Oct. 2022 - NW Leaf

SMOKE TECH EVOLUTION

LEAF TECH ROUNDUP

DUTCH LIGHTING INNOVATIONS

Marijuana products may be purchased or possessed only by persons 21 or older. This product has intoxicating effects and may be habit forming. Marijuana can impair concentration, coordination, and judgement. Do not operate a vehicle or machinery under the influence of this drug. There may be health risks associated with consumption of this product. For use only by adults 21 and older. Keep out of reach of children.

WES ABNEY CEO & FOUNDER wes@leafmagazines.com

MIKE RICKER OPERATING PARTNER ricker@leafmagazines.com | advertising sales

TOM BOWERS CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER tom@leafmagazines.com

DANIEL BERMAN CREATIVE DIRECTOR daniel@leafmagazines.com

O’HARA SHIPE ONLINE EDITOR ohara@leafmagazines.com

MEGHAN RIDLEY COPY EDITOR meghan@leafmagazines.com

ABOUT THE COVER

For our magazine’s first-ever Tech Issue, the founder and CEO of Puffco, Roger Volodarsky, was a worthy cover figure. From his company’s headquarters in downtown Los Angeles, Volodarsky oversees a growing empire of Cannabis consumption devices which haveforevermorphedthecommunity. But as the Leaf’s Bobby Black makes clear in his fascinating profile, this is one tech mogul who would rather stay behind the scenes and let his products tell the story. Making the pictures throughout this piece was the art of California-based freelance photographer Justin L. Stewart, who has freelanced for the Leaf since 2021.

PHOTO by JUSTIN L. STEWART @JUSTNLSTEWART

CONTRIBUTORS

DREW BARDANA, ILLUSTRATION

DANIEL BERMAN, PHOTOS

BOBBY BLACK, DESIGN + FEATURES

JOSHUA BOULET, ILLUSTRATION

TOM BOWERS, FEATURES

EARLY, PRODUCTION

STEVE ELLIOTT, NATIONAL NEWS

YOUNG KWAK, PHOTOS

GREG MALCOLM, PHOTOS

JEFF PORTERFIELD DESIGN

JESSE RAMIREZ, DESIGN

MIKE RICKER, FEATURES

MEGHAN RIDLEY, EDITING

JUSTIN L. STEWART, PHOTOS

TERPENE TRANSIT, DISTRIBUTION

WES ABNEY

Editor’s Note

Thanks for picking up the first Tech Issue of the Leaf!

When I first started smoking weed, the pinnacle of tech was turning an apple or a soda can into a smoking device. Personally, I always loved the apple pipe, as it turned into a healthy snack afterwards and there was no evidence left behind to get in trouble for!

Luckily for Cannabis lovers, the legalization movement has led to investment and innovation into fun and creative ways to get baked. From home infusers for making Cannabis cooking oil, honey and topicals, to the variety of vaporizers and gear for taking the perfect dab – there’s a plethora of new ways to consume the plant we all know and love.

JAMIE VICTOR, DESIGN

DAN VINKOVETSKY, FEATURES

JERRY WHITING, CONTRIBUTOR KAT WOLF, REVIEWS

We are creators of targeted, independent Cannabis journalism. Please email us to discuss advertising in the next issue of Northwest Leaf Magazine. We do not sell stories or coverage. We can offer design services and guidance on promoting your company’s medicinal, recreational, commercial or industrial Cannabis business, product or event within our magazine and on our website, leafmagazines.com. Email ricker@leafmagazines.com to start advertising with

This month’s cover story comes to us via Puffco Founder and CEO, Roger Volodarsky. Unless you’ve been stoned and living under a rock for the last few years, you likely know the name Puffco and have tried their line-up of amazing electronic vaporizers. Puffco has definitely changed the game for the portable consumption of Cannabis, and they continue to lead the way in combining tech with pot – including the release of new toys like the Proxy, and the super useful Hot Knife dab tool. Check out Bobby Black’s interview and dive into the world of Puffco, which we get a glimpse of on our iconic cover.

As there’s no shortage of great companies making Cannabis tech these days, our Leaf team also compiled a selection of our favorite gear for getting high. Check out our roundup with innovations ranging from portable terp fridges to joint tips, and everything else you might need to up your stoner game or add to a holiday shopping list! While this is our first Tech Issue, I definitely expect to see it coming back for years to come as the world continues to embrace Cannabis use in a modern format.

So whether you’re an old school joint roller (we have a new machine for that) or the most trendy terp hunter, there’s a piece of tech to help you get more stoned – and as always, a bunch of other Leaf content for your enjoyment.

Thanks for reading, and keep your e-nails charged and at low temps!

“MAYBE BUT

“OUR LEAF TEAM ALSO COMPILED A SELECTION OF OUR FAVORITE GEAR FOR GETTING HIGH.”

KEEPS UP CANNABIS BAN

The World Anti-Doping Agency is likely to keep a ban on marijuana use by athletes in 2023. The agency continued the ban despite pressure to change the policy on Cannabis after U.S. sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson was barred from the Summer Olympic Games after testing positive last year.

With the continued ban on weed by the body charged with preventing drugs in international sports, athletes who test positive for marijuana in competition will face suspension from eligibility. However, last year WADA announced that it would conduct a scientific review to determine if pot should remain on the banned substances list – receiving the encouragement of the U.S. AntiDoping Agency to conduct the review, as well as broad support from athletes and politicians.

43% OF YOUNG ADULTS USE CANNABIS

Marijuana use among young adults reached an all-time high last year. In 2021, nearly 43 percent of individuals between the ages 19 and 30 said they had used Cannabis in the past 12 months.

The research was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and conducted by the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research. The Monitoring the Future report found a steady increase in marijuana usage in the age group over the past decade.

The numbers rose from 29 percent in 2011 to 34 percent in 2016. Monitoring the Future research has tracked substance use in the United States for more than three decades.

WOMEN FOR WEED

AT

a traffic stop in Alabama, a cop found a small amount of marijuana. Ashley Banks, a 23-year-old woman, admitted to officers that she had smoked weed two days earlier. It was the very same day that Banks learned she was pregnant.

She was six weeks along.

It was this disclosure – the fact that she was pregnant – that led Etowah County officials to keep her in jail. But this was done so without a trial, and she was locked up for the next three months – charged with ”chemical endangerment” of her fetus.

Banks fell victim to a weird Alabama law that advocates say Etowah County enforces with disturbing enthusiasm. Pregnant women arrested for drug offenses aren’t even allowed to post bail and go free (the way everyone else is). They have to stay in state custody: either in jail, or in a residential drug rehab program.

The “logic” is that the women are supposedly a danger to their fetuses. Therefore, they supposedly need to be imprisoned by the state for the duration, in order to “protect their pregnancies.”

1.5$18m

ounces of weed will be legal to possess if Maryland’s Question 4 is approved by voters.

pounds of illegal Cannabis was discovered in a Salt Lake City warehouse in September.

k

pounds of untaxed marijuana was seized in a Wolf Creek, Ore. bust

month.

73%

Republicans believe legal Cannabis businesses should have the same rights as other legal businesses.

in medical marijuana sales for July made up Colorado’s lowest total since January 2014.

$10 b

market loss, on average, is experienced by pharmaceutical companies after a state legalizes weed.

CALIFORNIA LAW PROTECTS CANNABIS USE OFF-THE-CLOCK

California will likely soon become the seventh state to protect workers from losing their jobs if they smoke marijuana when they are off the clock. State lawmakers in August passed a bill to stop companies from punishing workers who fail certain types of drug tests. The analyses in question do not determine whether a person is high. Instead, they identify metabolites indicative of whether the person has used marijuana in recent days or weeks.

These tests use urine or hair samples to detect a substance the body makes when it breaks down THC. But the THC metabolites can stay in a person’s body for weeks after using marijuana, according to the Mayo Clinic. That shortcoming means that people who fail a marijuana test are often not impaired at all.

Assembly Bill 2188 protects workers from punishment for failing the aforementioned drug analyses – however, companies could still reprimand employees for failing other types. These include tests using saliva, which are reputedly better at determining if a person is currently high.

sports TENNIS STAR UPSET ABOUT POT AT US OPEN

Nick Kyrgios was in the second set of his second-round match against Benjamin Bonzi at the U.S. Open in late August – when out of the blue, he turned to the chair umpire and started complaining about a whiff of marijuana being in the air at Louis Armstrong Stadium.

“...he turned to the chair umpire and started complaining about a whiff of marijuana being in the air at Louis Armstrong Stadium.”

Up a set and at 4-3 on serve in the second, Kyrgios asked the umpire to issue a warning to the crowd after claiming he saw and smelled someone smoking weed. On the way to his bench during a changeover, the volatile 27-year-old petulantly sniped, “You don’t even want to remind anyone not to do it?”

Quoted

-Arnold Marcus, the owner of Golden Gate Grinders, whose list ings for grinders were removed from Amazon after the company found his posts in violations of their guidelines on drugs and drug paraphernalia. According to The Seattle Times, Amazon has begun flagging listed products that were allowed for years.

STORIES by STEVE ELLIOTT, AUTHOR OF THE LITTLE BLACK BOOK OF MARIJUANA

“One day, they were supporting me and then one day it ended.”

TASTE THE TERPS

Constellation has done it again. The first company to develop a hash rosin vape cart three years ago, has launched the first ceramic reusable pod system in America.

This one gram pod system was designed for full spectrum hash rosin that delivers a dab in a vape.

The battery is set low at 1.8 volts to preserve the terps and enhance the effects of full spectrum hash rosin.

- One Gram - No Chemicals

With this kind of energy, it’s no surprise that she loves being near the ocean collecting shells, stones and sea glass, or just swimming into the waves. The only downside is not being able to take her beloved cockatiel named Pretty Bird, who she grew up with for 15 years of her early life. Follow her on Instagram @brookiebaybiee.

YOU’VE BEEN AT DESTINATION HWY 420 FOR FIVE YEARS. THAT’S A LIFETIME IN BUDTENDER YEARS.

I’ve worked at a couple shops and this one is my favorite – the last one had a more corporate way of doing things. I like to help with training some of the new budtenders, so it just feels like home for me.

IN THE PAST YEAR YOUR AMBITIONS HAVE REACHED BEYOND BUDTENDING INTO FREELANCE MODELING. HAS BUDTENDING BEEN A CONFIDENCE BUILDER FOR THIS NEW ADVENTURE? I have just developed this confidence in the past year. I used to be really shy and insecure because I have a very rare skin condition I was born with. I’ve always been nervous in public because I have scars and shit, so when I started smoking weed when I was 15, it helped with my depression and anxiety.

WHAT CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT THAT SKIN CONDITION? It’s called EB, or epidermolysis bullosa. We’re known as the butterfly children. If you look online, you can learn more about it.

ARE TOPICALS HELPFUL? Yes. Basically, I’m missing two layers of skin, so any friction causes a blister – therefore I’m always in pain. I have so many scars on my back because of my skin disorder, so when I first turned 21 and found topicals, it helped with the pain and the scarring. It’s also helped with my feet because they always hurt – and my hands, too.

WOULD YOU SAY THAT MODELING IS SOMEWHAT OF AN ESCAPE FOR YOU? Absolutely. People will tell me that they can’t even tell that I have a skin disorder because I hide it really well. I’ve hidden it my entire life. But now I’m ready to embrace my uniqueness – and modeling has helped me break out of my shell, partly because I’ve met other models who also have skin disorders.

WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO GIRLS WHO ARE INSECURE ABOUT THEIR BODIES? You be you and live your life. Don’t give up because when you conquer your demons, life only gets better. I mean, I still struggle every day – but it’s not as bad as it used to be. I’ve accepted that I have to live the rest of my life with this condition and the more I get OK with it, the happier I become.

IF YOU COULD SMOKE ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD, WHERE WOULD IT BE? On the Greek Isles.

HASHTAG

Just across the Fremont Bridge.

“UPON ENTRY, YOU’LL CATCH A MURAL OF AN OCEAN SCENE AND SMALL WINDOW PORTALS THAT OFFER THE SENSATION OF ESCAPING INTO THE INTERIOR OF A LARGE SAILBOAT FOR A MELLOW CRUISE.”

TAG,

WOW FACTOR

Coming from the world of engineering, you probably wouldn’t have expected owners Jerina Pillert and Logan Bowers to initially have their sights set on acclaimed local artist and muralist Henry @artofhenry. But sure enough, they landed him to design the front of their original storefront in Fremont, which gave that place an indelible identity. After the building was sold, however, the time had arrived for a relocation to the current addy on the very backside of Queen Anne. And now it’s more accessible than ever!

NAUTICAL INSPIRATION

Upon entry, you’ll catch a mural of an ocean scene and small window portals that offer the sensation of escaping into the interior of a large sailboat for a mellow cruise. With the canal and Fremont drawbridge so close by, you’ll feel as if your next destination is through the Ballard Locks and into the open bay. The idea of the minimal, whitewashed interior was to make the focus on the beautiful Cannabis products, without distracting elements that deter your curious eye.

STAFF PICKS

FLOWERS

Sweetwater Farms Electric Jellyfish - Chey

Bros Grape Ape - Bee

Sky High Gardens Alien Asshat - Dasha

Skord Nightmare Cake - Jesse

Joints

Tranquil Forest Trendsetter - Chey

Saints Mixed Packs - Bee

Lazy Bee Hash Infused Baccio Bars - Dasha

Lifted Sugar Stix - Jesse

CARTS

Harmony Farms Platinum Glue Live Resin - Chey Canna Organix Pomelo Runtz - Bee

PNW Roots Solventless Afghani Kush - Dasha

Avitas Wedding Cake - Jesse

DABS

Xtracted Labs Crumpets - Chey Falcanna Blueberry Tide - Bee

Refine Pineapple Chunk - Dasha Fire Bros Monkey’s Paw - Jesse

EDIBLES

Honu Gimme Sa’mores - Chey

Wyld Pear 1:1 CBG - Bee

Verdelux Bombshells - Dasha

Ray’s Lemonade’s 1:1 CBD - Jesse

SEATTLE

REDMOND

EVERETT

SOLSTICE

Weathering the seasons of change in Cannabis at Washington’s first fully licensed grow

IN 2011, Solstice would become the first fully-licensed Cannabis grow operation in the state. However, if you flash back to 2009 when eventual co-founders Will Denman and Alex Cooley first crossed paths, the concept of mainstream medical marijuana didn’t even exist. Cooley was cultivating in garages in the mostly unregulated market when he met Den man, a UW Business graduate, and the two set off on a pioneering journey that has led to one of the more revered farms in Washington.

While both say they had a relationship with medical Cannabis early on, it was meeting the Day Family that provided the quintessential “a-ha moment.” After Ryan Day publicly shared his struggles to access legal marijuana that would help his son Haiden’s severe epilepsy, Cool ey reached out with a solution: Sour Tsunami #3, a rare strain low in psychoactive THC but high in therapeutic CBD.

Cooley consulted Day on how to cultivate these strains himself and left behind a pound for Haiden to try, which he added to his applesauce after drying out the buds and extracting the concentrate. Haiden’s seizures became much less frequent and intense, but when the samples ran out and his first homegrown batch failed, Day couldn’t afford to pay out-of-pocket for his son’s medicine. After all, it was considered an illicit, federally-prohibited drug that insurance wouldn’t cover.

It was this experience that made Denman and Cooley realize there was a gap here: How could anyone expect Cannabis to be accepted as medicine and accessible to patients without the oversight you’d expect from other traditional forms of medicine?

“These people deserve to have access to medical Cannabis on a more regular basis that is consistent and can be trusted,” says Denman. “The only way to do that is to have it out in the open and built into the law. Even if it took time and was small and slow to begin with, we wanted to build something that would be around and lasting for people to have access to long term. For us to do that and be sustainable as an enterprise, we knew we’d have to gener ate a firm legal and operational framework around us.”

Above: Solstice Grow Team stands in front of the company’s mural by artist Shogo Ota.

At the time, a single patient could have one recommenda tion and grow for themselves with the ability to sell their excess product to other patients. With this proposed new model, patients would be able to sign over their rights collectively, allowing a commercial grow to stack recommenda tions and grow on behalf of all those patients. Denman and Cooley’s vision was to create a commercial scale with efficiencies and qual ity-control standards that would ensure safe and reliable access to medical Cannabis.

Below: Co-founder Will Denman.

So, the pair officially teamed up to tackle the process of building it from the ground up. Denman brought his set of business skills to the table, while Cooley had growing experience and valuable politi cal ties after years of advocating for medical patients. Working in tandem with the State of Washington, City of Seattle and King Coun ty, the battle to “rebrand Cannabis” began as they started lobbying for the collective garden model.

Once the prosecuting attorney for the city approved collective gardening, it was smooth sailing, right? Not so much. After countless at tempts at finding a landlord who’d sign a lease with a Cannabis cultivator, the pair closed the garage doors and graduated to a legitimate facility on First Ave in SoDo. At the time, the department of planning didn’t even have zon ing for Cannabis – the location was originally labeled as an “urban agriculture” site.

Yet again, the Solstice team worked along side the city to write the legislation – and the SoDo site became the first permitted marijuana cultivation site in Washington. Cooley’s brain child soon became a highly-functional “living lab” that legislators would tour for years to come as a shining example of legal Cannabis in action. The brand operated out of this site from 2010-2014, and while it was the first of many adventures, it certainly wasn’t the last.

If there’s one constant in Cannabis, it’s change. And if there’s one brand that has truly embraced the ebbs and flows of this ever-evolving industry in Washington, it’s Solstice.

“How could anyone expect Cannabis to be accepted as medicine and accessible to patients without the oversight you’d expect from other traditional forms of medicine?

SOLSTICE

WHEN Washington passed recreational adult use in 2015, Solstice moved to a larger indoor facility and once again “paddled into the wave” of more changing tides in Cannabis – figuring out how to take that once revolutionary 6,000-squarefoot medical grow and ramp it up in a way that would meet recreational demands without sacrificing quality.

“We’re always trying to figure out how to be more thoughtful about how we cul tivate,” says Denman. “Indoor is what we knew, but when we built our first recreational site, we wanted it to be as cutting-edge as we could with that style of growing. We incorporated LEDs, brought on agriculture experts to dial in our feeding and nutrient systems, and scaled up our techniques and strategies –creating the newest iteration of the indoor growing style we’ve done over and over at different degrees throughout the years.”

Now, yet another season of change is starting as Solstice looks to stay true to its roots while continuing to grow as the industry does. The brand is focusing on evolving its genetic lineup and developing exclusive relationships with well-known breeders – with plans to release a premium line at the end of the year. As for Denman and Cooley? While they’ve certainly left their mark on Washington Cannabis, they know the fight isn’t over just yet. Denman said it best: “This is an indus try that is gonna throw punch es and you’ve got to be ready to take those as lessons – as opposed to feeling like they’re telling you not to go on.”

Katherine Wolf is a Cannabis writer, branding specialist, and the Chief Marketing & Operations Officer of Malek’s Premium Cannabis, a small-batch Colorado cultivator focused on flavor-first genetics.

“Even if it took time and was small and slow to begin with, we wanted to build something that would be around and lasting for people to have access to long term.”

-CO-FOUNDER WILL DENMAN

Huckleberry x Haze

Award-winning Cannabis

Head of Cultivation Briana Brodin

EXPERIENCE THE DIFFERENCE

PICC JOINTS

FOR A TECHNIQUE that’s as old as time, the art of rolling the perfect joint has largely stayed an expression of personal ability, holding in place like an evolutionary oddity ripe for development. As the remainder of the weed world has embraced technology to create ever better ways to get stoned, the closest thing that the joint has had to innovation were boxes that shake weed into a paper cone. That’s not exactly rocket science – nor the type of innovation that will blast you off like a rocket with a smoking experience. The quest to improve the humble joint (specifically the infused joint) has been the Shangri-La for the company, which has spent the last seven years of his journey bringing joint-rolling into the 21st century.

STORY by WES ABNEY @BEARDEDLORAX/NORTHWEST LEAF | PHOTOS by YOUNG KWAK @YOUNGKWAK

INFUSED FUTURES

The first time I heard the term “pascal” was on the phone with Chief Engineer Mark Holderman, who explained that it’s a scientific way to articulate how well a joint or cigarette smokes based on the amount of air pressure required to hit it. In science jargon, it’s about the amount of draw resistance relative to gas phase pressure and flow velocity fields inside a burning joint – not exactly the terms most brands use when describing their products. These were concepts I’d never considered before, despite having smoked a great many joints in my career.

While my understanding of the science behind a joint was hazy, I had experienced a great many infused joints that didn’t smoke right – or at all – and ruined several pairs of shoes and jeans with oil dripping off a flaring joint, reminiscent of a sparkler on the Fourth of July. Most joints are “infused” by either rolling oil inside, or painting it on the outside –both of which cause inconsistent burns and are generally a waste of time and money. Offer an infused joint to a heady connoisseur and the look you’ll get will be less than stellar. The PICC platform wants to change that perception, one puff at a time.

Like many disruptive technologies, these innovations happening in Spokane, Washington are in a nondescript warehouse full of dedicated engineers. The day I took a tour, an older gen tleman accidentally poked his head inside and asked where the paddle board manufacturer was, while giving a wild-eyed look to the ma chine the size of a car whirring with activity and filling bins with joints. The terps in the air could have told any stoner that this was not the type of “resin” to make a water sports toy, but we laughed that nothing goes together quite as well as a joint and a paddle.

Standing inside the facility feels like a machine shop, which it has been for the better part of a decade. To build the iter ations of the machine required advanced CAD designs from scratch, designing virtually before computer-controlled CNC machines manufactured each part, often repeating the same process over and over until the function of a specific part was per fected. With thousands of moving pieces, everything has to work in unison, with a custom software to run it.

“When people hear that this project has taken seven years, we often laugh that it must have been a really good joint to last this long,” Holderman said with a grin. “It really comes down to our team and the dedication to development, and not being satisfied until the process is truly perfect to release it to the world.”

COMBINING SCIENCE WITH WEED

The most unique factor in the PICC platform is how the joints are filled with flower and oil. Once the moisture content has been measured and the flower ground to the corresponding consisten cy, compressed air layers the bud in bursts – creating a perfect density as the bud stacks up in the joint.

When the joint reaches capacity (measured by both a scale and a laser), the machine gives the flower a gentle final compression before folding a patented joint tip that looks like origami, with a perfect hole in the center. This is where the concentrate will enter (through a hollow metal tube that goes to a premeasured point), filling the core with concentrate as it exits, leaving a perfect center of oil inside a layered joint.

Where this process makes the biggest difference is in how the joint smokes and vaporizes. While flower is something that is “smoked” by burning, it’s not how you want to consume concen trates. That’s why concentrates are vaped, and the construction of the PICC joints causes the oil and terpenes to vaporize at ideal temperatures as the flower around it burns – delivering clean hits without flares or runs in the joint. This also allows for efficient consumption of the oil, vaporizing the entire core, which gets the user stoned without waste or ruined jeans. And it all starts with the origami fold, which is designed to light easily and quickly, prepar ing the joint for inhalation in a consistent fashion.

“It’s not enough to have a good joint 98% of the time,” Hold erman explained seriously. “We want to have a perfect joint every single time, with the level of consistency that you would expect from a cigarette company.”

The amount of science controlling each step in the machinery process is intense, which is why the project has taken up seven years of time, and holds over 89 unique patent claims. Each piece in the process has to function perfectly: weighing out the flower, the joint itself, trimming and clipping it, infusing the oil. This results in a completely uniform final product.

Surfaces are kept cool, even as the machine runs, to avoid resin buildup – and core parts swap out mechanically to be cleaned au tomatically as freshly-cleaned pieces jump in. The slightest disruption in air pressure or air bubbles within the infusion system could cause chaos, leading to inconsistency in the amount of oil, which is where the software and firmware controls continue to ensure perfection. Each part of the machine is designed in “cassettes” that can be removed, fixed or updated, with scalability being key to the process.

When the machines are fully running, the only human element is filling the receivers with ground flower or concentrate, which will eventually be done with robot arms. While the goal isn’t to remove humans from the symbiotic growing process of Cannabis, the PICC platform certainly wants to remove human error from the rolling pro cess – the same way that food or pharmaceuticals are manufactured with limited human touches for both safety and efficiency.

“The construction of the PICC joints causes the oil and terpenes to vaporize at ideal temperatures as the flower around it burns –delivering clean hits without flares or runs in the joint.”

PICCJOINTS

LIFTING THE INDUSTRY

Perhaps the most inspiring part of the PICC platform is the desire to work with Cannabis farms and processors, instead of competing with them.

Instead of building these machines to sell, or to roll their own farm's weed, the vision behind the platform is to bring craft farms and processors together – blending buds and oil to deliver unique joints to the Washing ton weed market. This approach will allow farms to send their best indoor or sungrown flower to be paired with con centrates, creating huge collaborative opportunities that will help many farms sell more products.

It will also remove the need for companies to try and roll their own infused joints – a strategy typically not cost effective or good for the consumer. By joining forces with the industry, the PICC platform stands to help farms and consumers alike, uniting the industry like a stoner circle passing a joint. This is the motivation behind the machines, which are debuting here in Washington, but being developed to scale all over the country.

“We want consumers and farms to ask for joints powered by the PICC platform as the standard for joints, and to look for our brands that are in collaboration with farms,” Holderman explained. “Laff Gas will be our af fordable but powerful line, Liv Templ for CBD or other canna binoid infusions that are less intoxicating, and the premium lineup of Studio joints – which will have QR codes to link to the growers in each collaboration.”

As the first state to legal ize Cannabis along with Colorado, it seems fitting that Washington will be the home of the first disruptive technology to hit the joint world since the Knockbox, delivering new tech that connects farms to consum ers with each toke.

“It’s not enough to have a good joint 98% of the time,” Holderman said. “We want to have a perfect joint every single time...”

Production Operator Jesse Gratton

Engineer and co-owner Mark Holderman describes how the infuser works.

PERFECT FOR

CREAMY

AND SAVORY, this dessert-based strain is best served in an overflowing bowl shared with friends, chilling senses in a euphoric indica buzz.

Dessert and family go hand in hand, and this strain brings them together with the best of fall vibes. While we’re hopefully all done with the pumpkin spice nonsense, the Almond Mochi is a delicious blend of orange cream and allspice – featuring a lemon-pep per tang that’s as mouth-watering as it is intriguing.

Family-owned and operated, the Momma Chan farm has been growing pesticide-free, hand-crafted flower for several years in the 502 market – all sold under other brands that they pro vide third-party buds to.

Finally ready to claim credit for the fantastic flower the Channabis family was producing, they launched their own brand to serve their fire strains directly to consumers in Washington.

Digging into a mylar package feels experiential, with segments of the clas sic Chinese Dragon on the back and a blue water scene on the front.

The Almond Mochi washes out of the bag in waves of terps, with deepgreen, frosty nugs that are capped with trichomes and red hairs. The trophy-sized buds have a thick feel and density, snapping with a solid crack and releasing a fresh orange-chamomile that’s both invigorating and calming with each inhale.

Feeling the thick and fluffy density, we rolled this flower into a blunt and loaded a snapper bong hit with the ex tras. The bong toke rushed a droolly cerebral high into the frontal lobes, calming nerves as we finished twisting the joint. Sparking the blunt delivered thick tokes that slowed time down as auditory senses came alive, making sounds more vibrant as colors sharpened and the sense of self slowly went numb.

After a full sesh, a warming feeling of content centeredness took over the mind and body – undulating in waves like a holiday dragon in a stoney celebration. Not to end this review in a cliche, but this delicious Almond Mochi will have you breathing fire … even as the chil laxed effects bring a more fall-ish vibe (minus the pumpkin-themed bullshit).

“The Almond Mochi washes out of the bag in waves of terps, with deep-green, frosty nugs that are capped with trichomes and red hairs.”

LiNe

THE EVOLUTION OFSMOKETECH

We all know that humanity has been using Cannabis for thousands of years, but the ways in which we've consumed it have continued to change with the progression of time and technology. The Leaf’s resident cannthropologist Bobby Black lays out the various methods by which our forebears have imbibed the sweet smoke of our favorite herb throughout history.

THE BONG

THE PIPE

The earliest smoking pipes on record – discovered inside Egyptian tombs – were made of copper and dated from around 2000 B.C.E. Wooden pipes became popular during the Iron Age, followed by chalk and clay pipes in the 1600s, iron pipes in the 1700s and corn cob pipes in the 1800s – before glass became king in the late 20th century.

The tubular type of water pipe known as a bong (from the Thai word baung, meaning “cylindrical wooden tube”) has been around almost as long as civilization itself. The oldest bong ever was discovered in Russia in 2013 –made of solid gold and dating back around 2,400 years to the Scythian tribes of Eurasia. Other ancient bongs found in Ethiopia have been carbon dated to around 1300 C.E. Bongs were apparently popular in China during the Ming Dynasty, then spread to the West via the Silk Road around the 17th century.

THE HOOKAH THE CHILLUM

A kind of hybrid water pipe/vaporizer with a long hose mouthpiece, the hookah originated in the northwestern prov inces of India, along the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan, around a millennia ago. Originally fash ioned from a coconut shell base and tube, they use hot coals to heat dried herbs from below.

The chillum is a form of simple conical pipe originally made out of either clay or cow and bull horns. A small stone is often placed inside the stem in place of a screen to keep from inhaling the material to be burned. The chillum – or “holy pipe” as it is known by Indian Sadhus who’ve used it in their rituals for centuries – originated in Asia but eventually made its way to Africa, then to Jamaica in the 1930s, where the Rastafarians also adopted it into their spiritual practices.

THE JOINT/SPLIFF/BLUNT

First invented in Alcoy, Spain during the 1500s, rolling papers quickly spread to France, then throughout the rest of the modern world in the centuries that followed – eventually becoming the most common method of smoking weed in America during the 20th century. (For the whole history of rolling papers, check out the Cannthropology column in our Oct. 2021 issue).

Blunts – or Cannabis rolled in tobacco leaves – take their name from the Phillies Blunt brand of cigars, typically used to roll them. It is believed that the blunt originated in the Caribbean during the 19th century when workers from India first brought “ganja” (the Hindi term for flower) to Jamaica, where tobacco was cheap and available. Then during the late 1980s, a large number of Caribbean immigrants moved to New York City – where hip-hop music and culture were just beginning to take off – which quickly popularized the practice.

GLASS

Long ago, enterprising stoners figured out that makeshift pipes and bongs could easily be jerry-rigged, or “MacGyvered,” out of various household items. The most common of these self-built smokeware apparatuses were made from fruit (particularly apples) and small beverage bottles – most notably old Sobe bottles –which had a thinner layer of glass at the bottom that could easily be punctured to insert a bowl.

THE GRAVITY BONG

THE DAB RIG/ TORCH / NAIL / BANGER

BOB SNODGRASS

Though glass blowing itself dates back to around 3000 BCE, the first pipes made of glass wouldn’t emerge until the Victorian Era – but it wasn’t until the invention of the much tougher borosilicate glass in the late 19th century that the idea began to catch on. Though glass pipes and bongs first became popular for Cannabis use in the 1960s, it was “Godfather of Glass” Bob Snodgrass who elevated the artform and brought them into the mainstream with the “heady” colorchanging pieces he sold on Dead tours throughout the 1980s.

THE VAPORIZER

What distinguishes vaporizers from other smokeware devices is that they use indirect heat rather than fire or combustion to heat the Cannabis. Believe it or not, a form of vaping Cannabis actually dates back to the 5th century B.C. – as evidenced by Greek scribe Herodotus, who wrote about Egyptians heating hemp seeds with stones and inhaling the vapors. “Eagle Bill” Amato, known as the “Father of Vapor,” introduced the first modern vaporizer (powered with a heat gun) at the Amsterdam Cannabis Cup in 1993. Six years later, German company Storz & Bickel released a desktop electric vaporizer called the Volcano that set the new standard for decades to come. Eventually, much smaller vaporizers the size and shape of a pen were developed.

The concept behind the gravity bong is to use air pressure rather than one’s lung power to draw the smoke out of a joint or bowl, then forcefully push that smoke down one’s throat. Originating as MacGyverisms (typically made out of two or three-liter plastic soda bottles), gravity bongs were eventually professionally designed and manufactured – most notably by Grav Labs and Stundenglass.

When BHO started becoming popular in the late 2000s/ early 2010s, a new way was devised to smoke them. A “nail” made of titanium or quartz (or later, ceramic) was placed in the stem of a bong instead of a bowl and heated with a handheld blowtorch, after which a “dab” of concentrate was smeared onto it, then typically covered with a glass/quartz “dome” or “globe” to capture the smoke and prevent burns. This dome-andnail setup was eventually replaced by the honey-hole/ banger most commonly used today.

THE VAPE PEN / CARTRIDGE

Though the first “Smokeless Non-Tobacco Cigarette” featuring a “cartridge” was patented in the 1960s, it was really the “Cig-a-Like” in 2003 (invented by Chinese pharmacist Hon Lik) that would serve as the prototype for the modern vape pen. Coincidentally, the flood of new e-cigs entering the market in the late 2000s perfectly synchronized with the spike in popularity of honey/hash oil, eventually establishing the vape cartridge as one of the most popular ways to consume Cannabis concentrates.

In the 2010s, building on the popularity of dab rigs and vape pens, some enterprising entrepreneurs began developing combinations of the two. First came the e-nail – a plug-in nail heated with electricity rather than a torch, enabling better distribution of heat and temperature control. But it was the invention of the first fully electronic rig, the Puffco Peak, in 2018 that truly changed the game forever (see our interview on page 54 of this edition). Today, there are several e-rigs on the market (including the iSpire, Bello and Carta) — all of which enable one to enjoy high quality, torch-free dabs just about anywhere.

THE E-RIG THE FUTURE

What far-out gadgets might the stoners of the future use to get high? Will it be solar-powered pipes? Microwave vapes, maybe? Laser rigs, or even nuclear bongs? Honestly, we have no idea … what we do know is that the boundless imagination and ingenuity of Cannabis users will continue to drive innovations in smokeware and other technologies for decades to come.

TECH ROUNDUP

BEED ROLLING MACHINE PUFFCO PROXY

REVIEW BY MATT JACKSON @ACTIONMATTJACKSON

Meet the “Nespresso of Cannabis.” These countertop machines launched in 2022 are capable of automatically filling an empty cone with prepackaged half-gram pods of ground Cannabis, delivering a pre-roll to your waiting hand in around 20 seconds. For anyone who has mobility issues in their hands or just doesn’t know how to roll, Beed offers easy access and consisten cy. There are five strain-specific varieties available, and all of the pods are recyclable. With this amazing new device, consumption bars can offer people a simple way to roll up some weed – similar to the way self-pouring technology has revolutionized the bar experience. beed.co @beed_co

LEVO C OIL DIFFUSER

REVIEW BY KATHERINE WOLF @KATADELLIC

Budding (pun intended) home canna-chefs can use the LĒVO C to infuse large batches of oil, butter, honey, milk and more. Available in multiple colors, it’s cuter than your favorite countertop coffee maker (and just about as easy to use). The LĒVO C is one of the simplest diffusers to set up and features an ultra-sleek, touch-activated interface with precise time and temperature controls. The best part? All the removable pieces are dishwasher-safe for a painless cleanup process – because having to clean a machine by hand after eating a bunch of edibles sounds like just about the worst thing ever. levooil.com @levo_oil

REVIEW BY MATT JACKSON @ACTIONMATTJACKSON

The breakout hit of 2022 is an electronic hash pipe that makes smoking concentrates as in stinctive as humanly possible – bringing versatility as its greatest superpower. With a flick of the wrist, you can drop this miniature marvel into an endless array of pipe or bubbler attach ments, glass bangers, and even a disco ball. Proxy offers tasty hits, all in a package that’s dis creet yet instantly identifiable. Like the basic Peak model, this has four variable heat settings (505°F -560°F) and haptic feedback, but makes use of the same 3D chamber as the upgraded Peak Pro. New accessories include the travel pack and flower-smoking attachments. puffco.com @puffco

ARDENT

FX

REVIEW BY KATHERINE WOLF @KATADELLIC

Dubbed the “Easy Bake Oven” for edibles, it really has never been easier to get baked off some baked goods with the Ardent FX. Equipped with precision heaters and timed cycles, this thing can activate and infuse up to one ounce of flower or concentrate at a time. Perhaps its most valuable feature, the Ardent FX optimizes terpene retention and cannabinoid ac tivation with custom settings for decarbing CBD and THC/CBG. But that’s not all, folks! Shift this cutting-edge culinary ganja gadget into “bake” mode to actually bake your infused goodies all within the same device. Yeah, technology is crazy these days. ardentcannabis.com @ardentllc

HITOKI TRIDENT

REVIEW BY MATT JACKSON @ACTIONMATTJACKSON

Be honest, who doesn’t want to see their weed lit up by a laser beam? Every time you activate the Trident, a beam of light ignites your ground-up weed from behind a tinted, vision-safe chamber. This feels like you’re using something from a Sharper Image catalog. There are three temperature settings and even though the Trident is a combus tion device, it does leave you with a pile of spent herb. Trident has a silicon mouthpiece or hookah-style hose that’s perfect for passing around, if you can manage to look away from its hypnotic light long enough. hitoki.com @hitokilaser

TERPOMETER

REVIEW BY MATT JACKSON @ACTIONMATTJACKSON

Now timing the perfect dab is as easy as opening the automatic garage door. This handy, keychain device contains a heat sensor that measures the tempera ture of whatever surface you hold it a half inch from, displaying it on a small LCD screen. When it registers between 500°F-550°F, the screen turns green to let you know it’s time to dab. Thermometer IR produces accurate results, switches eas ily from Fahrenheit to Celsius, has a screw-on dab tool attachment, and you can even set it to buzz at you when you’ve hit the part of its range that you prefer. No more timers, or trying to line up a troublesome laser beam to get results. theterpometer.com

@theterpometer

GORDO SCIENTIFIC RIPTIP

REVIEW BY KATHERINE WOLF @KATADELLIC

It’s 2022, people – wasteful paper filters that hit harshly are old news. It’s time to take your rolling game into the future with the Rip Tip. These reusable tips made of high-quality borosili cate glass are hand-blown by Gordo Scientific in Denver. Crafted to create a smoother and more sustainable sesh, the signature riptide channels that optimize airflow are where the “Rip” Tip gets its name. Aptly named indeed, these things sure do rip. Available in various diameters, the nine millimeter is the OG size and most popular. As a general rule of thumb, a seven to eight millimeter is ideal for personal pearls under a gram, while anything over 10 millimeters should be reserved for a trip to Mars. gordosci.com @gordoscientific >>

TECH ROUNDUP

Cannabis industry’s hottest products put to the test

710 LABS TERP COOLER

REVIEW BY MATT JACKSON @ACTIONMATTJACKSON

Preserving terps is a full-time job. That’s why concentrate conservationists 710 Labs created a travel-friendly way of keeping hash and rosin at the perfect temperature. With an average battery life of eight hours, this lunchbox-shaped cooler holds around five standard-sized jars comfortably. The device works like a soda can fridge, cooling down the metal plate inside to bring the contents to your preferred settings. The carrying case is netted in all the right spots to allow proper ventilation and includes chargers for the home, car and USB. This little droid is the perfect option for road trips, hotel stas and consumption events. 710labs.com @710labs

FOCUS V CARTA 2

REVIEW BY MATT JACKSON @ACTIONMATTJACKSON

Focus V has revamped its popular e-rig device to create an experience that absolutely rips. With a solid, professional feel, the Carta 2 fea tures an OLED screen that gives you up-to-the-minute temp readings, a session timer, and lighting custom ization that can be controlled with either the three buttons on the unit or an accompanying app. The improved glass chamber holds an impressive amount of water as well as smoke, and the battery ran about 25-30 dabs on a full charge. With a temperature range of 365°F-635°F that’s adjustable to a single degree, Carta 2 captures the flavor from lower temp dabs while delivering the clouds we all crave. focusv.com @focus.v

ALCHEMY JARS

REVIEW BY NATE WILLIAMS @NATEW415

The next level of hash storage is here. Alchemy Jars was founded by glassblower Patrick Lee, better known as @purpskurp710 on Instagram. Sick of dried out, crumbly jars of rosin, Lee decided to solve the problem himself and drew from existing tech to create a solution and offer it to the masses. Alchemy Jars utilize double-walled, vacuum-sealing technology and work the same way high-end water bottles do to insulate and protect their contents from the environment surrounding the container. The jars work great and function as advertised, keeping your rosin fresh and full of terps – just how it was meant to be.

G PEN HYER

REVIEW BY MATT JACKSON @ACTIONMATTJACKSON

Turn your bongs and bubblers into lung-busting dab machines with the newest product from G Pen. Improving upon the success of the Connect, Hyer contains seven times the battery power with a 1,500mAh rechargeable battery, five session settings, and five variable heat settings ranging from 407°F-803°F. Hyer is a tethered-style unit, connecting the battery and concentrate tank with a magnetic cable. Most of the pieces on the Hyer are magnetic and the included dab tool even screws into the cap – making it easy to keep together when not in the included hemp carrying case. Hyer performs well on all concentrates, but exceptionally well with resins and shatters. gethyer.com @letsgethyer

ZENCO FLOW

REVIEW BY WES ABNEY @BEARDEDLORAX

Raise a glass of vapor and embrace the most social innovation to Cannabis tech since passing a joint. The Zenco puts concentrates “on tap” by using an inno vative function that turns a normal vape cartridge hit into a classy and tantalizing experience of drinking your vapor. Simply press down on the glass and watch the vapor swirl inside with tasty terps and cannabinoids, wait until full, and then sip by breathing in through the straw or the glass (to get huge hits). Shareable without having to swap spit from somebody’s pocket dab pen, the glasses are easily washed and available in sets for entertaining. Perfect for socializing and micro or macro tokes, the Zenco is the ideal tabletop unit to transform your cartridge experience – and can easily be packed onthe-go for your next sesh! thezenco.com @thezencolife

ISPIRE DAAB

REVIEW BY MATT JACKSON @ACTIONMATTJACKSON

The newest device from Ispire does away with ceramic heating elements and instead opts for a more natural, induction heating. The unit looks like the Dewalt of dabs, fitting in your hand as easily as a drill. Load your concen trate into a small glass bucket and a metal ring encased therein is heated up within the glass chamber, bringing it up to temperature and vaporizing your concentrate in a way that feels closer to a traditional dab. A sturdy desktop piece, the daab adjusts in five-degree increments from 410°F-805°F, comes with its own hardshell case for traveling, and is able to go around 29 dabs on a full charge. getispire.com @getispire

DABX

TERPHOGZ EDITION

REVIEW BY MATT JACKSON @ACTIONMATTJACKSON

Perhaps the most natural feeling of all the bong-into-rig attachments. Sliding into your home glass pieces, DabX is a titanium device with some interesting differences. A double-click begins the warming of the unit before triggering a 12-second heat burst, according to four different temperature curves. The device doesn’t go above 470°F, so it’s less about heat and more about the device you’re going to fill. There’s a carb button, making the included cap just for travel. Instead of trapping in the smoke with a cap, the heat source in the chamber draws the concentrate down into the center, which means no more swabbing between hits. dabx.com @dabxusa

THE FLOWER MILL

REVIEW BY NATE WILLIAMS @NATEW415

The Flower Mill is not a grinder. Rather, it achieves its function by utilizing an entirely different mechanism – milling. By definition, to grind is to reduce something to small particles by crushing it. On the other hand, to mill is to cut or shape into pieces. The bottom line is this: Your flower is going to be in much exponentially better condition after being milled versus being ground. After a thorough test run and side-by-side comparison, there is no doubt the grinders are going on the shelf and the mill will stay … ahem … in rotation. flowermillusa.com @flowermillusa

COURTESY ISPIRE

THE PEAK OF SUCCESS

Puffco founder & CEO Roger Volodarsky

IT’S A MONDAY MORNING IN DOWNTOWN L.A., and the offices of Puffco are unusually quiet. Of the company’s nearly 130 employees, barely a dozen are here … among them, the company’s Founder and CEO, Roger Volodarsky – aka the Steve Jobs of Cannabis.

It’s not hard to see why he’s earned such a moniker. Jobs started Apple in his parents’ garage, while Volodarsky started Puffco in his mother’s basement. Like Jobs, he frequently dresses in basic black attire. But the most significant similarity between the two tech moguls is undoubtedly the sleek style of their creations and how profoundly they impact the lives of their users. It’s fair to say that what the iPhone did for mobile phones, the Puffco Peak has done for Cannabis consumption.

In front of our lens, Roger appears guarded, even stiff … but off camera, his stoic demeanor softens to reveal the passion and generosity of spirit that his friends know all too well.

TROUBLED YOUTH

The son of Ukrainian Jews who immigrated to Brooklyn in the 1980s, Volodarsky's early life was difficult – both economically and emotionally.

“I definitely did not have a happy childhood,” he confesses. “I felt like an outsider because I grew up on the poorer side of Coney Island, and all of my parents' friends had money. And my parents ended up getting divorced, so I didn’t get enough emotional support. But I'm grateful for my experi ence because it pushed me to get what I desire in life and led me here.”

Like many troubled teens, he found escape and comfort in Cannabis. At the age of 13, after an attempt to smoke a joint during a field trip proved unsuccessful, his buddy got him high for the first time.

“I took a hit, and I remember feeling this warmth in my fingertips, toes and head, and it started radiating in towards the center,” Volodarsky recalls. “I kind of melted off the couch – like in those anti-drug commercials – and all that loneliness of being the odd kid out, of not having enough resources to keep up with everyone else … all that just went away. I remember thinking, ‘this is incredi ble—I want to do this forever!’”

To be clear, he doesn’t endorse minors getting high as a matter of practice. “I’m definitely not recommending that anybody under the legal age consume Cannabis,” he states. “But at 13 years old, life was very confusing and traumatic for me, and engaging with the plant gave me an instant sense of relief.”

Unfortunately, like many immigrants from the “Old World,” Roger’s parents were extremely anti-drug and overreacted when they learned of his newfound fondness for marijuana. Within a year or two, he grew estranged from much of his family and friends.

“This was heavy in the ‘War on Drugs’ era, the DARE era of propaganda being shot at everyone. That propaganda worked very well on my parents

and many people around me," Volo darsky explains. “I kind of became this lost soul in the eyes of many – a drug addict.”

A FATEFUL MILESTONE

In his young adult hood, Volodarsky pursued a “normal life” – working several different jobs, none of which provided the sense of fulfillment he was craving.

“I was a serial entrepreneur,” he explains. “I was in the mortgage space, I've worked for a translation service, I've worked as a systems administrator … I've done a bunch of different things, but I never worked on something that I was really passionate about.”

Then in 2012, at the age of 30, he reached a turning point.

"When you're a kid, you have all these ideas of what you're going to be when you're 30. But almost everyone I know ended up not being what they thought they would be. The world millennials were promised – ‘If you work really hard, you’ll get these things’ – that wasn't happening for our generation. And so I hit this really frustrating point, and I was using Can nabis to cope.”

It was at this point that a friend turned him on to the enticing new world of wax (as BHO was called at the time) and vape pens.

"I was completely liberated,” Volodarsky says. “I was able to walk around the city and consume, and I felt truly invisible. I became obsessed with it.”

Noticing his passion for the new “dab pen” phe nomenon – and knowing he despised his systems administrator job – Volodarsky’s friend encouraged him to try getting into the vape industry.

“I had to make a decision: either work a job that I hate to provide me with the lifestyle I want, or

pursue what I love. And I decided, 'you know what? Fuck it – why don't I start doing this?’"

Volodarsky began researching wax pens online and learning everything he could about them –mainly, how they were made and who was selling them. He made recon trips to smoke shops in Atlan tic City and Haight Ashbury to see what vapes were available and quickly realized that none of them were very good.

“All the wax vapes at the time were just repurpos ing e-cigarette technology,” he explains. “They were really shitty products. And so, not knowing where to begin, my only goal was just, 'I want to make something better than this.’”

THE BIRTH OF PUFFCO

After toying around with various ideas, he de cided on the name “Puffco,” purchased the URL in January of 2013, and incorporated in March. And just like that, he was in the vape business.

“Puffco was my first investment in myself,” says Volodarsky. “I thought, if it leads nowhere, that's okay – because I'll enjoy every second that I work on this."

After tinkering with various components and pro totypes, the company released its first product, the Puffco Clas sic, in January 2014. Though he found it preferable to other pens on the market, Volodarsky was not satisfied. So after selling off the first batch, he went back to the drawing board with the goal of accomplish ing three key improvements: a higher capacity atomizer, variable temperature control, and removal of glues and fibers from the air path. Those three pillars inspired his next iteration, the Puffco Pro. By replacing the fibers typically used to soak up the oil with porous ceramic, the Pro significantly improved the flavor and healthiness of vaping concentrates.

HIGH TIMES / LOW TIMES

The Pro was released in October 2014 … just as High Times was about to conduct its annual vape pen review. Learning of this, Roger showed up at their offices at the last minute with a box of sam ples. Though Puffco was unknown at the time, the Pro ended up taking first place for Best Vapor Pen. That award changed everything for Puffco – both for better and for worse.

“After the review was a very bittersweet period,” Volodarsky recalls. “That threw us into the spotlight and got us a ton of fans and revenue coming in, but it also forced us to make much more product than we were before.”

Unfortunately, consumers weren’t the only ones who took notice of their improved design; within a few months after the review was published, copycat devices began appearing on the market.

“I took it very personally. I had obsessed over this vape pen for two years, and now this thing that I'd worked so hard on – the greatest thing I might ever do – was being bastardized by shittier brands. I didn't know what to do – I felt completely defeated.”

To make matters worse, in addition to having their intellectual property poached, Puffco’s supply chain unex pectedly collapsed at the end of 2014. Volodarsky had to act quickly, or everything he'd been working towards might be lost. In early 2015, he and his head of operations headed to Chi na, where they spent over a month establishing new relationships and exhausted most of the revenue they'd earned rebuilding their supply chain.

Once they had partnerships in place with new manufacturers, they went straight into production on their next models: the Puffco Plus (the first truly coil-less vape pen on the market) and the Puffco Pro 2, both of which sold exceptionally well. But still, Roger was unsatisfied.

“We came out with the Pro 2, and I hated it," he grumbles. “It got decent reviews, and made the company millions of dollars … but I was making products for the sake of the sale, not trying to innovate. And that threw me into one of the big gest depressions of my life.”

So in 2016, when Puffco’s head engineer Avi asked him what he wanted to work on next, Roger laid out his vision for their most ambi tious project yet.

PEAK PERFORMANCE

“I wanted to do something totally new,” he explains. “I was like, I want to make a device that makes dabbing flawless and gives you the perfect dab every time.”

Volodarsky had a checklist of criteria he wanted this new device to meet: It should let you know when the dab is ready. To avoid the associated stigma, there couldn’t be any torching involved. It should be shaped like a beer bottle and fit into a cup holder. And it should have a removable glass attachment so that artists could make custom pieces for it.

“One of the biggest parts of the hash and dab scene is glass,” explains Volodarsky. “We're not here to compete with glass artists – we're here to work with them. We want them to see us as a platform to express their creativity.”

After months of development, Roger, Ari and their team had invented the first fully-electronic handheld “smart rig,” the Puffco Peak – a groundbreaking dab device featuring four heat settings, an LED light band, haptic feedback and automatic temperature calibration. Volodarsky had so much confidence in the Peak that just as it was set to launch in late 2017, he made the risky decision to move the entire company to Los Angeles.

“We put everything on the line,” Volodarsky ad mits. “When we moved [to L.A.], we had one payroll period and two months of rent left in our bank ac count. We just knew that once people saw the Peak, everybody was going to want it.”

His gamble paid off: The Peak became an instant sensation, revolutionizing concentrate consumption and generating millions in sales.

But like many innovations, it still had bugs that needed working out. Complaints of defective devic es and atomizer connectivity issues became com mon—but Puffco addressed these problems through tech support, and repairing and replacing parts.

Their redesigned Peak Pro, released two years lat er, fixed its predecessor's shortcomings while adding several new features, including multicolor lighting options, real-time temperature controls, usage statis tics and more – all controllable via their new smart phone app. This new “flagship device” also offered a slew of new attachments and accessories.

RECENT INNOVATIONS

After the enormous success of the Peak Pro, Puffco began branching out with two new products designed for flower: a water bottle bong called the Budsy in 2021, followed by a coffee cup bong called the Cupsy in 2022. While both are fun and functional devices, it was their next innovation –the Proxy – that would once again redefine the dab game.

What makes Proxy unique is that the atomizer chamber is a separate, freestanding device – inde pendent of any paraphernalia. Though sold with the outer casing of a classic pipe, this modular vaporiz er can be inserted into any kind of smoking appa ratus with an appropriately sized hole to house it –making it a perfect vehicle for glass artists’ creativity.

“We’re big fans of the glass scene,” says Volo darsky. “Hash and glass have grown together over the past decade, and we want to honor that space by continuing to invest in it.”

FAMILY & FULFILLMENT

Roger Volodarsky’s road to riches has undoubted ly been a rough one. Once ostracized by his family for his love of Cannabis, he’s since forged himself a new family at Puffco.

“Chelsea, my first employee who I’ve been a mentor to … Kevin, who was my friend before he joined the company, and who’s always good for a laugh … Avi, our chief technology officer … I'm very lucky to have some of the people that most enrich my life here with me in this business,” Volodarsky beams. “We all feel like our work is meaningful because we're working on things that make our own lives better every day. To live every day doing what you love and having people love you for it … I can't imagine anything better than this."

"I WAS LIKE, 'I WANT TO MAKE A DEVICE THAT MAKES DABBING FLAWLESS AND GIVES YOU THE PERFECT DAB EVERY TIME.' "

Special edition versions of the company’s runaway hit, the Puffco Peak.

Building a

JAIR VELLEMAN DUTCH LIGHTING INNOVATIONS

SITTING AT THE LONG DINING TABLE in his flat overlooking the canals of his hometown of Amsterdam, Jair Velleman leans in and smiles through his thick beard, exuding equal parts intensity and joviality. “Let me ask you something,” he says. “Do you like war? I love war.” It was my first conversation with Velleman, and it was a moment that speaks volumes about this magnanimous, mercurial mammoth of a man. He wasn’t talking about bombs, armies and military actions.

He was talking about the business battleground. That moment kept replaying in my head during subsequent conversations over the months following that first meeting. Velleman and his former company, Gavita, revolutionized the grow light industry before he sold it for a “never have to work again” sum more than half a decade ago. Now, like a retired general returning to the war room, he’s coming back to the world that he helped build – this time at the helm of his new lighting company, Dutch Lighting Innovations.

Better Bulb

SPROUTING

Growing up in a progressive Amsterdam family, Velleman was introduced to Cannabis at an early age. At around 12 years old, he went to a nature camp that he says was “kind of a hippie thing” – where he ended up having his first experience with the plant.

“Somebody was smoking joints in a tent, and we hotboxed the tent,” he said. “I ended up laughing for hours from a very stupid joke. Slowly, through the years, I started smoking more. I’m a very hyperactive guy, so it kind of put me more on a level where I could communicate with people around me, and I kind of enjoyed that.”

When he was 16, he spent his days hang ing at a local coffee shop called Picasso.

“The owner said, ‘Dude, do you have a basement?’ I said, ‘I live with my mother, but yes, we have a big basement,’” Velleman recalled. “Pretty much I talked my mother into starting a grow … We had four 1000-watt lights, and a sea of green of 300 plants. That was my first grow. And after that, I just kept growing.”

SWITCHED ON

After a number of years cultivating, a lightbulb moment hit Velleman. He decided to form a company to manufac ture double-ended HPS lights and market them to the burgeoning indoor and greenhouse cultivation market in the U.S.

I was just really excited - because I used to be a Cannabis grower - to bring this crazy, new technolo gy to Cannabis growers,” he said. “I love ‘The Blues Brothers.’ It’s a beautiful movie. I always use the quote, ‘I am on a mission from God.’ And my mission was to make sure that growers go from one-and-ahalf pounds per light, to three pounds per light, or four pounds per light. Because that was what Gavita did. We gave people three pounds per light. That was a big thing in the beginning.”

Velleman sold Gavita more than five years ago and spent the ensuing time building a family, garnering awards for his advocacy and focusing on his passions – such as collecting items for his World of Cannabis Museum. But now he’s on the path to build upon

his prior successes and experience, creating what he hopes will be the world’s leading quality manufacturer of Cannabis grow light technology.

HERO’S QUEST

When he talks about the new endeavor, Velleman can hardly contain his excitement.

“The last time, we ended up with the biggest horticultural lighting company in the world before we sold, so from where I stand, that’s about the top of the pinnacle,” he said. “I kind of enjoy going back to the underdog posi tion. Then I have to fight the big guys, instead of being the big guys, and everybody attacking you.”

With DLI, Velleman wants to create the best possible lights, and manufac ture them 100% at his facility in Hol land. It’s all about total quality control. “I’m a grower by heart,” he said. “I love growers. And I want to get the best product possible to them. I did it with Gavita, and we’re now gon na do it with DLI, with a no-bullshit approach. I don’t care if my prod uct is slightly more expensive than everybody else’s. That might be true. I’m not aiming to be the cheapest on the market. You either have to be the cheapest or the best. So we made the decision to be the best.”

At the core of his philosophy is the goal of making every light sold with the DLI label at the same level of quality as what industry manufacturers call a “hero light.”

“It’s one light that’s built to top specifications,” he said. “That’s the one that you will test in the labo ratory, and it’s the one you will take the specs from, that you will put on your flyers and on your website. Nobody’s checking what comes afterward. The trick of putting a good product out to market is that every light you build needs to be a hero light.”

As with everything else he’s been involved in, he plans to be hands-on at DLI. It’s the only way to en sure the company will match his intentions.

“I’m the tip of the spear,” he said. “I’m the warlord. I go out. A lot of CEOs sit behind their desks. Owners

of companies sit behind their desks. I don’t sit behind my desk. I will travel, come out, meet my customers. And because I meet my customers and actually talk with them, I understand what their wishes are and what they actually want – and we can use that for creating new products for horticulture and for Canna bis growing.”

BRIGHT FUTURE

DLI manufactures LED and more traditional HPS lighting, and is currently working on spectrum tests and other research to try to push plants to their limits. Velleman and his team will be collaborating with Wageningen University & Research, a university in Holland, to gather and interpret data, and develop new technology.

“LED is where the future is at right now,” he said. “I think the biggest thing right now with LED is going to be developing a more wide-based spectrum that can actually enhance things like terpenes – because the future is going to be in terpenes. You don’t buy good wine because it’s one percent more alcohol than the other wine next to it – you pay $100 for a bottle of wine not on the alcohol percentage, but on the god damn terpenes. The future is not going to be THC, it’s going to be terpenes.”

One of the product lines Velleman is most excited about isn’t LED, rather, it’s the non-LED UV lighting DLI has developed for use in concert with a wide-spectrum LED setup. He plans to unveil it with a DLI launch in November at MJBizCon in Las Vegas.

“The plant protects itself against UV by doing certain things, like making trichomes,” Velleman said. “That’s what we want. We want those trichomes and those terpenes. The plant reacts to UV, and that plant reac tion is exactly what we want. That will create a better product that’s better tasting.”

As much as Velleman is thrilled about the tech, that’s not the main thing that’s drawn him back to the battlefield.

“I love the Cannabis community,” he said. “That’s why I’m coming back. I could sit on a tropical island and sip cocktails until the day I die, and I don’t want to do that. My best friends are in this community, and my best friends are all over the world. The moment I stop working, I don’t see my friends anymore. So I have no choice. … I love hanging out with all those amazing people that I will tell my grandchildren about.”

“I’m a grower by heart,” said Velleman. “I love growers. And I want to get the best product possible to them.”

“Truly one of the best caramels we’ve ever tasted, this writer would happily eat both products uninfused (the true test for a top shelf edible).”

MELTAWAY

The season for tricks and treats is here, but the only thing spooky about the new Melt Away candy line is how quickly they disappear from the box.

HALLOWEEN brings out the kid in all of us … and it’s truly a holiday that can be heightened with the proper dose of Cannabis. From carving pumpkins to dressing up in cosplay with your co-workers (or more generally, people you don’t like but feel obligated to hang out with), every

part of the celebration of All Hallows’ Eve is better with weed. It’s also a time where smoking or vap ing might cause problems – especially when tak ing little ones trick-or-treating – which makes an infused candy clutch for getting baked discreetly.

Verdelux is known for making delicious edibles and helpful topicals (afterall, it’s also dry hands season), and when we heard about their new MeltAway lineup we couldn’t wait to put them to the test. We started with the Peanut Butter, which beckoned to us in a perfectly-round bite. Sinking our vampiric weed-hungry teeth into the outside felt like the whole edible was the inside of a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, blending classic flavors to the palate’s delight. These MeltAways are creamier and have a super satisfying mouthfeel that lives up to its name … disappearing quickly and

leaving our tummies rumbling for another bite.

Next we tried the Carmelo version, which is a hard product to create and infuse properly. We found the light chocolate layer over a slightly chewy (but not sticky) caramel to have the perfect combination of sweetness and a tang of salty brown sugar – and after a quick bite and chew, found it melted away like its namesake. Truly one of the best caramels we’ve ever tasted, this writer would happily eat both products uninfused (the true test for a top shelf edible). We recommend stocking up on these yummy bites and getting melty for the month of October. And if you really want to be the life of the party, fill up your adult pumpkin with the new MeltAways by Verdelux for a highly-tasty Halloween.

DOLATO PLATINUM ICE

IT’S HARD to go from 10:00 p.m. sunsets to 5:00 p.m. darkness and gloomy skies, which is part of why Washington legalized weed (in this writer’s humble opinion). There’s even a name for the sadness that can hit by mid-winter: Seasonal Affective Disorder. But here at the Leaf we’ve found that the best cure for feeling sad that summer is over is a fat hit of tasty concentrates – so we turned to the consistently quality team at Bodhi High for their favorite fall treats.

Dolato is a cross of Do-Si-Dos and Gelato #41, which blends stoney euphoria with a chillaxed sedation to create a perfect hybrid that’s great on the go. We started with the live resin cartridge – delivering a smooth vapor with large clouds and an earthy-berry-citrus flavor hinting of hazy-fresh grass and a resiny lavender.

Tasty and invigorating, effects rush into the frontal lobes before settling over the mind like a happy headband – slowing thoughts and anxiety while getting the mind and body into a happy, go-with-the-flow buzz. The perfect mood elevator as the clouds and darkness settle in, the Dolato cartridge is powerful without being overwhelming – wonderful around midday, as well as before bed.

Saving the diamonds and sauce for later in the day turned out to be a good call, as the overwhelming high that comes with THCA diamonds combined perfectly with the Dolato terps for a mind-melting buzz much heavier than the cartridge. Opening a jar releases a warming wave of red berries and lavender with a vanillakush-gas that brightens senses. This high terpene extract is full of rich and satisfying flavors, teasing the mind before blowing it away with each toke.

First inhales of a low-temp dab are all terps, with a sweet-vanilla-gas that fills the lungs and tickles the nose on exhale. Effects rush into the chest and build outward, wrapping around the body like the first sweater of fall before oozing into the mind in waves of euphoria. Stonier and heavier, dabs of the Dolato are both delicious and effective – the perfect way to end the day, even if it’s dark by five o’clock.

“A perfect hybrid that’s great on the go.”

As the seasons change, so do our tastes for getting baked. And as the darkness beckons we find that a gently stoney indica like the Dolato is perfect for staying in the zone, but chilling as the days get shorter with each puff.

off the shelf

THANKS TO ADVANCES IN MODERN CANNABIS TECHNOLOGY, pesky coils, confusing buttons and leaky cartridges are no longer part of the ever-changing vaping landscape. So ditch those dying batteries and meet the future of vape tech: the all-in-one disposable. Discreet, convenient and foolproof for even the most virgin of vapers, this hardware is truly hassle-free. Plus, without the need to purchase separate batteries or replacement chargers, they’re a cost-effective way to get your Cannabis fix on the go. Here are our picks for three disposable vapes worth your disposable income this October.

HELLAVATED PROFILEZ

BLUEBERRY DREAM

Hellavated has hella flavors with 15 different options available in their Profilez line of disposable vapes, made with triple-refined THC distillate. The Blueberry Dream in particular is heavy on the hazy terps with a fruit-forward flavor on the exhale. This strain pairs well with a fat stack of blueberry pancakes on a sleepy Sunday morning – cartoons, a cozy blan ket, and your favorite pajamas not included. (0.5g) hellavated.com

@hellavatedvapes

OPTIMUM EXTRACTS

ORANGE PUSH POP

This Orange Push Pop by Opti mum Extracts hits off the rip with rich, creamy vanilla and citrus notes. The flavor on the exhale is reminiscent of a melty cream sicle. Made with terpene-rich, pesticide-free THC distillate, the Optimum also has the sleekest device of the three disposables in our roundup. This is a great one to grab before a night out on the town or throw in the car bag for a road trip. (1g) optimumextracts.com @optimum_extracts_wa

STICKY FROG

WASHINGTON APPLE

Sticky Frog is Phat Panda’s line of strain-specific premium disposable devices made with THC distillate. The exhale of this Washington Apple flavor tastes like biting into a tart, crisp apple freshly picked off the orchard. It’s truly the perfect flavor to kick off the fall season in the good old PNW. So, in the spirit of crunchy brown leaves and warm apple cider, we recommend bringing this one along for a bonfire with friends or autumn afternoon hike. (1g) stickyfrog.com @stickyfrog

Hemp & Humanity

When we think about Cannabis technologies, we typically picture extraction machines or smoking devices … but as the late, great Jack Herer taught us in his classic compendium “The Emperor Wears No Clothes,” Cannabis’ most significant technological impact on the world may have little to do with its psychoactive flowers; rather, it’s been the plant’s stalks – better known as hemp – that have helped drive mankind’s progress for millennia.

THE ANCIENT WORLD

It’s hard to overestimate how essential hemp has been to human civilization. Hemp is believed to be one of the earliest plants ever cultivated and the first whose fibers were used to make cloth. Some of the oldest archaeological relics of human history include a remnant of hemp fabric from ancient Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq/Turkey/Iran) dating back to 8,000 BCE, and Yangshao amphorae (pottery jugs) with hemp cord imprinted onto them unearthed in Taiwan from between 4,000-6,000 BCE.

As early as the Stone Age, the Chinese started spinning yarn and weaving cloth from hemp as an alternative to silk. Until the introduction of cotton around the 10-11th century CE, hemp was the dominant fabric used in Chinese society. (In fact, before the 20th century, historians estimate that around 80% of all clothing in the world was made from hemp.)

fiber and mulberry tree bark into a pulp, mixing it with water, draining it, placing it into a flat mold and drying it. It’s believed that the first hemp paper mills arose in China and parts of the Middle East as early as the 8th century BCE. The oldest known documents ever written on paper – Buddhist texts dating to the second and third centuries BCE – used this Chinese hemp paper.

EUROPE & THE AGE OF EXPLORATION

Yangshao amphora with hemp cord markings.

Ancient Chinese texts spoke of hemp textiles being used for rope, fishing nets, burial cloths, bowstrings, hats, shoes and robes – all corroborated by archeological evidence. The Shu Ching (one of the earliest known books in human history) contains numerous references to hemp – reporting that it was grown around castles in Shantung Province, was often gifted to peasants by royalty and was used to make military attire and weaponry. And the Er Ya – the earliest Chinese dictionary, written between 221 BCE and 24 CE – describes hemp fiber as “strong and soft, able to be spun into cloth” and states that its seeds and oil were a source of food.

In addition to rope and fabric, the Chinese also used hemp to create one of their most impactful inventions: paper. The earliest paper was made by crushing hemp

In the centuries that followed, hemp spread throughout various cultures in Asia and the Middle East – everyone from the Scythians and the Egyptians (who used hemp rope during construction of the Pyramids) to the peoples of India, Mongolia and Russia. And thanks to the Silk Road, hemp also found its way to the Mediterranean in around 1200 BCE. From there, it was traded and utilized by nearly every civilization in Europe – from the Romans, Greeks and Vikings during the Iron Age, and Germany, Denmark and Britain during the Middle Ages. (In 16th century England, hemp was so essential that King Henry VIII decreed that all landowners were required to grow at least a quarter acre of it.)

The crop became especially crucial during the age of exploration and colonization, when the kingdoms of Europe began sending out ships in search of new lands and trade routes. Canvas (whose name is derived from the word Cannabis) was the preferred material among sailors and shipbuilders since it was three times stronger than cotton, resistant to decay, and could be easily grown in whatever locale a ship might end up in. As a result, hemp was used for the ropes, sails and rigging on most maritime vessels – including those of Christopher Columbus and the Mayflower.

“Hemp harvesting on Rhine bank” by Jean-Baptiste Lallemand (1860).

Ancient chinese text referring to hemp.

INDUSTRY INNOVATIONS

When steamships began replacing sailing vessels after the Civil War, the demand for hemp dwindled somewhat … nevertheless, the industry continued to thrive thanks to technological innovations in harvesting and processing the plant.

In 1830, inventor Robert McCormick patented a hemp fiber-processing device he called a “hemp-break” (his descendants – through their company, International Harvester – later introduced other harvesting tools to aid hemp farmers). Next, in 1919, G.W. Schlichten was granted a patent for a machine called a decorticator that streamlined the separation of hemp fibers. And from 1915-1920, hemp grower Matt Rens built a small empire of steam-powered mills that processed thousands of acres of hemp and earned him the title “America’s Hemp King.”

Then, in 1941, automobile mogul Henry Ford unveiled an experimental new car he’d developed that was built almost entirely out of hemp bioplastic and even ran on hemp biomass fuel. Ford considered it the first step in fulfilling his dream to “grow automobiles from soil,” as reported in the December 1941 issue of Popular Mechanics –the same magazine who, three years earlier, had declared hemp the “new billion-dollar crop.” Unfortunately, both that prediction and Ford’s dream would soon go down the proverbial drain.

This brings us to the second factor: In 1937, prohibitionist Harry J. Anslinger finally succeeded in convincing Congress to pass the Marihuana Tax Act – imposing exorbitant taxes and bureaucratic burdens on anyone seeking to “import, manufacture, produce, compound, sell, deal in, dispense, distribute, prescribe, administer, or give away” Cannabis, effectively crippling the hemp industry.

HEMP FOR VICTORY

Of course, one glaring exception to the decline in hemp production is World War II. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, imports of desperately needed hemp and jute from Eastern Asia were cut off. In response, the U.S. Government halted enforcement of the MTA and encouraged farmers to grow as much hemp as possible – even producing a propaganda film entitled “Hemp for Victory” that extolled the historical benefits of hemp, but conveniently failed to mention its connection to the “evil weed.”

CANNABIS IN THE COLONIES

English settlers first brought hemp to Jamestown in 1606, then to Plymouth in 1620. In 1619, Virginia’s legislature (the House of Burgesses) passed a law requiring all farmers in the colony to grow it. By the mid-1700s, farmers in all of the Colonies were legally obliged to grow it – including founding fathers George Washington and Thomas Jefferson (who later wrote the first drafts of the Declaration of Independence on hemp paper). In the decades leading up to the Revolutionary War, America produced vast amounts of hemp – much of which was grown in Kentucky, and most of which was shipped back to England. It became such an economic staple in the Colonies that it was actually considered legal tender and could even be used to pay one’s taxes.

In the century that followed, hemp continued to play a vital role in America’s development. One of the nation’s first paper mills, founded by Benjamin Franklin, produced hemp paper. The first warship the U.S. Navy ever built – the USS Constitution, aka “Old Ironsides” – used nearly 60 tons of hemp for its ropes, linings and sails. The tops of all the covered wagons carrying settlers out west during the 19th century were made of hemp canvas, and President Abraham Lincoln used hemp oil to fuel the lamps in his home.

DEATH & TAXES

Despite its promising future, the hemp industry was all but dead by the mid-20th century, thanks primarily to two factors. Firstly, new European looms and gins made cotton a more affordable fabric than hemp for clothing. The same was true for paper – with production costs of using wood pulp becoming significantly lower than for hemp. (Until 1883, over 80% of all the world’s paper had been made from hemp). Hemp also faced competition from newly invented synthetic fibers like polyester, nylon and acrylic, which the petroleum industry spent significant sums lobbying for. Beyond that, though, the theories about nefarious plots to destroy the hemp industry by tycoons like the DuPonts, Andrew Mellon, and William Randolph Hearst suggested in Herer’s book have never been substantiated.

From 1942-1945, around 400,000 acres of hemp were grown in the U.S. But predictably, as soon as the war ended, the authorities went right back to enforcing the Act and even tried to erase “Hemp for Victory” from history. Were it not for Herer’s investigative efforts in the 1980s, the film might have been forgotten forever.

RECENT REVIVAL

Hemp remained “shadow-banned” until 1970 when the Controlled Substances Act outlawed it outright – making no distinction in the law between marijuana and hemp. The industry remained ostensibly dead until the late 1990s when a handful of activist companies across North America attempted to revive it using imported hemp. Canada eventually lifted its hemp growing ban in 1998, but it took the U.S. another two decades to follow suit – finally passing the Farm Bill that removed hemp from the CSA in 2018. Today, the American hemp industry is making a comeback – and it’s a damn good thing, too: In light of the climate crisis, the need for renewable energy sources and alternatives to deforestation are reminding us how crucial this miraculous plant is to our survival on this planet. After all, as Jack himself once famously prophesied, “Hemp will be the future of all mankind, or there won’t be a future.”

For our podcast & more Cannabis history content visit worldofcannabis.museum/cannthropology.

A “hemp for victory” propganada poster.

First draft of the Declaration of Independence on hemp paper.

Henry Ford’s hemp eco-car.

Right: Earliest depiction of the USS Constitution (aka “Old Ironsides”) by Michele Felice Corné (1803).

The U.S. Army protects the hemp seed supply in Kentucky during WWII (1942).

COURTESY OF THE NAVY ART COLLECTION

COURTESY OF THE NATIONAL AGRICULTURE LIBRARY

THE UNION OF MARRIAGE is a sanctimonious institution that has effectively been the glue binding our species for millen nia. Without that legal commitment – which has basically stood as a contract between two people to agree to love each other ‘til death do them part – we’d be an 8-billion-person planet … full of nothing but singles ready to mingle.

That’s a scary thought.

We all know that uninterrupted love to the very end is fairly unrealistic – but that’s why you’ve gotta lock that “right one” down before someone else swoops in and changes their mind. And it shows the old man in the golden throne – chillin’ on Cloud 19 with a Mai Tai in one hand and a heavenly joint in the other – that you’re a team player who abides by the scriptures.

You want to make it past the pearly gates to Cloud 69, right?

Because matrimony is a religious indoctrination – not entirely based upon love, but in many ways necessary for the order that allows for species to proliferate – and people respond well to being given direction and told where to conform. And even though every animal in the kingdom requires a mate of the opposite gender to make a baby, we are the only ones who feel the vital necessity to ink it onto paper.

Even if you’re an asshole like me (who believes that this contract is a formality initiated by the church to keep us donating our tithes while raising future tithers), there is no escaping the fact that each and every one of us is beholden to convenience.

It’s why we sign with blood when committing to our internet provider – because this is our conduit to most of the world’s information. Including websites that contain salacious acts of naughtiness.

Which could keep you married. Or not.