Here comes more New York cannabis program litigation.
After one lawsuit halted a significant portion of New York Conditional Adult Use Retail Dispensary (CAURD) program, a new lawsuit filed on March 16, 2023 by the Coalition for Access to Regulated & Safe Cannabis against the Cannabis Control Board (CCB), Office of Cannabis Management (OCM), CCB Chairwoman Tremaine Wright and OCM Executive Director Chris Alexander seeks to abolish the CAURD program in its entirety and open the retail dispensary application portal now.
As first reported by Brad Racino of NY Cannabis Insider, the coalition includes several New York registered organizations (i.e. medical cannabis providers), including Acreage Holdings, PharmaCann, Green Thumb Industries and Curaleaf, two potential retail dispensary applicants and a medical cannabis practitioner.
Here’s what the “petitioner” is requesting from a legal perspective:
a judicial declaration that the OCM’s creation of the CAURD program exceeded the OCM’s authority under New York’s constitution (i.e. abolishing the CAURD program completely);
a judicial order requiring the CCB and OCM to open the adult-use retail dispensary application window immediately (i.e. letting anyone apply now); and
a judicial order requiring the CCB and OCM to take action to stop illicit and unlicensed cannabis businesses.
Here’s the fulcrum of the policy argument (setting aside the technical constitution and procedural argument):
“Defendants-Respondents’ arbitrary and capricious foray into legislative policymaking has (i) harmed those individuals the MRTA was designed to benefit (e.g., veterans, women-owned businesses, distressed hemp farmers and those communities most affected by the War on Drugs to name just a few), and (ii) diverted Defendants-Respondents’ attention from the enforcement tasks with which the MRTA entrusts them. As a result, Defendants-Respondents have allowed New York’s illicit market to flourish, putting medical patients and adult-use consumers at risk and robbing communities impacted by the War on Drugs of critical tax revenue. Thus, as of this writing, only four licensed adult-use retail dispensaries are open in the entire State of New York.11 Meanwhile, thousands of illicit retailers are selling unregulated, untested, and untaxed cannabis products of questionable origin and dubious safety across the State. In fact, it is estimated that there are 1,400 stores retailing illicit cannabis in New York City alone.”
The petition also takes the OCM and CCB to task for their alleged practical failures to establish New York’s legal adult-use cannabis industry:
“In short, OCM and CCB have failed to fulfill their principal responsibility under the MRTA. Instead, Defendants-Respondents have (i) taken twenty months to propose a set of regulations for the adult-use marketplace and still have not finalized or promulgated them; (ii) routinely violated – and continue to violate – the State Administrative Procedure Act by governing through an ever-changing set of guidance documents to regulate cultivators and processors because final rules still do not exist; (iii) licensed only sixty-odd CAURD dispensaries – only four of which have opened; (iv) promised to provide CAURD licensees state-subsidized real estate and government loans but it has delivered neither; (v) induced New York’s conditional adult-use cannabis cultivators to grow 350,000 pounds of flower in 2022 without creating an adequate retail infrastructure to sell it; and (vi) waged a thinly veiled attack against the registered organizations that has harmed – and continues to harm – the existing medical market and threatens to impede their expansion into the adult-use market.”
There is obviously a lot to unpack here, but it’s not particularly surprising that New York cannabis industry stakeholders are taking action to try to move the licensing process forward. With the full application portal still closed and no clear indication on when it will open, this litigation was an obvious (and potentially the only option) to force the OCM and CCB to take action. Stay tuned!
Enormous pressure to maximize THC levels falls upon cultivators, manufacturers, and labs. And when THC levels are inflated, it creates unrealistic expectations for higher numbers, and it erodes trust in the integrity of the industry.
One California lawmaker has a solution. On March 15, Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer (D-Los Angeles) introduced Assembly Bill 1610, which he calls the “weed-out-the-weed” bill to create greater transparency in cannabis testing and help eliminate fraud in the legal markets.
SC Labs is sponsoring AB 1610 because it would improve transparency in the market by allowing or requiring in-person lab audits, randomized product shelf testing to ensure cannabis labels are accurate, and blind proficiency testing of labs.
“SC Labs is supporting this bill because without greater engagement from the state, there is no way to hold bad actors accountable,” says SL Labs Chief Compliance Officer Josh Wurzer. “Under the current system, bad actor labs and brands profit over companies that are working hard to follow the rules.”
Wurzer continues, “We want the legalized market to thrive, as it’s come under a lot of pressure recently from reduced prices and the persistence of illicit markets. Greater trust and transparency in legalized products will boost consumer confidence, ensure public safety, and strengthen the legal markets.”
The proposed reforms in the bill are common sense measures, Wurzer says, that will strengthen existing laws and give regulators the tools they need to stamp out fraud. That includes:
Requiring blind proficiency testing so that labs are tested on their accuracy within their normal course of business
Requiring all past recalls to be publicly shared online for consumers to access easily
Requiring in-person annual audits of laboratories (many of the labs operating in California have been operating on provisional licenses and have yet to be inspected in person. This is something other states regularly do to ensure accountability)
Allowing for the randomized testing of products available for retail sale to identify inconsistencies in testing
Wholesale prices for distillate are determined by THC content, and consumers favor flower for the same reasons. Companies lab shop to get the highest THC levels possible. What’s really happening is consumers are getting gouged for prices when they think they’re getting a higher amount of THC than what is really in their product.
Just how rampant is it? A few labs that were fed up with rampant potency inflation and recently set out to determine how bad the issue was. Their sampling of over 150 randomly chosen flower products by several lab leaders found that 87% of products illegally overstated their THC content, and several also contained harmful levels of pesticides. Furthermore, over half of the samples were over 20% deviant of their labeled THC values, which is over twice the legal permitted variance.
California does allow some room for error. The state’s threshold is +/- 10% for THC, but companies often illegally surpass that margin of error. “Any one cannabinoid, total THC, and/or total CBD claimed to be present on a label shall not be considered inaccurate if the difference in percentage on the certificate of analysis is plus or minus 10.0%” the California Department of Cannabis Control (DCC) states.
At least five class action lawsuits have been filed in recent months by consumers claiming damages for paying for artificially high THC levels. Some major and recognizable cannabis brands were called out.
“As consumers, we all want to know that what we purchase is safe, legal, and tested. This is why I introduced AB 1610,” said Assemblymember Jones-Sawyer. “As the cannabis industry continues to grow in California my bill will help protect consumers and maintain high quality cannabis products.”
When people are essentially getting less THC than what’s on the label, trust in the system will fall apart.
AB 1610 would build on existing law and create greater transparency and trust by requiring audits, shelf product testing, and blind proficiency lab testing. It would also mandate any product recall to be publicly reported to consumers online and require that all licensed labs be annually audited by the DCC.
“When Californians voted to approve the cannabis use, we did so with a trust in the marketplace. Unfortunately, bad actors have violated that trust with improperly labeled products and artificially inflated prices,” said Assemblymember Jones-Sawyer. “This bill, with the ability to conduct testing and product review, improves accountability and gives regulators the tools to restore consumer trust.”
Products have been recalled in California and other legalized states for unsafe levels of everything, including mold, yeast, E. coli, and salmonella.
SC Labs has cannabis facilities in California, Oregon, Colorado, and Michigan, and the company is also a registered hemp lab in other states that require it, including Idaho, Illinois, New Mexico, New York, and Texas.
Upon exhaling a deep drag from a joint of Blueberry Cookies grown by City Farmers BCN the smoke from my hit travels upward into the rafters of a 16th century modernist palace in the heart of Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter. As the smoke rises, I contemplate the significance of the moment and celebrate the freedom of smoking weed in a country where cannabis still exists within a gray area, decriminalized for personal use and cultivation, but illegal for commercial sales. I’m in Barcelona, Spain for an international gathering focused on cannabis genetics. More specifically, I’m within the Hash Marihuana & Hemp Museum at a party celebrating the collaborative efforts that bridged a domestic-international divide to unite two storied cannabis seed companies, Sensi Seeds and Humboldt Seed Company. Within their collaboration lies the dawning of a new chapter in the history of marijuana, one which continues the tradition of legendary fusions of Californian and European genetics that started in the 1970s when the hybridization of cannabis began.
Courtesy Hash Marijuana & Hemp Museum
The new project is called Breeding Grounds and resulted in the release of four new feminized seeds: The Bird (OG Kush x Humboldt Dream x Larry Bird), Auto Pineapple Kush Cake (Pineapple Muffin autoflower x Banana Kush Cake autoflower), Auto Amnesia Jelly (Mint Jelly autoflower x Amnesia autoflower XXL), and one that lies within the highly popular and heavily lauded Z terp family, Purple Berry Muffinz (Purple Bud x Blueberry Muffin x Zkittlez). But arguably more significant than the lineage of the new cannabis cultivars is the symbolism of what they represent. Sensi Seeds, which inherited the genetics of the world’s first cannabis seed bank—Nevil Schoenmakers The Seed Bank of Holland—brought the world classic cultivars such as the sativa-dominant Jack Herer and has been in the business of selling cannabis seeds from its home base in Holland since the 1980s. Humboldt Seed Company, founded in California’s Emerald Triangle in 2001, has built a reputation as a trusted breeder via enormous phenohunts and award-winning cannabis such as its signature strain Blueberry Muffin. The fusion of the two companies in 2023 harkens back to the beginnings of cannabis breeding in the 1970s, when people like Sam the Skunkman and Ed Rosenthal became the catalysts for fusing European and Californian cannabis genetics, an action that created the world’s first cannabis hybrids.
The Bird / Courtesy Humboldt Seed Company
“The first time I heard about The Seed Bank, which is the precursor to what is now Sensi Seeds… my uncle had a shed where he would keep all the gardening stuff and in that shed he would stash High Times magazines and I remember sneaking into his shed—because we would sometimes you know, borrow some weed from our uncle—and we’re looking at his High Times and in the back of High Times we saw an advertisement for The Seed Bank,” explains Benjamin Lind, co-founder and chief scientific officer of Humboldt Seed Company. “And it just kind of clicked like, ‘Whoa, you can actually order seeds.’”
From a young age, Lind was observing his family members making their own cannabis crosses and learning about the importance of seeds to ensure the next year’s harvest. Sensi Seeds, he says over an early morning eating lychee fruit acquired from one of Barcelona’s famed food markets, was the first cannabis seed company that ever came into his vision. And, once he met the people behind the company and toured their facility decades later, he learned that the breeding work they had been doing aligned with his own.
Ben Lind / Photo by Mike Rosatti
“A lot of our processes are very similar,” he says. “All breeders come at breeding cannabis differently and very few have similar beliefs or similar philosophies, but we mesh really well.”
This meshing of two similar minds in the cannabis breeding world was more than a coincidence, it’s the result of years of effort put in by none other than cannabis cultivation expert Ed Rosenthal, who tells me he’s done writing books and is now more interested in acquisitions and mergers. Rosenthal’s relationship with Sensi Seeds goes back years. A mutual friend who had a cannabis club and magazine introduced Rosenthal to Ben Dronkers, the founder of Sensi Seeds, back in the 80s. Once introduced, the two began to collaborate with each other on a museum in Amsterdam dedicated to the history of the cannabis plant which first opened in 1987.
“At the same time Nevil [Schoenmakers] was indicted so he sold his business, The Seed Bank, to [Sensi Seeds] and he took off for the wilds of Australia and he was never brought to the U.S.,” Rosenthal explains. “We stayed close and then [Dronkers] hired me off and on at different times to do things and then also put in, I think, $50,000 to $100,000 into my defense.”
The defense Rosenthal is referring to was a federal trial that began in the early 2000s when he was found guilty of three felonies related to the cultivation and sale of marijuana. After the trial, the jurors—who had not been provided with the crucial information that Rosenthal had been deputized by the city of Oakland, California to grow medical marijuana—denounced their verdict and in 2003 Rosenthal was ultimately sentenced to a single day in prison, time served.
Rosenthal calls Sensi Seeds, which is now run by Dronkers’s son Ravi Dronkers, a “legacy family,” and says when he saw them interacting with Humboldt Seed Company he realized the “cultures weren’t that different.”
“I knew this was the one to go and I just did everything so that it didn’t get fucked up,” he says. “I’m really excited about this. This is going to be very big.”
The announcement for the collaboration came in early March at the Hash Marijuana & Hemp Museum’s second interaction in Barcelona and included flutes of cava alongside a bowl filled with the Spanish-grown Blueberry Cookies so guests could roll their own joints. Guests in attendance included Jack Herer’s son, Dan Herer, who was spotted taking a photograph of a framed picture of his father on display within one of the rooms devoted to hemp. In a country that resides within the legal gray market for cannabis, smoking and enjoying flowers and concentrates takes place within private social smoking clubs and spaces that are cannabis-friendly. This clearly includes the cannabis-themed museum during a private event, but also includes restaurants which will pull down their rollup doors to offer discretion for diners to smoke weed at the table while the wait staff also lights up.
Courtesy Humboldt Seed Company
Over a candid evening conversation after one of those smoky Barcelona diners, Rosenthal gets in a discussion with Nathaniel Pennington, co-founder and CEO of Humboldt Seed Company, about cannabis breeding. The basics of cannabis breeding involves creating new expressions of the botanical by crossing, or pollinating, the female flower with pollen from a male plant. An F1, or first generation, occurs when breeders cross two landraces, cultivars that are native to specific regions and have not been bred, or when breeders cross two inbred lines. The final hybridized result that’s released by reputable seed companies comes after at least four generations of inbreeding. The reason that the lines are inbred, or bred from plants that share similar genetics, is to stabilize the seeds ensuring that, once the seeds are grown into plants, they retain similar physical characteristics. Cannabis plants have a complex set of DNA and, like two sisters from the same family, when two cultivars are brought together the results will not be genetically identical, but rather, similar but different expressions known as phenotypes. The art of creating cannabis seeds involves the painstaking work of getting to a point where the expression of all the seeds will be the same, a process that is known as stabilizing the genetics.
(From left) Ben Lind, Ravi Dronkers, Nathaniel Pennington andSander Landsaat celebrate their seed collaboration project at the Hash Marihuana & Hemp Museum in Barcelona, Spain./ Courtesy Humboldt Seed Company
“With breeding it’s not true science until it’s repeatable,” Pennington explains. “[True breeding doesn’t occur] until you can perform the same experiment, which I would say is the same seed population times the same seed population and find the same phenotypic outcome. And if you can’t reproduce that experiment then you haven’t really accomplished anything except for you’ve made a clone line which can be forever propagated as a clone, but that’s a bit of a handicap if you ask me.”
In a world filled with companies making dubious claims about the stability of their seed lines some companies, like Sensi Seeds and Humboldt Seed Company, stick to the science. In doing so, these seed banks bless humanity with reliable cultivars that cross oceans and territorial boundaries to contribute to the diverse genetic expression of the world’s most favored flower.
“Both of our families have worked for generations to preserve the very best lines and bring them to the modern market,” Lind said through a press release about the Breeding Grounds project. “We both evolved on different continents, with different selective pressures. Even though we live a world apart we have a very similar philosophy based on love and respect for the plant. It was natural we would cross-pollinate the best from Amsterdam with the best of Northern California.”
Auto Pineapple Kush Cake / Courtesy Humboldt Seed Company
Federal law prohibits marijuana users from owning or possessing firearms– even in states with legal marijuana. Over the last few months, different federal courts issued critical orders in cannabis gun rights cases which could challenge this status quo. Both cases centered on the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court case New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, and both reached wildly different outcomes on essentially the same legal and even factual issues.
Last month, I wrote a post entitled “Will Gun Control Laws Soften for Cannabis Users?“, where I addressed one of those decisions, United States v. Harrison, out of the Western District of Oklahoma (part of the federal Tenth Circuit). Today, I want to examine the other case, Fried v.Garland, out of the Northern District of Florida (part of the federal Eleventh Circuit). Below, I offer some thoughts on Fried and how it contrasts with Harrison. I also look look at the potential for a circuit split on cannabis gun rights or gun control issues.
Before talking about Fried, it’s important to understand two things. The first is what I said above – that federal law deems cannabis users to be “prohibited persons” who may not legally own or possess firearms. The law at hand is the Gun Control Act of 1968, and the provision as codified in federal law is 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3). The second thing is that there is a constitutional right to bear firearms, meaning that when the government passes laws to restrict that right, courts have to analyze those laws to determine whether they are constitutional. That is precisely what Bruen did, and as I wrote in my last post on the subject:
Under Bruen, courts evaluating Second Amendment cases must look to whether the Second Amendment’s plain text applies to a person’s conduct. If it does, the person is presumed to have Second Amendment protection unless the government can show that the restriction is “consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”
As I’ll get into below, both of the Bruen questions were at issue in both cases, though the historical tradition prong is where the courts’ views really diverged.
Turning back to Fried, the case has a pretty interesting cast of characters. Unlike in Harrison, where a criminal defendant was challenging federal charges, the Fried plaintiffs sued before any penalty had been assessed. The plaintiffs were Florida Commissioner of Agriculture, Nicole Fried, two Florida residents who use medical marijuana under Florida law but want to own guns, and a third Florida resident who owned guns but wanted to access medical marijuana.
I won’t analyze all aspects of the Fried order, such as the standing arguments or Rohrabacher-Farr Amendment claims. Instead, I’ll dive straight into the meat of the Second Amendment argument. The government – as it did in the Harrison case – contended that marijuana users do not even have Second Amendment rights by virtue of violating federal law. While the Fried court disagreed with the government, it did so in a much more halfhearted way than the Harrison court. As I mentioned when analyzing Harrison, the fact that the federal government keeps on contending that marijuana users do not even have basic constitutional rights is not great.
The meat of the court’s analysis though turned on the historical regulation prong of Bruen. Unlike the Harrison order – which went through a painstakingly detailed historical analysis of U.S. gun control laws – the Fried court dedicated just a few pages of sparse analysis with very limited historical tradition. The court seems to acknowledge there is no historical tradition that impacts marijuana users directly, but instead cites Bruen for the proposition that the federal government need only show an historical analogue of regulation to engage in similar regulation today. This is indeed what Bruen says, but at the same time, the court does not give a meaningful example of even an historical analogue that would justify current prohibition. It simply says that today’s regulations are less burdensome than prior regulations because marijuana users can simply stop using marijuana and regain Second Amendment rights.
So on the central issue of whether there is a historical tradition of taking away gun rights from cannabis users, Harrison and Fried come to opposite conclusions. Keep in mind that Fried was actually decided several months before Harrison, and interestingly, Harrison did not cite Fried.
These cases, decided in different federal district courts in different federal appellate circuits, are both being appealed. On March 6, 2023, Marijuana Moment reported that the federal government filed a notice of appeal in the Harrison case (you can see the notice in that linked article). According to the article, Fried and her co-plaintiffs are also appealing the Fried order. What this means is that in the coming months (or years, let’s face it, federal appeals take forever), we’ll likely have federal appellate decisions that rule on the historical tradition prong. To the extent that the appellate courts come to different conclusions, there’d be a “circuit split,” which would be ripe for yet another U.S. Supreme Court gun rights case.
Meanwhile, Marijuana Moment also reported that congressional GOP representatives filed the “Second Amendment Protection Act” in January 2023. The bill hasn’t gone very far but, if passed, it would exempt state medical marijuana users from the gun owner prohibitions in section 922(d)(3) discussed above.
After wrapping up at Tropicanna we headed back to the hotel to shower and change before the biggest night of our trip, the culmination party at Phandee.
Now I’ll be honest, I didn’t really know what we were in for with this one. I had no idea what any of our reach was in this part of the world, and other than smoking weed with some Thai locals who happened to stop by the shop at that time, I didn’t have many expectations. I had seen a flyer a few days earlier, but honestly didn’t realize they really promoted it. I probably should have been better prepared, as this was a much bigger production than anticipated.
The Party
When we arrived it was booming. All the seats were filled to capacity with most of the walking space taken up by standing circle seshes. There was a DJ. Several, actually. It was wild to see as by this point it was clear that tourists were toking, but not how many locals were deep into the culture already… and we were fashionably late to our own event.
As soon as we got there people started asking for pictures, which I was not expecting whatsoever. If you know me you know I don’t love taking pictures to begin with, but we felt like celebrities in a city on the other side of the world—I wasn’t about to be that asshole, and I loved every second of it this time. People from across the country came out to bring us samples of their homegrown—one of which even made it into December’s Cop List, which is tough even for Cali cats. Friends from Europe came. One kid spent most of the day on the train just to hang with us. And everyone we’d visited on the trip was there to send us off. It was a really special night. We’re just some random guys who celebrate our addictions, and here we are in Asia doing what we love with dozens of new friends. Life’s a trip, man.
Some of our new friends! Shot by Derek Fukuhara, High Rise
The Mythical Stick
I think I mentioned this earlier, but throughout our trip we asked just about every dealer we saw about Thai sticks. All of them told us they were just folklore at this point, and we’d probably never see them again. Since Thailand’s War on Drugs was so serious, for the longest time even an association to the culture could get you locked up forever, and in the underground there is a real “If you know you know” kinda thing. We had started to believe it was a fool’s errand by this point, but a Thai stick is as classic as Thai weed gets, so we couldn’t stop asking. Imagine our surprise when at this culmination party I’m introduced to an elderly man with a big gold mylar bag.
Now, this guy was beaming before we got there, but even at his age he worked out what was going on and who we were before we did him. Although his family had to basically coerce him into coming to meet us, as he has never done any public press before, his enthusiasm for life was contagious. You could see his light from a mile away. His name was Han Singh, and it turned out, he was the guy we’d spent all week looking for. Han was one of the last remaining members of the original Thai stick family, and he’d basically come out of hiding for the first time to meet us.
I can’t properly express how special those first moments with Han were. He was smiling so big and kept hugging us and thanking us for being interested in what his family had done. It was surreal. Here we were searching the other side of the world for this guy, and he found US and seemed even more excited than we were.
I didn’t even realize initially the mylar had a Thai stick in it. By the time I had the stick out of the bag and in my hand all of us were crying happy tears, it was really magical. And while yes, I was very, very intoxicated, I can’t remember the last time I felt joy like that. It was like Jimi and I just found our long-lost grandpa.
Me, Han & Jimi. Sorry for the weird light! Shot by Derek Fukuhara, High RiseJimi with the Thai Stick. Shot by Derek Fukuhara, High RiseEnjoying the fruits of Jim’s labor. Shot by Derek Fukuhara, High Rise
We sat and talked with Han for hours as Jimi broke down and rolled up blunt after blunt of the stick Han had brought us. This dude smoked every single one with us, and pounded beers the whole time. It was incredible. I don’t want to blow up too much of what we talked about as I don’t know what the statute of limitations is like in Thailand, but it’s safe to say that this guy had seen far more work than most could ever imagine, and there’s much more to Thai sticks than just brick wrapped around a stick. Like, for example, did you know that the different colors of the thread used to wrap around the outside used to mean something? Back in the day, certain colors meant the sticks were dipped in… other substances popular in that region. Meaning like an E pill, if someone’s experience with Thai sticks wasn’t a great one, or was more intense than expected, the idea that their smoke was laced isn’t a far cry. Before long it was late and we’d missed most of the party talking in the corner with Han. We said our goodbyes and he called it a night.
Derek enjoying a Thai Stick filled blunt. Shot by Jon
After the Party
After we wrapped at Phandee spirits were high, and although it was getting late and we were ripped we weren’t about to stop there. Some of our new friends, a group of Ukrainian women who recently fled their homes due to the war happening there, worked at a mega club nearby and said we had to check it out. Cue a few additional recreational substances and we were all game. It was called Space Plus, and to be frank, it was the most insane club experience I’ve ever had.
Where to even begin with this place? There were lasers everywhere, performers flailing around the room in costume, this like asian dubstep with an MC ad-libbing. There were at least eight jumbotrons complete with insane light rigs spread out above us across the room, and they were rising and falling with the music. They brought us to a table right in front of the stage to hang out with some people that turned out to be the headliners of the night. You could smoke cigarettes in the club, but you had to go out to the patio to smoke weed. Every walk of life you could imagine was represented at this place, and many of them were wearing gear that had words like ‘SEX’ or ‘DRUGS’ scrawled across them. Erin went to the bathroom and got forcibly massaged at the urinal. His back was cracked, mid-stream and all–-it was, like with many things in this country, insanely unexpected but weirdly thrilling. I imagine, I couldn’t stop laughing about that one enough to ask him.
I honestly had a great time at this place. Maybe it was the drugs, but we were all dancing to shit I would’ve listened to in college, and the people-watching was incredible. Eventually our table-mates took the stage, and one of those Chinese dragons with a bunch of people inside started going around the room. This is where that clip of someone pouring liquor from the stage into my mouth in High Rise’s doc came from. I don’t usually drink but what am I going to tell the guy on stage “None for me, thanks!” ? I’m at least incrementally more fun than that.
Oliver & Ron in Space Plus. Shot by Derek Fukuhara, High Rise
The craziest thing though was that this club wasn’t open that much longer after we arrived. We watched our new friends play a few more songs, and the lights just went on. It was extremely unexpected, as we were FUCKED by this point, and we had all sort of assumed we’d hang there all night. We had all taken a fair bit of uppers, and like, pretty recently, so we had hours more in us. Our hosts said they knew of a hip-hop bar nearby, so we headed there. About the same time I decided this was probably a good time to stop taking harder drugs for the night. I wanted to sleep before the sun came up.
After the Club
So we get to this new bar, and it’s packed, but there’s a table right by the door reserved for us. I should mention, Jimi hasn’t stopped breaking down the Thai stick and rolling blunts all night. It’s not slowing us down much, so as soon as we get there the table’s taken over and Jimi’s at work. I realize it’s almost 11 a.m. back home, time for the High Times weekly company Zoom call. I take it from the club, because it seemed like a great idea at the time. They probably didn’t notice.
This place was open for maybe two more hours, but by the time they were closing and we were headed back to the hotel I was spent, and ready to lay down. We decided to smoke a few more blunts out in front of the hotel first just for good measure. Jimi went live on Instagram because it was a more reasonable hour back home, and honestly I blame that for reigniting my spark, because as we’re all going through all the drugs we received that night I jokingly pull out a bunch of mushrooms like it’s a good idea to eat them right now. Jimi called my bluff, and scoffed down 2 grams at 4:30 in the morning. I can’t remember much besides laughing from there.
When I got back to my room I fell asleep trying to jot down whatever I could remember.
Day 6
I don’t know what time it was when I finally got out of bed, but it was too early. I didn’t even look at the clock, I just assumed I was already late so I got dressed, threw some water on my face, and headed down to find something to eat. Unfortunately that didn’t work out too well as breakfast was over, so we smoked a few blunts before heading to the pool.
I was up there in the sun for maybe 20 minutes before I couldn’t handle it anymore. I went back to bed.
At around 5 p.m. I tried waking up again. This time I could feel my legs, and the room wasn’t spinning quite as bad. I called the crew to see where everyone was, as I was for sure the only one still at the hotel now that the sun was setting. The High Rise gang had gone to get another round of massages, and Jimi was back over at Phandee, smoking and watching the World Cup. I called a cab that canceled at least three times but eventually I made it over to hang with Jim until the guys were ready.
After the crew had finished their massages we set out on our last dispensary tour.
The Final Countdown
The first stop was the Zaza dispensary, which it goes without saying (but I will anyway) was our favorite shop name. This one was a bit more mobile and lowkey than the others we’d seen, operating out of what could have been an info kiosk. Only instead of local information (which honestly, they did provide too) these guys were serving heat.
We learned that this shop was operated by Guy Gee Gee, a notable rapper in Thailand, and his long-time friends. One of them was actually their plug back in the traditional market days who they became close with. These kids have been seeking out the best weed they could find for years, so it was no surprise their selection looked closest to the wares you’d find back home in California. It’s worth noting that in Thailand there’s no possession or sales limit yet, so these guys could sell us up to a pound if we wanted. Sure it cost $10,000 USD over there right now, but they had it if we needed it. We chopped it up with them for a while, got some good footage for High Rise’s archive, and drank some incredible mixed orange juice (different types of oranges, no alcohol) from the cart next door before heading out to find dinner.
This turned out to be a challenge once again, as it seems like that part of town shuts down with the setting sun, but our next stop was Khao San Road, which is the spot I’m probably most familiar with in Bangkok so I was more than geeked to get back out there. I don’t know if we even ended up eating, but before long we were in the van heading to our final dispensary, Green Head, which was located at one end of the Khao San night markets.
Khao San Road
Now Khao San is a major party street in Bangkok. There are countless vendors slinging everything from vape pens to alligator meat, and the shops behind most of the vendors have more expansive collections of each pop up. It’s also where they do a lot of recruiting for the ping pong shows, which anyone who hears you’re going to Thailand asks about. Everyone is consuming various substances, and a ton of bars all facing each other are using their sound systems to try and out-party their neighbors. It’s a real trip, and it’s loud. But the place had changed pretty drastically since I’d last seen it. Where there used to be pharmacies there were now dispensaries, and it seemed like they’d cleaned up a lot of the more predatory type vendors. It also seemed smaller, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
We pull up to Green Head, which is facing all the action, but just off the actual strip, and meet with their owner. He explains how they’ve been cultivating for years for the Thai government, and while they used to just take all their buds and disappear them, it has now afforded them privileges like selling concentrate and edibles, which is still banned to most establishments in the country unless they’re specifically considered a medical provider. He also tells us that while this shop is great, he’s got something else to show us, and leads us out onto Khao San.
A couple hundred feet into the madness we get to the glowing green ‘Plantopia’ sign. Seeming like a hidden cannabis oasis, Plantopia opens down this bricked incline into a village of weed shops. I mentioned Nana in the last piece—well this was the Nana of weed. An entire strip mall dedicated almost entirely to cannabis and cannabis consumption—though there was a snack shop and a jewelry dealer in there, which I imagine were likely remnants of the center’s last life. Our new friend also had a shop in here, and this is where we conducted the majority of our interview in proper fashion—while consuming. I have mentioned a few times throughout this adventure how the Thai don’t seem to mind having direct competitors right next door, and that was especially true here, as just in the 30 minutes we hung out there I saw several groups shop at multiple stores before ultimately seshing together in the half-outside lounge area.
I should mention, we learned within that conversation that it only costs about $10-30K USD to set up a shop out there. That means with the right packs you could make that back the first day with what Zaza told us they were charging, especially if you sold a few P’s.
After spending some time in what I consider the best weed destination I’ve seen to date, we ventured further out onto the party street. It was incredibly loud, but they have incredible bootlegs and oddities for sale there, so we spent some time going booth to booth. I was surprised to see how many nicotine vape vendors there were, but they’re illegal in stores there so it’s not that weird if you think about it. The traditional market being traditional. After exploring some of the bar-filled alleys that protrude from the main road, we each got some harem pants and made our way back to the hotel. No ping pong show for us this time, but if you’re curious about what goes down at that sort of thing I’d encourage checking out High Rise’s podcast…
Considering checking out a show…
Day 7 (Mostly Airport)
Our final day was an early one, as we had to head to the airport around noon. We were due back in California for some events in NorCal, and we’d extended as far as we could without being late. In fact, we were due to arrive about an hour before the first event started.
Naturally I used the late departure time to sleep in. I skipped breakfast and although getting downstairs early enough to get a few blunts in, I probably could’ve used the nourishment. I ate a Klonopin instead. We didn’t realize until later we didn’t need to get to the airport so early in Thailand.
You see, once we arrived and went to check in for our flight, we were surprised (and frankly worried) to find no one working at the desk for China Air. No one showed up for another hour after we arrived, but fortunately a line was forming behind us so we weren’t alone. I will admit though I was chain-smoking, freaking out that the airline went out of business overnight or something. I decided it was probably a good idea to eat another Klonopin.
While we waited I did some writing. That’s where I started this piece actually, though it’s admittedly gotten away from me at this point. But it was at this moment that I realized that here we were in Thailand, afternoon on a Friday, getting ready for a nearly 20-hour flight that would take us to a party ALSO on Friday in San Francisco. I got tripped up in the time paradox for a solid 10 minutes.
After we got through security and customs we ventured around the actually incredible mall they call an airport. It was massive, and filled with art, and I was feeling good at this point. I remember eating some Korean fried chicken, and apparently I thought it was a good idea to buy scarves. To be fair they were nice, but it was SUPER hot over there. Like I said, I was feeling good. I remember getting on the first plane, but not really the layover in Taiwan.
Somehow when we landed back in California my phone said it was only two hours later. It was indeed still Friday, and we weren’t off the clock yet. We grabbed our bags, and headed immediately to Chronic Culture for a different adventure…
Final Thoughts
In case it hasn’t become abundantly clear by now, I think everyone should drop what they’re doing and go to Thailand immediately. While I would’ve probably told you the same thing if you asked me a few years ago, now that they’ve got accessible weed over there it’s a whole different—more fun and less scary—ball game. I don’t say that because Thailand was scary before, but their prohibition certainly was.
Now that Thailand’s legal, its industry feels similar to how Oklahoma felt when it went online. Or like New York does now. People are EXCITED, and while most of the world is currently seeing record-low prices per pound, the getting is still GREAT out there. I don’t think the rates will be sustainable given how cheap basically everything else is, but I imagine, like Vegas, there will be a tourist market, and a locals-only one. Being the Vegas/Amsterdam of Asia seems to be what they’re going for.
Now, I do want to clarify that like New York, it’s very clear that Thailand is excited about this industry and the economic benefits it can provide their community, but I wouldn’t be so fast to think that there’s a quick buck outsiders can make. Though I’m sure the import business will be solid for a while, I didn’t need to spend more than a day there to see how much Thai-original meant to this community. They’re actively hunting for their original landraces from seed around the world, and are championing their own players, rather than international elite. I’m sure there will be international brands entering the scene—as Cookies already has—but I imagine what will really pop off out there will be born there. I could be wrong though, it’s happened before!
Also, and in case I didn’t make this clear enough in the piece, Thailand is GORGEOUS. While we didn’t leave Bangkok this trip, the larger country offers everything from mountain to beach adventures, and the wildlife is incredible. For example, we didn’t see any elephants or monkeys this time, but that was one of my favorite parts last time. Seeing them in the wild and not a zoo is not an opportunity you’re afforded back home. I would also recommend going to Chiang Mai, Pai, and Koh Chang if you go—all places I’ve been that offer very different perspectives of life in Thailand, and spots I thoroughly enjoyed. I look forward to going back soon to see how much better they have all gotten with our favorite girl in tow!
Included again for good measure, this was the gang!
If you want to check out High Rise’s documentary, visit here. It’s age restricted so it won’t let us embed.
Justin and Pat go over the basics of what you need to get started on growing your own weed: the laws, how to pick a spot, when and how long it takes, and the differences between growing indoor and outdoor.
In the U.S., cocaine is a Schedule II controlled substance and its use, possession, etc. is illegal except for certain, limited medical applications. The licensed sale of cocaine for recreational use is not even remotely a concept in the U.S., and the same goes for Canada. Why then did we see a Canadian cannabis company announce that it had the ability to make and sell cocaine to the consumer public? Essentially because of a mishap with or misunderstanding about a government license amendment it received from Health Canada. While not as “out there” as the premise of the popular movie Cocaine Bear, AdAstra’s announcement about being open for business in the commercialized cocaine market sent shockwaves through the cannabis and psychedelics industries.
Cocaine press release
On February 22, publicly traded (in Canada) AdAstra issued a press release in which it stated that its subsidiary, B.C. based AdAstra Labs, received approval from Health Canada “to include cocaine as a substance that the Company can legally possess, produce, sell and distribute”. The company claimed the same about psilocybin and psilocin. This alleged approval came in the form of an amendment to AdAstra Labs’ Controlled Drug and Substances Dealer’s License. After this announcement, the company’s stock also soared.
Government reaction to commercialized cocaine
Nonetheless, reactions from both the B.C. legislature and Health Canada soon cooled the excitement around AdAstra’s cocaine announcement. The provincial government essentially took the position that AdAstra overstated what could be done with the License amendment and the federal government clarified that the License amendment limits AdAstra to just undertaking research about the drug and nothing more (and it certainly cannot also commercial sell either psilocybin or psilocin). Why did this all happen in the first place? Because of B.C.’s new three-year decriminalization pilot program for the possession of small amounts of cocaine (and other drugs), which is meant to support harm reduction and combat addiction. However, that decrim program in no way legalizes the commercial production, distribution, or sale of cocaine or other drugs in B.C.
Cocaine retraction and clarification
Last week, AdAstra issued a retraction to and clarification of the initial cocaine announcement. Importantly, the most recent release states:
The Dealer’s Licence issued to Adastra Labs does not permit Adastra Labs to sell coca leaf, psilocybin or cocaine to the general public. For cocaine, and under the Dealer’s Licence, Adastra Labs is only permitted to sell to other licensed dealers who have cocaine listed on their licence including pharmacists, practitioners, hospitals, or the holder of a section 56(1) exemption for research purposes under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA). The Company is not currently undertaking any activities with cocaine under the Dealer’s Licence and before doing so, it will only undertake such activities legally permitted by the Dealer’s Licence and after consultation with applicable Provincial Governments.
Random takeaways
As is always the case, decriminalization and legalization are totally different animals. B.C. is merely experimenting with decrim to see what impact it has, if any, on the issues of addiction and harm reduction. No opportunity was ever created for anyone to have a commercial cocaine trade.
The other interesting legal tidbit here is that Canadian cannabis companies may be eligible under law to have operations around certain psychedelics and other controlled substances that we just may never see here in the states. In states with cannabis legalization, it is universally prohibited for licensees to conduct certain other trades on site, like alcohol production; and don’t even think about the right to make and sell other drugs under the same roof as cannabis.
Even with this cocaine debacle for AdAstra, the U.S. and Canada remain on different pages when it comes to cannabis and other drugs, with Canada still mostly leading the way on legal reform.
