The Hash BMP Audio

This is a recording of the Montana DoR hearing on proposed cannabis advertising rules. The recording has not been edited. The original file was in a format inaccessible to most users.

Read more: https://mtcannabisreview.substack.com/

In our season finale, David meets up with the enigmatic founder and CEO of Puffco, Roger Volodarsky, for an intimate conversation about the role psychedelics have played in shaping his iconic vaporizers, as well as his outlook on life.

No matter where you live in America, the marginalization of people - based on their appearance, age, beliefs - persists, and distorts the way we treat one another. Virgie Tovar, the author of “You Have the Right to Remain Fat,” is seeking to change that. Virgie travels all over the country speaking about body image and the effects of weight based discrimination, as well as providing online and in-person mentoring.

Virgie also happens to be a fan of what she calls “Ye Oldie cannabis.”

In this episode we’re going to learn about how the history of fat activism curiously parallels the cannabis industry, hear some of Virgie’s wild experiences with cannabis and discover how it influences both her work and her identity.

“What weed does is it allows me to kind of like settle into my body and as a fat person who has been taught to feel disembodied, it's a powerful experience," she says.

For more information about Virgie’s work, including her online course Lose Hate Not Weight Babecamp, her Camp Thunder Thighs retreat and her upcoming book Flawless: Radical Body Positivity for Girls of Color, check out https://www.virgietovar.com/

Last week, Leafly's David Downs and Bruce Barcott released a groundbreaking research paper that looks at the data around three huge myths about cannabis legalization: that it contributes to more crime and more teen use, and that it kills property values.

But is that what the data actually says?

Listen in as David and Max chat about the process behind their research paper, the details of the team's findings and what we can all do to enact change in counties that have banned legalization.

Few people realize that the war on marijuana involves more than just arrests and jail time. Often, it breaks up families.

Coming on the heels of Mothers Day, this episode of the Hash looks at situations in which moms aren’t free to use cannabis. Both in New York City and throughout the US, pregnant moms often get tested for cannabis without their permission; young mothers can lose their newborns to agencies like NYC’s Administration for Children’s Services, or in divorce courts over safe use of marijuana.

We caught up with WNYC public radio reporter Yasmeen Khan, who has been investigating the staggering rates at which children are separated from their parents in NYC because of cannabis use and other circumstances, to hear more about the women affected by this draconian policy.

We’re 18 months into legal weed sales in California and sales are popping!
More than 600 licensed stores, 150 delivery services, and 1,500 farms are in operation; the state made $600M in tax revenue last year, and is on the way to raking in a cool billion dollars a year in taxes. And we’ve just got started.

But things are also turbulent. The market is shuddering. Heavy, heavy regulations and taxes bear down on cannabis for the first time. It’s causing anguish among suppliers. Nowadays, the farm license paperwork alone runs 44 pages, with fees that top out at $44,000 per year.

So we sat down with California’s number one regulator, Lori Ajax, chief of the Bureau of Cannabis Control to chat about what consumers and industry can expect this year.

Ajax, and BCC spokesperson, Alex Traverso, dished to me on-stage at the International Cannabis Business Conference in San Francisco this January. Listen along for the latest on Golden State cannabis testing, child-proofing, legal delivery, and new stores.

- David Downs