SPRING 2020
THC Championship Awards Issue Plus: Salt Glass | Guest Chef Roilty | Colin Gordon of ETHOS | Ketamine Treatment hcmagazine.com 1
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hcmagazine.com 5
A LETTER TO OUR READERS
“Adversity introduces a man to himself.” ~ Albert Einstein
C
OVID-19 has come down like a hammer across the US and many of us have felt the sting. HC Magazine has not been left unscathed, we have all been making sacrifices. This issue is only being released digitally. We made the decision to not print this issue due to the fact that our distribution points have been hit hard by the shutdown as well. One of our largest distributors cut off all deliveries of print magazines for the foreseeable future. That means a lot less readers. We decided the best way to reach as many people as possible during a pandemic is to push the magazine out only on our digital platforms. A silver lining of digital is that it leaves no paper trail. No paper magazine = no waste. This issue you will find the results of our 8th Annual THC Championship. We went the unconventional route with our awards party this year. Due to COVID-19, we were unable to safely hold the rockin’ party that we have delivered each year prior. Instead, the awards were live-streamed on 4/19 and 4/20. The video is available on our YouTube channel if you would like to check it out. Otherwise, head over to page 40 to view those results. We hope you enjoy reading all of the great articles we have put together for you and that you choose to see the silver linings life offers whenever possible. Be well!
Christianna Brown Editor-In-Chief
National Director of Sales & Marketing Cat Novak sales@hcmagazine.com
WWW.HCMAGAZINE.COM
Editor-in-Chief Christianna Brown Managing Editor DJ Reetz Junior Designer Stacey Roland Photographer Samuel Farley above photo by Cannabis Camera
6 Spring 2020
THC Holding Company 2255 Sheridan Blvd Unit C #281 Edgewater, CO 80214 info@hcmagazine.com
Publishers
Christianna Brown
David Maddalena
f /HCMagazine t @HempConnoisseur c @hempconnoisseur The Hemp Connoisseur is published quarterly by The Hemp Connoisseur, LLC. All contents are copyrighted 2020 by The Hemp Connoisseur, LLC. All rights reserved. For advertising and subscription information please email sales@hcmagazine.com.
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hcmagazine.com 7
CONTRIBUTORS
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8 Spring 2020
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SAMUEL FARLEY
Samuel Farley is a writer and photographer who graduated from Drexel University, in Philadelphia, PA with a B.S. in psychology, with a concentration in writing and publishing. He began working for The Hemp Connoisseur in 2015. He has previous industry experience as a bud tender in a medical and recreational facility in the Denver area. In addition, he is currently working on a book about cannabis and how it has helped him handle the symptoms of multiple serious injuries and hopes to be a positive voice for medical cannabis. @THC_Samuel
ERIN HIATT
California-born, Utah-bred, and NYC living, Erin Hiatt has covered the cannabis industry for the past three years. When not hunting down compelling stories, she works as the Dancers Outreach Coordinator for a not-for-profit dedicated to entertainment industry professionals. Ardent hiker, rapacious reader, and political junkie, Erin has a B.A. in Musical Theatre Performance from Weber State University in Ogden, UT and is a proud member of Actors Equity. Follow on Twitter @erinhiatt.
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DJ REETZ
DJ Reetz is a writer, cannabis enthusiast and consummate smart-ass. He’s been covering the legislative, developmental and cultural aspects of legal cannabis for over six years. He lives in Denver, which sucks — he advises that people do not move there. Available for Twitter beefs @pot_incorrect.
GEORGIE SMITH
Georgie Smith, known as ‘Farmer Georgie’ in her rural farming community on a Pacific Northwest island, writes about hemp, farm tech, farm sustainability and all things ‘ag.’ A fourth-generation farmer who ran her own diversified, naturally grown vegetable farm for 15 years, Georgie combines a journalism degree plus a life-time of farm living to write and report on issues important to America’s farmers and farmlands. She started writing about hemp after exploring it for production on her farm. Georgie lives and writes in a 200-year-old barn house, with a menagerie of cats, dogs, rabbits, chickens and the occasional turkey. www.farmergeorgiewrites.com
BEN OWENS
Ben Owens is a cannabis marketer and journalist based in Broomfield, CO. Originally from Arizona, Owens is involved in counter culture branding and hosts regular hiking and camping events throughout Colorado.
hcmagazine.com 9
IN THIS ISSUE | SPRING 2020
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88 32 26
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36 10 Spring 2020
In This Issue 13
THE GREEN SCENE
Events, Products We Love & In the Spotlight
25
LIFESTYLE
Livin’ that Cannabis Life
32
26
RECIPES
32
32
FEATURED GLASS ARTIST
46
36
REBELS & MISFITS:
Meet Bo Porytko and Dan Lasiy
50
40
2020 THC CHAMPIONSHIP AWARDS
Get a Closer Look at This Year’s Winners
69
BUSINESS & POLITICS
Cannabusiness in Full Bloom
70
70
ALL IN WITH COLIN GORDON
From Buddhist Bouncer to Pro Poker Player
78
78
CBD HEMP FIELDS STINK OUT NEIGHBORHOODS ACROSS THE U.S.
Is America Destined to Smell Like... Weed?
82
WOMEN IN HEMP
Leading the Hemp World via Girl Power
87
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
For Your Information
88 88
AN EVEN EXCHANGE:
92
KETAMINE
A Mental Health Treatment?
96
POT-LITICALLY INCORRECT
Beren With Me Again
100
5 THINGS CANNABIS CAN DO FOR COVID
Cannabis Eats with Chef Roilty
Salt Glass
Two Colorado Industries Finding a Beneficial Arrangement
Food, Jobs, Medicine, Recreation & Cloth Masks
40 hcmagazine.com 11
12 Spring 2020
Products We Love: Finding Your Higher Self, page 16
THE GREEN SCENE
Our top picks for spring Events, Products We Love & In the Spotlight
hcmagazine.com 13
Cannabis
Events
PUFF, PASS & PAINT
FOR A COMPLETE LIST OF EVENTS VISIT HCMAGAZINE.COM/EVENTS
June 13th & 27th Online
RESPAWN! 3 WAYS TO JUMP START YOUR CANNABIS BUSINESS DURING & AFTER CRISIS
DETAILS: Sign-up for the first virtual classes with supplies delivered directly to your door, with classes on June 13th and June 27th, from 7:00-9:00pm! Each painting kit includes supplies for TWO people for one class, so you can Puff, Pass & Paint in the comfort of your home with a friend! If you want to join up solo, you’ll have enough supplies to join for both sessions! www.facebook.com/ events/244294246900305/
May 21st Denver, CO
DETAILS: The global pandemic has devastated businesses, and the cannabis sector is not immune. David Wilkinson of Hemp Business Advisors will be on hand to discuss strategies to get the money moving again. Social distancing guidelines will be enforced. www.eventbrite.com
HEMP SUMMER SOLSTICE July 16th - 19th Online
DETAILS: The organizers of the NoCo Hemp Expo are offering up an online alternative to the seminal hemp conference. Six live webinars and three virtual expo halls will showcase the latest and greatest in hemp. Archive footage of previous expos will also be available. nocohempexpo.com
14 Spring 2020
MJBIZCON NEXT DIRECT June 29th – July 1st Online
DETAILS: We may not be able to have large gatherings any time soon, a real shame for MJBizCon, which was one of the largest gatherings in legal cannabis. This virtual conference looks to make up for as much of that as possible, with opportunities to learn from and network with industry experts in a cutting-edge online environment. mjbizconference.com/next
HEMP INDUSTRY DAILY CONFERENCE DIRECT June 29th – July 1st Online
DETAILS: Bringing together all the movers and shakers of the hemp industry in cyber space, the Hemp Industry Daily Conference Direct looks to give the closest approximation of the conference we’ve come to expect from these consummate professionals. mjbizconference.com
HEMP FACT FRIDAYS Fridays Online
DETAILS: Join Cherry Blossom CBD as they go live each Friday on Facebook to deliver hemp education, with a different focus each week. They will also be answering your questions live. Fridays at home can also be informative. www.facebook. com/CherryBlossomCBD/
THE GREEN SCENE | EVENTS
NCIA CANNABIS BUSINESSEXTRA SUMMIT AND EXPO
Portland, Oregon
CANNABIS STRENGTH MUSCLE RUB SCIENCE CONFERENCE July 22 - 24 San Jose, California Introducing Bolivar Hemp Company Extra Strength Muscle WEST Rub nd
th
September 4th - 6th
with 1000 mg CBD and Hemp Relief Balm with 1000 mg CBD DETAILS: The National Portland, Oregon Cannabis in Industry a twist bottle. Association has been taking DETAILS: Bringing together cannabis seriously for longer science and celebrity, than most, and their trade We blended soothing essential oils and all-natural plant this and nut focused scientifically shows are a reflection of that cannabis conference also longstanding dedication. The emollients to specically target muscles, joints, dry and irritated features key notes from Cannabis Business Summit talk show celebrities skin, and Expo should be onand the tattoos. Ricki Lake and Montel radar of everyone interested Williams. Aiming to be in advancing the cause, the most technical show whether through commercial Made with all-natural and sustainably sourced plant- of its kind, there’s sure to or political action. be more than just name based ingredients and farm to table hemp. thecannabisindustry.org dropping, though. www. cannabisscienceconference. Grand Junction, Colorado com Receive 10% off for a limited time only by using code: HEMP10!
Niagara Falls, Ontario
INDO EXPO
Crafted in Denver, August CO. 3
– 4th Portland, Oregon rd
www.BolivarHemp.com
HEMP AND HOPS August 3rd Grand Junction, Colorado
DETAILS: Colorado’s Western Slope is an underrated gem — beautiful scenery, a rich agricultural tradition, a host of wineries and, of course, cannabis aplenty. Hemp and Hops is back for a second year, bringing much of that together in the capital city of western Colorado, Grand Junction. Come to learn about hemp, but stay because it’s just a damn good time. hempandhopsevent.com
DETAILS: Indo Expo has been leading the way in the cannabis trade show game for years. Every iteration is better than the last, and that trend doesn’t seem to be stopping. Learn from and network with the people who have laid the foundation of the legal industry. www.indoexpo.com
CANNAGROW EXPO August 17th – 18th Palm Springs, California
DETAILS: An expo aimed at the growers of the game, CannaGrow is billed as the event for growers, grow managers, dispensary owners, extractors and anybody at all interested in expanding their knowledge of the cannabis plant. If you grow, don’t miss this show! cannagrowexpo.com
GROW UP CONFERENCE AND EXPO
September 12th - 14th Niagara Falls, Ontario DETAILS: Canada is a great place to familiarize yourself with serious cannabis business, and this conference in Niagara, Ontario is just a stone’s throw from the US border. Don’t worry though, they won’t deny you entry if you’re in the cannabis industry, that only works the other way. growupconference. com
hcmagazine.com 15
THE HEMP DIVISION CBD ELIXIR | $55
Refreshing teas brewed with variety of flavors and CBD hemp leaves, these beverages from The Hemp Division are great for cooling off on a hot day or pepping up when the work day drags. A range of CBD options allows you to choose your dosage, while yerba and green tea bring the boost. www.harney.com
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We Love
BLOOD ORANGE & COCONUT CLOUD WATER | $55 These lightly flavored sparling waters are delightfully effervescent. Naturally sweetened with honey, Cloud Water is a refreshing way to get some CBD into your diet. Every bottle has 25 milligrams of CBD extract and only 40 calories. www.cloudwaterbrands.com
HEMP-INFUSED HANGOVER PATCH | $12
We’ve all overdone it from time to time. These patches formulated with 15 milligrams of hemp extract, B vitamins and green tea extract are designed to help you get over your hangover. Just slap it on a venous area and leave it there for up to 12 hours. www.shopchrome.com
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The THC staff wants to share our favorite hemp products and a few other items as well. We hand picked and reviewed every product on this list, highly enjoying each and every one. Enjoy!
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Products
16 Spring 2020
HEMP ENERGY YOLO SHOT | $12
Energy shots are great. The stuff inside them not so much. These bad lads take a different approach, utilizing caffeine from organic green coffee beans, ginseng, vitamin B6, taurine and CBD extracted from Colorado-grown hemp. sundayscarieshemp.com
THE GREEN SCENE | PRODUCTS WE LOVE
ORGANIC BREAKFAST BLEND K-CUP® | $34
If you’re looking for a way to incorporate CBD into your daily routine, why not add it into your morning cup of coffee? These CBD-infused K-Cups make that about as convenient as possible, provided you’ve got a Keurig. hempyoucanfeel.com
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HEMP INFUSED HANDCRAFTED SOAPS | $18
We’ve been washing our hands a lot more vigorously lately, and oh boy does it show in our rough, cracked skin. These soaps are infused with the nourishing benefit of hemp oil, which helps to keep skin healthy and balanced — pretty great these days. www.bestbeautyfinds.com
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HEMP OIL FOR WOOD FINISHING | $13+
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Extend the life of your wooden surfaces without the use of harmful chemicals. This natural hemp oil dries to a matte finish and is safe to use on wooden cutting boards, kitchen utensils, or any other wooden items in need of some restoration. www.realmilkpaint.com
HEMP MOUSSE INSTANT MASK | $8
Keep that face looking fine with this hemp mousse mask. If you’re the kind of person who routinely gives yourself facials, you’re no doubt familiar with Sephora and the quality the brand is known for. This anti-blemish facial mask adds hemp into the mix. www.sephora.com
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TRANSDERMAL PATCH | $10
Mary’s has been leading the field of transdermal cannabinoid delivery for some time now, and these patches are the culmination of that experience. Ten milligrams of hemp extract give you a slow release over 10-12 hours; just slap it on your wrist or foot or wherever. madebymarys.com
18 Spring 2020
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THE GREEN SCENE | PRODUCTS WE LOVE
HEMP SHEET SETS | $179+
Oh, you like hemp? Bet you don’t swaddle yourself in it every night as you fall asleep. These super soft sheets let you do just that. Because it’s hemp, it’s naturally antimicrobial, in case you don’t wash your sheets as often as you should. www.wholelinens.com
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LIMITED EDITION BLACKED OUT STASHTRAY | $195
It can be tough to keep your smoking setup tidy, but this sleek kit makes it easy. Coming equipped with a rolling tray, strain container, grinder and ashtray/pipe holder all held magnetically in place, the Stashtray will keep things slick and tidy on your coffee table or on the go. www.getmyster.com
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ORGANIC HEMP DEODORANT | $13
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We all need some help keeping the stank off, but most commercially available deodorants are packed with harsh chemicals. Not these, though. Utilizing a number of sustainably sourced ingredients and natural scents, this deodorant will keep you smelling sweet. www.prohealthcbdstore.com
ANTI-AGING MOISTURIZER | $30
Fight the signs of aging with this luscious cream that features the healthy benefits of hemp seed oil. Rich in essential fatty acids, hemp seed oil is great for your skin cells, while hyaluronic acid assists in the anti-aging properties. www.premiumvials.com
FINDING YOUR HIGHER SELF: YOUR GUIDE TO CANNABIS FOR SELF-CARE | $30
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Need some ideas about how to live your best life with the help of cannabis? Look no further. Author Sophie Saint Thomas guides readers through 100 activities you can work into your self-care routine for an elevated sense of wellbeing. www.amazon.com
20 Spring 2020
THE GREEN SCENE | PRODUCTS WE LOVE
THE GOOD RUB – EXTRA STRENGTH | $85
Here’s the rub: Salt Creek Hemp upped the amount of CBD in this hard-working salve. Formulated with a plethora of beneficial plant extracts and essential oils, it’s also got a hearty 2000 milligrams of locally grown, full-spectrum hemp extract. www.saltcreekhemp.com
hcmagazine.com 21
In the Spotlight CALMING BODY OIL | $16
Body oil is where it’s at for the fast absorbing moisture that your skin absolutely needs. This incredible duo of cannabis sativa seed oil and coconut oil might be your best option for silky soft skin.
HYDRATING BODY LOTION | $16 Soothe and hydrate your skin with a luxurious infusion of cannabis sativa seed oil and coconut oil. This ultra moisturizing lotion will have your skin summer-ready in no time.
CALMING SLEEP MASK | $14
Give Sleeping Beauty a run for her money. Just apply this sheer jelly mask to a clean face and go to sleep. When you rinse it off in the morning, you just might be the fairest in the land.
PINK COCO CHILL SPONGE | $4
Snag this cutie to help keep you clean. The perfect sudsing partner for your shower time adventures.
All products on this page are available at www.victoriassecret.com
22 Spring 2020
OCTOBER 6-7, 2019
| LAS VEGAS CONVENTION CENTER
Retail & Dispensary Expo The Retail and Dispensary (RAD) Expo is the ONLY national trade event exclusively focused on goods and services for cannabis retail stores and dispensaries!
––––– If you’re a retailer, RAD Expo is a must attend! ––––– • RAD Expo is the fastest growing cannabis trade event in North America. • RAD Expo is focused, business-only and effective.
• Expert speakers from successful retailers like Costco, Zumiez, Best Buy and more. Subjects: Inventory, location, marketing, employee retention, MDF, smart buying practices, etc. • RAD expo is a professionally run trade event for business owners.
• Exhibitors will be displaying the latest products for retail stores and dispensaries, including: tech products, POS, fixtures, packaging, POP displays, accessories, gift items, CBD/Hemp products, lighting, store security, food and drinks, design services and more. • Admission is free for qualified buyers and operators.
RAD Expo is produced by Marijuana Venture, the oldest and biggest Cannabis business magazine. Our trade shows have always been focused on business and business success.
“If you’ve seen the rest, come to the best!”
WWW.THERADEXPO.COM | 425-656-3621 | RAD@MARIJUANAVENTURE.COM
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24 Spring 2020
Photo courtesy of Salt Glass, @salteyelens
LIFESTYLE
Livin’ That Cannabis Life
Cannabis Eats with Chef Roilty, Salt Glass, Rebels and Misfits & THC Championship Awards
RECREATIONAL ONLY hcmagazine.com 25
s i b a n Can
s t a E
MEDICATED, MOUTHWATERING, MUNCHIES
With Chef Roilty by DJ Reetz
26 Spring 2020
LIFESTYLE | HEMP EATS
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hen I arrive at the studio kitchen space where Jarod Farina teaches his weekly infused cooking classes, he’s already in frantic motion. Chopping, sautéing, eyeballing healthy portions of butter into dishes as he instructs a small group of eager students who follow along at a slightly more amateur speed. “You’re already in the fucking way,” he says to me, only half kidding, as I introduce myself. Farina, known publicly by the moniker Chef Roilty, has a frenetic energy, moving through preparations with the pace one would expect from a professional chef working during service hours, pulling back just enough to ensure that the small crowd of cannabis enthusiasts can contribute. During the occasional pauses he manages a dab off of the rig that sits on the counter next to his cooking utensils, using whatever is available as a carb cap, whether that’s a measuring cup or a recently used kitchen knife. Farina’s no-nonsense professionalism frequently gives way to a fun-loving stoner persona as he jokes with his students, inviting them to make use of the kitchen dab rig as they rotate through stations. It’s a reflection of the dual paths he’s walked for the past several years, working in kitchens such as the Michelin starred Joël Robuchon restaurant in Las Vegas while also plying the craft of hash making. “I’ve always been around food,” says Farina, following the sumptuous banquet of hash-infused dishes prepared by the class. “I’ve been on every side of the kitchen.” That experience extends to serving, chefing and catering, though he admits he never anticipated he’d find work as a chef per se. “When I was young, my dad was growing weed illegally in south Florida. So I’ve always been around it, whether it was on purpose or not,” he says. Those early experiences may have helped steer Farina toward a career in black market hash making as young man, perfecting the art to the point that he eventually won California’s coveted Secret Cup. Hash making dovetailed into his culinary life, with Farina taking home top honors at High Times Cannabis Cup in Las Vegas for his infused cooking skills. A broadening societal interest in the sort of dishes Farina prepares have since landed him appearances creating infused meals on television programs such as Bravo’s Southern Charm. The frantic pace of the kitchen lends itself to his style more than the slower, dutiful pace of a bakery. In fact, he says he hasn’t made a pot brownie in years. “Sweets and brownies and all that stuff are still popular and always will be, but I think also that it’s fun to explore other realms,” he says. Instead, he prefers working with infused olive oils and butters, which can be incorporated on the stove top rather than in the oven. When not leading his weekly cooking classes, organizing private dinners, or catering infused meals on-demand for clients, he’s putting together a cannabis-centric cooking show, Perfectly Paired, which will see non-infused meals paired with complimentary cannabis strains based on their terpene profile. Farina is currently looking for distribution of the show’s pilot. As for less experienced chefs who might be intimidated by the techniques on display in Farina’s Kitchen, he suggests keeping it simple, always remembering to decarb your infusions, and not overheating your cannabinoids by adding your infused medium while dishes are on the heat. Farina’s approach may seem hectic, but there’s a striking simplicity to his methods; the recipes he demonstrates in his class are all fairly simple, utilizing a handful of everyday ingredients in recipes that were cobbled together that morning. Despite the simplicity, the result is restaurant quality, thanks in part Farina’s technical flourishes. “If I’m touching it, it’s going to have that extra flair on it,” he says. “It’s more about techniques.” A
“I’ve always been around food,” says Farina, following the sumptuous banquet of hash-infused dishes prepared by the class. “I’ve been on every side of the kitchen.”
hcmagazine.com 27
CREAMY PARMESAN SHRIMP PASTA Ingredients: 1 Tablespoon olive oil 1 pound shrimp 1 cup cream 4 Tablespoons butter 1/4 cup finely shredded parmesan cheese (shred your own cheese) 1 Tablespoon freshly chopped Italian parsley Infused olive oil Directions: Boil a large pot of heavily salted water for the pasta. While water is boiling, in a large saucepan add the olive oil and shrimp. Sauté over medium low heat for about 4 minutes on each side or until the shrimp are pink and cooked through. Remove shrimp and set on a plate for later. Drop pasta in boiling water and cook until al dente (Very important! Save a cup of pasta water before discarding). Over medium heat, melt the butter in the same pan used for the shrimp and add cream. Once the butter and cream mixture begins to boil lightly, add the cheese in thirds, whisking constantly to incorporate each batch. Add 1/4 cup of the reserved pasta water and bring the sauce back to a light boil. Add shrimp, pasta, and herbs and mix till coated evenly. Add the desired amount of infused olive oil and mix in, this can be done as a whole, per person, or even per plate, depending on preference.
INFUSED OLIVE OIL
(50 milligrams per Tablespoon)
Directions: Prepare a double boiler. (Bring a pot of water to a boil, then turn to low heat and place a bowl on top. The oil goes in this bowl) Heat the olive oil for about 5 minutes, then squeeze the distillate out of the syringe into the oil. Let sit for 30 seconds and then mix together with a silicone spatula. Remove from heat and allow to cool. Using a funnel, pour the infused oil back into a bottle or storage container. Store for later use in a dark, cool and dry place. This infused oil will be dosed to about 100 milligrams per ounce — 50 milligrams a tablespoon, or about 17 milligrams per teaspoon.
28 Spring 2020
Recipes by Chef Roilty, photo © Anna Puzatykh
Ingredients: 8 ounces olive oil 1 gram THC distillate (this product is activated/ decarbed while it is produced)
LIFESTYLE | CANNABIS EATS
INFUSED CHICKEN PARMESAN Yeilds 2 servings
Ingredients: 2 chicken breast cutlets 2 eggs, beaten 1/2 cup all-purpose flour 1/2 cup Italian breadcrumbs 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese 1 cup your favorite pasta or marinara sauce 2 Tablespoons canola oil 1 Tablespoon infused olive oil Directions: Keeping one hand dry, coat the chicken with the flour, then dip in the egg and coat with breadcrumbs. Heat marinara in a small saucepan over medium low heat. Once heated, remove from heat and add the Tablespoon of infused olive oil. Mix together well. Heat 2 Tablespoons non-infused olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Fry chicken cutlets on both sides until golden brown. Preheat oven to 350° F
photo © Brent Hofacker
Remove chicken from pan. On a foil-lined baking sheet place your fried chicken cutlets. Top with a heaping spoon of infused sauce, cover with mozzarella and Parmesan cheese. Bake chicken at 350° F for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, broil on high until cheese is melted beautifully and bubbly.
hcmagazine.com 29
INFUSED BRUSCHETTA Makes 5 servings
Ingredients: 2 Tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil 1 Tablespoons infused olive oil (page 28) 1 clove garlic minced 2 large tomatoes diced 2 Tablespoon thinly sliced basil 1 Tablespoon balsamic vinegar 1 teaspoon salt pinch of crushed red pepper flakes For Bread: 1 large baguette, sliced 1/4 inch thick extra-virgin olive oil for brushing Directions: Preheat oven to 400° F. Mix all the ingredients for the bruschetta mix in a large bowl. Mix very well to ensure proper infusion. Let stand for 30 minutes to marinate. Brush slices of bread with olive oil and place on a baking sheet. Toast bread on oven for 10-15 minutes until golden brown, turning halfway through. Place a heaping spoon of the infused bruschetta mixture onto each piece of toast and serve.
Recipes by Chef Roilty , photo Š KarepaStock
30 Spring 2020
LIFESTYLE | CANNABIS EATS
BANANA SPRING ROLLS WITH AN INFUSED CHOCOLATE GANACHE Makes 4 servings
Ingredients - Spring Rolls: 4 spring roll wrappers 1 banana 1/4 cup brown sugar 2 Tablespoons water for sealing spring rolls 1 cup of canola or vegetable oil 1/4 powdered sugar Infused Ganache: 4 ounces bitter-sweet chocolate (60% cacao) 1/2 cup cream 1 Tablespoon infused olive oil (page 28) Directions: Peel the banana and quarter it, cutting once lengthwise and then into halves. The spring roll wrapper should look like a diamond in front of you, angle it this way. Place a quarter banana and about a 1/2-1 Tablespoon of the brown sugar on the center of your spring roll wrapper. Fold the bottom corner up and over the filling, fold the left and right corners over now to enclose filling. Dipping the tip of your finger in the water, wet the top and final corner of your spring roll. Fold the final corner down and seal the spring roll wrapper like an envelope. Repeat this process with remaining spring rolls. Using a double boiler (small amount of boiled water in bottom of pot creating steam that heats a bowl sitting atop this pot) melt the chocolate and cream together, stirring frequently. Once chocolate has fully melted and incorporated, add your infused olive oil. Remove pot from heat and set aside. (Mix well to ensure proper and evenly distributed infusion)
photo Š baekung
Heat canola or vegetable oil to 350° F in a high walled skillet or sauce pan. Carefully place spring rolls in oil and fry until golden brown all over. Remove from oil and let rest on cutting board. Cut each spring roll diagonally in half and place on a plate. Dust with powdered sugar. Pour infused chocolate sauce all over spring rolls. Enjoy!
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Soulwindow #64
32 Spring 2020
LIFESTYLE | FEATURED ARTIST
Please Pass The Salt: The Story, Connectivity and Art of Salt Glass by Samuel Farley @THC_Samuel, photos by @salteyelens
T
he artwork of Salt Glass is some of the most distinguishable, progressive and unique in the world of glass art. The history of Salt Glass really began when he was first introduced to cannabis and the community it creates. During his teenage years in the early 1990s, Salt was introduced to cannabis via old-school schwag weed, the best him and his friends were able to find back in those days in Texas. Not knowing how to roll a joint, Salt and his friends would create makeshift smoking devices out of household items. Around the age of 15, he started to think creatively about pipes, but it wasn’t until he was 17 that he got his first piece of glass, a wrap and
rake spoon bowl, and within a year he had gotten himself a glass bong. It was around this time that he first saw live glass blowing in Austin. Salt began blowing glass officially in 2001 while attending a community college in Austin, Texas. He says he had to pay $500 for his very first apprenticeship, where he learned a lot as he cranked out production work. He also admits that he was taken advantage of early on his career and did too much work for not enough pay, but he quickly switched lanes and began to explore his own creativity. In 2002, Salt and a friend decided to build their own studio and were able to establish relationships with glass shops around the Dallas area. In early 2002, Salt
made a trip to California to visit a friend who now owns the popular production brand Medicali Glass. During that trip, he was exposed to some of the work being made by Darby Holm, Marcel, Scott Deppe and other legendary artists, imbuing him with a sense of what was possible with a glass pipe. “I was like oh my god, I don’t know shit and the universe expanded right before my eyes,” says Salt. “It was probably one of the most profound moments of my career because I thought I knew what was up and then I was shown this whole new section of glass and I was hooked. Clinton, Marcel, those are my heroes, people I’ve looked up to this whole time.”
Infinity Bottle Collab with @earljrglass
hcmagazine.com 33
By 2003, his Texas studio had earned a reputation as one of the best around, something he says comes down to passion and dedication. “It’s a numbers game, you really have to put in the work and hours and do things a lot and put in the time,” he says. It was around this time that he first starting experimenting with eyeballs on his pieces, placing them on the masks, dragons and other shapes he was making. He also began to go to more events, first witnessing cold working at an event called The Lewis Wilson Best Bead Show. In the midst of all of this, Operation Pipe Dreams devastated the functional glass community, sending Salt skittering back to non-functional sculpture work, lamp parts and other accessories. He made a visit to New York and ended up securing a solid number of orders from customers and collectors on the east coast and continued that routine until around 2006. He adopted the pseudonym Salt officially 2007, using the name to promote his work while protecting his identity in the not-yet-legal cannabis world. That year he was a featured centerfold in The Flow Magazine, and his work began to blow up. He came up with the name after watching the documentary Style Wars, realizing he wanted to have a name that gave him some direction and purpose. “Salt is a material that is needed but is also a humble thing. It does its job but it’s also essential. I wanted to be a part of the conversation but not be fancy with it, just be there and be as good as I could be,” he says. “I drew a graffiti style piece of ‘SALT’ after watching the film and it all kind of clicked, and it became the name and glass blowing pseudonym.” Fast forward to 2012 and Salt had started ramping up his work. He was working on creating his new design and developing a novel downstem he called the Salt perc. “The style actually changed the rotation of the water so you get a smoother experience when you hit my pieces” says Salt. “A salt piece in a way is almost like a pet. Collectors clean them, they feed them weed or hash, and it becomes a whole energy exchange and you get to relax and take a step back. Through that exchange the piece gets taken care of and the user gets an energetic shift as well. The teeth on my pieces also help protect the pieces when collectors might knock them over, and it provides another layer of protection and meaning,” says Salt. “I also build more relationships with my collectors because I fix any of those teeth for free and it helps make sure the functional side remains intact. It’s a mental, meditative, textural, and artistic experience.” Salt says he is excited for what the future might bring. “In terms of 2020 and moving forward, I’m excited about the prospect of the world being ready to know what pipe art is,” he says. “It’s something that could be considered some of the highest art forms there are. It’s about provoking thought.” Art means many things to many different people, but it’s clear that each piece of Salt Glass has purpose: bringing people together in a creative and positive manner. You can see work by Salt Glass at galleries across the country and on his Instagram, @SaltGlass.
Collab with @pakowuzhere Micro Whipcurl 5mm
“Salter In Place,” a Collab with @steve_sizelove Collab with @hardcore_toke
34 Spring 2020
LIFESTYLE LIFESTYLE | FEATURED | RON FUNCHES ARTIST
“Slintiger,” a Collab with @scozglass
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REBELS & MISFITS:
MEET BO PORYTKO AND DAN LASIY by Ben Owens
36 Spring 2020
LIFESTYLE | REBELS & MISFITS
F
or those that don’t know, Bo Porytko and Dan Lasiy are the chefs behind the now infamous Rebel Restaurant that used to live in the RiNo district of Denver. While Rebel closed in 2018, they’ve both stayed busy entertaining audiences with their culinary creations through pop-ups, partnerships, and, now, the launch of Misfit Snack Bar, Porytko’s latest kitchen takeover at the Middleman bar off Colfax. As a fan of their food and friendliness to the cannabis industry, I had the chance to sit down with Lasiy and Porytko to talk about how two kids from Jersey ended up in Denver, what happened with and since Rebel, as well as their personal relationships with cannabis, including the fact that neither of them are big fans of infused dining.
WHO ARE DAN & BO?
Dan and Bo are a unique culinary pair, having known each other since preschool. Born only a few months apart, the two have been best friends since they were three years old. Neither of them knew that they would end up owning a restaurant together, though, and Bo hadn’t even considered cooking until he was 26. Dan went to culinary school at Johnson & Wales, where he earned culinary and nutrition degrees, and has been cooking for more than 19 years. He started out catering the box suites at Gillette Stadium before moving to New York City to cater movie sets. He tried the fine dining route, but never really fit. Eventually, a change of pace brought him to Denver where the idea for a restaurant began to grow. He took a few line cook jobs for restaurants, worked on food trucks, and even helped with underground supper clubs, but, in 2014, he wanted a change. Meanwhile, Bo had moved to California to try out grad school, pursuing a degree in English Literature. Quickly realizing he didn’t want to go to school that long, he tried culinary school out for a semester but found it to be “irrelevant.” “Get a job; you get more experience from a job and you get paid to do that,” explains Bo. He worked at a few kitchens in San Diego, including Sandy’s, before eventually buying into the idea of opening up a restaurant in Denver.
THE BEST HEAD IN DENVER
Dan and Bo recall the decision to open the restaurant in Denver as a practical one. An opportunity to take over the kitchen at Black Shirt Brewery in Denver ended up falling through as plans were drawn up. With both friends set on a Denver launch, they decided to do a Kickstarter for the seed money for what would become Rebel.
hcmagazine.com 37
LIFESTYLE | JOANNA ZEIGER
Together, they raised more than $27,000 in seed money to launch the infamous restaurant. “Rebel was a concoction of ideas and ideologies and doing what we want,” recalls Dan. And they definitely did what they wanted when it came to food. Rebel was known for “The Best Head in Denver” (and even got a local politician to sign a document declaring it to be so) due to one of their most famous offerings: the half pig head. Tucked away near a roller derby arena in an industrial sector north of downtown, Rebel served up concoctions that were designed to take advantage of underutilized meats. They also had bar snacks with unique twists like pasta popcorn, and inviting small plates like their octopus and salmon tartare or their mushroom crepes. Not only was Rebel authentically its own animal in the Denver food scene, it also attracted the cannabis community, largely due to what Bo calls the restaurant’s “Don’t give a fuck” attitude. “We weren’t necessarily trying to be rebellious to be like ‘Fuck You,’” recalls Dan. “It was more like, we are going to do this because we like it, and this is the food that we want to eat. So, yeah, it really was just a middle finger in the soft sense: I’m not gonna do white boy tacos or Colorado cuisine; We’re going to do this because this is the place we
38 Spring 2020
want to go to. And if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. We’re not gonna sugar coat it.” Rebel played host to private cannabis events, including Ry Prichard (of HBO’s Bong Appetit) and his Terp Quest, a meal designed to pair cannabis and culinary creations by matching terpene profiles for the audience’s delight. Looking back, Dan and Bo say that the draw of the weed events was more to drum up crowds than it was their personal interest in the plant. While Dan consumes cannabis daily, Bo says that the only time you’ll find him lighting up is if he’s been peer-pressured into it, or he’s having trouble sleeping. “I don’t really smoke at all,” confesses Bo. “Occasionally I do. Usually if I am smoking with my friends it’s because I got peer-pressured into it. The only time I smoke by myself is if I’m having trouble sleeping, and if I’m doing a ‘sober’ month, then you gotta have something... I ate a lot of edibles the month that I was sober; Weed’s not a vice.”
FROM REBEL TO MISFIT
Since the closing of their first restaurant, Bo and Dan have continued cooking but in their own kitchens. Bo went to cook at The Bindery, another Denver culinary favorite, and Q
Bar before taking over the kitchen that has become Misfit Snack Bar. Dan, on the other hand, has taken a sabbatical from the kitchen life. He’s been hosting themed pop ups since the restaurant closed, but wasn’t enthused about seeking out an executive chef job working for someone else after having owned and run his own establishment. After 19 years of cooking, he needed a change. Now, he’s a surveyor for a local civil engineering outfit, which he’s quick to point out makes the same wages as an executive chef. The pop ups and events keep his culinary spirit alive, and the new professional role has offered him a change of pace. “Bo doing Misfit off of [Rebel] is kind of the perfect end, like those two names are the perfect names for us and it,” Dan remarks. While you’ll still see Dan around Misfit, it is entirely Bo’s creation. “I want it to still be fun and whimsical,” Bo explains, reminiscing on the fun that he had at Rebel, but assuring that it won’t be as crazy. For those missing the craziness of menus past, Bo’s still serving up favorites with a new spin, such as the Upper West Side Taco, Bo’s take on a reuben complete with a marble rye taco shell, as well as snacks like the Ballpark Nacho Popcorn served with cheese, jalapeños and onions.
“Rebel was a concoction of ideas and ideologies and doing what we want.” THE FINAL HIT
When asked about their personal lives, both friends seem to be adjusting well to not working 70-hour weeks and barely scraping by. They both have fun in their own kitchens, and the creations are likely wilder than anything you’ve seen on the menu. “[My favorite food to cook is] whatever idea, whatever the fuck I want to make, I want to make it right now. I think it is more the surprise of coming up with and conceiving a menu that I think is cool and unique. That’s my favorite thing,” explains Bo. “I’d say the same thing,” echoes Dan. “[I like to think] ‘What can I make? How can I put these ingredients together?’ Like top-chef ’ing it; this is what the market has, etc.” “I like cooking vegetables more than I like cooking meat,” Bo adds. Bo is also working on bringing an Eastern European restaurant by the name of Baba Yaga to Denver. He and Dan both share a Ukrainian background, and while he expresses it isn’t necessarily his favorite food to cook, it is a genre of cuisine that he is uniquely prepared to bring to the Colorado market. “I think Denver desperately needs more ethnic shit,” says Bo. He’s quick to caution that it won’t push as many limits as Rebel and Misfit have. “It won’t be like Rebel. It will probably skew a little more like a normal restaurant. You’re going to have your staple menu items, you going to have the things people are always looking for. I’m always going to have pierogis; I’m always going to have stuffed cabbage. I’m going to have a meat board and a fish board and serve traditional Ukrainian charcuteries.” For those looking for a delectable selection of unique bar food and small plates, look no further than Misfit and the brilliant culinary mind of Bo Porytko. If you’re looking to experience the culinary creations of Dan Lasiy, you’ll need to snag an invite to one of his upcoming popups or hire either of them to come cook for you. They’re open to almost any idea, including cannabis infused dining. Neither chef will disappoint, and should the opportunity come up where both of them are sharing a kitchen, don’t hesitate to get a reservation. A
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40 Spring 2020
LIFESTYLE | 420 COMIC
article by DJ Reetz, photo by Cannabis Camera
W
hat a year it’s shaping up to be. With all of the disaster befalling 2020, we’re certainly in need of a few wins, which is exactly what HC Magazine was handing out at this year’s THC Championship. In years past, the awards have celebrated the best in legal cannabis, culminating in a gala awards ceremony. This year, in accordance with social distancing mandates, the ceremony went digital, with a live stream taking the place of our usual classy soirée — not as much fun, but much safer during a pandemic. Dozens of the best brands in legal cannabis competed across more than two doz-
en categories ranging from topicals to vape cartridges to medical products to edibles. Winning the night’s top honor, Best Overall, was CODA Signature for their delectable 1:1 Strawberry & Rhubarb Fruit Notes, but there was no shortage of champions winning distinction for medical and adult-use products. For nearly a decade, the THC Championship has sought to be the most meaningful test of quality in the legal cannabis industry. Products are judged anonymously (to the extent that they can be) by a panel of judges that includes experts and everyday consumers who answer to our open call. Unlike other competitions, THC Championship
judges are given the time necessary to form accurate opinions, rather than being rushed through a bevy of products in a single sitting. This all means that these trophies mean something, and you can be assured that the winners listed here are truly the best the industry has to offer as determined by you, the consumer. Big thanks to Sana Packaging for providing the innovative hemp plastic containers for our judges’ samples, and sponsors Illuminated Extractors and Salt Creek Hemp. We look forward to seeing what the rock stars of legal cannabis have in store for next year, and we hope you’ll join us. A
hcmagazine.com 41
Topicals 1st Place People’s Choice
CODA SIGNATURE
Symphony Bath Bomb Collection
2nd Place
Connoisseur’s Choice
CODA SIGNATURE Calm Massage & Bath Oil
3rd Place INCREDIBLES Rose Bath Salts
42 Spring 2020
Distillate
LIFESTYLE | 420 COMIC
1st Place People’s Choice
Connoisseur’s Choice
EVOLAB
Live Electric Lemon G
2nd Place CONCENTRATE SUPPLY CO
Strawnana
3rd Place EPIC REMEDY EXTRACTIONS
Critical Cream hcmagazine.com 43
C B D Edibles 1st Place
CODA SIGNATURE
Coconut & Lime Fruit Notes 1:2
2nd Place CODA SIGNATURE Cream & Crumble 1:1
3rd Place People’s Choice
INCREDIBLES
Black Cherry CBD Bar 1:1 *People’s Choice, Dosd Edibles, Black Cherry 1:1 Nano Bites
44 Spring 2020
CB D Vape Cartridges
LIFESTYLE | 420 COMIC
1st Place People’s Choice
ASCEND INDUSTRIES 1:1 Durban Poison Vape Cartridge
2nd Place
Connoisseur’s Choice
THE GREEN SOLUTION Dr. Ruby CBD Distillate Cartridge (Lusso)
3rd Place CODA SIGNATURE
Uplift 1:2 Distillate Cartridge hcmagazine.com 45
Med Cured Concentrate 1st Place People’s Choice
Connoisseur’s Choice
EPIC REMEDY NORTH Green Crack Cured Resin
2nd Place EPIC REMEDY EXTRACTIONS
Dirty Taxi Cured Resin
3rd Place DABBLE EXTRACTS Tangerine Kush Shatter
46 Spring 2020
Med Vape Cartridges
LIFESTYLE | 420 COMIC
1st Place
Connoisseur’s Choice
EVOLAB
Live Orange Cookies
2nd Place People’s Choice
SAUCE BROS. FSE Vape - Tangie
3rd Place EPIC REMEDY EXTRACTIONS
Dirty Taxi Terp Pen Live hcmagazine.com 47
Med Edibles 1st Place People’s Choice
Connoisseur’s Choice
INCREDIBLES
1000mg Mile Highest Mint
2nd Place ROBHOTS EDIBLES Reds 1000mg Gummies
3rd Place INCREDIBLES 1000mg Strawberry Lemonade Gummies 48 Spring 2020
Med Live Resin
LIFESTYLE | 420 COMIC
1st Place People’s Choice
VIOLA EXTRACTS Sex on the Peach
2nd Place OLIO
Banana Cream Live Resin Wet Sugar
3rd Place
Connoisseur’s Choice
THE TREE HOUSE Platinum Cookies
(Processed by Colorado’s Best Dabs)
hcmagazine.com 49
Med Flower Hybrid 1st Place People’s Choice
Connoisseur’s Choice
HIGH LEVEL HEALTH MAC #4
2nd Place A CUT ABOVE Wedding Cake
3rd Place GOLDEN LEAF Mandarin Cookies
50 Spring 2020
Med Flower Indica
LIFESTYLE | 420 COMIC
1st Place People’s Choice
Connoisseur’s Choice
GOLDEN LEAF Road Dawg
2nd Place VIOLA EXTRACTS Triangle Kush
3rd Place THE TREE HOUSE 9lb Blackberry
hcmagazine.com 51
Med Flower Sativa 1st Place People’s Choice
Connoisseur’s Choice
A CUT ABOVE
Tropicanna Cookies
2nd Place GOLDEN LEAF Cake Dance
3rd Place GOLDEN LEAF Flomingo
52 Spring 2020
Beverages
LIFESTYLE | 420 COMIC
1st Place People’s Choice
Connoisseur’s Choice
NECTARBEE BY TGS Root Beer
2nd Place
KEEF BRANDS Sparkling H2O Blackberry Coconut
3rd Place LAGUNITAS BREWING COMPANY
HiFi Hops 10mg hcmagazine.com 53
Solventless 1st Place People’s Choice
ALLGREENS Private Reserve Strawberry Guava
2nd Place
Connoisseur’s Choice
OLIO
Papaya Cake Rosin Jam
3rd Place KUSH MASTERS
Cookies ‘n’ Cream Live Rosin 54 Spring 2020
Botanical Vape Cartridges
LIFESTYLE | 420 COMIC
1st Place People’s Choice
Connoisseur’s Choice
CODA SIGNATURE
Balance Distillate Cartridge
2nd Place
NORTHERN STANDARD Experimental Series Bordeaux Lavender
3rd Place NORTHERN STANDARD Experimental Series – Sambuca hcmagazine.com 55
Adult-Use Shatter 1st Place People’s Choice
Connoisseur’s Choice
NOMAD EXTRACTS
Platinum Shatter – Jack Flash
2nd Place CHRONIC CREATIONS Quatro
3rd Place KUSH MASTERS Crescendo
56 Spring 2020
Adult-Use Wax/Budder
LIFESTYLE | 420 COMIC
1st Place People’s Choice
Connoisseur’s Choice
HARMONY EXTRACTS Durban Poison Terp Badder
2nd Place DEN-REC
Holy Grail Kush
(Processed by Harmony Extracts)
3rd Place NATTY REMS Screamin’ OG
hcmagazine.com 57
Adult-Use Flower Hybrid 1st Place
Connoisseur’s Choice
DEN-REC
Granola Funk
2nd Place People’s Choice
HIGH LEVEL HEALTH MAC #4
3rd Place DEN-REC Forum GSC
58 Spring 2020
Adult-Use Flower Indica
LIFESTYLE | 420 COMIC
1st Place People’s Choice
DANK BY PANK Fuel Biscuits
2nd Place
Connoisseur’s Choice
GREEN MAN CANNABIS Sundae Driver
3rd Place DEN-REC Holy Grail Kush hcmagazine.com 59
Adult-Use Flower Sativa 1st Place GREEN MAN CANNABIS Orange Creamsicle
2nd Place People’s Choice
HIGH LEVEL HEALTH Papa Smurf
3rd Place HIGH LEVEL HEALTH Mimosa
*Connoisseur’s Choice, Den-Rec, Cookie Dough
60 Spring 2020
Premium & Innovative
LIFESTYLE | 420 COMIC
1st Place People’s Choice
KUSH MASTERS
Clementine Limone Live Diamonds
2nd Place NOMAD EXTRACTS Platinum Live Resin - Hell’s Motorbreath
3rd Place
Connoisseur’s Choice
HARMONY EXTRACTS
Harambe’s Cookies Live Flower hcmagazine.com 61
Adult-Use Edibles 1st Place People’s Choice
Connoisseur’s Choice
CODA SIGNATURE
Strawberry & Rhubarb Fruit Notes
2nd Place NORTHERN STANDARD EDIBLES
Campfire S’mores Chocolate Bar
3rd Place INCREDIBLES
100mg Peanut Budda Buddha 62 Spring 2020
LIFESTYLE | 420 COMIC
Cannabis Derived Vape Cartridges 1st Place
Connoisseur’s Choice
NORTHERN STANDARD Native Elite - Ghost Train Haze
2nd Place People’s Choice
SAUCE BROS.
FSE Vape – Lemon G
3rd Place SAUCE BROS. FSE Vape – Triangle Tangie Kush hcmagazine.com 63
Adult-Use Live Resin 1st Place People’s Choice
DEN-REC
Cookie Dough
(Processed by Harmony Extracts)
2nd Place HARMONY EXTRACTS Banana Kush Ice Nectar
3rd Place
Connoisseur’s Choice
KUSH MASTERS
Mai Tai Gelato Live Diamonds 64 Spring 2020
Overall Champion
LIFESTYLE | 420 COMIC
CODA SIGNATURE STRAWBERRY & RHUBARB FRUIT NOTES 1:1
hcmagazine.com 65
Thank You to All Our Competitors
66 Spring 2020
Thank You to Our Sponsors
hcmagazine.com 67
68 Spring 2020
photo courtesy of ETHOS
GOING ALL IN WITH COLIN GORDON, page 70
BUSINESS & POLITICS
Cannabusiness in Full Bloom
Going All in with Colin Gordon, Is America Destined to Smell Like Weed? & Women in Hemp
RECREATIONAL ONLY hcmagazine.com 69
70 Spring 2020
GOING ALL IN WITH COLIN GORDON FROM BUDDHIST BOUNCER TO PRO POKER PLAYER, TO FOUNDING ONE OF THE BIGGEST GENETICS COMPANIES IN CANNABIS by Ben Owens
C
olin Gordon is the founder and owner of Ethos Genetics, a seed company that has been making waves in the cannabis community since 2017. You may know him from popular genetics like Memberberry and Mandarin Sunset, or from his cannabis consulting business, or even from his days cleaning up on the World Poker Tour. But how did a professional poker player end up holding the reigns to one of the leading genetics brands in the scene? We sat down with Gordon earlier this year (pre COVID) to chat about his story, his days in South Florida, his take on genetics and the cannabis industry as a whole, and how he’s changing the game with the Ethos Multipass.
MEET COLIN GORDON
Gordon’s a mix of Jersey and South Florida. Hailing from Jersey before relocating to Tampa in the early ‘90s for college, Gordon started smoking cannabis at the early age of 14. He recalls smoking for about three months before kicking it due to the laziness that he experienced. He wouldn’t start smoking again until his freshman year of college. Gordon was a high school athlete with plans to play Division I sports in college, and explains that he really only cared about his classes because he knew he had to get good enough grades to play sports in college. He says that you could tell which classes he cared about based on his grades, receiving top marks if he was interested, and scraping by with C’s if he didn’t.
FROM JERSEY TO TAMPA
At University of South Florida, Gordon quickly realized that being a star athlete at a small Jersey high school didn’t quite put him into the top 20 athletes in a D1 sport, and after his first semester getting his bearings, cannabis called him out of retirement. During spring break, he began smoking again and is grateful that he did; cannabis helped Gordon reevaluate life. As he
Cherry 16 #4 adjusted to college, he realized what a sudden introduction it was to the real world, and explains that cannabis and hallucinogens helped him to reflect on what he was doing and not simply fall into the routine of his peers. As a result, he picked up the guitar. “When you smoke weed or take hallucinogens, I feel like all of a sudden you reflect and you’re like ‘What am I doing?’ and I started asking more questions of myself…I started playing music and a lot of the things that I wanted to do creatively that I never had the patience for… like playing guitar more. I was able to slow down and just kind of observe the world a little bit. I think up until that point, everything was just
go … All of a sudden, you’re just like, sit down, stare at the trees for a couple hours and think about shit. Why are you doing what you’re doing? It’s probably why I kept switching my majors after that. “ This ability to step back and assess his situation also called into question his educational pursuits. As Gordon recalls, he was “SAT smart”, but had no real interest in classes, and after a few years of taking only electives, and being asked by the college to take a semester off, he would eventually decide that college wasn’t the place for him. But what it did teach him was how to grow cannabis, and how to use that knowledge to fuel his other pursuits.
hcmagazine.com 71
ETHOS Cherry Punch
IT STARTED WITH SEEDS
Gordon began growing shortly after sparking back up during that fateful spring break in college. He confesses that he actually didn’t complete his first two grow cycles. He was living in an apartment in Tampa, and it wasn’t until he got his first 400-watt light that he started having some luck in the grow room. At the time, everything was grown from imported Dutch seeds, which could cost upwards of $170 for packs that often had only five seeds, and those purchases were starting to add up. The bud got better with each cycle, and Gordon started to get flowers that smelled great and were easy on the eyes. He was hooked. “I didn’t necessarily realize it at the time, but I could just stare at maybe a dozen or so tiny plants under a 400-watt light and I could just sit there for eight hours and have total serenity.” It didn’t hurt that it was a supplemental income either.
FROM SCHOOL TO TEMPLE
After realizing that cultivation and time spent reflecting brought him more joy and contentment than his time spent attending class, Gordon dropped out of college and sought a new path: becoming a Buddhist. He spent 14 hours daily training at a Buddhist temple, and filled his evenings (and paid his bills) as a bouncer at
72 Spring 2020
a night club, where he would work for the next three years while studying at the temple and working on his home grow.
“AN OUNCE WAS MORE THAN MY RENT”
As a bouncer, Gordon had access to a clientele of young, outgoing adults that afforded him the ability to sell his harvests and live comfortably. “Weed in Florida at the time was $400 an ounce,” recalls Gordon. “One ounce was more than my rent. So you could grow like a few ounces and be a baller. We didn’t have lofty goals; it was just pay bills, ya know? For me it was just being able to grow a head stash of good weed that I liked, like ‘This is good weed and I grew that. That’s fucking awesome.’” There was a sense of pride that Gordon found growing cannabis. He had a small grow that was mostly “head stash” quality buds, but it would take some time before he would be able to mass produce something up to his own high standards. “It took me a full year before I grew weed that I was proud of to smoke, and then once I did that, I believe that’s when I was conscious of this is what I want to do,” he says. “I didn’t know what that meant, but I knew I wanted to keep growing and keep popping seeds and there was
no end game, there were no goals. I just knew that there was something alluring to me in every way. Once I did that, that’s when I knew this is what I wanted to do.”
LIVING LIFE LIKE A MOVIE
As the years passed, Gordon kept growing and kept popping seeds. “With the exception of music, everything seemed so compartmentalized,” reflects Gordon. He found he enjoyed the isolation and quiet of working among the plants, and realized that he experienced different thought patterns when he was in the grow. “I found a serenity being with the plants,” Gordon explains. “After 1-2 hours of quiet you aren’t thinking of anything specific, similar to driving in a car for a long time. You go into that almost meditational zone. I started having ideas and creative ideas and philosophical concepts, and I felt like it was the first time I was developing as my person, as Buddha would say. Not me, per se, but my person.” Gordon also began training in martial arts during this time. He’d spend his days growing plants, bouncing, and training in classic Kung Fu as well as Tai Chi. He had no car and rode his bike everywhere, but says he had no regrets or worries, and was “totally enjoying life.” His trainer eventually recognized his cultivation
BUSINESS & POLITICS | COLIN GORDON skills and asked him to help set up a garden in exchange for training, since Gordon was broke at the time. He spent the next two and a half years gardening, training, and continuing to evolve as a cannabis grower while being further mentored by his trainer.
MILE HIGH DREAMS
In 1996, Gordon visited a friend in Colorado and was introduced to growing at scale. His brain began switching towards a focus of getting out of Florida and into a market like Colorado. Within six months, he’d moved to the mountains and began seriously making seeds. This was his first true attempt at breeding, a leap forward from his first cross in 1993 that resulted from pollinating Northern Lights #5 x Haze (the 1994 Cannabis Cup winner) with Skunk 1, because, as he says, “High Times said Skunk 1 was good to cross with.” In his new place, he built a music studio and began helping his friends grow. Up until that point, he’d only seen small, 400-watt grows. Gordon’s friend was growing with 28 1000-watt lights in the basement of his mountain home, with plants in 50-gallon pots. They kept the numbers low enough to avoid a federal offense, but were still cranking out enough product to supply the demand, says Gordon. By 1997, Gordon built out a bigger grow space in his new Colorado residence with three 1000-watt lights. Unlike his initial setup, mostly comprised of hand-me-downs, these new lights were much better at producing quality weed. Gordon likens his early years to classic crime syndicate and drug trafficking movies like Blow and Goodfellas; the market was good, the laws were lenient, and everything was “perfect,” so growers like Gordon kept pushing and kept growing.
MUSICAL STYLINGS OF COLIN GORDON
With a much larger grow going than he’d ever had, and a music studio in his house, “Everything was pretty sweet,” recalls Gordon. He was playing in bands, starting with Quantum, and evolving into Delo (Pronounced DAY-LO). People came to their shows, they had decent local success, and while they didn’t think it would become a mega touring band, they enjoyed playing and managed to draw crowds. But, at the age of 30, Gordon wanted something different. While the band was gigging regularly, Gordon had begun to play poker locally at the casinos and in small private tournaments. Eventually, he took the plunge and entered a tournament at the Bellagio. Over a span of days, he made $100,000 and found that his general sense of confidence allowed him to best his opponents at the poker table. He went home from that trip, quit the band, and decided to become a professional poker player.
Sunset
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WORLD POKER TOUR
For the next four years, Gordon would live the life that many gamblers dream about. He had a house in Hermosa Beach, his own rooms at the MGM Grand and Bellagio, and made friends with the right people on the strip to land baller rooms and all the perks. “Vegas is a hustle; you can give very little money to the right people and get a lot of stuff,” he explains. He’d spend six months out of the year in Vegas, and then play cash games in places like LA, where the economy was booming and he enjoyed celebrity statues. He’d sublet his house while on the road, knowing that, at any given time, he could replenish his chips by growing cannabis. “I can grow weed, so there was no fear of loss. Worst case scenario, I go home for three months and then I go back on the road. It really helped my game not having a fear of going broke.” At this point, Gordon was running eight lights, and cranking out 10 pounds per cycle, or about $40,000 worth of product. By now, he didn’t have to grow, but he says that he liked keeping that option open and on the table.
CRASHING ECONOMIES AND A RETURN TO CO
When the economy crashed in 2008, the entire game changed. Gordon’s life as a nomad brought him back to Colorado as poker tournaments got smaller. He still taught game theory to professional players, but was mostly playing local, private tournaments with friends and peers. At one such game with a number of University of Denver professors and local attorneys, he was introduced to the idea of legally selling cannabis. He scoffed at the idea initially, he says, but soon found himself partnered with one of these attorney’s sons at a dispensary known as Nature’s Kiss. The partners managed it, and Gordon grew all of the weed. Those days of the early medical marijuana market were a little more relaxed, allowing Gordon to sell his friends’ crops, too. Because the dispensary could only grow plants for the patients listed under their care in the state registry, staff were encouraged to sign as many patients as they could and designate Nature’s Kiss (or their growers) as their caregiver. As demand and supply began working together, Gordon began hunting for specific strains to bring to market.
“NO SUCH THING AS DUTCH SEEDS ANYMORE”
During this search, Gordon returned to Holland in an attempt to procure more seeds, and learned that much of what Amsterdam was known for had since relocated to Spain. In the late ‘90s, large raids were coordinated under Amsterdam’s war on drugs, destroying many genetics forever and sending breeders south to places like Spain and Italy. Famed Holland
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The Dutch didn’t advance,” explains Gordon. “It wasn’t their fault that they lost genetics; they had to move to [places like] Spain just to avoid prison.” brands like Hortilab were now operating in southern Europe, and products were making their way from these new locales back to the coffee shops of the Red Light District. “[During this period] The Dutch didn’t advance,” explains Gordon. “It wasn’t their fault that they lost genetics; they had to move to [places like] Spain just to avoid prison.” With cannabis progress in Amsterdam derailed, the throne was open, and the burgeoning medical cannabis scene in California began to take note.
“THE BEST GENETICS COME OUT OF THE US”
Following what Gordon calls “the Dutch Decline of 99,” things fell off for import genetics
as sources and clones were lost. This void was filled by California brands like Cali Connection, and growers with real OG strains in seed form. These OG and Chem varieties were what Gordon calls the “public catalyst” of the US seed takeover. There were now highly potent, original strains coming out of places like Ohio in addition to those coming out of Northern California. “Once the OGs and the purps started crossing in Cali, that’s when California became the center,” he says, eventually expanding to the entire Pacific Northwest, with amazing cuts coming from Oregon that weren’t necessarily frostier, but got you higher and had advanced terpene compositions with more nuance than traditional Dutch offerings. While the Dutch seeds had high yields and
BUSINESS & POLITICS | COLIN GORDON grew vigorously, these new genetics brought enhanced flavor and increased potency. “Any OG crossed with purps is amazing,” Gordon continues. “My tip for new breeders: start with an OG and a purp and you win; everything from there is going to be good, I promise.” With that being said, the new stock of seeds is not nearly as strong or consistent as the old Dutch stock, Gordon explains. “Nothing comes close to it [as far as yields and overall plant performance] unless it has Dutch stuff in it.” Back then, the Dutch seeds were true landraces, indicas and sativas that hadn’t yet been watered down, which would serve as the foundation for American hybrids that sought to homogenize and improve upon genetics. These crosses would test lower, typically around 12-15 percent THC, but would get users higher than other market offerings. “[If you put] Cali cuts next to Dutch, they were two levels above in quality,” says Gordon of infamous strains such as Mendo and Chemdog. “More tools to more people proliferates better varieties.
EARLY MEDICAL LAWS
California’s medical market really started to take off in 2006-2007, and Colorado would soon follow. At the time though, Colorado was desperate for cannabis, and the demand could not be met with local supply, so a lot of weed was coming in from California. People would come in, unload their harvests, no questions
asked. “You could bring your outdoor that didn’t sell [in California] and get $2,600 per pound here [in Colorado], $4,800 for the good stuff,” Gordon recalls. He remembers paying $5,000 for a pound of OG, which dispensaries would sell in grams and still turn a profit.
INFLUX OF GENETICS
By 2009, dispensaries had begun selling clones and they would sell out every time. “Genetics you had always heard of, someone now has down the street,” remembers Gordon. This would change the landscape of cannabis and make better products more accessible to more patients. Over the next four years, Colorado saw a massive influx of genetics into the state, including some of the best from Washington, Oregon, Ohio, Massachusetts and California. Colorado growers had the space for dozens of different of mother plants in different facilities and could do grow tests and phone hunts. For the first time, Gordon could see exactly how these strains would hold up when compared side-by-side. With a wealth of growers having a wealth of access to seeds and clones, it was inevitable that more strains would start to appear. Since 2014, the genetics market has expanded greatly, with strains that, as Gordon says, “check all the boxes”; they are flavorful, potent, smoke good and have a quality high. As more seeds were popped
around the world, the law of averages kicked in and the access that growers and breeders now had put them ahead of the game. The space afforded breeders like Gordon to begin preserving their mothers, including Orange Herijuana and Super Skunk, among his oldest mothers that survive to this day.
BIG JAY & THE HYDRO SHOP
By 2014, Gordon had begun working at a hydroponics grow shop called Grow Big Supply as well and had begun researching the nutrients and feeding schedules that he was following for his plants. “It’s how I learned almost everything I know about growing,” Gordon says. The more time he spent in the store, the more he learned what was actually in each bottle of nutrients or additive, and came to understand what and why he was feeding certain things to his crops. During this time Gordon came to know a guy he fondly refers to as Big Jay, from Oklahoma, a sales representative for an agricultural company. Gordon describes him as a 6’5” 285-pound, “real” farmer that “looked like he could lift a tractor.” Gordon spent time talking to him about hormones and plant manipulation. Jay was a salesman, but he loved to talk plants. One day, Gordon came into the shop to a large, dirty cardboard box that simply said “Colin” on it. His coworker told him that it was from Jay.
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EVERYTHING HAPPENS FOR A REASON
“I was in what others would say was bad way,” backtracks Gordon. Prior to the hydro shop, he’d been homeless, and would find ways to get up to the poker tournaments in Blackhawk to win money to pay bills. He was working three jobs, on welfare, and using food stamps to buy groceries. He started working at the hydro shop shortly after coming up for air, and began doing grow consultations in the mornings before work to subsidize his income. Many of his clients back then were “just being generous to give me work” but they helped him through some tough times, even when he was considering quitting his job at the hydro shop. And, in the midst of all this trouble, his daughter was born, changing the way Gordon approached life. All of his focus was now on supporting her. Even when he was homeless, he’d work multiple gigs to get motels and take care of her. “I wasn’t sad; I was too tired from working all day,” explains Gordon. “I had plans. This may take a while, but [you have to] tell yourself you’re going to be the hero in this fuckin’ story. No one else will believe it; I knew this would all happen. I didn’t know the time arc, but I knew what I was good at, and what I wanted to do, and how to get there.” And, with this dirty cardboard box, his time was just around the corner.
THE DIRTY BOX OF TRICKS
The summer of 2014 brought with it a cardboard box that was loaded with “all the hormones you could ever want to become a seed maker.” Jay had given Gordon “years and years worth of stuff…10 years worth of [breeding hormones].” So, he began experimenting. By playing with these chemicals in his plants, Gordon was able to create abnormal growths such as expanding lateral growth or even stimulating more than five feet of vertical growth, creating a “palm tree” of a cannabis plant in just three days. As he dialed in these techniques, the idea of breeding feminized seeds without the use of heavy metals or male plants began to form.
APPLYING KNOWLEDGE & PRACTICE
Typically, cannabis plants are created through the process of pollination, involving a male and a female. Many growers and breeders can use stress and vigor to acquire this pollen, but extreme stress conditions can create unstable genetics, which result in “intersex” traits that can pollute an entire crop if grown at commercial scale. After reading about alpha females in a Kentucky farmer’s guide, Gordon applied his experimental mindset to producing these alpha females in order to produce feminized pollen, untouched by male genetics. He noticed that
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Colin Gordon speaking on a panel for High Times
“In 2016, all I did was make seeds and run seeds,” recalls Gordon. “I borrowed money from a friend who bought one percent of the company for $15,000, and I took off to do seeds and get the process down.” these alpha females would typically grow twice as fast as their fellow plants, and, when exposed to certain concentrations of gibberellic acid, would extend long “cherry stems with bells” which would turn out to be feminized seeds. Unlike those seeds being produced by stress, these were stable genetics that hadn’t been exposed to ethylene blockers, something that Gordon posits may be the reason for intersex genetics.
CONSULTANT LIFE
Leaning on his cannabis pedigree, Gordon began a consulting company that focused on fixing grows and bringing genetics to the wholesale market. In April 2015, they decided to get a booth at the last Cannabis Cup hosted in Denver. The intention was to promote the consulting company, sell some seeds, and see what stuck. They released five varieties of OG and five different clones. At the cup, Gordon’s friends showed up to help, without any real idea of what to expect. He had racked up a few hundred Facebook friends and a few thousand Instagram followers, and it would appear that all of them showed up in line for Gordon’s genetics. “We had a line for three straight days,” he recalls. He quickly
realized that he was on to something bigger than just fixing grows. Consulting, Gordon explains, was a finite business. “No matter what we charge, we can only do so many hours,” he says. He’d also frequently find himself frustrated with clients who would fail to follow through on instructions, wondering why they weren’t seeing a return on investment for his services. After selling out of every pack of seeds at the Denver cup, Gordon knew he didn’t want to do anything but make and run seeds.
THE BEGINNING OF ETHOS
Ethos Genetics began almost as an accident. He began working with Anthony, his best friend since he was 14, and Riley, the two other original members of the team. They are now what he describes as his left and right hand. Back then, Ethos was comprised of a fourlight grow. The team would pollinate everything, but had trouble making income. “Making seeds is easy,” says Gordon. “Selling them is hard.” In late 2016, he started to come around to the idea that a seed company may be where they were headed, and started shifting his focus from consulting to full-time breeding. In 2017, Riley and Gordon went to their first cannabis expo. After seeing what it was all
BUSINESS & POLITICS | COLIN GORDON about, they scooped a booth at the Santa Rosa High Times Cannabis Cup. Until then, they’d made packs here and there, but this was the first official seed drop with eight different packs that were all Mandarin Sunset crosses. During this time, they gave away countless seeds because they needed a new market. “[Ethos] couldn’t have evolved so quickly if we hadn’t,” clarifies Gordon. Afterwards, Gordon ran into Danny Danko at a conference in Boston, and ended up on a panel. A proliferation of Instagram growers showing off his genetics added fuel to the fire.
FULL STEAM AHEAD
“In 2016, all I did was make seeds and run seeds,” recalls Gordon. “I borrowed money from a friend who bought one percent of the company for $15,000, and I took off to do seeds and get the process down.” Ethos wasn’t taking off, but they were selling packs here and there to help pay the bills. Before the Denver Cannabis Cup, they’d never done more than $4,000 in a month, consulting, seeds or otherwise. At the cup, they did $8,000. From February 2017 onwards, sales doubled every seven weeks. By September of that year, they were doing $35,000, then it doubled again to $70,000. “It just keeps doubling, and it was real money now,” remembers Gordon. But the company was still in the red until January of 2018, their first “monster month” doing over $100,000 in sales in one month.
ETHOS NOW
“It means a lot more to me [that I’m] growing this company with the people who helped me to get through life in general. We’ve grown into a much larger company of about 20 employees, but we are still a family unit. Riley hires and trains everyone now and has assembled an unbelievable team. Anthony’s wife does all of our designs and graphics,” says Gordon, going on to say that he really had no idea what having a designer on staff even meant until going through the rebrand. “The first two weeks, it was alike a shrink … [she wanted to] understand what makes me tick … The first six months, ideas bounced around, and then I realized that I was in the way.” “I don’t like talking to anyone that’s not necessary,” clarifies Gordon. “I’m a full-time dad and I don’t have time to micromanage. I hire people who can do the job, and put SOPs in place to make it easier.” And then he gets out of the way. As business continued to grow, Gordon was able to get out of debt, pay off his invoices, and give tools to the team to enable them to go on the road and do what they needed. He was able to get a warehouse and made the decision to grow seeds at scale, calling his grow the “largest 12-plant grow in history.” He began to make so many seeds that he found himself giving them
Cherry 16 #4 Flower away. “We have bred more seeds than I could ever sell. So, what do we do with all these seeds? We give them away.”
like strains that work well for solvent-less extraction, for example.
THE MULTIPASS: GIVING AWAY THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY
There’s a reason that Gordon seems to go against the grain, and it is intentional, down to the very name of his company. “I didn’t like the current ethos of cannabis, especially the seed market,” he explains. “There’s a lot of swindlers that got away with overcharging because they could, hoarding super exclusive genitics that were very expensive. If you’re just starting to grow, you shouldn’t be behind the 8-ball to start. If you start with inferior genetics from the get-go, you have [a long way] to catch up.” This mentality is the driving force behind the rapid spread of Ethos Genetics through commercial and home grows around the world. With 24 international distributors, sought-after seeds are now readily accessible, but you won’t be able to buy direct from Ethos until the banks are more comfortable, and merchant services stop seizing business funds. For those looking to try one of Gordon’s cannabis strains without having to pop the beans yourself, look for dispensaries carrying strains like Member Berry and Mandarin Sunset, and be on the lookout for official collaboration efforts in the coming years as more cultivators bring Ethos into their grows. A
Gordon describes his seed giveaways as “giving away the chocolate factory,” and to a large extent, he’s right. Ethos plans to give away 90 percent of its seeds to a few thousand lucky growers that hold the Ethos Multipass, a subscription of sorts that is tiered to create a secondary market. Gordon’s goal is to eventually create a market for individuals wishing to trade or purchase higher tier passes; The better the tier, the more seeds in the Multipack. If there’s a limited amount of seeds available of a certain strain, then the top tiers get them first, and so on and so forth. With a single, one-time buy-in, growers will have access to thousands of genetics over the course of their lifetime, something that no other genetics company is doing. “In the next two years, each person will receive at least 10,000 seeds, and they’re in for life,” boasts Gordon. The first MultiPack went out earlier this year and contained more than $1,500 worth of gear. Each MultiPass contains 17 seeds (Gordon’s lucky number) comprising eight strains. They’ll also be releasing special edition MultiPacks that focus on certain sought-after traits,
THE ETHOS OF CANNABIS
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CBD Hemp Fields Stink Out Neighborhoods Across the U.S. Is America Destined to Smell Like... Weed? by Georgie Smith
I
t turns out that CBD hemp fields smell just like marijuana. America wasn’t really expecting that. It started innocently enough, mid-summer of 2019. The first summer hemp — marijuana’s non-intoxicating cannabis soul-sister — had been legal to grow in New York after more than 80 years. Everybody thought it was darn cool. Hemp! Just like George Washington used to grow. By mid-summer, however, the first whiffs of discontent began wafting ominously. East Fishkill, New York is a picturesque Poughkeespie county town of just 20,000. Hemp fields were planted not far outside of town. The 200-acre field bordered a nearby residential area.
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“Does anyone know what they are growing on Noxon Road by Arthursburg? Is that weed? LOL,” posted a Facebook user, August 16, to the East Fishkill Community Forum group. By mid-September, the hemp plants began to mature, producing flower buds and that certain Cheech and Chong-esque aroma. Suddenly the fields became more than just a ‘pothead’ joke. “Smells like a mix between cat pee, skunk and tomato plants. Is (sic) not a pleasant weedy scent at all,” another Facebook user posted on September 16 to the East Fishkill Community Forum Group. Multiple threads and thousands of comments were posted within a week, forcing an admin to even shut down the hemp field posts for a time. But East Fishkill, NY, wasn’t the only com-
munity in America to sit up, take a sniff, and close their windows this past summer. Communities in Eagle Point, Oregon; Rhode Island; Edna Valley, California; Baltimore County, Maryland, and even Long Island, echoed the same concerns. The comments followed the same theme. They aren’t upset about growing hemp in general — hey, that’s cool — and everybody wants to support farmers. But… OMG, that smell.
WILL AMERICA GET EVEN SKUNKIER?
If 2019 was just the beginning for the possible federal hemp production — some industry pundits predict hemp will eventually rival soy and corn for acres planted — does that mean
BUSINESS & POLITICS | STINKY HEMP
America is destined to get even skunkier? “Is this just the tip of the iceberg?” asked Adam Neidelman. Neidelman said he and his Saunderstown, Rhode Island neighbors were practically “held hostage” by the smell in their homes this past summer. The wealthy neighborhood borders the Sodco Farm, which grew only 65 acres of pungent hemp, but, as Neidelman noted, has the potential for up to 400. Neidelman started a petition, and he and his neighbors took up the issue with their town council. It is possible that Saunderstown and the rest of rural America might have a bit of a smell relief for the coming year. It’s too early to say yet with spring planting just getting underway just how much hemp will be
planted for 2020. However, after prices crashed during the 2019 harvest, and with many leery of harsh new USDA regulations and the unresolved issue of how the FDA feels about CBD, many industry signs are pointing to less of a hemp planting frenzy. At least as compared to 2019. But that pertains to high-cannabinoid hemp production. As the hemp fiber supply chains begin to establish, 2020 may actually end with a fair bit more of fiber hemp production. Certainly, more than America has seen for many, many years. But will acres of hemp fields, grown for their grain, hurd and bast fiber, be as noticeable as the high-cannabinoid and terpene hemp production when it comes to the sniff test? That will most likely hinge on what the neighbors think.
SO, WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN FOR HEMP FARMERS?
Luckily for America’s nascent hemp industry, farming has a long, long tradition of being, well, all sorts of stinky. That’s why every state in the union has a ‘right-to-farm-law’ protecting farmers from nuisance lawsuits. In Maryland, residents of Baltimore County were so upset by the smell of a hemp farm outside of Baltimore, claiming it caused allergies, headaches and nausea, that they convinced a state senator to propose a two-mile ban between hemp fields and residential neighborhoods of 10 or more homes. Not surprisingly, farmers and agricultural industry groups argued that would violate the
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“If you went back 100 years, nobody would be talking about this. Everything was made from hemp and it was commonly grown,” she said. “It’s a stigma that exists today that just didn’t exist then.” state’s right-to-farm legislation and set a dangerous precedent for other agricultural activities. Kimberly Tanami, CEO of Hemp Productions Inc., the New York hemp farmer who planted that aroma-producing 200-acre field outside of East Fishkill that had neighbors so upset, said her state agriculture department had been across the board “amazing.” Andrea Cantu-Schomus, director of communications for the Oregon State Department of Agriculture, echoed a similar sentiment for Oregon. While they had definitely “received complaints,” there is nothing that Oregon can do about it due to the state’s right to farm statue, she said. “We’re just advising folks to work with their neighbors,” Cantu-Schomus said. As one of the leading hemp-growing states in the nation starting under the 2014 interim law, Oregon residents even appear to be getting used to the smell. If you ask long-time growers. The entire Rogue Valley smelled like weed
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this past summer during harvest season, according to Daniel Jurmann, VP of Marshall’s Farming. He called it the “smell of success.” Overall, they didn’t hear many complaints this year, and thinks neighbors are simply getting used to the smell. “That’s why you don’t live in an agriculture region. Agriculture smells funky. And weed smells better than cow shit, I can tell you that,” Jurmann said. Tanami agreed that it definitely seems to come down to what you are used to. She sympathizes with complaints, especially for parents whose children go to school in September about hemp harvest time and are suddenly “whiffing marijuana all day.” But with a child herself that is highly allergic to almost everything — yet spent the summer on her hemp farm with no problems — Tanami thinks a lot of the issue comes down to the negative association of hemp with marijuana. “If you went back 100 years, nobody would be talking about this. Everything was made from hemp and it was commonly grown,” she
said. “It’s a stigma that exists today that just didn’t exist then.” She also noted that most of the problems in their community came down to just a small handful of people. The majority of the population was very supportive of their farm, they didn’t even get complaints from the school that is just a half mile from their farm. Tanami advises hemp farmers — especially those planning to grow in regions new to hemp — if at all possible consider locating grows away from residential areas by at least two miles. That heads off potential problems before they get started. But in the end, Tanami said, a farm is a farm is a farm. And while hemp might smell when it’s flowering, at least it’s not for twelve months out of the year. “Think of the smelliest thing you can put there. What is better. Hemp or a pig farm?” Tanami said. “Mine is a seasonal smell for 6 to 8 weeks. If it was a pig farm, it would be yearround, my friend.” A
BUSINESS & POLITICS | STINKY HEMP
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Women In Hemp Leading the Hemp World via Girl Power by Georgie Smith
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D
id you think the Pink Ladies of Grease were tough? Well, meet the Pink Ladies of the hemp industry: the Women in Hemp. And as the T-Birds learned, these ladies aren’t ones to mess around. They’re too busy getting down to business. For Women in Hemp, a non-profit organization formed in 2018, that means promoting and pushing forward the hemp industry in a way that women, by nature, are uniquely suited to do. Women in Hemp support and empower the women “defining the hemp industry.” The organization has grown rapidly, now boasting 1,500 members. Those pink jackets? Reminiscent of the most famous “girl gang” of all time. That idea originated from leadership team member Kim Edwards, vice president and COO of MariJ Pharmaceuticals. The guys all have their jackets and hats, the women needed their pink jackets because they “need to know we’re coming,” Edwards said. And she was right, said Debbie Custer, Women in Hemp founder and CEO. The jackets are indicative of what the group of influential women leaders are working to do for the hemp industry: bring women’s voices to the table, loud and clear, and do it in an impactful manner that benefits the entire hemp industry — male or female. Custer, who was the first licensed hemp grower and processor in the state of Virginia, has been advocating and promoting hemp since 2007. It all started when, in desperation, she treated her beloved aging and arthritic dog with a tincture given to her by a Greek village medicine woman. Within days of the first treatment, her pooch Domino had made a miraculous recovery and went on to live three more years. Meanwhile, the mystery tincture turned out to be a homemade hemp oil remedy. Custer was convinced. After that, Custer, who has a background in the food and beverage industry, went on to start her own hemp farm and production facility focused on plant-based hemp formulations.
MAKING SURE WOMEN HAVE A SEAT AT THE HEMP TABLE Women in Hemp started after the passage of hemp legalization in the 2018 Farm Bill. At that time, as the industry began to develop, Custer noticed the faces at the hemp industry meetings were predominantly male. “Women are the ones doing the growing, the research and the business. Yet when you
“We can have an industry that is inclusive from the very beginning,” Custer said. “We don’t have to break a ceiling. There is no ceiling.” go to these events, men are the ones doing the talking,” Custer said. Women needed a seat at the table, Custer said. And after having worked in the male-dominated alcohol industry for much of her career, she was bound and determined to make that happen. Especially since hemp is a brand new industry in the US, it meant that women were looking at an opportunity that had never seen before. To enter into an industry right at the beginning, not trying to play catch up generations later. “We can have an industry that is inclusive from the very beginning,” Custer said. “We don’t have to break a ceiling. There is no ceiling.” Fellow founder Carrie McClain agrees. A Florida attorney who has spent a lot of time advising seniors on elder law and their cannabis
rights, McClain said Woman in Hemp is about giving women “professional responsibility” in the hemp industry. Kristin Adams, the owner of Satori Minds and a business and marketing consulting in the hemp and personal care space, said she joined Women in Hemp because it was an opportunity to collaborate with like-minded women. As an entirely new industry with no map to follow, working to find solutions is even more critical. Women, by nature, are collaborators, which is what makes this organization so impactful for hemp. “Everyone is prospecting in a gold rush type environment. There is a tendency to be out for yourself. But as soon as things get a little bit tricky, there are a lot of unknowns and an incredible amount of uncertainty, so collaboration is really important,” Adams said.
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MOVING THE WHOLE HEMP INDUSTRY FORWARD, WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM THE LADIES But Women in Hemp is not just about getting women’s voices heard; it’s about bringing knowledge, resources and leadership to both the “ladies and the gentlemen” working in hemp, McClain said. Women in Hemp excels at resource building, bringing experts to the table, answering the questions and getting the knowledge needed to advance the industry. They are doing that by offering their network of female resource experts to the hemp meetings and events across the United States. They quickly experienced a high demand for their organization’s hemp experts. Why? Well, that’s simple: because women, in general, are “no bullshit,” Custer said. Custer argues that one gender advantage women offer to an emerging industry is that if women don’t know the answer to a question, they admit it, go get the information they need and bring it back to the table. That is a lesson that certain men in hemp desperately need to learn. The hemp industry simply doesn’t have time to deal with the big-talkers, putting their egos on the line, unwilling to admit they don’t know everything, Custer said. “Just put it on a table and let’s measure it. Then let’s get on with it.” The response to that “no B.S.” strategy has been strongly supportive. But that’s not surprising, Custer said. Not just women, but men who are serious about succeeding in hemp are most interested in getting accurate, factual information, which Custer credits to why 20 percent of their membership is actually male.
USING A FEMALE-LED NETWORK TO GET THE ANSWERS THE HEMP INDUSTRY NEEDS Since forming, the Women in Hemp leadership has been working specifically to advance hemp-focused issues. They tap into their diverse network to cultivate different resource experts within the group as needed. When there is information lacking, they put the resources where it is needed to do the research and collect the data. Some of their leadership goals including moving hemp-friendly state and federal legislation forward, and they lobbied to the USDA to make new hemp regulations more amenable to small farmers. They focused on offering common-sense solutions to the issues the USDA is grappling with — like the current .3 percent total THC rule. “We can read, that’s a law,” Custer said. For instance, instead of raging over a legal limit the USDA doesn’t have the power to change, the Women in Hemp’s comments to the USDA encouraged the USDA to look at ways to delineate the different end-uses of hemp — grain, fiber and CBD — and regulate based on the end-use. They also focus strongly on education and have been working on issues like proper labeling for CBD products, moving the hemp fiber and grain industry forward, and supply chain management. Women in Hemp sponsored growing trials at North Carolina State University focused on testing climate-specific hemp genetics. This issue has been woefully neglected, Custer said. And every member of the team leadership group has committed to mentoring two other women working in specific areas in hemp, whether that’s a female farmer working on hemp genetics or a woman writing a new doctrine for labeling. “Bottom line, woman and hemp make sense,” Custer said. “Women are natural nurturers, and that is what this plant is about. Nurturing our body and our soil and everything we do,” she said. “In addition, we can help somebody make a good living.” You can get a hemp Pink Ladies jacket — but only if you join. Members aren’t limited by gender. They are also actively looking for grants and funding to help cover the costs of getting more women hemp resource experts out spreading the word and educating. A
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BUSINESS & POLITICS | WOMEN IN HEMP
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photo © DJ Reetz
CO2 Exchange, page 88
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY For Your Information
An Even Exchange of CO2 & Ketamine as a Treatment for Mental Health
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AN EVEN EXCHANGE: Two Colorado Industries Finding a Beneficial Arrangement by DJ Reetz
C
olorado is known for cannabis. Since opening adult-use markets in 2014, the state has been on the forefront of cannabis innovation, both in business practices and regulation. That positions as a pioneer in an industry that, six years later, still hasn’t broken through to full federal legality has meant lots of hiccups, as the business practices and regulation seek to address both expectations of consumers and fears of policy makers rooted in decades of cannabis prohibition. This sometimes means that the industry suffers from a lack of consideration for its environmental impact. But in a warehouse in northern Denver, a project is looking to mitigate some of that by bringing cannabis together with another of the state’s most iconic industries: beer. Known as “the Napa Valley of beer,” Colorado is home to the highest number of breweries per capita in the country. The state has breweries ranging in size from the legendary Coors facility to the hundreds of smaller, single-location brewery/tasting rooms that dot small mountain towns and gentrifying urban areas. And at Denver Beer Company, that glut of beer is starting to interact with the state’s booming cannabis industry in the form of a novel CO2 exchange. The process of brewing beer creates CO2; as hungry yeast cells devour sugars, they produce the gas that gives beer its signature bubbles. Meanwhile, the process of growing cannabis requires CO2, as plants uptake the gas during growth, turning it back into oxygen in the process. And cannabis is hungry for that gas. Brian Cusworth, director of operations for The Clinic, where the captured CO2 ends up, estimates that this single grow uses up to 6,500 pounds of the stuff every month. During this 16-week trial exchange, they’ll be using 500 pounds per week imported from the Denver Beer Company facility. “It’s pretty exciting. We can’t wait to see what the results are,” says Cusworth. Ambient air typically holds about 300-400 parts per million of CO2, more than enough for plants to grow,
explains Cusworth. But in order to achieve the robust and expedient growth demanded of a commercial operation, the sweet spot for cannabis plants is around 1,200 parts per million. Piping the extra CO2 into the grow doesn’t necessarily increase the already high carbon imprint of a commercial indoor grow; the plants suck most of it up and convert it into oxygen through metabolic process. Instead, the most notable environmental impact on the grow comes from the reduced transportation distance of the gas canisters. Commercially sold CO2 is typically a byproduct of the fossil fuel industry, and is sourced from refineries that can be hundreds of miles away, says Cusworth. With this exchange program, The Clinic is receiving their gas from the other side of town, a mere 9 ½ miles away. This, says Cusworth, is probably the most significant reduction in the facility’s carbon footprint to come out of the arrangement. At the Denver Beer Company, that impact might be a little more noticeable. Charlie Berger, founder of Denver Beer Co., estimates that the facility creates about 150,000 pounds of CO2 per year, which due to the lack of smallscale capture technology was previously mostly vented into the atmosphere. Massive stainless steel fermenting vats previously vented excess CO2 through plastic tubes into five-gallon buckets filled with water that would then burp the gas into the interior space of the brewery. Air quality alarms monitor the facility to ensure CO2 never reaches levels that would be dangerous to the workers inside, but the gas eventually finds its way into the atmosphere where it contributes in some small part to the blanket of greenhouse emissions slowly making the planet uninhabitable. Now, the gas is captured by an innocuous, boxy contraption sitting next to the fermentation tanks. The machine, made by Earthly Labs, removes excess water molecules from the gas, scrubs any stray hydro carbons or acid gases tagging along using a carbon filter, then cools the CO2 to a chilly -34° C. The liquid gas is then pumped into a waiting tank so that it can be shipped to the grow. >>>
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Carbon capture technology like this has been available for some time, but not on this small a scale or for this price point, says Amy George, founder of Earthly Labs. “It just hasn’t been something that was plug and play for craft brewers,” she explains. George founded Earthly Labs as public interest corporation with the express intent of disrupting environmentally damaging industry practices. Creating the carbon capture system involved adapting existing technology and scaling it down in order to make it accessible to smaller operators, and allowing them to recoup some money from a waste stream makes the environmental remediation a no-brainer, she says. According to George, the Earthly Labs system uses less energy to capture CO2 than systems used by larger brewers when measured by volume, and comes with the added caveat that the CO2 captured may actually be more pure than the commercially sold gas coming from fossil fuel production. “As we look at some of the large-scale systems, our purity is better,” claims George. While all CO2 used in production of drinkable products must meet FDA standards to be classified as beverage grade, its chemical origin can linger in one way or another. The notion that the CO2 being captured at Denver Beer Company might be superior to traditionally sourced gas isn’t just held by George, either. “Commercial CO2 … is a byproduct of oil and gas production,” says Berger. “It does have some VOCs, volatile organic compounds; they’re very small but they’re there. This doesn’t have those.” George says that the effect can be noticed by a discerning palate when the gas is reincorporated into beers for added effervescence. “If we’re able to get 50 times less, or non-detectable volumes, it shows up in the beer aroma, in the mouth feel, in the other properties,” she claims. Over at The Clinic, they’re hoping that effect can be seen in the health of the plants. Cannabis plants are notorious for sucking up toxins in their environment, so even trace amounts of harmful chemicals could manifest in strange ways by the time the plants get to consumers. Cusworth is hopeful that this new source of gas will allow for healthier, better tasting plants that will potentially be better for consumers. They’ll be paying close attention to any differences in the plants as the pilot goes on. “Each week we’ll be looking at plant growth, the color of the plant compared to previous stuff we have on file. And at the end when we do harvest, we’ll look at yield counts,” says Cusworth. “And actually, we’ll do taste tests.” But the project is admittedly not just about the environment. “It’s good for the community, it’s good for the environment and it’s good for business,” says Kaitlin Urso, an environmental protection spe-
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Carbon capture technology like this has been available for some time, but not on this small a scale or for this price point, says Amy George, founder of Earthly Labs. “It just hasn’t been something that was plug and play for craft brewers,” she explains.
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY | CO2 EXCHANGE cialist with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. Urso is perhaps the person most responsible for this unique marriage of cannabis and beer. Having spent the past four years helping to reduce the environmental impact of the state’s beer industry, Urso was introduced to George at a craft brewers conference in 2019, where George was leading a talk on sustainability. Urso saw an opportunity to utilize George’s equipment in a way unique to a legal cannabis state. “I saw one fatal flaw in the design of how the equipment was being implemented, with it installed at breweries to only capture the CO2 that the brewery needed, and then we were continuing to vent the rest,” says Urso. Turning CO2 emissions into another revenue stream seemed easy enough, and she knew of another business that was eager for the stuff. Urso, who wears silver THC molecule earrings as she tours the Denver Beer Company facility, is in a unique position as a state employee assisting with environmental impacts of these parallel industries. The nascent cannabis industry is frequently the target of criticism for its environmental impacts, particularly around issues like energy consumption and waste generation, which many observers have tied to regulations aimed at mitigating potential harms to the populace. While it’s easy to place blame for the environmental shortcomings of legal cannabis, Urso’s position requires a pragmatic and nuanced approach. “The cannabis industry has existed for a very long time, whether regulatorily we acknowledge it or not,” she says. “I can say that it coming into this sector of legalized regulatory commodity just like anyone else is a good opportunity … to reduce the environmental impact.” As for pragmatism, Urso recognizes that getting businesses to adopt better environmental practices is only viable if it makes fiscal sense. On that end, this project seems to be benefiting all parties involved. Urso estimates that a brewery will be able recoup the cost of one of these CO2 capture machines in five to eight years if using the reclaimed gas solely inhouse. For an arrangement like this, though, in which there is a high local demand, that timeline shrinks two years. For the grow, the cost of purchasing the tanks that hold the gas should be offset within a year thanks to a slightly lower price point on the gas inside. Once the brewery has recouped their cost, there’s potential for that cost to go even lower. As for the state, Urso says no public funding is going toward this project; she’s simply acting as a match maker for two like minded businesses with a mutual interest. “We want it to be good for the environment, good for the economics of the business, and good for the community,” says Urso. “This project is a slam dunk on all three.” A
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Mental Health Treatment with
by Erin Hiatt
P
sychedelic science and research is undergoing a resurgence not seen since before substances like marijuana and LSD were made Schedule I substances in 1970. Medical marijuana, which first became legal in California in 1996, has long been defying that narrow categorization, which defines the plant as substances with no currently accepted medical use and high potential for abuse. Given the ongoing push toward psychedelic decriminalization and promising studies on psychedelic medicine, substances like psilocybin and LSD appear to be following closely on marijuana’s heels, and may soon overtake it in terms of its medical promise, especially for mental health conditions like depression and PTSD. The current psychedelic research landscape is a world away from the studies conducted in the years following Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann’s accidental LSD trip and subsequent discovery of its active compound in 1943. Gone are the days of ethically dubious research like that conducted by the CIA in the 1950s (a project called MK-Ultra), or an ostensibly LSD-fueled 1960s counter culture helmed by the likes of psychedelic researcher Dr. Timothy Leary, who issued the clarion call to “turn on, tune in, drop out.” Today’s psychedelic researchers seem to be leaving the days of Leary behind by conducting irreproachable studies zeroing in on the mental health applications of psychedelics.
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One example is a “breakthrough therapy” designation from the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) for MDMA — more infamously known as the party drug ecstasy or Molly — currently undergoing phase III trials as a treatment for PTSD. But a lesser-known psychedelic, ketamine (Special K in club culture) has beat MDMA to the punch. Legal as an anesthetic since 1970, research on its antidepressant qualities have been around since the 1950s. Ketamine is not considered a “classic” psychedelic like psilocybin or LSD, but can induce psychedelic effects, from the dissociative to the profound, even at the standard .5 mg/kg dose. However, even though studies have shown that people with all types of depression respond equally well to ketamine, it wasn’t until 2019 that the FDA approved a ketamine variant called esketamine (brand name Spravato) for treatment-resistant depression (TRD).
THE PROBLEMS WITH SPRAVATO For a patient to receive a prescription for FDA-approved Spravato, they must meet the criteria for TRD, meaning that the patient has failed at least two levels of treatment — usually two different kinds of medicine, or two rounds of medicine paired with therapy — and has a smaller chance of improving. New Jersey-based psychiatrist Dr. John O’Reardon is a TRD specialist with more than 27 years’ experience. O’Reardon characterizes
TRD as a very distressing, severe, and persistent experience of depression, that generally includes feelings of hopelessness and suicidality that could last for years. “There is a much higher level of despair [with TRD], and it’s less responsive to all treatment, including therapy and medication,” he told HC Magazine. “It’s a dark tunnel for many patients, and challenging for doctors, too.” O’Reardon estimates that about five million Americans every year are diagnosed with TRD, and notes that there is no medicine specifically developed for the disorder. “If you are in your first or second trial for major depressive disorder, your chances of getting well are 30-50 percent. After second treatment, the chances of getting better drop to 15 percent, after the third, drops to 1-7 percent. Once you get to that point, you are dealing with a different kettle of fish. At that cohort, there are much higher rates of disability, suicidality, and hospitalization.” When Spravato was first approved, O’Reardon treated patients in his office with a protocol that included administration of esketamine paired with therapy, but abandoned it after about six months due to onerous barriers for both patients and his practice. Because of Spravato’s potentially dissociative and psychedelic effects, these included at least two hours per doctor’s visit, extensive paperwork for the practice, and patient confusion about whether or not the expensive treatment would be covered by insurance.
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
“If you are in your first or second trial for major depressive disorder, your chances of getting well are 30-50 percent. After second treatment, the chances of getting better drop to 15 percent, after the third, drops to 1-7 percent. Once you get to that point, you are dealing with a different kettle of fish. At that cohort, there are much higher rates of disability, suicidality, and hospitalization.�
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But there are companies bypassing these challenges entirely by prescribing ketamine off-label, meaning that the drug is being used for something other than which it is approved. As psychedelic research points toward mental health benefits, ketamine clinics offering IV infusions, sublingual doses, or intramuscular shots for depression and anxiety are popping up, leading many with these conditions to wonder if working with a trained mental health clinician is an integral part of the psychedelic medicine process.
THE TROUBLE WITH OFF-LABEL “A lot of people with depression end up in a closed loop,” said Robert (not his real name), a psychiatric resident working with ketamine at a research university who asked to remain anonymous due to ongoing stigma about the use of the substance in mental health treatment. “We already have very good evidence that the best treatment [for depression] is a good antidepressant and talk therapy. They seem to work synergistically in some way. Antidepressants may reduce symptoms, but may stop working. But more importantly, there’s something wrong that you’re not addressing,” he added. Robert notes that antidepressants alone have their limits. “Psychiatry is a guessing game. We [psychiatrists] don’t know who will respond to what drug, or even if increasing the dose will help,” he said. “Many people take medication all year and end up with these side effects, like weight gain, nausea, headaches, or severe sexual side effects.” Patients using ketamine may experience these side effects short term, perhaps a day or week instead of months. “With a psychedelic model, you come in, you try it [ketamine], and we know right away if it worked or not. It’s a huge advantage,” Robert said. Adding that people tend to reflect on insights gleaned from their ketamine experiences, he is also quick to point out that psychotherapy is what keeps patients well in the long run. However, he has some concerns about ketamine for mental health because of the way it’s currently administered. For those prescribed the substance for off-label use, like an IV infusion, shot, or sublingual dose, they will frequently receive it from an anesthesiologist, ill-equipped to help patients through what could induce dissociative or anxiety-inducing experiences. Robert believes that patients would be much better served by working with a psychiatrist, trained to help those in emotional distress. Robert also stresses that ketamine is a drug of abuse, unlike its psychedelic counterparts psilocybin or MDMA. “[It’s] The intersection of the drug and the therapy that is so effective. With the psychedelic [therapy] model, you make it very clear that it is a combo treatment,” he said. Noting that ketamine has real addictive
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potential, he worries that patients will view ketamine as a panacea instead of one tool in mental health treatment.
MAKING SENSE OF IT Dr. Elizabeth Nielson is the co-founder of Fluence, a New York City-based firm offering mental health clinicians continuing education programs in psychedelic integration and psychedelic-assisted therapy. Nielson is no stranger to the intersection of psychedelic substances and mental health conditions, having worked on several FDA-approved clinical trials on psychedelics, as well as publishing and presenting on psychedelic therapist training, therapists’
personal experience with psychedelics, and psychedelic integration in group and individual psychotherapy. “I think that, in general, it’s going to be increasingly important for therapists to have basic understanding of psychedelic medicines as mental health treatments and how they work, what psychedelic assisted therapy is, and the role those experiences can play in healing,” she said. “Alternative states of consciousness in general as being potentially therapeutic and healing - [it’s] something that’s not too-well talked about in grad schools.” Describing ketamine’s psychedelic effects as highly subjective and variable, from person to person and session to session, she says, “I’ve
“I think that, in general, it’s going to be increasingly important for therapists to have basic understanding of psychedelic medicines as mental health treatments and how they work, what psychedelic assisted therapy is, and the role those experiences can play in healing.”
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY | KETAMINE
“The way that people talk about psychedelics in general, they’ll say, ‘I had five years of insight in one session.’ [But] how do you translate that to making meaningful changes in your work life or relationships? It extends far beyond just feeling different. If you want to see a lasting change, you want to actually act on that experience. A trained therapist can help people do that.” talked with people who had a series of ketamine sessions where it’s been the same every time, and then session number nine is like, bam! Completely out of the box or is all of a sudden very distressing.” Nielson acknowledges that some people taking ketamine for depression do so without the guidance of a trained mental health clinician, and still feel different after the experience. “The way that people talk about psychedelics in general, they’ll say, ‘I had five years of insight in one session.’ [But] how do you translate that to making meaningful changes in your work life or relationships? It extends far beyond just feeling different. If you want to see a lasting change, you want to actually act on that experience. A trained therapist can help people do that,” she added. There are some harm reduction benefits to using ketamine in partnership with a mental health clinician, who can monitor for changes
in symptoms, notice new symptoms, interface with other providers, and assess for complications or other problems. And a clinician can work with patients to mentally prepare them for the experience, navigate strong or upsetting emotions that could arise, and manage expectations. “There is hardly a more difficult thing than when someone’s expectations of what is going to happen for them are so completely mismatched to the experience that they are unable to pay attention to the actual experience, but are only able to experience profound disappointment,” she explained. “[A trained therapist] can help with managing expectations and the role of disappointment, which can be very important for those who are depressed or have tried other treatments. People don’t start with ketamine. It’s a big investment of time and energy.” It’s estimated that about 10 percent of the
U.S. population has tried a psychedelic at some point in their lives, and Nielson acknowledges that people can and do take ketamine simply for fun and not as medicine. But people with mental health conditions like depression are likely to get more out of ketamine or any psychedelic for that matter, by working with a mental health provider trained - or at the very least familiar - with psychedelic therapy. Neilson adds that ketamine, in the days and weeks after treatment, opens a window of neuroplasticity that could prove a meaningful time to create new healthy mental and behavioral habits, a process that could be guided by a mental health professional. “That is one way in which a trained therapist can be very supportive. It can be helpful to have someone to talk through integrating those changes into your life. How do you invest in that state so that it becomes more of a trait?” A
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POT-LITICALLY INCORRECT:
Beren With Me Again: THE MISINFORMATION OF ALEX BERENSON - PART 2 by DJ Reetz
WARNING: (not-so) Mature Content Ahead!
What follows is the deranged ranting of a mind torn asunder by cannabis use. The publishers of this magazine have made the foolish choice to allow me the freedom to mock and deride the anti-cannabis (and sometimes pro-cannabis) movement in any obscene way that I see fit. This is a column in which the rage-inducing bullshit of pot prohibitionists, through the transcendental power of cannabis, becomes an obscenity-laden tirade. It is a place of catharsis and healing, a place of humor and insight. But mostly it is a place where I get to use the word “fuck� a lot. Prepare yourself.
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*The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Hemp Connoisseur
I
didn’t want to write about Alex Berenson again. I swear to god I didn’t want to write about Alex Berenson again. In my last one of these, I wasted 2,000 words outlining why this grifter isn’t worth listening to, and that should be where we leave it. But since then, he’s experienced an unprecedented upswing in popularity, and —goddamn it — I guess we’re going in again. For anybody who missed the last one of these, or who hasn’t been paying attention to the anti-cannabis movement, Alex Berenson is a former New York Times employee and fiction author who in 2019 published a book linking marijuana use to psychotic violence. His contrarian views on this issue of broadening consensus have gained him a position of status among a certain demographic eager to retroactively justify their prejudices in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. In my last piece, I discussed his willingness to utilize white nationalists to spread
by lesser journalists. Berenson is smarter than these people, and he’s smarter than the scientists who have dedicated their life to studying this stuff. In recent months, Berenson has shifted from dire warnings of the dangers of cannabis use to dire warnings of the lack of dangers from this global pandemic. According to Berenson, COVID-19 isn’t a danger to anyone other than the elderly and a select group of people with compromised immune systems, and the steps being taken to combat the spread of the virus are overblown and unnecessary. To this end, Berenson has dedicated the entirety of his Twitter feed to dispelling myths about the deadliness of the corona virus in the condescending tone of a man who never really faces consequences for his abhorrent behavior. Multi-tweet threads hypothesizing the motivations of epidemiological academics surpassed by their peers now huffing that sweet paint of public attention for their dire predictions, screeds
In recent months, Berenson has shifted from dire warnings of the dangers of cannabis use to dire warnings of the lack of dangers from this global pandemic. his message, and the fact that he trades on past credentials to paradoxically endear himself to people who think The New York Times is “fake news.” He’s got a pretty clear-cut grift, and, to nobody’s surprise, he’s turned that keen sensibility toward its most contemporaneously viable outlet: COVID trutherism. Berenson is not a good dude, as I covered extensively in my last piece, but his naked opportunism based on reactionary contrarianism has perhaps reached a new low in its latest incarnation. Once again relying on the innate trustworthiness one attains from branding oneself as “former New York Times reporter,” Berenson seeks to undermine the credibility of the organization’s reporting on COVID-19. As is the case with the coverage of legal marijuana, Berenson presents himself as towering over the intellectual forest, able to see the reality of the data being mangled
deriding the contempt for Trump that is fueling the media’s overblown coverage of the pandemic, mocking derision of the people taking steps to curb the spread of the pandemic — these things have now entirely taken the place of the reefer madness insanity that once wholly dominated Berenson’s timeline. Naturally, Berenson has found an audience hungry for this sort of content, and, unsurprisingly, it’s basically the same audience that couldn’t see through the easily debunked nonsense of his previous schtick: right-wing conspiracy nuts. Berenson’s skepticism of the pandemic and the motivations of those managing and reporting it have earned him the attention of the far-right media sphere, with outlets such as the Washington Examiner, Daily Caller, The Blaze, and the overtly white-nationalist Breitbart referencing his theories. It’s also
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As I write this, the infection seems to be reaching a peak. The American death toll has surpassed the worst flu season of the past 100 years, and infections top 1,000 new cases every day. gotten him featured on Fox News, where his assertions that COVID-19 is not dangerous to anyone under 30 were too much for even Sean Hannity, who weeks prior had framed the virus as a Democrat-led hoax meant to harm the otherwise unimpeachable president. A glowing profile by Fox Newsman Adam Shaw asked readers to “Meet the former NYT reporter who is challenging the corona virus narrative.” Naturally, Berenson took a shit on the credibility of his former employer in the piece, ironically undercutting the implied trustworthiness that opponents of journalism hope to capitalize on by introducing him in this manner. The profile asserts that Berenson is “not a known partisan”; he’s just a dude who has zero problems co-messaging with white nationalists. An appearance on the Fox News Rundown Podcast similarly plays up his journalistic cred, with an accompanying writeup bearing the title “Ex-NYT reporter Alex Berenson says New York-based, anti-Trump media are part of coronavirus problem.” It’s pretty standard routine for Berenson: utilize your previous experience to get attention from a grotesque propaganda apparatus built
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on the dangerous premise that your previous employers are actually enemies of the American people. For people with scruples it might be problematic; for Berenson, it’s a road to the attention he clearly thirsts for. And here’s the problem. We definitely shouldn’t be giving this dumb piece of shit any attention. He’s embarrassingly wrong in the assertions used to sell his book, and he’s embarrassingly wrong about this. The difference this time is that these assertions will get people killed. As I write this, the infection seems to be reaching a peak. The American death toll has surpassed the worst flu season of the past 100 years, and infections top 1,000 new cases every day. Protestors, angry that the disaster isn’t shaking out to be as devastating as it had been predicted to be should our society take no steps to mitigate its effects, rally for the right to return to work, to eek out a meager existence in a society that only imbues them with value — or an ability to survive — so long as they have utility to capitalist overlords for whom the virus poses nowhere near the same danger. Right-
wing pundits lay bare their belief that economic growth is more important than human life, traipsing between denial of their earlier dismissal of the dangers and foolishly dismissing the effects of sacrifices being made as evidence that those sacrifices were never necessary. As this pandemic reaches its possible climax in the United States, a growing movement looks upon this horror and retorts with a resounding “Who fuckin’ cares?” This movement, dangerous and dehumanizing as it is, needs voices. It needs figureheads less repugnantly vulgar than Rush Limbaugh, less comically inept than the warped minds of the anti-vaxxer movement, more coherent than the conspiracy addled new right coalescing around QAnon. It needs a presentable voice of reason, someone who has credibility to trade upon. It needs former New York Times reporter Alex Berenson. Make no mistake, the movement is being fueled by comfortable oligarchs, more concerned with the value of their stock portfolio than the lives of the gullible rubes whose anger at a monstrous system they’ve managed to channel into
POT-LITICALLY INCORRECT
astroturfed protests sure to become hot zones of infection. The true face of this movement consists of people not in danger of being left behind by a profit driven medical system, for whom things like social distancing or remote working aren’t an issue, who will never have to pile onto a city bus to get to a job that keeps a roof over their head and food in their child’s belly. These people speak directly through pundits like Ben Shapiro when he asserts that the life of your grandparents is a fair trade for a return to normalcy, or whatever normalcy comes when the populace is at the complete mercy of a deadly virus. Berenson’s loyalty to this grotesque movement isn’t hard to understand. As he points out in his Fox New profile, he went to Yale. He won’t be the one risking death to bring anyone their sizzlin’ steak fajitas at Applebee’s, or having spittle flecked upon him by angry Karens as he sheepishly explains Macy’s return policy. Berenson isn’t worried about this virus because Berenson won’t have to bear the brunt of it, much as his immunity form the horrors of the war on drugs has allowed him to dismiss the impacts it has had on communities of color. The reasons for Berenson moving into this new, much more dangerous con are evident by the increase in his Twitter following. At the start of 2020, Berenson clocked a modest 7,497 followers, not bad for a dude who’s popular only with the niche of people who want cannabis users to get fucked to death. Since transitioning to an all COVID denial output in
mid to late March, that number has increased by a factor of more than ten and is on track to surpass 100,000 by the time you’re reading this. Serving as the seemingly reasonable rallying point for a movement hungry to be free of the awful reality of an epidemic critically mismanaged by a petty, corrupt and incompetent administration has garnered Berenson the attention he desperately needs. This has come with its share of detractors, as he is ruthlessly dunked upon on a daily basis by every reasonable journalist and internet comedian not full to the brim with Berenson’s tiresome bullshit. But to a guy like Berenson, that’s the cost of doing business, and is a worthwhile price for a legion of adoring sheep who will reassure him
that he’s actually the only smart one. When this is over, I hope we won’t forget the lessons learned. I hope that the suffering and sacrifice felt by us all won’t be swept away in the storm of political maneuvering that follows. I hope that we will remember the need for solidarity. I hope that we will remember the horrors inflicted by a healthcare system run for profit, which jettisons those most in need when they no longer have the ability to work. I hope we will remember the unequivocal stance that many supposedly pro-life voices took in stating plainly that human life is worthless in the face of economic stagnation. I hope that we will remember that Alex Berenson is a dumb piece of shit who’s wrong about everything. A
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5 Things cannabis can do for covid
by DJ Reetz
graphic © Komleva
The COVID-19 pandemic is taking its toll, costing lives, livelihoods and the basic comforts many of us once took for granted. As we all struggle to deal with the spread of this deadly virus in the most responsible way possible, we search for solutions wherever we can find them. For some, that means latching on to conspiracy theories, misinformation and nihilism. But for others, finding modest solutions is closer and more reasonable than you might think. Fortunately for cannabis aficionados, there are some potential answers right under their nose.
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FOOD
JOBS
MEDICINE
RECREATION
CLOTH MASKS
Maintaining a healthy diet during lockdown can be difficult. Between supply chain disruption and irresponsible hoarding, the usual staples at the grocery store can sometimes be tricky to find. At the same time, outbreaks and unfair working conditions at meat processing plants are making Americans’ carnivorous diet less viable. Fortunately, hemp seed can fill in some of those gaps. High in protein and essential fatty acids, hemp seeds can serve as one of the best dietary replacements for meat. Hemp seeds are also highly shelf stable, with raw seeds potentially lasting for years if refrigerated and indefinitely in the freezer, making them a great choice for emergency prep.
The debate around the economic impacts of extended lockdowns is driving some pretty horrific revelations about the systems in place and the people guiding policy. Unemployment rates are soaring to heights not seen since the Great Depression, and job security, particularly for unskilled labor, is precarious. Legal cannabis seems to be one sector that is at least partially immune to these hardships. More than 200,000 people are employed by the legal cannabis industry nationwide, and states that have not yet legalized the plant could have a path to at least some minor economic recovery should they move quickly to join the modern era.
Let’s get it out of the way: CBD, or any other cannabinoid, will not cure COVID-19. There are plenty of hucksters in the CBD industry, and some have begun capitalizing on the uncertainty of the current situation by making this claim. The virus has been shown to cause a harmful immune response in some patients, called a cytokine storm, which can cause inflammation in the lungs leading to the most sever symptoms. Given the demonstrated efficacy of cannabinoids in treating inflammation and regulating immune response, using CBD or THC seems like a potential option with less risk than the unproven pharmaceutical treatments being lauded by some.
Perhaps the most important thing that we can all do as a show of solidarity is to not leave the house. This can, of course, become incredibly boring, and cabin fever is very real. Figuring out how to mitigate that boredom in ways other than drinking yourself into oblivion is absolutely essential — so smoke some weed. The ability of cannabis to create a feeling of contentment can be a downside when it consumes one’s entire life, but there has never been a greater need for this ability to facilitate homebodies. Getting stoned can also help stymie mounting irritations with your housemates, another essential.
It’s incredibly important that we all do our part during this pandemic to slow the spread of the virus. Other than remaining at home, which isn’t viable forever, the best way to do that is by wearing masks over our mouths and noses when in public. Hemp cloth works especially well for this with its natural anti-microbial properties. A hemp face mask might not work as well as an N95 masks at keeping the virus out, but the material’s superior antimicrobial properties compared to cotton means you’ll hopefully be able to wear your mask more often.
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