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David Hershkovits’ ‘Light Culture’ pot podcast will give you a contact high
11.25.2019
02:52 pm
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It seems like in every circle of friends there’s at least one person who’s an inveterate weed snob. The one who can always be relied upon to spark up a joint of the good stuff. If you happen to know me, well, I’m that guy, but I have friends who are “that guy” as far as I’m concerned (nearly all of my close friends are heavy, heavy stoners). One of them is David Hershkovits, the former co-founder, co-editor/publisher (with Kim Hastreiter) of New York City’s long-running style bible PAPER magazine. Since selling PAPER David has embarked on a new enterprise, his Light Culture pot-themed podcast which is presented by Burb Cannabis in Vancouver. I asked him about it via email.

How long have you been a pot smoker?

David Hershkovits: I’ve been an off and on (but mostly on) pot smoker for 50 years. More off when my kids were born. Plus, I periodically take month-long breaks. What’s great about pot — among other things — is that you CAN stop if you have to.

So why a weed podcast? Beyond cannabis, what’s the mission of the show?

David Hershkovits: I find the Light Culture podcast a natural continuation of what I’ve been doing for all of my professional life. When I sold PAPER Communications two years ago, divesting myself of PAPER magazine, papermag.com the website with a huge social media presence, and an experiential marketing division, I was looking to stay in the game. I’d been fascinated by podcasts as media and saw Light Culture as a great opportunity to keep on playing in my favorite sandbox of pop and politics. So when I joined the Vancouver-based cannabis company Burb as a consultant, we landed on launching a podcast to connect the brand with a community that bridges cannabis past, present and future. Socially, politically and economically cannabis touches on so many issues right now. It’s an industry still early enough in its evolution to be shaped into something progressive, aware of its social justice implications, counter cultural legacy and responsibility to the disproportionately black and Latino communities who have taken the brunt of the War on Drugs. As a long-time advocate for decriminalization, I want to be part of the conversation.

Who have some of your guests been?

David Hershkovits: My guests have included Fab Five Freddy Brathwaite, a renaissance man of hip hop who paints, directs, acts, produces. We spoke on the occasion of Grass is Greener, a Netflix documentary that goes into the history and culture of the plant, especially as it relates to music and the creative impulse.  With Vanessa Lavorato of Bong Appetit we spoke about food and cannabis and women’s evolving role in the culture.

It’s all too obvious where one finds cannabis culture in California—just walk outside and take a good whiff—but where do you find it in New York?

David Hershkovits: Cannabis culture is alive and well in NYC, not only on the streets where vaping and puffing proliferate and people are willing to spend to get the best shit, legal or otherwise. It spans all demographics from skate to art to foodies on the hunt. Secret clubs catering — and selling — to cannabis connoisseurs are opening as well. In a recent survey New York was named as the largest consumer of Cannabis world-wide. So there!

What is the legal situation there? Is it a state law or a municipal ordinance?

David Hershkovits: The legal situation today is that the police have been asked not to make arrests for small amounts, tickets can be written but no one is going to jail if all you’re carrying is for personal use. Still sucks, though. New York City feels like the (un)stoned age compared to Cali.

What about the dispensaries that are popping up around New York? Are they good?

David Hershkovits: Nah, I don’t use dispensaries. I’m fortunate to know who I know which means that I only smoke the best shit.

Danny Fields: David and Danny talk about the wild days of New York when weed was everywhere and Danny was a confidante of all the young dudes from Lou to Iggy to Joey and Nico.

Joe Murray aka “AJ Sour Diesel” — great story about New York in the 90s when Deadhead kids in high school were hanging out in Wetlands, scoring the best weed in the city and then going to on establish Kind Bud — Sour Diesel.

More ‘Light Culture,’ after the jump…

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Posted by Richard Metzger
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11.25.2019
02:52 pm
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A TARDIS that Grows Weed with Artificial Intelligence
01.17.2019
04:25 pm
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Credit: Ron Kretsch

Or “How I, a complete novice, got here, from there…”

I am a 53-year-old wake-n-bake stoner and I’ve been high since… well… since 1979. Leaving much of that, er, loaded statement aside (and yes, as a definitive study of one, I do plan to leave my body to science) think of all the money I’ve spent staying massively stoned since I was fourteen. At approximately $20 a day over 365 days per annum ($7300) for 39 years that comes to $284,700 but do consider that I had to make nearly twice that and pay tax on that income before I could spend it on herb. Money doesn’t grow on trees, of course, but there was a time not all that long ago when an ounce of pot and an ounce of gold were the exact same price, for a little perspective.

I kid myself that all my money was spent on books and records, but I know the truth. And the truth is, I have no regrets. Frankly I cannot imagine what my life would have been like without marijuana nor do I wish to try. It seems obvious in retrospect that I was, and am, self-medicating, but who cares about that? I simply don’t feel right until I’ve smoked around ten bong hits and I have always been this way since the very first time that I smoked pot. But again, add up all the money I’ve spent each and every day since 1979 and it only makes sense that with legalization I would want to start growing my own.

Now I’ve been around quite a few grow rooms—some really sophisticated ones—and I have good friends who are master growers, but I myself have never grown anything, not even tomatoes, let alone cannabis plants that resemble Venus Fly Traps. Nevertheless my enthusiasm—I’m finally going to grow pot!!—was not to be dampered by my utter cluelessness as to what the task at hand actually called for. Standing in my new home I announced to two friends that I was going to start growing pot and they started pelting me with annoyingly reasonable questions. Questions that I could not answer. Questions like “Where are you going to do it?” 

“In the garage. Or the attic.”

“You can’t do that. You’ll get spider mites.”

“Or mold”

“You know you’ll need a grow tent, right?”

If you are reading this because you are interested in growing pot yourself, you probably feel vicariously defeated by what you just read. Admit it, you sighed at the thought of it: It already sounds harder than buying a clone at a dispensary, putting it under a light and giving it a squirt of Miracle Gro several times a day, doesn’t it? What’s a grow tent?

I felt like an overeager dummy. I also realized in that very moment how it was already seeming like an overwhelming task to me.

The next day I read several “how to grow pot” blog posts and the advice was, to say the least, all over the place and often contradicted the thing I’d read right before it.

I thought the obvious first place to start looking would be lights. I knew that I wanted LED lights (better, cheaper, cooler, safer) and perhaps the one place where many pot bloggers were in agreement was regarding Black Dog Lights. It was clear to me that Black Dog’s full spectrum grow lights was the way that I wanted to go, so I crossed that off the list (more on this topic later in this series.)

Something I also noticed immediately is that Home Depot’s online presence might be the single best and biggest internet source of all things hydroponic. But unlike the topic of LED lighting, with no clear grower consensus in grow tents or nutrients, I was again overwhelmed. How was I even gonna hang a Black Dog light in my (theoretical) grow tent anyway? Did I mention that I’ve never grown any plant? I did. Well I’m also helpless with a hammer and tools and so forth. I have no talent in that area whatsoever. I’ve been an apartment dweller for most of my life. So the idea of making a grow tent and hanging the lights and doing all that made this seem like it was going to be less fun than putting together an Ikea dresser. It was seriously daunting. You think it’s going to be easy, but when you want to get off the dime, you could go in a bewildering number of directions and it’s difficult to be confident that you’re not going to waste a lot of money experimenting until you get it right. That’s the way it was quickly shaping up to me.

Fortunately I have some human resources to rely on. I emailed my old friend Michael Backes, an internationally known expert on cannabis and the author of Cannabis Pharmacy: The Practical Guide to Medical Marijuana. I explained my dilemma and he gave me several pieces of good advice. First he suggested that I purchase and read (and reread and then reread again) Jorge Cervantes’ Cannabis Encyclopedia. He also sent me a PDF of a study about pot growing hygiene which made a very strong case for using hydrogen peroxide to fastidiously clean all surfaces in your growing area. When I expressed exasperation about how complicated the supposedly simple act of growing a weed (properly) was shaping up to be, he suggested that he knew a consultant who was adept at setting up grow rooms large and small and that he’d probably charge me $4000 plus equipment and expenses to set me up right.

When I informed him that I didn’t see myself ever growing more than six plants, he sent me a link to the Cloudponics website and suggested this might be more what I was looking for: a truly turnkey pot growing solution. Although there are a small number of companies touting their automated grow boxes on Kickstarter and elsewhere, so far only Cloudponics had actually made it to market and they’d already launched their second iteration. I noticed that Cloudponics was utilizing Black Dog’s full spectrum LED grow lights and my interest was immediately piqued. I watched their video—a nudge-nudge-wink-wink tutorial on growing your own hydroponic tomatoes (see below)—and I realized that this was exactly what I needed, I just didn’t know it yet.

TO BE CONTINUED in Part 2 of ‘A TARDIS that Grows Weed with Artificial Intelligence’!
 

A time-traveling bud from the future. Stayed tuned…
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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01.17.2019
04:25 pm
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Bong O’ Noodles anyone?: Glass pipes & other smoking apparatus that will give you the munchies
10.04.2018
10:18 am
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The beautiful ramen noodle bowl bong. Get it here
 
As the legalization of marijuana spreads like a wonderful, happy cloud of Pineapple Super Silver Haze across the country, other businesses adjacent to pot production have boomed. I wrote about the expansion of the glass blowing community in Washington State previously on Dangerous Minds thanks to the help of legalization here five years ago, and much like the recreational industry, it hasn’t slowed down. I’ve been a bit desperate for anything to distract my ears and eyes from the news, and know I’m not alone in this quest. So here’s what we are going to do—we are going to take a look at some wildly creative bongs and glass pipes modeled after food because as all stoners know, it’s fun to smoke weed out of things you can eat.

The image which launched this stony-ship of a post was referenced in the title and is pictured above—a functional bong that looks like a delicious cup of ramen noodles with all the fixings really exists. This find logically sent me off in search of other foodie-styled smoking apparati. Being intrepidly curious is a blessing and a curse and it’s unclear to me how much time I actually spent in dank Internet alleys looking for a bong modeled after a loaded taco before I found one, but it was worth it. You can see the glorious glass taco bong, his pal the glass banana pipe, as well as one shaped just like 1/2 an avocado because, hipsters ruin everything. I’ve included links where you can pick up most of the items in this post along with the images below.
 

The taco rig. Source.
 

Donut-shaped glass pipes. Made by KGB in good-old Maine, these pipes are the size of an actual donut. See them all here.
 

The avocado pipe. BTW, it’s 89.99 when available.
 

Cheeseburger pipe. Get it here.
 
More after the jump…

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Posted by Cherrybomb
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10.04.2018
10:18 am
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An early Rolling Stone promotion sent every new subscriber a free roach clip!
09.28.2017
12:48 pm
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The February 10, 1968, issue of Rolling Stone
 
It’s difficult to explain why Rolling Stone was able to separate itself from a crowded pack in 1967 to become the most reliable media barometer of Boomer culture in existence. It surely had a great deal to do with Jann Wenner’s personality. It would surprise nobody to learn, as David Weir, a reporter who co-wrote Rolling Stone’s coverage of Patty Hearst in the 1970s, once observed, that Wenner was (and probably is) “a brilliant master at getting what he wants out of people.”

Securing exclusive coverage of high-profile acts was surely a key to the early success of the magazine, but let’s not overlook Wenner’s bold sense of PR. Before the magazine was even a year old, Wenner zeroed in on an unbeatable promotional idea that would appeal to every person in his potential audience while alienating those who didn’t belong.

Wenner put an ad in the magazine stating that he would send every person who bought a subscription a free roach clip. The ad took up a full page and looked like this:
 

 
The text of the ad was a masterpiece of humorous insinuation, never mentioning drugs while winkingly touting 1,001 uses, which happen to include “music appreciation” and “preventing singed lips.” Riiiiiiight…..
 

This handy little device can be yours free!

An essential accessory for the successful musician and the completely equipped rock and roll fan. It has one thousand and one uses around the home, in rehearsal or for better music appreciation. Applications of this delightfully simple piece of machinery range from the frivolous (hanging earrings) to the practical (preventing singed lips.) Each handle comes individually lathed in either mahogany, ebony, oak or rosewood. No two alike! Get ‘em while they last.

Without delay, subscribe to Rolling Stone! We’ll give you one “Handy Little Device” free with your subscription. If you would like to give a gift subscription to a loved one, we’ll send you two “Handy Little Devices” or one to you and one to your loved one. Act now before this offer is made illegal.

 
As related in Robert Draper’s diverting 1990 book Rolling Stone Magazine: The Uncensored History, Wenner came up with the idea while getting high at a friend’s house in (where else?) San Francisco:
 

One afternoon Jann sat with friends in a house on Potrero Hill, smoking dope. Jann was admiring the handsome wooden apparatus which held the joint.

“Where’d you get the roach clip?” he asked its owner, Robert Kingsbury, a man he had met only once before.

“Made it myself,” said Kingsbury. “I make ‘em out of hardwood knobs.”

Jann took a toke and fingered the woodwork of the roach clip. Then he asked, “What do you think you could make these for?”

Kingsbury shrugged. “Maybe eighty cents apiece,” he said.

“Could you make me some?” Jann asked. “I need a lot.”

Sure, why not, said Kingsbury. “What do you need ‘em for?”

“I want to give ‘em away,” said Jann, grinning devilishly. “As a subscription incentive.”

And so page 23 of issue No. 5 featured a photograph of a 41/4-inch roach clip with the headline “This handy little device can be yours free!” With a subscription to Rolling Stone, the ad read, readers would receive this “essential accessory. ... Act now before this offer is made illegal.”

Gleason hit the ceiling. “Marijuana is against the law,” he said, lecturing Jann in his acid Eastern voice. “You can cover it, you can joke about it—but you cannot sell dope paraphernalia through Rolling Stone. You just can’t do that!”

Even by now, however, it was becoming clear [that] Jann Wenner could, and would, do with Rolling Stone whatever he wished.

 
When the New York Times reviewed Draper’s book, it chose to tout the roach clip gimmick in the headline: “A Roach Clip with Every Paid Subscription.”

On the suggestion of Jane Schindelheim, Wenner’s wife, Kingsbury (who was dating Jane’s sister at the time, whom he would later marry) was later asked to become Rolling Stone’s second art director, a position he held for several years. But in some respects he was an odd fit. A sculptor by trade, Kingsbury at 44 was a full generation older than Wenner and virtually everyone else at the magazine. Draper asserts that he “despised rock ‘n’ roll” but was “brilliant and resourceful, a disciplined man.” Draper credits Kingsbury with establishing the relatively clean and uncluttered look (for a counterculture rag, anyway), and he was ushered out of the organization around the time the magazine adopted four-color printing techniques in 1973.

I’m curious how many roach clips ever went out to subscribers. I’m tempted to say “zero.” There is currently a lavish exhibition dedicated to Rolling Stone at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, which I visited recently. There you can find the page with the advertisement as well as one of the clips, but that’s the only one I’ve ever seen reproduced. Below you can see a picture of the Rock Hall display taken by yours truly.

As you can see, Draper has the ad first appearing in the February 24, 1968, issue (“No. 5”), but the promotion actually debuted one issue earlier. The page shown at the Rock Hall does say “February 10, 1968” on it.

In any case, I’m a teensy bit skeptical that there exists any such thing as a human being who received a Rolling Stone roach clip in the mail. The auction site eBay has precisely zero auctions dedicated to the item in its archive, which doesn’t exactly prove anything, and if you can find a picture of one on the Internet, you’re a better Google-stalker than I. Draper mentions that Wenner was having difficulty paying his staff in those first couple of years, so I suspect he pulled the somewhat (in retrospect) Trumpian maneuver of reneging on a promise.

But I don’t know—if you received one of these mahogany beauties in the mail, please reach out and let us know! Pics or it didn’t happen…...
 

 

Posted by Martin Schneider
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09.28.2017
12:48 pm
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Marijuana bouquet delivery service
02.15.2017
10:04 am
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Okay, so it’s the day after Valentine’s Day and I’m sorta late blogging about this glorious cannabis bouquet by Californian weed farmers Lowell Herb. But does it really only have to be Valentine’s Day to send someone you care a bouquet of cannabis? No. This is perfect for any occasion, if you ask me. Any occasion.

Apparently, the bouquets were going for $400/ounce. I’m uncertain which strain they’re using. I wonder if you can choose from a sativa, indica or hybrid bouquet? Something in a Strawbery Cough, please. That would be excellent.

From what I understand, this was only meant for Valentine’s Day. BUT, they’re still featuring the bouquets on their website with a contact email. Perhaps this will be a year-round gift? I sure do hope so!


 

 
More after the jump…

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Posted by Tara McGinley
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02.15.2017
10:04 am
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‘Pot Brownies’: Texas lawyers’ country song about insane drug laws is actually really awesome!
11.10.2016
10:30 am
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The Waco, TX law firm of Hutson & Harris is a diverse practice, covering personal injury & wrongful death, criminal law, probate, family law, and even immigration (immigration law in Texas must be a lively gig even without the wall we’re TOTALLY GONNA BUILD, HE PROMISED), but their true distinguishing mark is that Will Hutson and Chris Harris are country singers who give legal advice in song on their YouTube channel.

It sounds like this could be highly goofy, but they’re no joke—Hutson & Harris sing and harmonize together very well, and their songs are highly informative, too! For example, here’s a thing I never would have guessed: in Texas, marijuana edibles are considered marijuana for purposes of weight. Since felony possession is 4 ounces (according to NORML), a half dozen pot brownies equals a jail sentence and a ten thousand dollar fine irrespective of how much pot is in the brownies. That Texas penal codes can be draconian is sufficiently well-known that it’s a national punch-line, but putting people away for narcotics felonies based on the weight of flour, cocoa, and eggs is goddamn crazy.

Hutson & Harris have a song about it. Wanna hear it? Here it goes:
 

 
They have songs about other subjects as well, including how not to talk to an insurance company, and an actually totally awesome parody of Waylon Jennings’ “Amanda” called “Miranda.” But they have enough material covering marijuana laws to prompt wonder if they themselves don’t, um, partake from time to time themselves?

After the jump, enjoy the virally popular “Don’t Eat Your Weed”

READ ON
Posted by Ron Kretsch
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11.10.2016
10:30 am
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Patti Smith on Bob Marley, comics, and opening her own pot cafe when she ‘grows up,’ back in 1976
09.26.2016
09:41 am
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‘The Two Faces of Patti Smith.’ photograph by Guillemette Barbet and art design by John Holmstrom.
 
Over the weekend I was yet again getting in some good quality time with my lovely copy of The Best of Punk Magazine and came across an amusing and highly entertaining interview by a musician and performer that undeniably embodies the word “hero” the multi-talented punk powerhouse Patti Smith.
 

 
In the interview that appeared in Punk (Volume One, Number Two from March of 1976) Smith agreed to talk to the magazine in the backroom of legendary Long Island club My Father’s Place where she sat on the grungy floor before her gig later that night. Of the many highlights and wide variety of topics covered in the lengthy chat include her love of comics, Bob Marley, her vivid dreams about Jimi Hendrix and her not-so-secret plan to hijack The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson (who Smith very much admired) and turn it into “totally stoned TV every night.” If you are at all a fan of Patti Smith (who was 30 at the time of this interview), prepare yourself to adore her even more. Here’s Smith on her love of two things that go great together—comics (or “comix” as Punk likes to spell it) and rock and roll:

I was a painter. All I cared about was art school and painting. I used to be an artist before I became an artist. You know the French love comic strips. Comix are considered art. Comix are art. I mean the only two arts—comix and rock n’ roll are the highest art forms.

If that last passage got you daydreaming about what it would be like lounging around with Patti Smith in France in some cafe reading comic books and while listening to Alain Kan belting out David Bowie’s “Life on Mars” then get in line. As the interview progresses Smith talks a fair amount about Bob Marley while lamenting the current “grass shortage” in New York (never forget!) and her dream of opening a pot cafe that pretty much sounds like the best plan ever:

I’m gonna have a cafe when I grow up where it’s just gonna feature coffee and dope and mint tea and great music. What I’m gonna do is work to legalize marijuana and hashish. We’re gonna start a string of cafes where you smoke, drink coffee and listen to great music—like McDonald’s.

More Patti Smith, after the jump…

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Posted by Cherrybomb
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09.26.2016
09:41 am
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‘Parents opposed to pot’ and their 10 goofy reasons not to date a stoner
09.08.2016
01:36 pm
Topics:
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I’ve been a daily wake-n-bake pothead for 34 or 35 years. When I was a teenager, every morning I used to wait for my parents to leave for work at around 7am and then I’d reach under my bed and grab my stash. To this day I smoke from the minute I wake up until right before I go to bed at night. If I am traveling to another city—or another country—I will arrange for weed to be waiting for me by the time I check into my hotel. I’m good like that!

But I’ve also been a fairly productive member of society. I’m a complete workaholic with an almost cliched midwestern work ethic. I’ve contributed a helluva lot of money in taxes, far more than most people ever have. I’ve made TV shows, documentaries, written and published books, given lectures and worked on the marketing of major Hollywood films, accomplishing this all—I can assure you—while absolutely stoned to the fucking gills. The only thing I don’t like to do while stoned is drive, but I’m a shitty, lead-footed driver to begin as anyone unfortunate enough to have been a passenger while I am behind the wheel can attest to. (My wife hates my driving and I happily ride shotgun. Win/win!)

I’ve got so much excess energy that I need pot to center me and focus my attention. I fly in the face of the notion of the lazy pothead and I’m fairly heroic in my consumption. I can, and have, smoked Rastas under the table. If you’ve ever met me, trust me, I was high. Really, really high. I plan to leave my body to science. Seriously, I’m a definitive study of one!

But I’ve also got several friends who are worth tens and even hundreds of millions of dollars who smoke as much herb as I do. I’m fairly certain there must be lazy potheads out there, but I personally don’t know any of them. Besides that pot’s not cheap.

So I always laugh when I see goofy anti-pot propaganda. What a primitive way of thinking. Pot’s been around since before alcohol and it’s never, ever going to become less popular than it is right now, is it? And at least as far as self-medication goes, cannabis is a whole lot safer than alcohol, oxycontin and methamphetamines, don’t cha think? It boggles the mind why the states at the heart of the opioid epidemic won’t embrace legal cannabis, if not for the sake of giving the drug addicted underclass SOMETHING LESS LIKELY TO KILL THEM to take the edge off of life, but what about using the taxes that would be raised to fund increasingly necessary emergency drug addiction treatment?

It’s probably getting to the point where there are more car accidents caused in Kentucky by opioid addicts nodding off behind the wheel than from drunk drivers. And hemp is legal to grow there, too. Just not legal to bake into brownies and eat.

Which brings me to this goofiness, Ten Reasons NOT to Date a Stoner, a new guide for “teens and college students” published by Parents Opposed to Pot (I’m guessing that this is an individual and not an actual organization, but I could be wrong).

It may seem like an old fashioned thought, but the one you date should be a suitable mate. Consider the type of person you want to marry before getting involved with a stoner. Doing this will save you from short term frustrations and long term unhappiness.

This much is true and is actually sage advice I can get behind myself. If your life revolves around pot, make sure to date or marry someone who enjoys huffing the chronic as much as you do! You can tell a lot about someone from their weediquette.

Their first reason for not getting involved with a stoner is that stoners are…


1. Financially Unstable

This is simply and demonstrably untrue. It’s not even worth wasting any time rebutting.

2.  Addiction Takes Priority

Maybe when there is a panic in Needle Park, but this is pot we’re discussing, no? A tad dramatic here?

3. Competing with a Drug. A relationship is more likely to collapse when an individual expresses a greater interest towards a substance than towards their partner. See one woman’s story: I Smoked Marijuana for Love.

Plenty of people smoke meth for love, too. Your point? And how many people love pot more than their partner? And if you do, what the fuck does this say about your relationship anyways?

4. Guilt. You may experience feelings of decreased self-esteem and self-worth when you feel obligated to “accept” his or her addiction/lifestyle despite your own disapproval.

This sounds suspiciously like “The Homosexual Agenda.” So silly as to not be worth addressing in any way.

Skipping ahead past one about laziness and another about fertility we find that apathetic pot smokers are in fact “energized”! Next they’ll be telling us pot makes you horny…

7. Activists Like to Cause a Racket. If he or she is an activist… good luck. A majority of marijuana users are also “politically active and energized” ... and their “allegiance to the drug” consumes their social calendar and Facebook newsfeed. Even activists will admit to the excessive amount of time and energy they spend at social gatherings and meetings where they aspire to make noise and fight the battle for legalization.

Yeah and some people get all worked up about Pokemon Go, online poronography or support Donald Trump. Bad boyfriends come in many varieties. Better a pothead than a white nationalist I always say.

More after the jump…

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Posted by Richard Metzger
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09.08.2016
01:36 pm
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The king of rolling joints and his smokable artwork
08.15.2016
08:34 am
Topics:
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001smokejes.jpg
 
Tony Greenhand is the king of rolling joints. Not just your standard doobie but a whole array of incredible joint artworks—from comic book superheroes and cartoon characters to dinosaurs, guns, and even Jesus Christ.

Tony has made a career out of his joint rolling skills. He resides in Oregon where recreational marijuana was legalized in 2015. He spends his time dreaming up and then creating weird and wonderful designs which can be smoked. Check out his other designs at Smokeable Art.
 
00smokedino.jpg
 
002smokepicka.jpg
 
More stunning joint works, after the jump….

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Posted by Paul Gallagher
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08.15.2016
08:34 am
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Teenage Wasteland: Texas teens getting stoned, 1973

PPteenagershangoutleakey.jpg
Teenagers getting out of their tree.
 
The great photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson said taking a good photograph is all about luck. The luck of the moment. The luck of the chance encounter. The luck of just being in the right place at the right time.

Marc St. Gil (1924-92) was in the right place at the right time when he met a bunch of teenagers on a day-out to the Frio Canyon River near Leakey, in Texas 1973. Marc was one of seventy freelance photographers hired by the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) to photograph America.

The EPA had been set up by President Nixon in 1970. One of its first assignments was Documerica a six-year project (1971-77) to document environmental issues, EPA activities and rural life in America during the seventies.

The youngsters Marc met were hanging out—chilling along the riverbank and smoking weed. With their permission, Marc photographed the youths. Two teenage girls sharing a joint. One older male lighting up a pipe. Marc was supposed to be photographing the effects of pollution on the river and landscape. Instead he photographed these carefree youngsters toking up and having fun.

One can’t help but wonder—what happened next? What happened to these carefree youngsters? Where are they now?
 
DDDteenagegoirlswadefrioriver.jpg
‘Teenage Girls Wading the Frio Canyon River near Leakey Texas, While on an Outing with Friends near San Antonio 05/1973.’
 
EEteenagegirlswadingfriocanyonriver.jpg
 
More of Marc St. Gil ‘s photographs of dope-smoking teens, after the jump…

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Posted by Paul Gallagher
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08.11.2016
08:14 am
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Smoking pot leads straight to the whorehouse in ‘Seduction of the Innocent,’ 1960


 
I have in my possession a list of anti-drug instructional films prepared by the New Jersey Urban Schools Development Council in 1970. Along with such classics of the genre as Sonny Bono’s Marijuana, Paul Newman’s Bennies and Goofballs and the U.S. Navy’s LSD (in which Lt. Cmdr. Walt Miner asks: “Are you thinking something, or is the bulkhead thinking something?”), there are hidden gems like Scent of Danger, the Hobby Industry Association’s 1962 film about the perils of sniffing glue. The titles are just beautiful, and the copy of the plot summaries is better than a pulp novel, full of “fallen” women and “boys with weak personalities.” Even in this company, though, the lurid title and description of 1960’s Seduction of the Innocent jump off the page:

As the denouement approaches, [the protagonist] has lost her looks and can no longer command a call-girl’s fees. She takes to streetwalking. She is arrested and begins to experience withdrawal. The future holds little hope. Drug abuse, the narrator promises, “will lead to a life of hopelessness and degradation, until she escapes in death.”

 

Jeanette writhes in agony on the floor of her jail cell
 
In case any of our readers are considering smoking a marijuana cigarette, I have transcribed the film’s description of the narcotic’s effects below. However, reading the transcription is no substitute for watching the scene, which uses the zoom lens to illustrate the nightmarish loss of depth perception dope fiends regularly experience.

The smell and the taste are anything but pleasing. It makes you cough, and your throat becomes dry and hot. You feel like you’re floating. You concentrate on one object, a tree in the distance—it’s called “fixing.” As you concentrate, time slows down. You hallucinate, that is, you dream. This is called “tripping.” Your depth perception is affected. If you had to step off a curb or get out of a car, you would probably need help, because the distance might be exaggerated. On the other hand, distance might seem to diminish.

As with alcohol, the problems don’t disappear. They only temporarily seem to vanish, and return with jarring force when the effects of the drugs wear off. But when you get on narcotics, it’s like starting a never-ending downward tailspin from 30,000 feet. You become less sure of yourself, your surroundings, your friends. Quarrels are more frequent with your parents and loved ones. You try to convince yourself you’re right, but deep inside you know you’re not. You lose your sense of values. You think of little else but another “blow-up”—your newfound language for smoking marijuana.

Watch ‘Seduction of the Innocent’ after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Oliver Hall
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01.22.2016
10:02 am
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Gas & Grass (forget the ass for now)
11.09.2015
02:00 pm
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There used to be a famous bumper sticker in the 1970s that warned would-be hitchhikers that they were expected to pay for their lifts with “Gas, Grass or Ass, No One Rides for Free.” It was a familiar sight, normally festooned on a VW bus:


 
A new business that’s opened in Colorado Springs, Colorado called “Gas & Grass” is aiming to satisfy at least two of these requirements (Can you guess which two?).

The “Gas and Grass” gas station is located adjacent to a Native Roots medical marijuana dispensary, although they have separate entrances as state law will not allow pot shops to sell non-marijuana products. Medical marijuana patients shopping at the dispensary will get discounted gasoline, similar to a rewards program with a 5 cent reduction in the per gallon price of gasoline. Upon registering with the Native Roots collective, the new patient will also receive a one time free full tank of gas.


 
At first blush this seemed a bit nutty to me, from a “public relations” perspective, certainly, but the fact of the matter is that most gas stations these days at least sell beer, if not hard alcohol. If I had to chose, I’d much rather face someone high coming at me down a country road than someone drunk, any day. Hell, I’m more against people hopped up on Starbucks coffee getting behind the wheel of a car than those who are mellowed out on weed. Why not sell pot? And why not try to appeal to the pothead who might need to pick up a gram of hash oil and a gallon of milk and gas up on the way home? Chances are there are quite a few folks who might like to do all of their errands in one place like this. I’d personally patronize such an establishment. If their rewards program was commensurate with my pot consumption, I’d have free gas for life.
 

 
Via Arbroath

Posted by Richard Metzger
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11.09.2015
02:00 pm
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You put your weed in it: Vape on the go with smokable hoodies
11.03.2015
02:43 pm
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Although most credible observers think all fifty states will see legal pot by 2020, today there are still quite a few holdouts, places where you might want to keep things a little more discrete and on the down-low…

Enter VAPRWEAR, a newly-launched apparel company that makes “Smokable Hoodies.” The collar of each one of their stoner sweatshirts comes with a vape system built in where the hoodies’ drawstrings normally are. How convenient!
 

 
Now this is what I call functional fashion: You put your weed in it. And not just your weed, VAPRWEAR‘s system is friendly to hash oil, wax, e-juice and other similar preparations. They’re also open to making custom vaporizer apparel.
 

 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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11.03.2015
02:43 pm
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MiVape: Meet the iPhone of weed
10.28.2015
10:14 am
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I’m a fellow with an awful lot of experience burning the leaves of the cannabis plant and inhaling it deeply into my lungs. I’ve been a wake-n-bake smoker for over 35 years, which surely should qualify me for some sort of Ph.D. in weed. For most of the past eight years, at least when partaking at home, I’ve used a Storz + Bickel Volcano vaporizer, generally considered the Rolls Royce of vaporizers, and for good reason. After you’ve used practically any vaporizer, though, it’s a bit difficult to go back to the burning leaves method. I hate smoking herb out of a pipe. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not so snobby about it that I’ll turn it down when it’s passed my way, but it hurts my throat. Not my preference.

A couple years ago I got hipped to “dabbing” or specifically in my case, smoking via a Heath Stone, which is basically a small black disc of the same inert rocky material used in a chemistry class bunsen burner. Using what resembles a dental tool, you take a teeny, tiny amount of hash oil, wax, “budder” or whatever else you want to call your approx 70% pure THC by weight concentrated tipple and “dab” it onto this disc, which is stuck in the end of a regular glass bong via a special bowl. You then torch the wax with a three-flame lighter—a BIC lighter would just melt it—and with one quick hit, you’ve consumed about the same amount of THC as you would have had you smoked three joints of extremely strong pot by yourself. It’s back to incineration, true, but it’s also a fairly brief interaction with anything that’s going to irritate your throat or lungs. Also I prefer the high from wax, I ain’t gonna lie. For a long-time head like m’self, well, once you go wax, you never go back.

My point being that I effectively mothballed the Volcano within a matter of days (if not day) once I started using the Health Stone set-up. And for the most part I’ve been very cold on the pre-loaded cartridges for vapor pens. Portable and handy, sure. And clean, too. But most of them—and I find this to be a critical flaw—just don’t get you high. And all the flavors and shit. I don’t really want hash oil that’s Key Lime Pie-flavored. This is the kind of thing I want to get away from.

So the fact is, when the fine folks at Vapornation contacted me to ask if I wanted to review a new portable vaporizer that they were very enthusiastic about, I was initially kind of blasé about it until I realized that it wasn’t just for herb, it was also for concentrates. Once I knew that, yes, this thing is for wax, too, you know, I was kinda interested for a review model to be sent my way after all…

First off, just let me say that whoever thinks they can separate me from my portable MiVape vaporizer will have to pry it from my cold, dead hands. This is a portable vaporizer done right!

As you take the MiVape out of the packaging, you feel like you’re unwrapping an iPhone. This isn’t unintentional, I would imagine, and the notion that “If Apple made a portable vaporizer, it would be just like the MiVape” probably occurred to more than just me. It feels like an Apple product in a lot of ways. it really does.

Beyond that, it’s also pretty simple to use: set the temp once with digital plus/minus controls, turn it on, turn it off. The material, either loose ground herb or a dab wiped off on a piece of cotton gauze, goes into a thimble-sized test tube-like chamber and then snaps into place. It’s all glass on glass and it’s also a pure convection system, meaning that the “burnt popcorn” taste of cached weed from the Volcano is a thing of the past. It can’t burn.
 

 
Overall, the new MiVape, made by Vaporfection, is the best vaporizer that I’ve ever used, whether a big ol’ “desktop” version like the Volcano, or a cigarette packet-sized MiVape. Size does matter! A Volcano seems very clunky and old-fashioned when side-by-side with the slicker, hitech MiVape. The Volcano that sat on my desk for years has now been replaced with a tiny box and when I leave home, I can just scoop it up and put it into my pocket, something you can’t do with the Volcano.

After the jump, a video that explains how the MiVape works…

READ ON
Posted by Richard Metzger
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10.28.2015
10:14 am
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Man found on floor surrounded by junk food after call to 911 for being ‘too high’
10.07.2015
02:44 pm
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Stoner surrounded by junk food
 
Welp, here’s another story that is headed straight for the ever-growing Stoner Hall of Fame.

According to a story from the Seattle Times published yesterday (via The Youngstown Vindicator), last Friday a 22-year-old Ohio man called 911 because he had apparently gotten “too high” smoking marijuana. I don’t think any amount of police training could have prepared the cops for what they found upon arriving at the abode of the stoner in question.

According to a report filed by the Austintown Township police, the man was found in a fetal position on his floor, with an assortment standard stoner junk food like Doritos, Goldfish crackers and Chips Ahoy cookies scattered around him. He also complained that he “couldn’t feel his hands.” Which is sad because it sounds like he was really hungry. Johnny Law found his stash, but have yet to charge him with a crime. Although they did take away his car keys. Now how is he going to get to 7-11 the next time he gets the munchies? Poor guy.

I’ve often said that the most dangerous thing a stoner has ever done is eat too much junk food such as polishing off an entire box of Cap’n Crunch (with Crunch Berries of course) in one sitting. But the image of this guy (which is captured pretty accurately in the photo above I think) really takes the cake. I don’t know about you, but I’d do just about anything to see the “crime scene” photos from this caper.

Oh, Ohio dude, NEVER CHANGE!

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
94-year-old woman arrested for trying to smuggle weed
Dickhead cop asks ‘Why is it everybody who plays Frisbee golf smokes weed?’

Posted by Cherrybomb
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10.07.2015
02:44 pm
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