization has had on law enforcement, commerce, health and juveniles. The study, mandated as part of the 2014 initiative decriminalizing recreational marijuana use in the state, is bracketed by a series of caveats. It’s not comprehensive; many of its statistics are self-reported. […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Butane Hash Oil
Whether it be oils, shatter, wax or honeycomb, the marijuana concentrates market is exploding. And in the eyes of some, that’s a very literal problem. Potent concentrates now make up about half of all legal recreational marijuana sales in Colorado, and some industry insiders predict the shatters, oils and hashes of the weed world will […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
High Enough?
If you spent your 4/20 crumbling up buds, rolling them up in papers and puffing away, you’re going the way of dinosaurs, according to industry insiders. “Nobody smokes flowers anymore,” Emerald Cup founder and Mendocino marijuana entrepreneur Tim Blake dismissively told Bloomberg BusinessWeek in a recent interview, during which he estimated that concentrates — things […]