Sensi Magazine Michigan - January 2021

DREAM ON

The power of positive planning

HEALING TRAUMA

Reclaiming psychedelic medicine

STORIES THAT STICK

Excerpts from a new memoir

MICHIGAN JANUARY 2021

MADE IN THE MITTEN New film explores snowboarding’s origins

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FEATURES

28 36

Home Baked

The rollicking tale of Sticky Fingers Brownies

Reclaiming Recovery Psychedelic therapy could help ease the constant wounds of racial trauma.

DEPARTMENTS

13 EDITOR’S NOTE 20 THE LIFE Contributing to your health and happiness 14 THE BUZZ TRAVEL Planning your News, tips, and tidbits

next vacation now is to keep you in the loop good for you—whether OHM AT HOME Three you take it or not. ways to help you 2021 VIBES What the find your center new year holds APPLY NOW Michigan begins offering recreational cannabis licenses.

THE SCENE Hot happenings and hip GEAR UP Five products to help you tackle win- hangouts around town ter in pandemic times SNURF’S UP! Sherman Poppen invented the GOLD RUSH Local man precursor to snowfinds Forrest Fenn’s boarding in Michigan. hidden treasure.

CALENDAR Virtual and safe live events to keep you busy this January

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ON THE COVER

A new film documents the Michigan origins of snowboarding.

PHOTO COURTESY OF ZEPPELIN ZEERIP

54 THE END When a psychedelic experience goes wrong?

There’s a hotline for that.

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ADVISORY BOARD

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Marijuana Business Daily Minority Cannabis Business Association National Cannabis Industry Association Students for Sensible Drug Policy

EXECUTIVE

Ron Kolb Founder, CEO ron@sensimag.com

Stephanie Wilson Co-Founder, Editor in Chief stephanie@sensimag.com

Mike Mansbridge President

mike@sensimag.com Fran Heitkamp Chief Operating Officer fran@sensimag.com Lou Ferris VP of Global Revenue lou@sensimag.com Chris Foltz Director of Global Reach chris@sensimag.com Jade Kolb Director of Project Management jade.kolb@sensimag.com Kristan Toth Head of People kristan.toth@sensimag.com EDITORIAL

Doug Schnitzspahn Executive Editor doug.schnitzspahn@sensimag.com Tracy Ross Managing Editor tracy.ross@sensimag.com Leland Rucker Senior Editor leland.rucker@sensimag.com Robyn Griggs Lawrence Editor at Large robyn.lawrence@sensimag.com Helen Olsson Copy Chief Mona Van Joseph

Contributing Writer DESIGN/PRODUCTION

Jamie Ezra Mark Creative Director jamie@emagency.com

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DISCOVER WHAT’S HAPPENING IN WEST MICHIGAN’S CANNABIS INDUSTRY

WANT TO LEARN MORE? CONTACT JESSICA LAIDLAW AT JLAIDLAW@GRMAG.COM OR 616.401.8703 GRMAG.COM

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The best (and scariest) New Year’s Day of my life

was when I was a young woman of 23 and landing in a ski plane on a snow-covered runway near a tiny town called McCarthy in the largest national park in the world.

This park straddled both Alaska and Canada, but Alaska was where I went. During the winter, the one road into McCarthy closed, and so the only way to get there was by plane. When I arrived, the only way to get from the airstrip to the tiny cabin where I would spend the next few months, with no electricity or running water, was to hop in the basket of a dogsled and let a musher named Mark “drive” me “home.” It was freezing—20 below. The dogs howled as Mark pulled the sled’s brake. Then as they ran, they pooped, the smell wafting into my nose. The cabin seemed much farther away from McCarthy than it had in the honeyed light of the previous summer, when I had talked my way into coming back and living with a practical stranger. But now I was there, and there was no way out, because I was flat broke and flights back to Anchorage were $300.

But that new year, which started out so foreign and scary, soon morphed into the best year of my life. It’s because, for the first time ever, I was in a place with no distractions beyond what was real. By that I mean the snow, the dogs, and the pond where we gathered our water. I mean the downy feathered woodpeckers and the arguing ravens and the lynx that left its tracks near the cabin door. And I mean the hardship—of living in a place where none of the trappings of normal life existed, and where I had to draw upon my deepest reserves to ingest so much unknown while staying positive.

One night still stands out: when the northern lights were going bonkers, rolling across the sky in multicolored ribbons. I can still conjure them in my mind; when I do, I access the same wonder. I guess what I’m trying to say is that in my experience, one of the best ways to tap into joy is to seek out what is real. That’s the cold, the snow, the ice clouds forming each time we breathe. And who knows, maybe even the northern lights right here in Michigan.

You know, scientists have discovered that awe has incredible healing powers. It might behoove us all to create some awe-some experiences—or at least reminisce about an awe-inspiring moment as we move into a new year filled with uncertainty and possibility.

In my experience, one of the best ways to tap into joy is to seek out what is real. That’s the cold, the snow, the ice clouds forming each time we breathe.

To the new year,

Tracy Ross @writertracyross

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While Away Winter Serenity Now While sitting in meditation one day back in 2004, Hilltop Yoga founder Hilaire Lockwood felt one of her hands “pulled to touch” the left side of her neck and the other to touch the front. Shortly thereafter, it became hard for her to walk up a flight of stairs. Doctors told her repeatedly that nothing was wrong. But Lockwood’s insight said different, and she was 14

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diagnosed with papillary thyroid carcinoma. Then her little brother went missing, found in pieces in the Grand River. Lockwood credits her ongoing yoga practice with helping her survive both her cancer and trauma, and for 14 years she’s been teaching yoga from her Hilltop Yoga studio in Lansing.

All of this is to say that Lockwood knows something about surviving trauma. Find her wisdom and

virtual classes at hilltopyoga.com, where you can do a virtual drop-in for $10 or livestream one of her classes on Vimeo at vimeo.com/ user109776418. It’s pay what you can, “as so many have lost their livelihoods,” she says.

Tunes for the Times Langhorne Slim wrote the songs on Strawberry Mansion, which drops January 29, during the

PHOTO COURTESY OF HILLTOP YOGA

Baby, it’s effin’ cold outside. And a pandemic is threatening to steal our lives. Hunker down— warm, safe, and away from others—with this album, book, and on-demand, virtual yoga.

CONTRIBUTORS

Helen Olsson, Tracy Ross

BY THE NUMBERS

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spring of 2020. It’s a time he describes as: “The beginning of a new world. The unraveling of an old one. A wildly strange time where we’ve found ourselves collectively holding our breath, learning how best to exhale again.” When Slim exhales with his lyrics about anxiety and depression, you can’t help but feel his pain and also his catharsis as he shares the hope and beauty that comes from the resurrection after any hard time. The music is great for lounging, slow dancing, and singing in the shower.

PHOTOS (FROM TOP) COURTESY OF LANGHORNE SLIM / BY ESVETLEISHAYA, ADOBE STOCK / BY ALIA VOLZ

langhorneslimmusic.com.

Hippie Heyday We love Alia Volz’s warm, intelligent memoir so much, we’re running a 1,500word excerpt this month (see page 28).

Home Baked: My Mom, Marijuana, and the Stoning of San Francisco (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, April 2020) It’s a rollicking tale of growing up in the ’70s and ’80s with a mother who sold massive amounts of pot brownies, all under the nose of the authorities, at a time when San Francisco was evolving from its hippie heyday to a city wracked by AIDS. You’ll love Volz, her mother, and the many women and men who shaped her views on inclusion, cannabis, and society.

Amount of funds Oakland County is giving to restaurants and bars still struggling from the coronavirus.

Since the pandemic began, 2,000 restaurants had closed by mid-December.

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Michigan’s ranking of American states to report 10,000 deaths caused by the coronavirus (as of December)

1937

The year Michigan established its “Marihuana Tax Act,” with a spelling commonly used in federal government documents at the time

“AFTER THE PLAGUE CAME THE RENAISSANCE.” —Artist Corie Mattie

APPLY NOW

Michigan will be offering new recreational cannabis licenses.

In March, the state of Michigan will start accepting applications for recreational cannabis licensing opportunities from entrepreneurs who did not previously hold medical marijuana licenses. Fifty percent of the licenses have been reserved for “Detroit legacy applicants” who have lived in the city for 10 of the past 30 years and may have a marijuana conviction or for 13 of the past 30 years and are categorized as low-income. Discounts of up to 75 percent are also available to applicants belonging to a disproportionately impacted community on licensing fees and properties owned by the City Land Bank.

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___________________

This is my year to make it known who I am and what I stand for!

Question: Given that 2020 was such a cluster, what’s your New Year’s resolution?

CATHLEEN S. GRAHAM KAREN KORN

JAMIE COOPER

SHELLY BRUNN

RN with Cannabis Nurse Howard City, MI

Owner of Leaf Medic Dayton, OH

Publisher, Sensi Michigan Grand Haven, MI

Inventory Specialist Morley, MI

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

[My resolution is to] only do things that are healthy to me.

Remain committed to finding ways to earn money without having to sell my soul to an institution and become owned by them again.

I am going to make a huge impact in 2021; 2020 almost brought me down, but I am coming back bigger and stronger than ever.

Mark my words.

My resolution is to continue down my cannabis wellness journey and to stop being such a control freak. I’m really looking forward to cannabis being removed from the scheduled drug list.

GEAR FOR SNOWRIDERS

In pandemic times, skiers and snowboarders need to change up their game—and their gear.

High Camp Firelight 750 Flask with Orox Leather Holster $125, flask; $90, holster / highcampflasks.com

This handsome flask holds your whiskey, wine, or cocktail for al fresco après. The three-piece bar set has two 6-Shooter tumblers that magnetically secure to the flask. Elevate the container with a handcrafted oil-tanned leather holster from Orox.

Rossignol Pure Pro Heat Ski Boot $600 / rossignol.com

Cold toes send skiers running for the lodge. This ski boot has integrated heating technology with three temperature settings that are adjustable via Bluetooth.

Warm piggies are just a smartphone touch away.

Seirus HeatWave MagneMitt Summit $160 / seirus.com

Eliminating the need to fuss with a zipper, this new insulated leather mitt features a clever magnetic opening that lets you slip out your fingers to check texts or snap a photo—and then it snaps back to close. The thin inner glove

liner has smartphone-compatible fingertips and uses reflective technology to keep hands warm.

Maloja Face Mask $15 / malojaclothing.com

Comply with ski-resort mask-wearing protocols in style with a printed three-layer mask from Maloja. The fabric is treated with Polygiene ViralOff, a finish that killed 99% of SARS-CoV-2 in lab tests in two hours. Per EPA regulations, ViralOff is considered an “antimicrobial” treatment in the US. Phunkshun Wear Double Tube $25 / phunkshunwear.com

You’ll need to cover up your face in the lift maze, and two layers are better than one. The Double Tube from Phunkshun has a breathable moisture-wicking liner and a DWR-treated exterior to shed moisture.

Made in Denver, these whimsical neck tubes come in an array of prints, from avocados to flamingos. We like this macabre skull design best.

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THE BUZZ

BILITIES

BY STEPHANIE WILSON, EDITOR IN CHIEF

Gold Rush

After years of searching, a Michigan man found Forrest Fenn’s hidden treasure.

1 NEW YEAR, SAME YOU, FRESH PURPOSE: The arrival of 2021 is a chance to make a change. The year in our rearview torpedoed everything we thought of as “normal,” and there’s no going back. Not that we want to—the old normal and even the new normal isn’t good enough. We all were grinding away, but we weren’t making progress. And we’re all about progression.

2 MOVING ONWARD: It’s the only direction into the auspicious year of 2021, known as the Year 5 in numerology. According to Astrofame’s summary of Year 5, “We often feel freer and more able to make changes that we have been thinking about for a long time. We will pursue new initiatives and could even feel like we are growing wings. Curiosity and desire for freedom will be present, as will the desire to go beyond our limits.”

3 BORN AGAIN: According to Pinterest Predicts, an annual notyet-trending report, in 2021, we can expect “routines to be remixed.

Expect regular to be reinvented.” Pinterest says 2021 will be a rebirth, not a reset. “After the plague came the Renaissance.”

4 PLANT POWER TO THE PEOPLE: We’re at the beginning of a new Renaissance—a modern period of cultural, artistic, political, and scientific rebirth. At Sensi, we spent the past year undergoing a transformation to better serve our founding purpose: to break cannabis out of the chains of stigma, to be the bridge that connects cannabis with the mainstream, to tell the stories of the plant and of the people impacted by the plant, to stir people’s curiosity and their desire for freedom to use the plant—and inspire demands for the freedom of people suffering in prison because of cannabis prohibition.

5 MUSIC MAKERS: This modern Renaissance will provide relief … releaf … ReLeaf. As in, Sensi Presents ReLeaf, the Compilation Album Volume 1, a Benefit for Last Prisoner Project is the next bold step in Sensi’s journey, part of our rebirth. It’s the first release from Sensi’s new record label, and we are so excited and honored to introduce it to you. In the coming months, we’ll have ongoing coverage of the album and the artists who lent their talents to the project, and we’ll also shine a light on the important accomplishments of the Last Prisoner Project—both in the magazine and on the newly rebirthed sensimag.com.

Forrest Fenn

On June 6, 2020, Michigander Jonathan “Jack” Stuef located the famous Forrest Fenn treasure chest in an undisclosed Wyoming location, the gold and gems inside totaling $1 to $2 million. Stuef, a 32-year-old medical student, who followed clues in Fenn’s poem about the hidden chest, initially wished to remain anonymous, but on December 7, he revealed his identity on Twitter. Predictably, other treasure hunters weren’t happy, so Stuef wrote them a long personal note on Medium, which included this: “I do not see myself as being better than anyone else who searched for the treasure because I found it. I do not think more or less of anyone based on how close they were to its location, and I don’t think anyone else should either. This treasure hunt was not a referendum on anyone’s intelligence or abilities. Rather, it was a fun challenge based on figuring out what the words of a poem meant to the elderly man who wrote them, and nothing more than that.” Stuef says that after finding the loot, he moved his family “to a more secure building with guards and multiple levels of security.” Have fun spending your millions, Stuef. But if you decide it’s too much, we know some entrepreneurs in your home state who would take an interest-free loan.

WORD OF THE MONTH

EN·THE·O·GEN (n) A psychoactive substance, typically derived from plants, that is ingested to produce a non-ordinary state of consciousness for religious purposes or spiritual enlightenment. (See “The Road to Reclaiming Recovery,” p. 36.)

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PHOTO BY KRISTOPHER ROLLER, UNSPLASH

Happy Plan Americans finally have reason to (cautiously) dream about travel again.

TEXT STEPHANIE WILSON

If you’re wondering how has stirred up some wanderlust in you, you are to be a good traveler in not alone. And stoking the time of COVID-19, look to the words of an- the fire of your passion for travel is so much cient Chinese philosmore than just a guilty opher and author Lao pleasure—it’s an exerTzu. Among his many cise shown by science to notable wise quotes is boost your mental health this one: “A good travand emotional well-beeler has no fi xed plans ing. To which we sing, and is not intent on “Dream on, dream until arriving.”

Fact is, we don’t know your dreams come true.”

There’s some good when we’ll be able to news for globe-trotters: travel freely again, but Although most people there’s reason to be have back-burnered their optimistic we could be leisure travel for now, catching flights (not trip planning doesn’t feelings) sometime need to be canceled too. in 2021. In November, “According to researchwe learned that one ers, looking ahead to of the candidates for your next adventure a COVID-19 vaccine, could benefit your menmade by Pfizer and BioNTech, was more than tal health,” writes Erica Jackson Curran in Na90 percent effective in tional Geographic. “Even preventing volunteers from contracting the vi- if you’re not sure when rus—news that sparked that adventure will be.”

To back that idea up, a dim light at what we Curran points to a 2007 hope is the end of the study published in the very long tunnel we’ve Journal of Experimental been wandering in our Psychology. Researchers masks since March. at University of ColoraIf all the wandering

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PHOTO BY ROBERTO NICKSON, UNSPLASH

THE LIFE

do Boulder found that people were happier during the planning stages of a vacation than they were after taking one. Put another way, we’re likely to enjoy the anticipation of a trip more than we enjoy reminiscing about it afterward, a theory that was seconded and thirded by later studies. According to findings by researcher Jeroen Nawijn published in the journal Applied Research in Quality of Life, travelers planning a vacation reported being happier than people who aren’t dreaming of their next escape. That 2010 study found that all vacationers experienced a significant boost in happiness during the planning stages of a trip.

“For most,” the researchers concluded, “the enjoyment starts weeks, even months before the holiday actually begins.”

We all could benefit from some more enjoyment right now. The global pandemic has taken a toll on American’s well-being, as multiple global surveys and reports have shown.

One study revealed that Americans are experiencing the lowest levels of happiness in 50 years.

And according to results of the latest Ipsos survey on global happiness released in October, the J A N UA RY 2021

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THE LIFE

prevalence of happiness is down more than nine points in the United States compared with last year. Of those surveyed, 25 percent reported being “not very happy” and six percent saying they are “not happy at all.”

If you can relate, now’s the time to start planning your next escape. A new poll conducted by the Institute for Applied Positive Research backed up earlier studies, fi nding that simply planning a trip can help boost happiness and alleviate stress. According to the institute’s founder

Michelle Gielan, “Booking a trip—even just getting it on the calendar—might be the very thing we need to restore our emotional immune system after months of mounting uncertainty and stress.”

If your bank account is laughing at the thought of booking a vacation, first applaud its sense of humor. Then reassure it that dreaming of getting away at any point in the future is not an exercise in futility: planning for life returning to normal can be a comforting activity amid all the uncertainty. Just because

Just because you couldn’t swing a trip in the immediate future doesn’t negate the positive impact that anticipating a vacation can have on your mental health.

you couldn’t swing a trip in the immediate future doesn’t negate the positive impact that anticipating a vacation can have on your mental health.

This is a long way of suggesting you go start a Pinterest board or two to populate with photos of whatever exotic paradise catches your wandering, lusting eye.

Because one day—perhaps one day soon-ish— you can be on your way to finding it. There’s no time like the present to plan your future escape.

It’s all but guaranteed to bring joy to your world this holiday season.

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THE LIFE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mona Van Joseph is a professionally licensed intuitive reader in Las Vegas since 2002.

Author, radio host, and columnist, she has created the Dice Wisdom app and is available for phone and in-person sessions. mona.vegas

PHOTO BY JOZEFMICIC, ADOBE STOCK

2021 Vibe

the government), which will make it attractive to wait until that month.

The numerals in 2021 This is the year that you get what you want. add up to a 5 in numeroloTEXT MONA VAN JOSEPH gy, resonating to fast-moving communication, the The year 2020 was a vised unless it’s presented planet Mercury, and the Foundation Year designed (in writing or contract) to Norse God, Loki. It is the to show us what’s most benefit you authentically.

Year of Media—the truth important. It was spiritual Patience with yourself and and the trickster. Both awareness to our growth, others right now will do the truth and the manipand in many ways, we you a world of good when ulation of the truth in any were forced to recognize the energy shifts. issue will be present. Make and honor our priorities.

Make your plan for your own conclusions Isolation, loss, and money forward movement when and decisions on what you worries were (and still are this energy shift begins in know to be your truth. for many) center stage.

May. This will allow you Make the first quarter There will (still) be to attend a baseball game personally productive. Reholding back energy on or concert in July, the member, this year is about gatherings until the end of power month this year. connections and commuMarch and awareness of It will enable you to get nication. Do your best to money issues until April. that promotion or launch connect with people who People will be deciding a new beginning. The best you’ll want in your wheelwhat they want to do with month to retire would also house moving forward. their careers or finding be in July. There will be Connect with everyone ways to fill up their days in offers made to those close you’ve met on LinkedIn, the first quarter. Action in to retirement age in July especially if one of your the first quarter is not ad- (either by an employer or goals has to do with a new

HOROSCOPE

career opportunity.

Remember that nature abhors a vacuum, and the practical cleaning out of things in your living space will allow new things to present themselves. Make it a goal to have one drawer, one shelf, and one cabinet in each room empty so you are setting up the energy to receive. Hang all of the hanger hooks in your closet backward to see what you’re actually wearing (and decide in six months what you’ll keep or donate).

Spending time with ourselves in 2020 was to show us what truly makes us happy and purposeful.

This will be an action year as soon as you decide what that looks like for you. It’s truly that simple. Speak aloud what you want, and do not speak aloud what you don’t want.

MULLIGAN For the coming year, Mona is offering a 9 Day Energy Reset.

To learn more or participate, visit 9dayer.com.

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H ME BAKED In the 1970s, a free-spirited woman whipped up and hand-delivered marijuana-laced brownies to hippies, artists, and activists in the Bay Area. Her daughter shares her story.

INTRODUCTION TRACY ROSS, BOOK EXCERPT ALIA VOLZ

PHOTO BY DENNIS HEARNE

A

lia Volz grew up in San Francisco, the daughter of the cannabis connoisseur who founded Sticky Fingers Brownies. The company baked and distributed thousands of marijuana brownies per month and helped provide medical marijuana to AIDS patients in San Francisco. In her new memoir, Home Baked: My Mom, Marijuana, and the Stoning of San Francisco (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2020), Volz gives a raucous account of women pioneering the cannabis industry and of a family at home on society’s fringe. What follows are excerpts from Home Baked: *** My mom, Meridy, was a cannabusiness pioneer, the driving force

behind San Francisco’s first high-volume edibles business. For more than 20 years—from the frothy 1970s through the AIDS crisis and the dawn of medical marijuana—Sticky Fingers Brownies produced up to 10,000 potent magic brownies per month in an underground bakery, long before it could be done legally.

I grew up embedded in deep cannabis culture. Of all the stereotypes I’ve encountered, the one that bothers me the most is the notion that cannabusiness is a man’s world in which women are now beginning to claim space. At least here in northern California, the frontier has been female.

ing brownies was a casual way for my mom and her friends to make extra money. That quickly changed.

The timing coincided with a breakthrough in the weed world. A new variety of pot was hitting the streets and sending shock waves throughout the country: California-grown sinsemilla. That summer, an executive editor at High Times dubbed it “superweed” and called its farmers “supergrowers.”

Decades later, seedy weed has gone the way of VHS tapes; only people of a certain age will remember the tedium of deseeding compressed bricks of cannabis by hand—or how mediocre the buzz could be. Up to that point, the *** Sticky Fingers bakers had been Sticky Fingers started in 1976, a cooking with bricks of dusty Mexyear before I was born. At first, sell- ican gold bud. Meanwhile, one of J A N UA RY 2021

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my mom’s partners, Donald, had a friend up in Humboldt who was growing tall, regal sinsemilla on a hidden sunbathed hillside. The flower was gooey, pert, and garnished with crystals. Like Christmas trees for psychedelic dollhouses.

So, my mom and her partners squeezed into the cab of a beater pickup and headed north across the Golden Gate Bridge in search of fresh magic. Urban civilization gave way to gnarled oaks and butterflies.

Clumps of sycamores wearing slowburn autumnal colors stood in toasted brown fields dotted with cows.

KSAN fuzzed out, sticking them with two Christian stations and one playing country and western. After four hours in the truck, they blew across the Humboldt County line.

At Garberville, a one-horse town with a population of around 800, a funky motel, and a redneck bar called the Branding Iron Saloon, they exited the highway onto an intricate maze of dirt roads. The collapse of the logging industry had flooded the market with large tracts of unwanted land, where rough, swooping hills discouraged people from living in close proximity. Between fragrant redwood groves and slick madrones with blood-colored skin curling away from the lime-green flesh underneath, there were ugly stretches of clear-cut land, scarred and eroded, barren but for stumps and weeds.

Donald’s friend was a burly mountain lesbian who went by Mumser (a nickname taken from the Yiddish word for “bastard”).

She worked with a partner, whom I’ll call “Betty,” in the secretive Garberville woods—part of a community of women growers.

Betty came from tending their crop to meet with the Sticky

Fingers crew topless—wearing nothing but dirty jeans and muck books—and my mom was in awe.

“They just completely owned the running-around-topless-with-saggy-boobs-and-pooping-in-an-outhouse thing,” she says, looking back. She had never met women so unconcerned with how society might judge them. My mom, who always struggled with her body image, thought they were fabulous: Amazons of Humboldt. *** “It was all for fun,” Mumser says now, reflecting on the early days.

“We didn’t come up here to grow.

We didn’t! We just wanted to be in the country.”

She and Betty had left San Francisco for the woods in about 1972, enamored with the notion of living on the fat of the earth. Donald helped Mumser build her cabin using homesteading catalogs and how-to manuals. The result was rickety, full of chinks and corners that didn’t quite meet.

This was during a rare moment in US history when the pace of urban migration slowed to a crawl. The once-flourishing Humboldt lumber industry was dying out from over-logging, and land was cheap.

Back-to-the-landers erected cabins and outhouses, planted sustenance gardens, raised goats and chickens, and set about living rustically. But while you’re planting tomatoes—and buying weed from someone else— you might as well plant your own weed. Then, while you’re planting your own weed, you might as well plant extra to sell. Perhaps you’ll want to upgrade from an outhouse to a flushing toilet. And how are you going to pay for a septic tank on or-

ganic tomatoes and welfare checks?

Back then, sinsemilla techniques were new to California. One had to kill the male cannabis plants before they could pollinate the females, so that the females would ooze gooey psychoactive resin instead of producing seeds. But the differences between male and female plants are subtle and apparent only at certain stages. And you couldn’t take your questions to Google.

Friends taught one another.

The 1976 publication of Sinsemilla: Marijuana Flowers by Jim Richardson and Arik Woods was a turning point. It’s a handsome coffee-table book with more space dedicated to photographs than words. The sparse writing makes an impact. Part practical manual, part pot porn, it gives step-by-step instructions that one doesn’t have to be a horticulturist to understand.

And the language is so suggestive that it’s tempting to read it aloud in a phone-sex voice: “The virgin blossoms swell with sexual energy eager for consummation. But the breeze brings no pollen and the rhythm continues to intensify.... As J A N UA RY 2021

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the last pistils come into the tips, the clusters turn pure white. The pods swell and the resinous coating thickens. The true sweetness of the flowers comes forth and becomes so strong it is almost too much to bear.”

Macrophotography shot with the same erotic sensibility accompanies the writing. Seed pods shaped like vulvas, pistils that look like erect penises. It’s over the top but also useful. Woods’s sensual photos taught new growers to identify the sex organs at various stages—when to kill males, when to wait, and when to harvest mature females. This book passed from hippie to hippie in the California backwoods. It made the delicate art of farming sinsemilla appear accessible, even fun.

In reality, it was hard labor.

Mumser and Betty built a hilltop water tank and ran lines to their patch, then lugged soil and fertilizer into the woods in 50-pound sacks. Rabbits, deer, caterpillars, molds, fungi, and human thieves posed constant threats. In late summer, when the females produced psychoactive resin, every day of sunshine made the product stronger. But an early frost could ruin everything. Timing was crucial. Once harvested, the plants hung to dry on hooks in the cabins, where the growers watched obsessively for signs of mildew. At any stage, local police or federal drug enforcement could seize everything—including their freedom at a time when growing a single plant was a felony.

By the time Sticky Fingers came around, they had it down. Their farm was small but mighty, and their homegrown packed a punch.

All these years later, the aroma of our home bakery remains sharp in my mind. It was round and earthy: notes of crushed ponderosa pine needles, dusty manzanita, moss from the lazy Eel River, and backroad dirt.

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My mom and her crew crammed garbage bags of shake into… the pickup and drove slowly, carefully home, crossing the Golden Gate with a profound sense of relief. *** As impressed as my mom was with the flower from Mumser’s farm, she was looking for something else. Their bud was too expensive—and too strong—to use in high-volume baking. Through experimenting, Sticky Fingers had discovered they could use sinsemilla “shake”—the leafy detritus left over from trimming—and still come out with brownies that were more potent than anything made with the bricks of Mexican gold they’d been buying.

This benefitted everyone. The shake left over after trimming was a liability to the growers. Though it lacked street value, it would count the same as expensive bud in a bust.

In the eyes of the law, a pound was a pound. The Garberville women had been mulching or burning

their shake to get rid of it. They sold it to Sticky Fingers for just $50 a pound—one sixth of what they paid for Mexican gold. This increased the bakery’s profit exponentially while also helping the growers.

My mom and her crew crammed garbage bags of shake into an antique icebox in the back of the pickup and drove slowly, carefully home, crossing the Golden Gate with a profound sense of relief.

The new extra-potent sinsemilla brownies caused a sensation in San Francisco, and the rest is history. *** Between 1976 and 1998, Sticky Fingers Brownies went through several iterations, growing or shrinking with the demands of each era. In the mid-80s, when HIV/AIDS was rampant in San Francisco, Sticky

Fingers became part of the medical-marijuana underground, getting soothing cannabis into the bodies of those who needed it most. Through all its changes, Sticky Fingers remained a woman-run business with close ties to the wholesome outdoor growing communities of Humboldt and Mendocino counties, and the nature-worshipping gardeners who made their homes among the redwoods.

All these years later, the aroma of our home bakery remains sharp in my mind. In the days before hybridization brought us strains smelling of blueberry muffins and Girl Scout cookies, the odor was tied to the land. It was round and earthy: notes of crushed ponderosa pine needles, dusty manzanita, moss from the lazy Eel River, and backroad dirt.

The scent of northern California.

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Psychedelic therapy could help ease the deep, constant wounds of racial trauma, but stigma and the movement’s unbearable whiteness keep people away.

TEXT ROBYN GRIGGS LAWRENCE

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THE ROAD

ORIGINAL PHOTO BY BEN SCOTT, UNSPLASH

TO RECLAIMING RECOVERY

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n her vision, NiCole Buchanan is lying on a mat on a dirt floor, watching the woman sitting across from her morph into her ancestors through multiple generations, women she recognizes as legacies of her own history. They tell her they have survived brutal lifetimes as Black women so that she could be. They tell her she’s doing everything they’d hoped and dreamed.

In Jamilah George’s vision, she’s riding a lapa (an African skirt) like a magic carpet, looking down at her ancestors working the plantation fields. A face that looks like hers turns toward her and reaches out a hand, and George pulls her up to the lapa. As generations of her ancestors pass by below, she continues to reach down and pull them up until her lapa is full of beautiful Black women from her lineage, all holding hands. “I’ve never felt so much warmth and support in my life, ever,” she says.

Buchanan, an associate professor of psychology at Michigan State University and founder of Alliance Psychological Associates in East Lansing, Michigan, and George, a Detroit native who is studying the potential of psychedelic medicine to heal the psychological effects of racial trauma while pursuing a PhD in Clinical Psychology at the University of Connecticut, shared their psychedelic experiences during an emotional segment of “Black Lives Matter & Psychedelic Integration: Pathways to Radical Healing Amidst Ongoing Oppression.” The webinar, sponsored by the Chacruna Institute (a nonprofit that provides education about psychedelic plant medicines) in

November, is one of many such events that have come online recently to explore how entheogens (plants that inspire non-ordinary states of consciousness and spiritual enlightenment) may be able to uproot and heal deep, embedded scars from generations of systemic racial oppression.

Oyi Sun, an Atlanta-based martial arts master and coach who produced the 2020 Detroit Psychedelic Conference, explains it this way: “The white man has been selling trauma for generations, and here’s the terrible part—we’ve been programmed to receive it. And when you’re dealing with earthly trauma, entheogens are the best therapists in the world. There’s been a spiritual suppression going on for over 2,000 years, and now with the help of entheogens, there’s about to be a renewal of spiritual power.”

Sun stepped in to run the conference, with the theme “Entheogenics in Urban Environments: A Journey into the Mysteries,” after its founder, Baba Kilindi Iyi, died in April. Kilindi, one of the world’s foremost experts on psychedelic science and healing and the master of mushroom megadosing, was often the only Black presenter—if not the only Black person—at conferences and events on the psychedelic circuit, and he created the Detroit conference to bring the conversation home. “The faces that look like Kilindi—the brown faces—have not been represented in the entheogenic community,” Sun says.

The conference took place at the Bushnell Congregational Church, a prewar Colonial Revival building on four acres in Rosedale Park, over a long weekend in August. Diverse speakers from around the world J A N UA RY 2021

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shared their expertise on everything from subatomic particle research and hyperdimensional realms to psychedelic justice, culminating in a memorial for Kilindi that Sun describes as “four hours of emotions, laughter, speakers, heart pouring, drumming—and more drumming and more drumming and more dancing and martial arts exhibitions.” It was a template for future events, Sun says, and they’re already brewing in Oakland, Denver, and Portland, Oregon (where voters recently legalized psilocybin for therapeutic use and decriminalized possession of all drugs).

a scab keeps getting ripped off a wound, the wound can never heal.

“If someone is assaulted, for most of us, that happens once, then you have some time to heal,” says Undrea Wright, who co-founded The Sabina Project last year to provide Black-led psychedelic education, training, and harm reduction. “For people of color, we don’t have any time to heal because when we come out of ceremony, reality is still there.”

Psychedelic therapy, one of the hottest healing modalities to emerge in decades, shows a lot of promise in treating PTSD, and many see its potential for treating racial trauma

Ottawa, has found psychedelics to be highly effective at treating racial trauma. She is the clinical director of the Behavioral Wellness Clinic in Tolland, Connecticut, where she and her colleagues offer culturally informed ketamine-assisted psychotherapy as a means of treating racial trauma. They find that many Black people refuse to even consider it, because they can be “fearful of a psychedelic medicine and the vulnerability that comes with it,” Williams explained during a Chacruna Institute forum on diversity in psychedelic medicine in February 2020.

In 2018, Williams and three

The Pygmy tribes of Central Africa discovered the psychedelic properties of ibogaine, an indole alkaloid extracted from a rainforest shrub called Tabernanthe iboga, thousands of years ago and shared it with people who practice the Bwiti religion in West Africa. Still used as sacred medicine in Cameroon and Gabon, ibogaine opens doors to mystical experiences and communion with ancestors and spirits, often taking people on dreamlike journeys through their lives and offering transformative perspectives.

Ibogaine is being studied as a treatment for drug addiction (opioids in particular), and clinics offer ibogaine-assisted detoxification in Mexico, Canada, Costa Rica, the Netherlands, South Africa, and New Zealand. In the United States, ibogaine is a Schedule 1 narcotic.

PSYCHEDELICS AND RACIAL TRAUMA Racial trauma is a lot like PTSD— with symptoms like nightmares and hypervigilance—and it develops over a lifetime of injustices and abuses. But racial trauma is more insidious than PTSD because people of color continue to experience the same threats and humiliation that triggered them in the first place on an ongoing basis. When 40

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as well. “Right now, what’s taking up all the space for Indigenous and Black people is trauma, and the opposite of trauma is creative,” Sun says. “When entheogens come in and start clearing up that trauma, there’s going to be a void, and that void will be filled with creativity.”

Monnica T. Williams, PhD, an associate professor in the School of Psychology at the University of

colleagues published their findings from a methodological search of psychedelic studies from 1993 to 2017. In those studies, 82.3 percent of the participants were non-Hispanic white, 4.6 percent were Indigenous, 2.5 percent were African American, 2.1 percent were Latino, and 1.8 percent were Asian.

Selection bias is a factor in this, certainly, but just as importantly,

many people of color have little trust for medical trials (one word: Tuskegee) and illicit substances (two words: Drug War). They’ve been exploited and abused within the medical system and targeted in an immoral war that has decimated communities. Many don’t have the expendable time and money it takes to participate in clinical trials.

George was one of few Black participants in clinical trials for MDMA-assisted psychotherapy to treat PTSD that were sponsored by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), and it was anything but a healing experience for her. (MDMA is an acronym for the synthetic drug 3,4-methylenedioxy-methamphetamine, more commonly known as Ecstasy and Molly.) After her session with two white therapists, she was sent home with a white night attendant, but she continued to feel alone and terrified. “I remember feeling so lost, so out of touch with my body, and psychologically, I didn’t have control of my thoughts,” she said during the webinar. “I was scared to call anyone. How do I tell any of my Black friends I just did an MDMA study?”

“THESE MEDICINES ARE PART OF OUR CULTURAL BIRTHRIGHT, AND I BELIEVE WE LOSE MORE WHEN WE STEP BACK AND CHOOSE NOT TO ENGAGE.” —Monnica T. Williams, PhD, University of Ottowa’s School of Psychology

RECLAIMING PSYCHEDELIC HEALING Beyond the clinic, underground psychedelic experiences like ayahuasca circles have become a thing in communities across North America—and every one of those circles is overwhelmingly white, says Wright. The few people of color who do participate, he says, find it uncomfortable because white people often (wittingly or unwittingly) gaslight them. “If I’m in a space that’s supposed to be safe and available to my story, and people are telling me my story is not real J A N UA RY 2021

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or valuable, that I just need to move past it, now I have an additional layer of trauma,” he says. “This is the story we kept hearing over and over.

People of color had the wherewithal and learned about the medicines, finally found the circle—which is cost-prohibitive for most of us— then they had to do this dance in the circle. It can be retraumatizing.”

Wright and Charlotte James co-founded The Sabina Project because they recognized “how healing it would be to be able to share our experiences and extend access to these medicines with our own communities, especially during these incredibly challenging and isolating times,” James says.

People have been flocking to their workshops, trainings, and virtual ceremonies throughout the lockdown, seeking both community and information as they confront the demons of isolation.

“WE JUST WANT TO GUARANTEE THERE IS SOME SAFE, JUDGMENTFREE SPACE TO PROCESS JOURNEYS.” —Undrea Wright, Co-founder of The Sabina Project

The Sabina Project’s ceremonies are open to everyone, but integration circles are only for people of color. “We just want to guarantee there is some safe, judgment-free space, free of the white gaze, to process journeys,” she says. Fearing a judicial system that’s stacked against them, Wright and James facilitate only ceremonies with substances that are legal in the United States. Citing an ACLU study in Maryland that found African American men 900 percent more likely to be arrested for simple possession than white men, Wright says, “The consequences for us to do anything illegal are severe.”

Those consequences are why many Black parents warn their children away from all drugs, psychedelics included. Buchanan said during the webinar that when she was growing up, everyone knew the story of her father’s best friend Lonnie, who tried acid after he returned from Vietnam and went crazy. “Every Black community has one of these stories,” she says.

“What’s crazy,” Wright says, “is that most of these [sacred earth medicine] practices come from people of color. They convinced us to denounce these very powerful tools and replace them with pharmaceutical drugs that are killing us.”

“These medicines are part of our cultural birthright,” Williams said in her lecture last February. “And I believe we lose more when we step back and choose not to engage.

It is true that it has not always been safe for us, but I hope we can come together as a people, create our own safe spaces, and become empowered to reclaim psychedelic healing for ourselves, our loved ones, and our community.”

DOING THE MOST GOOD Support The Sabina Project by checking out its new merch collection.

They’ll pay that support forward by giving 5 percent of all proceeds to the Mutual Ceremony Fund, which provides monetary assistance for BIPOC looking to explore psychedelic healing work through The Sabina Project’s workshops.

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PHOTO COURTESY OF ZEPPELIN ZEERIP

Snurf’s Up! Zeppelin Zeerip, a 28-year-old Michigan snowboarder, has just released a film chronicling the sport that predated—and presaged—snowboarding.

TEXT TRACY ROSS

Last month, First Coast News reported that Sparta filmmaker and snowboarder Zeppelin Zeerip, 28, was “visiting with some snowboard legends” when those riders told him they had three hours of unseen footage from the early days of “snurfing” (the snurfer is a sort of snowboard prototype, except it requires pulling on a leash attached to the nose, and it has no bindings).

They let Zeerip, who was making a snurfer movie called Made in the Mitten, borrow the three plastic bags of 8mm film to scour at his leisure.

Which brings up all kinds of questions. First

off, what 28-year-old gets to hang out, randomly, with “snowboarding legends?” Second, how did said legends “forget” that these bags of film existed? And third, is the surname of these legends—brothers Bill and Tom—really Pushaw?

For answers to these questions and more, we turned to Zeerip, who we found at home in Muskegon, eating lunch and prepping his next film.

Why are you interested in making films about snowboarding?

I grew up 25 minutes from where snurfing was J A N UA RY 2021

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THE SCENE

PHOTOS (AT RIGHT) COURTESY OF ZEPPELIN ZEERIP

Ski-Born, Snurf-Bound

“Watch this, Mom!” yelled my eight-year-old daughter on her 50th run in three days last April. We were in month two of pandemic lockdown and trying to make the best of it. We realized how lucky we were to have two things: acres of snow-covered national forest out our front door and the possession of a new Burton Throwback Snowboard, which isn’t a snowboard at all but a snurfboard (or snurfer).

In my feeble efforts to be my child’s interim homeschool teacher, we did some sniffing into snurfing on the Muskegon Area Sports Hall of Fame website. There, we found dozens of articles about how the sport was developed on the Lake Michigan dunes by the earliest known knuckle-dragger, Sherman Poppen. It was Christmas Eve 1965, and the Poppen kids were raising a ruckus. Bursting pregnant with their third child, Nancy Poppen told Sherm, “You’ve got to get these noisy kids out of the house!” They tried to sled, but they couldn’t find the right tool for the occasion. So Sherm took two skis and lashed them together, building the earliest precursor to the board that would later make Jake Burton a multimillionaire.

My daughter got her Burton Throwback snurfer from her big brother, who won it in a drawing at an avalanche safety class in Colorado. They fought over it until he (an accomplished skier) gave it to her (an impressionable tween). My daughter says, “Snurfing: It’s more fun than skiing because you don’t need poles.” And I say it gets kids out of the house for extended periods of time, increasing the odds of their mother not killing them dead.

invented, and I always knew about Sherman Poppen, snurfing’s inventor. My home resort held one of the World Snurfing Championships back in the day, and it shut down a few years ago. I always had it in my head to make a film about snowboarding, and when Poppen and Jake Burton Carpenter both passed away last year, I had to do it. In the midst of making it, the Pushaw brothers told me they had a bag of film under the stairs.

Suddenly, I had hours of footage from the early ’70s that I could incorporate into my film.

GET YOUR SNURF ON Buy a build-your-own Throwback Snowboard kit and take it for a spin at the Silver Lake Sand Dunes between Muskegon and Ludington. $99 / burton.com

My 8-year-old has taken to snurfing, but she’s a skier, like everyone in my family. Should I be worried?

Oh, no, you should bring her to the dark side. [laughs] I do think snowJ A N UA RY 2021

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THE SCENE

THE FILM

Made in the Mitten

by Zeppelin Zeerip Watch it on Vimeo

boarding is way more fun than skiing. You can’t do a heel-side turn in pow on skis. It’s just such a different experience.

years behind any trend that starts there. This happened by happenstance—Sherman Poppen going out and lashing two skis together. He Snowboard culture too? did say snurfing was like It’s so ironic. This is riding an endless wave, Sensi, a weed magazine. but for a lot of these I don’t even smoke weed, guys, snurfing was their and you’re asking me first foray into standing about snowboarding on a board sideways. culture. My mom was a school administraIf Muskegon is the tor, and she bought my birthplace of the sport, board for me! why does Jake Burton get all the credit for What’s the most starting it? surprising thing you’ve Jake came to one of the learned about the birth first Snurfing World of snowboarding?

Championships, and That it really wasn’t he’d put a binding on —Zeppelin Zeerip, creator of influenced by surf culthe front of his board.

Made in the Mitten ture. Michigan is so far The snurfer hadn’t been from the coasts; we’re developed or changed in

“[Poppen] did say snurfing was like riding an endless wave, but for a lot of these guys, snurfing was their first foray into standing on a board sideways.”

10 years. They made him enter his own category and compete by himself, so technically he won the first snowboard competition. Then he took the Pushaw brothers to Vermont with him and they helped carve boards with a bandsaw in his garage.

He put snowboarding on the world stage—albeit a very small stage at first.

How is it going with your new film?

The film is going great. It just got into the Vancouver International Film Festival today. It’s getting a ton of love on Vimeo— so far 13,000 views. I’m doing a Q&A with New Holland Brewing tonight.

It’s all good.

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THE SCENE CALENDAR

LEFT: EVENT NAME BELOW: EVENT NAME RIGHT: EVENT NAME

It’s a brand-new year, and there are plenty of online and distanced in-person events to give you hope across Michigan this January.

TEXT STEPHANIE ANDELMAN

In a new year of hope and positivity, you’ll still be able to participate in the new normal of virtual events while planning your summer getaways. BYOB (bring your own blanket) to outdoor heated dining and drinking establishments, so you can see fresh faces and experience new tastes. Make reservations to walk through museums sure to inspire you with cars, paintings, Legos, and alternate realities. Take cooking classes to warm up your mind and oven. Watch sports teams play to their TV audiences. And manifest 2021 through meditation, vision boards, and the soundtrack of life.

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THE SCENE CALENDAR

LEFT: DETROIT STYLE: CAR DESIGN IN THE MOTOR CITY, 1950–2020 BELOW: JOAN BAEZ, MISCHIEF MAKERS 2 EXHIBITION RIGHT: MICHLUG LEGO BUILDING DISPLAY

world and the car culture from the 1950s to the present, alongside 12 coupes and sedans designed across that 70-year period.

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2021 Vision Board Party: Virtual Night In!

PHOTOS (FROM TOP) COURTESY OF ALLABOUTTHEBRICKS.COM / CECIOKA VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Jan. 2, 10 a.m.

Virtual event @MyBookBuddyDetroit

catch this Midwest rivalry on TV, so you can be warm and near the fridge.

Entering Cannabis: The Global Landscape Live Virtual Summit Jan. 6, 11 a.m.

Virtual event enteringcannabis.com

Baking with Our Buds Jan. 7, 7 p.m.

Virtual event micheletaugustin.us

Joan Baez, Mischief Makers 2 Exhibition

Detroit Lions vs. Minnesota Vikings

Jan. 9, 8:30 p.m.

Majestic Theatre, Detroit majesticdetroit.com

Jan. 3, 1 p.m.

Ford Field, Detroit detroitlions.com

In celebration of Joan’s 80th birthday, attend this livestream reception in the theater.

The iconic folk singer, activist, and

Maybe fans will be allowed at Ford Field in a limited capacity? Best to

artist will take you on a virtual tour of her portraits exhibit and then create mischief with a cast of characters speaking, singing, and celebrating at the Seager Gray Gallery in Mill Valley, California.

in Chains) deliver a heavy metal rock experience as they end their sinful tour, releasing souls and banging heads.

The Future of Cannabis Marketing

Reggae Night Sundays

Gong Meditation

Detroit Pistons vs. Utah Jazz

Face the Music Detroit: A Live The Legacy of Dr. Discussion Jan. 23, 6 p.m.

Martin Luther Virtual event King, Jr.

Jan. 10, 3 p.m.

Little Caesars Arena, Detroit nba.com/pistons

Cooking Class: Iconic New Orleans Fare

Jan. 17, 5 p.m.

420 Smoke Out Social Club, Detroit @420SmokeOut313

Jan. 18, 10 a.m.

Virtual event thewright.org

Organized by the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, this virtual event World is Fk’d features presentaTour: Carnival of tions by prominent Sins civil rights activists, Jan. 16, 7 p.m. a gospel perforThe Token Lounge, Westland mance by Ebenezer tokenlounge.com Missionary Church, Wrëking Crüe and presentations (Tribute to Mötley from Teen Hype Crüe) and Dirt and Detroit’s Police (Tribute to Alice Athletic League.

Jan. 11, 1 p.m.

Virtual event cozymeal.com

Jan. 19, 10:45 a.m.

Virtual event

thecannabismarketingassociation.com

Jan. 23, 9 a.m.

Virtual event @uneedtherapy2

detroitexperiencefactory.org/ public-tours

The Art of Poetry: An Open Mic Night Experience Jan. 25, 7 p.m.

Virtual event detroitwritingroom.com

24th Annual Sphinx Competition Finals Jan. 30, 7:30 p.m.

Virtual event sphinxmusic.org

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Discover something out of this world.

NEW WANA TARTS

wanabrands.com

P R O M OT I O N A L F E AT U R E OH HELLO BRANDING GROUP

Make Your Brand Stand Out Based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Oh Hello works with companies offering everything from boutique marketing to memorable promotions—from concept to implementation.

O

ne of the most challenging formulas for any new business to crack is how to market its brand to consumers effectively. From a single item on a shelf to a brick-and-mortar shop offering a host of products, how you communicate what you are selling to the public can make or break you.

a wide array of services that will help your entity stand out. “The cannabis industry is an ever-expanding area with new products hitting the market continually,” says Alex Benda, the CEO of OHBG. “You must define your part of the market and build your identity if you want to be successful.”

The Oh Hello team will help define what your brand is and the story you want to tell. It will help you create a professional website to drive business and work with you on inbound marketing and content strategy. The goal is to ensure your brand has a clear and concise identity that will make it stick in consumers’ minds. When your customers know your brand, they will trust your brand. By working with Oh Hello, you can create a consistent experience for all interactions with your product.

When consumers see your logo or your branding, they’ll know what they’re buying. That will drive sales.

One of the company’s more unique offerings is an in-house graphic design department that will work with brands from day one to turn out packaging that will pop. To get your brand’s name in front of customers, Oh Hello will craft a memorable promotional campaign. The company is also well-versed in the ins and outs of the 280 E tax code.

In an environment that is continually changing and growing, it behooves every business to take steps to ensure survival—and profitability. That means developing a strong brand that will stand the test of time. For that, you need OHBG. For a limited time, Oh Hello is offering a free $40 gift to anyone who sets up a consultation call.

That challenge is even more amplified in the cannabis business. Numerous regulatory issues make presenting a consistent message even more difficult. Developing brand consistency is crucial for success.

The team at Oh Hello Branding Group Oh Hello Branding Group (OHBG) has worked with some of the Brand Specialists biggest businesses out there. It offers ohhellobranding.com

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THE END

Trip Advisor When a psychedelic experience goes south and you need a friend? 833-FIRESIDE.

Psychedelic experiences can be enlightening, healing, hilarious, maybe even boring—but when one goes south, or even north to a dizzying degree, the last thing you want to be is alone.

Starting April 14, the Fireside Project will have your back. Its Psychedelic Peer Support Line, the first hotline of its kind, will provide “real-time support—for when time doesn’t seem real,” according to its website. Fireside Project exists to help people get the most from their psychedelic experiences, says founder and director Joshua White. “These are powerful tools that can help people live fuller, deeper, more connected lives, if they have the right kind of support.”

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If and when you need help processing a psychedelic experience, you can call or text 833-FIRESIDE, and volunteers from diverse backgrounds, who are trained to listen deeply and without judgment, will help you through.

These good people will even call or text you a week later to check in and help you make sense of and incorporate your trip’s lessons into your life. (Psychedelic therapists charge good money for this much-needed service.)

“A core part of our mission is to support a more inclusive psychedelic movement,” says Hanifa Washington, Fireside Project’s cultivator of beloved community. The group will do this through coalition building with other

groups dedicated to “liberatory practices within the movement,” listening to the “needs, curiosities, and stories” of people who have historically been disconnected from the psychedelic movement, and establishing the Fireside Equity Fund to cover the costs of psychedelic education, training, and access for volunteers who are impacted by oppression.

Hotline staff will undergo background checks and 36 hours of training and will be overseen by an on-call supervisor. The line will be open Wednesday to Sunday from 3 p.m. to 3 a.m. during an 18-month pilot program, then 24/7 after that. firesideproject.org

PHOTO BY AZIZ ACHARKI, UNSPLASH

TEXT ROBYN GRIGGS LAWRENCE

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