The once-infamous rapper Ice Cube began his slide down the dangerous Black man to family-friendly movie star pipeline with his screenplay for the 1995 movie “Friday.” The film follows Cube in the lead role as everyman Craig, a slacker who gets fired on his day off. He spends the titular day with his best friend Smokey (Chris Tucker), who convinces him to smoke weed for the first time. The ensuing comedy has since become a classic for Black audiences and in the stoner movie genre.

Ostensibly a film about two friends having to cull together enough coin to prevent a drug dealer from killing them both, “Friday” has endured for its sheer hilarity, memorable supporting cast, and endearing authenticity. 

Many movies use the “plot in a day” structure and force their hero through some rudimentary fetch quest. But few populate that journey with characters as iconic as Bernie Mac’s thirsty pastor, Paula Jai Parker’s hypocritical and abusive love interest, or Tiny Lister Jr.’s Final Boss adversary, Deebo. Beyond that, “Friday” works so well because of how sincere it is and how lived-in Craig’s South Central neighborhood feels. It’s absurd sometimes but never at the expense of believability, making it one of the most fascinating stoner films. “Friday” spawned a full-on trilogy, followed by 2000’s “Next Friday” and 2002’s “Friday After Next.” Perhaps someday we’ll deconstruct that third film’s transgressive misuse of the Christmas movie paradigm, but today, we need to discuss “Next Friday.”

When it was time to cash in on a sequel, so many crucial elements were immediately cast aside. Director F. Gary Gray, now too successful to work on something so small-time, was replaced by Steve Carr — another music video veteran, but one whose filmography would go on to include “Daddy Day Care” and “Paul Blart: Mall Cop.” Tucker, whose iconic turn as Cube’s BFF in the first film provides so much of its crackling energy, chose not to return, necessitating the entrance of Mike Epps as Craig’s cousin Day-Day. The earthy, textured environs of South Central would be traded in for the tacky, bold colors of Rancho Cucamonga, where Craig has been sent to stay after the first film’s climactic fight with neighborhood bully Deebo.

The basics stay the same. Craig, now with Day-Day, finds himself in an increasingly complex web of drama throughout the course of a single Friday, only where the first film had a naturalistic tenor that allowed each narrative escalation to feel within the reason of reality, “Next Friday” dips further into cartoon territory, adding a Mexican gang called The Jokers, Day-Day’s absurd record shop boss Pinky (Clifton Powell), and Day-Day’s ex-girlfriend D’Wana (Tamala Jones) who is a less interesting version of Joi from the first film. Deebo is here, too, with Sticky Fingaz as his brother/henchman, emanating unfortunate Scrappy Doo energy. 

It’s not a complete disaster. It features an early appearance from Michael Blackson as an angry customer from the record shop, one of the few bit players who matches the intensity of the first film. Epps, though no match for Tucker, proves to have strong enough chemistry with Cube to keep the central buddy vibe alive. And perhaps the film’s greatest saving grace, Kym Whitley channeling her inner Jennifer Coolidge in “American Pie” as Craig’s lascivious auntie. She steals every single scene she’s in, whether you’re laughing with her or drooling over her. 

There’s a carefree gaudiness to the film. It’s bright and grinning in your face as it auditions to be re-run on Comedy Central every afternoon as the back half of a “Half Baked” double feature until the end of time. 

“Friday” is a stoner movie that tempered its humor with the reality of the drug’s dual status both as a necessary escape from the strictures of life and a central element to a criminal trade that presented real danger to those involved. “Next Friday,” by comparison, feels so much like watching low-level celebrities sell their own strains of bud with names that sound like bad Action Bronson songs.

Perhaps this is a reach, and the movie itself is just mid to a fault — the “Clerks” to “Mallrats” transition for Blassic cinema. But “Friday” was a movie you didn’t actually have to be high to enjoy. I can’t say the same for “Next.”

“Next Friday” is currently streaming on HBO Max.

The post 23 Years Later, ‘Next Friday’ Remains a Gentrified Imitation of Its Predecessor appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

Most cannabis businesses and spaces are operated and owned by white people. Still, in Baltimore City, there are notable Black cannabis changemakers who are cultivating space for other Black folks to take up real estate in the industry.  

Ras. Langford “Crucial” Johnson was born in Baltimore City, but grew up in Calvert County, Maryland. In 2020 he co-founded Crucial Culture, a boutique event planning and marketing firm focused on cannabis-centered events. Last year, he introduced his event series, Juke Joint, at Luna Garden in Fells Point. The event created space for people to enjoy a shared interest in cannabis, laughing and dancing to sounds by Baltimore house music legend Karizma. Juke Joint will return on June 4 of this year. 

Paulette Simone Smith is the founder of Canna Heals, a medicinal cannabis concierge service. Smith is a licensed social worker and doctoral student who hails from Harlem, New York, and has roots in St. Croix, St. Thomas, and Ghana. Smith’s practice illustrates the fact that cannabis has healing qualities. After she obtained her medical card, she realized the difficulty of navigating the process of getting medicinal cannabis, and that was just the first step. She decided to go to school and obtained a master’s degree in medical cannabis science and therapeutics at University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. Now she offers classes to those interested in learning more about the plant, and helps cannabis consumers navigate the abundance of information available.

These two innovators are among the people leading the green rush in Baltimore City, destigmatizing weed and, like Johnson says, ensuring that “Brown faces are in green spaces.” I met with Johnson and Smith over Zoom and got their perspective on the emerging green rush and their work to solidify themselves as leaders in the Maryland cannabis industry.

These answers have been edited for length and clarity.

TH: How did you get started in this industry, and how did you carve a space for yourself in your work?

Paulette Simone Smith: I was having excruciating, debilitating pain because of the symptoms of ulcerative colitis, and I was on preventative medicine that wasn’t working. A friend was talking about the medical cannabis card she had just gotten in Maryland in their new program, and she invited me to a talk to hear about the potential of cannabis for what I was dealing with. 

From that talk, I heard Dr. Chanda Macias from National Holistic Healing Center, a cannabis dispensary in D.C.,  and she talked about the properties of cannabis that could reduce inflammation. They had a medical doctor on site who looked at your medical records, reviewed them, and gave you access to a medical card. I was qualified and was sent off into the world of medical cannabis. 

That’s why Canna Heals came into play, because… I didn’t know what to do to find the products that worked for me. Cannabis is not just what we heard back in the day. It is a viable medicine, even though it’s federally illegal.

TH:. Can you tell me a little bit more about Canna Heals?

PS: I was working at the dispensary for three and a half years as a budtender. Or patient advisor, as I’d like to say. I was also at the time doing my craft as a social worker. The core of me is a social worker, so I’m always looking to help with resources. I’m always looking to share and be of support to somebody. And so as I was doing that in the dispensary, I realized I didn’t have enough time to talk to people about what they needed to know,

What I started doing was helping people outside of the dispensary get their medical cards. That’s what we talk about with the concierge. I’ll take people from beginning to end. 

I go through and talk with them about what’s at the dispensary. It’s like one big swoop. I’ll even meet you at the dispensary. I go through your menu at your dispensary, and we talk about what products may work for you, what consumption methods may help. 

TH: There’s a lot of stigma with cannabis. Do you have any advice for someone who might just be curious about cannabis?

PS: Yes, absolutely. Cannabis is not a panacea. It’s not. It definitely has healing abilities and capabilities. The research shows it. Anecdotally, we know it. But it’s not a panacea. And so what I would say to people is if you are dealing with some kind of ailment, and you are interested in knowing how cannabis works with that particular ailment, look into it. Talk to someone like myself. Talk to your provider. Your general care practitioner might be someone who is versed in cannabis. 

TH: How has cannabis impacted your own health and personal health and wellness? How do you practice self-care holistically?

PS: Cannabis has been a shoestring that ties things together. Along with my social work, it really puts a purpose, in a lot of ways, to my work, when it comes to cannabis because it has the potential to help with physical health as well as mental health. It really does play a big part in the healing of the people who consume it for those purposes. Making sure that people understand that they’re using cannabis, that it is interacting with the body in a way that it’s firing things in our brain, It’s firing things in our immune system, and just to understand it’s not just benign. It does do things and we need to know what that’s all about.

Cannabis is a part of my self-care. I use tinctures to help with my ulcerative colitis. I take CBD along with terpenes that help with my mood, that’s a part of my daily routine.

TH: Can you tell me a little bit about your agency, Crucial Culture? 

RCJ: We’re a small boutique marketing and branding agency. We do ideation, graphic design, event planning, conference planning, things of that nature. 

TH: Governor Wes Moore directed the state to spend $46.5 million to set up an adult use cannabis market on his first full day in office, and $40 million will go towards supporting minority and women-owned businesses through the Cannabis Business Assistance Fund. Do you think that this plan is accessible to the average Marylander? 

RCJ:  Yes and no. Yes, because it’s there. 

However, I’ve been an outlaw since the ’90s. And I’ve been immersed in cannabis and ganja for a while, and I’ve seen it from the inside out. I don’t know if the average black or brown-skinned person has the outreach and resources that I have, because I’ve done this for so long. I’ve met all kinds of people. So it sounds lofty that it’s there, but if you don’t have the wherewithal to navigate that process, it’s not there for you.

It really depends on your access. It’s access and ingenuity and persistence. What that means is if someone sees that and googles “cannabis assistance” they can then take it upon themselves to do it. In theory the average person can do it, they just have to have that drive to do it. 

TH: I think a lot of people think that the only way to be involved in the industry is to own a dispensary. Do you know of any other opportunities or gaps or other ways that Black people can get involved?

RCJ: Yes. In the new bill, they are creating micro dispensaries. Which means that you don’t have to have a brick and mortar. They’re still defining it a little bit, but effectively you can access cannabis from a dispensary and possibly a wholesaler, and then sell it.

Delivery, security, and micro dispensaries are three ways to get in without having to have a brick and mortar space, or a grower. And then there’s building a better mousetrap. If you are creative enough, you can find a gap in the marketplace and create your own lane.  

TH: Last year, you did a series of events at Luna Garden. They were outdoor house music and cannabis culture events, and as far as I know one of the first events of its kind here. Are you bringing it back this year? 

RCJ: Juke Joint! Basically that event is the type of space that is needed. My goal was to have everyone come to one spot to do the same thing. Those folks are like-minded, but look different. I was very proud of the diversity that was there. Every version of a person was there. That’s what herb does. It brings people together. It’s communal.

Ideally, I am going to pursue a license myself, for cultivation, processing, and dispensary. My goal is to create a dispensary, with my business partner Jessica Meyer, that replicates Juke Joint. A space where you come in, and you feel like you’ve laid down beside your lover. You cross a threshold and it’s like “ahh we are here.” 

TH: What advice would you give to anybody who might just be thinking about going into this realm, getting in on this shift, this green rush that’s happening?

RCJ: Being in the room is half the battle. My mantra is “Brown faces in green cannabis spaces.” My goal is to be an advocate so that someone can see me in the room. A person sees me in this paper, and thinks “he’s doing it,” and that’s what we need. We need people that look like us as a light bearer. 

The post Brown and Black Faces in Green Spaces appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

Civil rights activist Martin Luther King III, Maryland State Senator Cory McCray, cannabis industry insiders, and other weed-interested folks gathered at Coppin University February 28 to discuss what weed legalization means for people of color. 

“This is a ground-floor opportunity,” King told the small crowd in James Weldon Johnson Auditorium. “Several states have gotten the opportunity to pass legislation, but none of them have gotten it right yet. I think that Maryland is on the precipice… of getting it right.” King noted that he’d spent the previous day in Annapolis, meeting with state leaders about the possibilities pot presents.

Back in November, Maryland voters gave the OK for this state to move forward with the legalization of recreational cannabis for people 21 and over. The change goes into effect in July. Lawmakers in Annapolis are now laying out the legal framework for the recreational consumption of a drug for the use of which thousands of Marylanders have previously been penalized. 

The large panel, titled Equity, Representation, and Opportunities for Cannabis Workers was made up entirely of people of color and focused on a few issues: addressing the needs of people who are currently incarcerated because of weed, making sure people of color can economically benefit from weed, and providing communities of color with as much information as possible about cannabis. 

“When I talk about social equity, I don’t start with the ownership part of that equation,” said Hope Wiseman, the youngest Black woman to own a dispensary in the United States. “When we think about social equity, I think the first thing we have to talk about is criminal justice reform. That’s not always at the forefront.”

According to a study conducted by the ACLU that tracked arrests made between 2010 and 2018, Black people were more likely to be arrested for possession of weed than white people in every state, including states that had legalized it. That means there are a lot of Black people sitting in prisons or with convictions hanging over their heads because of something that is legal to sell and consume for many in this country. 

Gustavo Torres, executive director of the immigrant organization group CASA, said that more than half of Latinx people who are behind bars right now are there because of the failed war on drugs. He said that these convictions shut people out of the cannabis industry forever.

“The majority of people who are in jail are men, but Black and Latina women are suffering tremendously because of that. On some occasions, they lose their kids,” Torres said.

Panelists were also adamant that workers’ rights must be at the forefront as lawmakers craft a future that includes legal access to cannabis. The panel’s moderators, Tamia Booker and Caroline Phillips, asked McCray several times whether Maryland law would include language ensuring the rights of workers to collectively organize on their behalf without interference from their bosses. The United Food & Commercial Workers International Union organized the panel. The group had a table set up outside the auditorium with a selection of matches, rolling papers, and pins that read “UFCW Cannabis Workers Union.”

McCray, who came into office with a strong union background, said that he is in favor of the language and felt confident that it would be addressed in Annapolis. “I feel like we are going to get it done,” he said. 

Norbert Pickett, who owns a dispensary in Washington, D.C., said that the industry is much tougher on Black owners, and it’s often more difficult for them to get the licenses they need.

“We lost out on the dot-com industry, we lost out on cable television, here comes a new emerging market, and we are being held out of it again,” he said. “It’s important in our community that we get involved in this industry because this industry isn’t going anywhere. However… now they want to deny us ownership.”

All panelists agreed it would take a coalition effort to make sure that communities of color are at the table when it comes to the economic benefits that further legalization will bring. 

“This moment is pregnant with possibility,” said nationally known activist Tamika Mallory. “At this moment, we find ourselves in a space where we can actually create and design something that looks different from other industries that exist within society. But I think it will take being intentional.”

The post Pregnant with Possibility: activists, workers, and others discuss how recreational cannabis will impact communities of color appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

Since 2014, when cannabis possession of 10 grams or less was decriminalized across the state, Baltimore City has become a fascinating experiment in patchwork drug policy. Attempts to make cannabis legal in Maryland have failed for many years, resulting in more stopgap interventions, leading to an especially confusing situation for those who use or sell cannabis.

Having more than 10 grams of cannabis on you technically means you can get arrested for misdemeanor possession (or, depending on the amount, possession with intent to distribute). But starting in 2019, Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby introduced a policy that her office would not prosecute those arrested for cannabis possession no matter the weight—11 ounces or 11 pounds. Simply put, you could be arrested, but you would likely not be charged.

The far-too-complicated and often contradictory tangle of policies, rulings, and actual laws means, for example, that J, a Baltimore security guard and former cop, has to choose between using cannabis or having the license for the gun he needs for his security gigs.
“I got PTSD. I was a cop for a long time. I got PTSD. That’s one of the symptoms that gets you a medical marijuana card. PTSD,” J told me. “But I can’t get a card from a doctor because then I got to worry that I’ll lose my security job.”

Despite increasingly loose gun restrictions, federal law still prohibits people who use cannabis from buying or owning guns, even if they have a medical cannabis card. In Maryland, the sale of all firearms requires a background check, and on a background check the applicant
must disclose if they use cannabis, which would mean they couldn’t buy a gun. In 2021, the Maryland General Assembly attempted to pass a bill that would make it illegal to prevent medicinal card holders from having guns, but it failed. And even if it had passed, Marylanders with a medicinal card and a gun would still be violating federal law.

Last year, when that bill was up for a vote, J characterized the position the law puts him in: He must choose between having a job and being able to use cannabis to relieve stress, pain, and other emotional turmoil. He also pointed out that armed guards offer security for cannabis dispensaries.

“I know cats who work security at dispensaries. So what are they doing, really? They’re working security, protecting a product they’re not allowed to use,” J said. “And why aren’t they allowed to use it? Because they have to have a gun license to get the job protecting the product they can’t use. It doesn’t make sense.”

Maryland’s slow crawl towards legalization also means the underground drug market has been disrupted a few times over now. Dealers in particular are increasingly out of luck, especially since medicinal cannabis dispensaries opened in Baltimore. M, a side-gigging dealer for decades, has even changed which drug he sells, increasing his risk of arrest and prosecution.
As M explains it, around the same time medicinal dispensaries finally started popping up in Baltimore in 2018, he began to consider selling more cocaine.

“It was only weed for years and years,” M told me. “And then sometimes some blow.”
Over the next two years, M lost more and more customers to medicinal cannabis and the scorched-earth BOGO deals that dispensaries all promoted. His underground prices often couldn’t compete. People who didn’t even have medicinal cannabis cards would compare and contrast his prices to what the dispensary websites listed. He’d text (via Signal) them what he had and how much it was going to be, and they’d send back a screenshot of a nearby dispensary’s website with a similar enough strain on sale, demanding he match the price.

“Ridiculous,” M said. “The kids, they’re spoiled.”

For decades, M dealt enough weed to friends and associates and friends of friends to put about $2,000 or so extra in his wallet each week. By 2021, M felt as though he had to abandon cannabis.
At the start of the pandemic in March 2020, weed sales briefly spiked for him: “More people were home, less people had a card,” he explained. But that didn’t last long. In July 2020, there were nearly 107,000 cannabis patients in Maryland. By July 2022, that number climbed to 148,000 patients. And at the start of the pandemic, dispensaries developed contact-free COVID-19 protocols that made it easy for people to pick up during quarantine, turning the process into the rare activity to do outside of the house in (relatively) safety.

For years, though, M’s out-of-state pot connect had offered him small amounts of cocaine, and occasionally M would take a little to sell. Since 2021, M has almost entirely switched to cocaine, and, he told me, he’ll “pivot” again if he must to keep his lights on and feed his two cats and himself.

“If they legalize cocaine, I’ll pivot and sell something else,” M said.

Despite decriminalization, medicinal cannabis, and changed prosecutorial policies, people in Baltimore City can still get jammed up in the system for weed—and those getting jammed up are still most often Black Baltimoreans.

A 2018 study published by Baltimore Fishbowl (full disclosure: I was one of its three authors) revealed that between 2014 and 2017—the first three years of decriminalization—Black Baltimoreans made up nearly 97% of misdemeanor cannabis possession arrests. An ACLU study from 2020 showed that in Maryland, a Black person was twice as likely to be arrested for cannabis than a white person. For Mosby and her office’s Strategic Policy and Planning Director Michael Collins, the argument for not charging people for weed possession was simple: Fewer arrests for cannabis also meant fewer racially disproportionate arrests were happening over a drug considered “medicine.”

Far fewer people in Baltimore City are being arrested for drugs now than in 2014 when Mosby was elected (and when cannabis was decriminalized):

In 2014, there were 13,356 drug arrests in the city.

In 2021, just 1,046 drug arrests.

However, as our partners at Baltimore Courtwatch have revealed, suspected cannabis possession or claims of cannabis smell still remain an excuse for cops to stop, search, and possibly arrest Baltimoreans and the State’s Attorney’s Office rarely take issue with this practice. Back in June, the Maryland Court of Appeals—the state’s highest court—ruled that, even with decriminalization, police officers can continue to stop and search people in vehicles based solely on cannabis smell. However, explained the court, the cop who makes the stop “must end the stop if they do not quickly obtain information that gives them probable cause to believe the person has at least 10 grams or has committed another criminal offense.”

Police, however, are known to use claims of the smell of cannabis to justify questionable—and downright illegal—searches. For example, in 2017, Baltimore Police Officer David Burch claimed that he received a “tip” that a man in a convenience store had a gun on him.
Burch said that the man smelled of cannabis when he approached him. That claim enabled Burch to search the man for a gun, which he found.

In 2020, the Maryland Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the man Burch searched. “The mere odor of marijuana emanating from a person, without more, does not provide the police with probable cause to support an arrest and a full-scale search of the arrestee incident thereto,” the unanimous ruling said.

This 2022 ruling by the same court, however, said that searching people in their cars is justified. More than a year of citywide traffic stop data provided to the Beat by City Councilperson Ryan Dorsey shows that the city’s primarily Black and poorest districts endure a disproportionate number of traffic stops.

In short, pot smell remains a way to make an end run around the Fourth Amendment, which is supposed to protect people from “unreasonable search and seizure.” Neill Franklin, a former Baltimore Police commander and the founder of Law Enforcement Action Partnership (LEAP), has been warning citizens of cops claiming they smell cannabis for years.

“Marijuana is still the number one reason the police are using it to sidestep the Fourth Amendment and get into people’s car, pocket, or home,” Franklin once told me. “Constitutionally, it’s wrong.”

For many in Baltimore, the combined 2014 decriminalization, the 2017 rollout of medicinal cannabis, and the 2019 non prosecutorial policy, made them assume that weed was already legal. But this November, Marylanders will go to the ballot to vote on cannabis legalization proper, after bills to amend the Maryland Constitution to make cannabis legal for those 21 and over passed in the last legislative session.

According to a recent Goucher poll, 62 percent of Marylanders support cannabis
legalization.

With Ivan Bates, the likely new Baltimore City State’s Attorney, coming into office next year, it is possible that the policies will change back and be less forgiving of cannabis possession.
Bates, who defeated Mosby in the Democratic primary and is essentially running unopposed in November’s general election, campaigned in part on rolling back Mosby’s non prosecutorial policies. He has been a critic of Mosby’s policies, calling them “confusing” and claiming, without serious evidence, that not prosecuting people for cannabis has created more violence in the city. Decades of Baltimore City crime data shows that there is little correlation between general drug arrests and crime, let alone cannabis arrests.

According to data obtained by Baltimore Beat via public information requests, there were 304 homicides and 14,912 drug arrests in Baltimore in 1991.

In 2021, there were 337 homicides and 1,046 drug arrests.

Editors’ note: An earlier version of this story misstated the amount of cannabis the state decriminalized. The correct amount is 10 grams. The Baltimore beat regrets the error.

The post Yesterday’s Prices are not Today’s Prices appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

What would have been the final meeting of 2019 by the The Maryland General Assembly’s Marijuana Legalization Workgroup was cancelled on Tuesday. In case you don’t remember, the workgroup announced last month they would not be making any recommendations for legalization in the next legislative session, though the workgroup is still supposed to report their overall findings by the end of the year. In other words, cannabis legalization can wait.

The workgroup’s argument last month was pretty much, “well, legalization is kind of complicated.” And because they intend to do it properly and equitably and not perpetuate the racial disparities that have marred the legal cannabis businesses in states that have already made it legal, they need more time. Namely, they want to locate a way to introduce what are ostensibly, cannabis reparations: using tax revenue generated by cannabis sales to work toward undoing some of the harm done to the Black community caused by decades of the drug war and to reverse some of the disparities already seen when it comes to who can make money off of legal weed.

While the state of Maryland figures out how to do cannabis legalization “right,” people continue to have their lives jammed up due to weed arrests (and those people are primarily, disproportionately, Black). Here’s the thing: There are models for legalization done the way Maryland says it wants to do it already. 

Last month, the Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois made national headlines when it announced that reparations would be at the center of its use of cannabis sales-related tax money (in Evanston around 70% of the people arrested for cannabis were Black; in Baltimore, between the years of 2015-2017, 96% of the people arrested for cannabis were Black). At the end of May, Illinois passed the Illinois Cannabis Regulation and Tax Act, which made cannabis legal in the state, and included a “social equity provision” that would expunge the records of those with cannabis charges and prioritize Black business owners when it came to growing licenses. In other words, a lot of the things the Marijuana Legalization Workgroup said it hasn’t quite figured out how to do or fund have been figured out in Illinois.

While there wasn’t anybody in Annapolis on Tuesday digging deep on weed, cannabis was a small part of that day’s Joint Committee on Fair Practices and State Personnel Oversight’s hearing. Among the topics,  “Use of Medical Cannabis and Consideration for State Employment,” with commentary from those responsible for overseeing the drug-testing of state employees.

“Medical cannabis is treated just like any other prescription medication,” said Cindy Kollner, executive director of the Department of Budget and Management’s Office of Personnel Services and Benefits. In short, if you have a medicinal cannabis card, then it won’t be a problem for employment.

There are exceptions though, tied to employees subject to U.S. Department of Transportation regulations. Even if that kind of employee has a prescription, they can still be deemed unable to perform their job if they test positive for pot. Meanwhile, if “safety sensitive” employees—those responsible for the safety of others basically—test positive, they can produce their prescription and there would be a meeting between the employee and the medical review officer where that positive test would be changed to negative without consequence. Kollner explained that since 2018 there have been just, “15 instances of drug tests involving medical cannabis,” an incredibly small number.

Watching the hearing, I thought about how cannabis should be entirely removed from drug testing. And there is a “moral” component to drug testing that never made sense but really doesn’t make sense anymore. Unless someone is clearly under the influence at work, we should not worry about what they are doing in their spare time, medicinal use or not (also all drug use I would argue could be defined as, “medicinal”). As cannabis reporter Amanda Chicago Lewis explained years ago, “a functional marijuana breathalyzer,” is what is needed—if anything is needed at all—and there isn’t one. All testing positive for pot means is you smoked weed at some point in the past few months. Putting “drug exceptionalism” (the bogus idea that some drugs are more “respectable” to use than others) aside for the moment, what could an employer possibly glean from knowing an employee uses cannabis, which is legal in 10 states (plus Washington, D.C.), is prescribed medicinally in Maryland, and is decriminalized here?

This boring meeting seemed profound to me. Like Baltimore’s laws, where cannabis is decriminalized and medicinal exists, but you can still be arrested for possession but the State’s Attorney claimed they won’t charge you for possession, drug testing for cannabis creates a hot mess—a new grey expanded because the state cannot commit to legalization. The joint Committee on Fair Practices and State Personnel Oversight was not as moved. When it was time for questions, the committee had none.

Finally, it seems as though if the legislature is not going to figure out cannabis legalization on their own, then they have the legal weed business to help do it for them—and maybe wine and dine them while they think it through.

On Tuesday night, cannabis brand Select held an invite-only event at the Sagamore Pendry Hotel, “to meet with local elected officials, industry advocates, grassroots organizations and thought leaders currently spearheading the efforts to legalize recreational cannabis in Maryland.” Among those listed as attending were Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby and Senator Jill Carter. 

There was no panel or speaker or anything like tht, just a happy hour and dinner afterwards, and in between, some time for “open dialogue.” Select, which is based on the West Coast but is now selling products in Washington, D.C. dispensaries, has established a nonprofit arm called The Possible Plan focused on “equitable access” and “reparatory justice” surrounding weed. Into next year, Select will even host some expungement clinics. The company clearly sees the racial reckoning the country must do with cannabis as part of the pitch on making it legal here.

Yours truly was invited to the Sagamore Pendry pot chat but I did not attend because at its core, this was essentially a lobbying event, even if it is lobbying for a cause I unabashedly support. I’m really not sure what to make of a pro-legalization, woke weed mixer at Kevin Plank’s fancy hotel not long after the legislature has pretty much preemptively announced it will be kicking the can on legalization. Well, onto the reviews. (Brandon Soderberg)

Purple Mindfuck

We must begin with this noxious, goofy-ass name. We’re in straight-up sleaze territory with this Alaska-originated Indica/Sativa hybrid combining Peyote Purple and Thunder Fuck Mountain (TFM) called Purple Mind Fuck — a combination of words and associations conveying the vibe of say, some flyover state morning shock jock wearing Affliction gear and giving away free Five Finger Death Punch tickets (which he would call “tix”): DRUGS! SOMETHING LOUD! THE WORD “FUCK”! EDGY! Oh boy. This strong and singular strain though has little to do with any of that and is instead a tad psychedelic, unmooring most of what’s around you, which is at first terrifying and exciting after that and lastly, curiously calming (THC’s at 28 percent here).

I guess all of that might constitute a “mind fuck” but dear G-d, let’s try and find another way of saying it. There’s an essay in writer and filmmaker Hito Steyerl’s 2012 book “The Wretched of the Screen” titled “In Free Fall: A Thought Experiment on Vertical Perspective” that discusses (among other things) this idea that our present moment lacks (metaphorical) solid ground in most ways that matter and with that, a lack of linearity, which means we are all in a sort of figurative free fall.

Maybe the best way to think of this is the disassociative jumble of the internet (better yet, the endless, depressing scroll of Netflix) but it also has to do with “alternative facts” and generally, postmodernism getting a little too postmodern for most of us, leaving us with little to firmly wrap our minds around. “With the loss of horizon also comes the departure of a stable paradigm of orientation, which has situated concepts of subject and object, of time and space, throughout modernity,” Steyerl writes. “In falling, the lines of horizon shatter, twirl around, and superimpose.”

Well, Purple Mind Fuck does something like that to you. It eliminates the horizon, it extracts you from wherever you are and leaves you indefinitely hanging — “in free fall,” which can feel dramatic and scary or like nothing is happening at all. Purple Mind Fuck’s effects snuck up on me and I only got the latter. Frozen, hit with a Zen-ish joy celebrating our awful colonial holiday, I was in the moment, and then a series of associations hung in the air, never quite connecting, a cut-rate clarity that gave way to a chaotic mind spew brought on mostly by a decrease in anxiety I imagine.
I didn’t mind letting my mind fly and maybe even sounding a bit like a dumbass. Usually you understand a heavy high like this in terms of plateaus or phases, but this is more like a maze (Steyerl again: “The horizon quivers in a maze of collapsing lines and you may lose any sense of above and below, of before and after, of yourself and your boundaries”). A high you wander with, an incontinent, beatific buzz. (BS)

• Strength: 9
• Nose: Lemongrass
• Euphoria: 9
• Existential dread: 2
• Freaking out when a crazy person approaches you: 2
• Drink pairing: An IPA
• Music pairing: Premiata Forneria Marconi’s “Per Un Amico”
• Rating: 8
  

Hurkle

The prohibition of cannabis did unmistakable and almost unfathomable harm. And yet the outlaw nature of its consumption also created a confederation of consumers, an underground band of brothers and sisters who partook. When you discovered that an old friend or family member was a toker, a renewed clandestine bond formed between you. Because it was illegal, you had to have some small degree of trust in the people you toked with.

I learned that early on when I and three other guys who were burners, but not real buddies, got pulled over by the cops ditching school and burning bowls. We were driving by the school parking lot when we got stopped and everyone was out at lunch, so it was a very public affair. I was driving and the other three guys, who were pals with each other, blamed everything on me. I went to jail. They did not.

Now that jail is no longer such a worry, one would hope that the clandestine love that one used to feel could extend to the whole world and we could share in some communal merriment. Ha. As I recently reported in the The Baffler, even the boss right-wing propaganda outlet Sinclair has gotten into the bud business.

Still, a lot of people feel a certain sense of community with other consumers and, like gardeners or winemakers, like to share their wares. The problem is, some folks only like to accept a toke after they’ve been drinking or are in some social situation and they’re not used to it and it turns out bad.

Because so many strains are so much more potent than they used to be, a strong toke off a high-THC strain, or a nearly pure THC pen, might leave an unsuspecting friend wigging out, as it were. Hurkle is an ideal house-bud to keep around for such occasions. The roughly 1:1 CBD-to-THC ratio keeps things chill in this hybrid of Harlequin — a CBD-heavy, Sativa-y strain — and Querkle, a hard-hitting Indica variety. The CBD relaxes and uplifts while the Indica calms and soothes, and the overall effect is a pleasant, classic high. It won’t blow your mind or push you too far in any one direction, neither drooling on the couch nor scrubbing the grout between your tiles, but going about your business of leisure or medication in a smooth, eminently palatable way.

Likewise, this strain isn’t particularly beautiful to look at, though the nicely formed buds are fine and bright green, covered with white and red hairs, and its nose is not particularly pronounced, with subtle but overall pleasant hints of coffee and minty toothpaste. If Hurkle were a president, it would be Barack Obama — a winning moderate who still seems dangerous and communistic to certain factions who imagine radical leanings. But after seeing folks get as paranoid as Rudy Giuliani or Devin Nunes on some super strains, Hurkle is what you need in your weed cabinet, if not on your presidential ticket. If it were jazz, it would be Miles Davis’ “Kind of Blue,” something even your non-jazzbo buds might get down with, but no less great for all that. (Baynard Woods)

• Strength: 3
• Nose: Coffee and mint toothpaste
• Euphoria: 5
• Existential Dread: 0
• Freaking out when a crazy person approaches you: 1
• Music pairing: Miles Davis, ‘Freddie Freeloader’
• Drink Pairing: A Pilsner
• Rating: 9
  

Sour Cheese

A mix of Cheese and Sour Diesel, Sour Cheese is a 60 percent Sativa, 40 percent Indica hybrid and, well, it feels like that and not much more. Which is to say, you’re in for a break-even sort of high: You’ll get sleepy but won’t be able to go to sleep, and its calming effects will leak through your body, like you’re being poisoned by Zen-like chill, making existing easier, though hardly enhanced.

It’s so much of a social weed that I lost track of what it was doing when I went out after smoking some to see a very intimate noise show involving Attorneys General at Fadensonnen. A show like that? Its context can be a bit anxiety-inducing, like, 20 dude-ers who look like me sitting or standing and allowing glacial guitars to build, build, build and never crescendo for 45 minutes all like, yesssssss — it is both nearly spiritual and completely ridiculous.

Smoking Sour Cheese reduced that anxiety and let me enjoy the show and ignore its trappings (and the trappings-within-trappings that get me thinking too much). At the same time, you want weed to enhance music a little — especially formless, cacophonous improvisation — and enable your ears to better peel back the six to 10 sounds screeching, squiggling and squonking, and Sour Cheese did not do that at all.

For such a sensory-averse high, Sour Cheese is visceral in all the ways that only matter when they’re bad. The color is nearly neon — like a light green highlighter — and in your grinder it looks like shredded Brussels sprouts (or “Brussel sprouts” as most of us have been calling them our whole lives), which is a useful way of understanding this strain’s ultimately limited appeal: Like Brussels sprouts, it is an acquired taste, contingent upon a lot of context and how it is prepared. I mean, the smell is bad — burnt, like when you were a kid and you vigorously erased something with one of those big pink erasers and you could inhale the friction.

The other smell here is a touch of Parmesan (the way good cheese smells bad) and then when you’re smoking, like you set an eraser on fire, just a gnarly whiff you don’t want near your nose. It’s all the more confusing because hidden inside Sour Cheese’s smell is Sour Diesel’s incredibly familiar one, so here you get a kind of twisted, contorted — soured! — version of something that veteran smokers know on a nearly Proustian level.

The smell lingers even as its high is long gone. When I got home from the show, Sour Cheese was still there in my apartment, its cacophony of gross holding on. And what was left of its stench about four hours after smoking was, sorry dear readers—diarrhea—like someone really going through it had used my bathroom hours earlier. Acidic, awful, and weirdly intimate. I was grossed out. I smoked more and then I didn’t mind. It’s hard to care much about —or for— this strain. (BS)

• Strength: 6
• Nose: Parmesan, turds (sorry)
• Euphoria: 7
• Existential dread: 2
• Freaking out when a crazy person approaches you: 2
• Drink pairing: Basque cider
• Music pairing: Mirror’s “Die Spiegelmanufaktur”
• Rating: 6
  

Lemon Meringue

Some strains seem to sit quietly, somewhere in your bones, radiating out a kind of warmth that ends up enveloping a lot of the world, creating a kind of halo or aura of highness. The similarities between stonedness and beatitude have often been discussed. Back as a high school stoner, I fell into “The Tao of Pooh, which used Winnie the Pooh to explain the tenets of Taoism. From there, “The Tao of Physics” and finally to the “Tao-Te-Ching” itself.

Being high can and does provide glimpses of that state of at-one-ment with the world, even if it manifests with the kind of caricaturish laid-back-ness of the Dude Lebowski. It’s an important glimmering in one’s life, the recognition that we are all in this together. On the darker side, anyone who tries to do anything personally to help in our environmental crisis realizes that individual action, unless addressed at policy, can’t make a dent in the problem.

But then there is the reverse that also comes along with forays into cannabis: the crushing sense of self-consciousness, where the aura of stonedness points back on yourself and makes you feel like everyone is watching you, like anything you say will be dumb, like you cannot even move.

Lemon Meringue toes the line between these two poles in an unpredictable way, but it never goes to too great an extreme in either direction. Still, one time, I was blissing out on the world, and the next, castigating myself in an orgy of recrimination that ended in an exhausted slop.

Which is the other thing about this strain. It’s got kind of a hard crash that is precipitated by a lack of awareness of your surroundings and yourself. I walked in from lunch, after smoking the Meringue and I allowed the apartment door to slam in my wife’s face and then didn’t even hear when she knocked. It wasn’t like being drunk — I didn’t lose motor skills or whatever — but I just wasn’t aware.

And as I write this, I am starting to doze off under the effect of the sharp, hollow citrus of Lemon Meringue. People used to put orange or apple peels in their weed to keep it damp. I thought it made it gross, but that’s what this is like — someone put a slightly rotted apple soaked in a lemon-scented cleaning product in the bag. I know that doesn’t sound great, but I don’t mean it entirely negatively. But smelling it can be almost overwhelming, like smelling salts or ether

I’ve never had the dessert that lent this strain its name, but I imagine it shares some of these qualities — either a sense of community with those you share it with, or a desire to have more of it yourself, followed by a sugary rush and then a nap. (BW)

• Strength: 6
• Nose: Apple peel soaked in lemon cleaner
• Euphoria: 6
• Existential dread: 8
• Freaking out when a crazy person approaches you: 4
• Drink pairing: Limoncello
• Music pairing: Alejandro Escovedo’s “Outlaw for You”
• Rating: 5
  
  

The post In Maryland, cannabis legalization is complicated—plus, a few weed reviews appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

Before we get to the reviews, some not-so-great news. Legal cannabis is probably not going to been taken up by Maryland legislature next year. At least that’s the sense from a rather resigned Marijuana Legalization Workgroup meeting last Wednesday. The workgroup, whose chairs are Delegate Kathleen M. Dumais and Senator Bill Ferguson, have been meeting throughout 2019 ostensibly to model what legalization of cannabis could look like in Maryland, which until last week’s meeting, seemed likely to come up in the next legislative session.

So, even though cannabis is currently legal in Alaska, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont, Washington and Washington D.C., the workgroup believes the issue is pretty complicated—which it is, of course—and wants to more time to work out the finer details before making a recommendation.

The idea is that legalization in Maryland can avoid some of the pitfalls that legalization in other states has experienced by wrestling with issues such as racial equity, industry monopolies, and expungement before legalization goes into effect rather than after it goes in effect. This desire to do legalization “right” however does continue to have negative effects right now for many Marylanders, especially people of color. As Baltimore Fishbowl and BINJ reported last year, 96% of Baltimoreans arrested for cannabis possession between 2015-2017 were Black; State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby’s announcement earlier this year that her office would no longer prosecute possession has introduced a complicated grey area especially because the Baltimore Police Department is not on board.

The workgroup’s approach however is encouraging. When it comes to what Senator Jill Carter called, “the collateral consequences of predicate convictions”—how to deal with folks who have been convicted of a cannabis “crime” once cannabis is legal—the workgroup’s stance is expungement, plain and simple.

“If we legalize something that somebody has been convicted of, we obviously need to get rid of the conviction off their record, Delegate Dumais said. “And we may not have the right process in place at the moment but that’s the goal and I think that was the general consensus from the work group.”

Expungement itself however, is complicated and costly. Even if the expungements for cannabis-related “crime” is automatic—meaning, those previously charged or convicted don’t have to make the expungement happen themselves—it still requires a labor. Clerks of the court and cops must locate all the records related to the crime and physically destroy that evidence—on top of removing it from online databases such as Maryland Case Search.

The workgroup is also concerned with the lack of racial equity among cannabis dispensary owners—and out-of-state companies dominating the industry.

“There are three dispensaries in a couple miles of my house and two of them have been bought by out of state companies,” Delegate David Moon said. “It’s a bad look.”

“Maryland consumers will benefit the greatest by having a competitive marketplace that is not monopolized,” Ferguson said.

There will still be one more full meeting this year and there will be a final report but its focus is strictly exploratory rather than instructive at this point.

“I think the consensus is we’re not recommending legislation this session to legalize adult use, we are still in the investigative mode,” Dumais said. “At least that’s my sense of where we are.” (Brandon Soderberg)

Strawberry Banana

A writer friend was having an event, a baby shower, and it was a surprise for his wife. I should have known it was a surprise, but I was going out of town and couldn’t attend and reading the friend’s essays about the impending birth filled me with emotion. I thought I’d write the wife a nice note. In short, dear reader, I ruined it.

I wanted to punch myself in the face. I understood how Oedipus, faced with much greater ignorance, thought that gouging out his eyes might offer some relief. In the scope of the world, mine was a minor mishap and my friends responded with grace. But I still could not stop cringing. It revealed to me a self that I hated. The kind of guy who ruins a surprise.

Grasping for things to think about other than how stupid I was, I recalled this dude I once interviewed who was trying to use weed to quell street beefs and keep guys from shooting each other by getting them to sit down and burn one together. I realized that’s what I needed to do — with myself. Blunt the violence.

I didn’t want anything Sativa-y, because I could foresee the spiral that would engulf me and drag me down further into self-hatred. I settled on Strawberry Banana, an Indica that calmed my mind and made sleep possible. When I put my nose in the jar, there was no hint of strawberry, but the flower did in fact have a faint after-odor of banana peel riding on a scent far more floral, something pungent and dank and not as polite as strawberries, something with the vague hint of death and decay.

Ablaze, there is, however, a flavor that is almost like strawberry, or rather a Strawberry Shortcake doll. I took several long, deep pulls from the pipe, and shortly I could feel the tension held in my spine between my shoulder blades start to give in and relax a little. My brow, which is accustomed to being furrowed, began to smooth over as the edges of my eyes dropped, relaxed. Then the thought of my accursed text to my friend’s wife crossed my mind again. I still cringed and I still hated the person the error revealed to me. But I sat easier with him. I looked at him with a side-eyed hate instead of outright violent hostility.

Such coming to relative peace with ourselves is one of the more medicinal aspects of certain strains. Best of all, unlike booze or dope, this is a salve that doesn’t make you do things that make you hate yourself even more. But I will also add that after another bowl, a shot and a beer in a public place was exactly the thing I needed to allay the self-loathing long enough to finish my evening and to sleep. Strawberry Banana is a good strain, for which I am grateful. (Baynard Woods)

• Strength: 6
• Nose: Banana peels, death, Strawberry Shortcake doll
• Euphoria: 7
• Existential dread: 2
• Freaking out when a crazy person approaches you: 1
• Drink pairing: Beer and a shot
• Music pairing: Warren Zevon, “My Shit’s Fucked Up”
• Rating: 7
  
  

Gorilla Snacks

The chocolate éclair weighed a pound. A lumpy, dumpy, delicious, football-shaped treat, sun-faded dough sandwiching way too much cream, smooshing it down so it’s really oozing out, and on top of it a helmet-hard layer of chocolate — and I ate half of the thing rewatching, yes, rewatching, Netflix’s “Mindhunter,” a scene where hyper-articulate, coed-killer Ed Kemper goes on and on about murder and how difficult it is in exacting and awful ways playing out in front of me and my plate. It was all pretty weird, I thought. I ate a half-a-pound of chocolate éclair. In this sad, absurd scene, the two main takeaways from Gorilla Snacks (sometimes G-Snacks, fallout from the Gorilla Glue lawsuit to keep all Gorilla-related strains on-brand): It makes you hungry like monstrous Mr. Creosote from “Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life,” and it punishes you with self-awareness.

A somewhat buzz-y, relatively new and ultimately derivative strain, Gorilla Snacks combines G.G. #4 and Scooby Snacks backcross Guinness. I dare most folks to differentiate between the G.G. strains — and really, G.G. #4 tastes, smells and feels a lot like the popular G.G. #1 that most people know all about (from a past review of G.G. #1: “[It] has a quick rush around the eyes and gives a chill like a breeze on your neck, that settles into full-relaxed reflection — not glued to the couch”). As for Guinness (presumably soon to get a name change for copyright infringement reasons like Gorilla Glue), if you know Scooby Snacks, a strain that makes you ornery and ecstatic that (also from an earlier review: “You’ll feel sleepy and compromised, like a warm, hard wind’s blowing against you, pushing you back, preventing you from moving too fast,” I wrote), you know Guinness.

And Guinness is an F3 — a third-generation hybrid. This kind of hybrid lingo is not something we’ve dealt with too much in these reviews. Think of it this way: An F1 is a hybrid of two strains with different genotypes; an F2 then, is two F1 hybrids and when you do this again, you get an F3 and again, an F4. Anyways, at its best, Gorilla Snacks’ high suggests it’s a piece of something larger or more complicated, and at its worst it’s like a copy of a copy of a copy.

I have found, FWIW, that if you have a tendency toward a certain kind of hate-eating where you’re eating to not feel anything, eliminating joy and with it, not even tasting what you’re shoving into your mouth (basically, if you abuse food like many abuse drugs or if you abuse food as well as drugs), Gorilla Snacks indulges the diet, caffeine-free version of the death drive and brings back those fleeting blips of ecstasy (chewing feels good man). There are days where that can be revelatory or enough — it’s not just “lmao tha munchies,” you know? The name is fitting, telling smokers the tension inherent in the strain: gorilla (large) and snacks (small). Kind of like a giant-ass éclair. It has a big, little high. (BS)

• Strength: 8
• Nose: Chocolate gummy bears
• Euphoria: 9
• Existential dread: 6
• Freaking out when a crazy person approaches you: 4
• Drink pairing: A milkshake, fuck it man
• Music pairing: Johanna Knutsson’s “Tollarp Transmissions”
• Rating: 7
  

Dutch Racer

In the summer of 2000, I went to Groningen, Holland, for a conference on the ancient novel. I was presenting a paper on the Roman novel “The Golden Ass” by Apuleius. I’ve been thinking a lot of that remarkable novel lately as I’ve been smoking the nearly pure Sativa Dutch Racer.

I don’t think it’s because of the fact that it’s a Dutch strain, and I talked to a bunch of people about the book nearly 20 years ago. It’s more like the spirit of the book has lingered so long, in the way the weed induces certain recursive thoughts. In the novel, the narrator goes to Thessaly on business. He gets involved in a sexual scenario and, because of a witch, becomes a donkey. It’s a great narrative device because, since he’s a donkey, no one hesitates to talk freely around him. But eventually he manages to eat a rosebud, which is the cure for his asinine shape. And he joins the cult of Isis.

I think I’ve been thinking about the book because I feel like an ass a lot of the time and a Sativa like Dutch Racer helps me feel human and competent again. Isn’t that the ultimate high, to be competent at life? To be human while recognizing all the non-human life around you?

This gorgeously crystalline strain with an odor of Meyer lemons and hyacinth about it incites a dutiful and buzzy wakefulness that, after the initial stoned impulse, does manage to make you feel more accomplished without you really noticing too much that you’re even high. But things are better. No, you feel like you are better at things. And there isn’t really a heavy comedown to leave you feeling tattered and tired at all. It’s like it just changes from intense focused stoned to a more diffuse, less-stoned sense of awareness.

If you smoke more, like the time I smoked a second bowl by myself, it still doesn’t go too far in the Sativa-paranoia direction — but it can get you there as the energy seems to concentrate behind the eyes with a thrumming insistence that comes right to the edge of fear-inducing, and then, though, it gives you a high-five. It’s like a real-life equivalent of an overamped teammate getting in your face and yelling encouragement.

The flavor, when fired, contains the essence of autumn — the hauntings of all the first fires you’ve ever roasted marshmallows over. Medicinally, it is the rosebud that can turn your asinine self back into a better version. And the bud is a better version of pot. But you are still you and the only way to be better is to be better. (BW)

• Strength: 7
• Nose: Hyacinth, Meyer lemons, wet newspaper
• Euphoria: 8
• Existential dread: 4
• Freaking out when a crazy person approaches you: 0
• Drink pairing: Water
• Music pairing: MC5, “Kick Out the Jams”
  

Venom OG

Can only your knees be high? Is that possible? That’s how it felt after a generous joint full of Venom OG, an unrelenting hybrid that mixes the near-narcotic Poison OG with regrettably named Colorado favorite Rare Dankness #1, a convoluted cross of a crossbreed that alone sends a smoker into a Nighttime Sudafed-like stupor.

Venom OG really does feel like an overdose, or at least a poisoning. My knees felt it almost exclusively, it seemed. The relief around those joints was really whirling, as if the THC was eddying in that one place. And soon enough, Venom OG spread to an all-over-the-body high that tucks aches and throbs somewhere else for a few hours and teases transcendence. It is easily one of the most effective strains for pain around, but it doesn’t dull thoughts or leave you hopelessly distracted — watch out or you’ll end up viewing the first 20 minutes of like six different movies never settling on anything and nodding off to sleep.

One strange side effect is Venom OG hits hard (it’s especially combustible) and that made it tough to breathe after smoking. You should be careful with this one.

In other ways, Venom OG’s an obvious strain. It tastes like it smells: lime and pine, each scent seemingly jumping into one nostril, the scents never quite intertwining, and when you light it up, a burst of salted caramel cookie under all of that. That taste coats your mouth and scrubs away the excitement for flavor, leaving foods either too sweet or really bland, eliminating that base stoner desire to munch for hours. That makes it good for eating if you have to eat and don’t want to eat.

The buds themselves are an over-the-top Kermit the Frog kind of green, and they look like a pointillist painting of a weed because the green ridges and wild orange hairs are so fine, enhanced by a layer of magic hour-hued trichomes. There’s that scene in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” where Cameron, in his Gordie Howe No. 9 Chicago Blackhawks jersey, stares at that famous Seurat painting “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte” and then straight through it, until he has abstracted it, the camera doing the seeing for us through a series of extreme close-ups. A nug of Venom OG looks like one of the trees tucked in the right corner of that painting, where light doesn’t quite hit those leaves enough to get a full view of the distinct little dots, and it’s simultaneously ecstatically real and pretty much a blur. That’s Venom OG’s high in a nutshell: There’s something beautiful there but you can’t quite get to it; you’re shackled, self-conscious — a goof in a dumb, ugly hockey jersey trying to figure it out. (BS)

• Strength: 10
• Nose: Lime and pine
• Euphoria: 8
• Existential dread: 3
• Freaking out when a crazy person approaches you: 3
• Drink pairing: Ginger lemonade
• Music pairing: Ellen Arkbro’s “CHORDS”
• Rating: 8
  
  

The post Strain Reviews: Strawberry Banana, Gorilla Snacks, Dutch Racer, and Venom OG appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

Curio Wellness, a Baltimore County weed provider, quickly dropped a suit against Maryland’s Medical Cannabis Commission (MMCC) which argued that the Commission should not be able to solicit applications for more licenses without conducting an analysis of supply and demand. The MMCC opened up the process to allow more licenses as the result of last year’s last-minute bill intended to correct the lack of diversity in the original licensees. In a state where one third of the population is black, none of the original licenses were given to black-owned applicants.

If Curio had gone forward with the lawsuit and won, they would’ve insured that Maryland’s cannabis industry remains white. Curio did not return requests for comment, but a spokesperson tried to explain the move to the Sun.

“Curio was compelled to file this action to protect their business investments and rights and to enforce the promises made by the state of Maryland and the Maryland Medical Cannabis Commission to induce private sector growers to invest and operate in this important public health program,” said David Nevins, a Curio spokesman. “Those promises include the state not expanding the number of cultivator licenses without first conducting a demand study to determine if additional supply is necessary to meet the demand for this newly established public health program.”

Justice, equity, and the whole culture of weed is less important than profit. Don’t bogart that joint, you know? This isn’t a corner you have to control. I’ve used Curio’s products and I’ve liked them. I have to confess, I’ve even bought, and loved, the Awakening Tablets, which Curio makes under license from a Colorado-based company that is dubbed “Dixie,” as in the popular Dixie Elixers. I didn’t notice the Dixie on the tablets at first. When I did, I was uncomfortable.

It turns out, Curio is headed up by Michael Bronfein, a major Democratic donor and a Bill Clinton bud, and one of its main investors is David Smith, who runs Sinclair Broadcast, which you may remember from last year when Deadspin spliced together anchors all over the country reading the same forced script about “fake news.” Or for the deal they made with Donald Trump Jr. for campaign coverage.

After the news of the lawsuit (which would effectively keep black-owned businesses out of Maryland’s weed game) broke, there was a protest planned at Curio’s dispensary and plenty of criticism and Curio dropped it. Bronfein released a statement that said he had “seen the concerns from our customers on social media about racial insensitivity,” touted Curio’s diversity (and their UB scholarship that gives “2-4 full tuition scholarships for African American students majoring in accounting from Baltimore City”), and that he stood “by the merits of the lawsuit and the State’s failed commitment to uphold the regulatory promises it made to the people who invested.”

New Requirement for Cannabis Patients Begins April 1

This is no April Fools. As of April 1, you have to have an actual medical cannabis card in order to enter a dispensary. Previously, you could save the $50 and they would just check your name in the database. But the law now requires that you now purchase the piece of plastic with your number and your picture. The good thing is, if you do it now, your card is automatically renewed for three years, saving you money on the return doctor trip. And a lot of places are helping you get the card or giving you $50 in product, so check around for deals.  

Just sign in to the MMCC site. And if you didn’t get it before April 1, you can print up a temporary one.

Querkle

Paying too much attention to a bud’s beauty is a fool’s errand, somewhat akin to focusing on the way a guitar looks. Some of the most pleasant and potent strains are embodied in ugly little buds. But flowers are beautiful and it is equally stupid, and sadly utilitarian, to ignore their appearance altogether. With that being said, Querkle, a potent combo of Purple Urkle and Space Queen, has a beautiful, thick and tight buds, crusted with crystals and wrapped in leaves of such a deeply purple hue that they could have written “Highway Star.”

The aesthetic pleasures continue through the other senses as the deep, pine and berry odor transfers into a heavier, almost whiskey-infused flavor when you add fire. Despite all that, I was really not expecting to like this strain as much as I do. So many indica-dominant hybrids—this is 80-20—are of the couch-lock variety and so many sativas are so speedy you hardly really feel high, that Harvest of Maryland’s Querkle hit me like a revelation when it proved itself an ideal strain for performing a task you find both difficult—requiring concentration—and stressful or odious enough that you want inebriation.

I discovered this as I tried to put together an elaborate, mid-century modern coffee table that my wife had delivered. It is not IKEA but it follows an even more cryptic version of the same style of directions as the furniture giant. I had a big pile of wood and a pane of glass plus a bunch of screws and bolts accompanied by a couple pieces of paper with pictures akin to the rebus puzzles you find on the inside of some old-school beer bottlecaps.

I smoked a bow of Querkle and found, to my astonishment, that I was almost enjoying myself—almost—as I waded through the pile of materials and, with relatively minimal cursing, emerged two or so hours later with a new coffee table. I was completely absorbed in the task and relaxed about it—like playing pool after the second beer but before the third one.

Then, the next day, I smoked another big bowl and went out to eat some Mexican food. The Huitlacoche quesadilla, the steaming sopa, and the ice-cold beer I had with it, were all exceptional—and only partly on account of the restaurant. I left, still ravenous. But not just for food. Rather, though it sounds pretentious, I am aware, I was hungry for the world.

The other really nice thing about this strain is that it doesn’t have a noticeable comedown. Even after all of the food and the mid-day beer and a general feeling of celebratory excess, I went about the rest of my day with a sustained feeling of contentment that didn’t drift into lethargy.

I’d only intended to buy a gram of Querkle, but due to a misunderstanding with the budtender, I ended up with an eighth. At first, I was a bit bummed that I’d slipped up (I bought other products and didn’t pay attention to the price as well as I should have). Usually, you don’t need more than a gram of some mediocre strain to get a sense of it. But now I find myself delighted to have a couple extra grams of Querkle to enjoy.

Strength: 8

Nose: Pone, berries, alcohol

Euphoria: 7

Existential Dread: 3

Freaking Out When Crazy Person Approaches You: 2

Drink Pairing: cold water

Music Pairing: “Child in Time,” Deep Purple

Rating: 9

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The post Lawsuit to keep weed white, get your cannabis card, and Querkle reviewed appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

After the cops arrested Dwight Chinyee, they lined-up, on the hood of his truck, all of the vacuum-sealed bags of weed they found and photographed them right there on the shoulder of I-95 in the middle of the day.

It was a pretty good pot bust—17 pounds.

Chinyee was pulled over by police on Feb. 5 driving southbound on I-95, police said, going 72 in a 40 mph zone with 17 pounds of weed in his truck. He got a speeding ticket and for all that weed, was charged with possession with intent to distribute and felony trafficking between 5 and 45 kilograms for which he would have faced up to 10 years in jail and a maximum fine of $10,000.

The Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office recommended no bail for Chinyee after his arrest and he spent more than a month in jail before his charges were finally dropped on March 7. The SAO determined there wasn’t enough evidence to prove Chinyee’s 17 pounds fell under possession with intent to distribute rather than simple possession and SAO Marilyn Mosby had recently announced she was no longer prosecuting possession at all.

That announcement back in January garnered Mosby lots of press and mainstreamed the conversation in Baltimore about racial parity and cannabis while also creating more legal gray areas that continue to jam people like Chinyee up in the system.

Tony Garcia, Chinyee’s lawyer, explained at a press conference that Chinyee lost his job as a result of being in jail all that time. His client’s case was an example of how the SAO’s announcement about no longer charging pot possession was sloppy, inconsistent, ad-hoc.

“The miscommunication concerning this new policy is heightened when the message is contradictory to the action of the Office of the State’s Attorney,” Garcia said.

“There were several factors that we initially considered that were supportive of the distribution charges in this case,” Melba Saunders, spokesperson for the SAO said in a statement. “However, after further review and investigation, our prosecutors determined that the facts did not extend beyond mere possession and decided to [drop] the case prior to indictment.”

Saunders would not elaborate on the specifics about how the SAO determined that Chinyee merely possessed cannabis and had no plans to distribute it. And she would not articulate general criteria within the SAO for distinguishing possession and possession with intent to distribute either. Saunders only pointed me to the SAO’s “Marijuana Prosecution Policy” page where it explains that possession cases, “regardless of weight or a person’s prior criminal record,” won’t be prosecuted and only cases where “there is articulated evidence of intent to distribute beyond possession” will be.

Before the charges were dropped Chinyee faced serious charges. Now he is not facing those charges, and even though he lost his job and spent a month in jail, this currently, in our fractured justice system, counts as something like a win—even amid a “progressive” change to how pot’s prosecuted.

Another way this was a bit of a mess: Some attorneys working for the SAO learned about Mosby’s announcement about possession at the same time as the rest of the public. This was especially troublesome for prosecutors whose job is ultimately to secure convictions. Now their boss was telling them to do away with a large swath of potential convictions.

And the stigma of weed persists in Baltimore. Police maintain that someone with that much weed is likely to protect it violently even as the black market for cannabis rapidly declines. Though it isn’t like police are apt to be kinder to someone with 17 ounces (still misdemeanor possession in Maryland) than someone with 17 pounds. Police remain adamant about continuing to arrest people for weed even if the SAO promises to not prosecute them, catching folks with weed up in a ridiculous and racist system that disproportionately arrests black folks for weed—which was why Mosby made her announcement in the first place.

Then-interim commissioner Gary Tuggle said that  right after Mosby’s announcement: “Baltimore Police will continue to make arrests for illegal marijuana possession unless and until the state legislature changes the law regarding marijuana possession.” New commissioner Michael Harrison said as much too during the community meetings across the city last month, floating a conversation with the SAO but little more than that.

Political grandstanding from Mosby aside (the announcement was an exclusive to the New York Times, who sent a reporter down to cover it), the announcement has increased awareness about racial disparities and weed arrests. The state will likely get closer to legalization sooner because of Mosby. And consider this: Chinyee was pulled over not far from the county line. Had he been in the county, he would likely be facing felony charges. That something as simple as a county line determines whether someone does serious time or not speaks to the absurdity of current weed laws in Maryland—and the reasonable response is not to bemoan how a man with 17 pounds of weeds possibly “got away” but how there are countless people with weed still sitting in jail, the ones who did not get away.

The only reasonable solution to this is full-stop legalization, which would eliminate confusion and gray areas altogether.

House Bill 875

A current House Bill introduced in February by Delegates David Moon, Erek Barron, and Jazz Lewis would get us closer to legalization and provide some crucial fixes in the meantime.

Del. Moon addressed the House Judiciary Committee about HB875 on March 5 where he outlined the bill which would among other things, raise the decriminalized threshold to an ounce—it is currently at 10 grams, the lowest threshold among decriminalized states in the country.

“Ten grams is the lowest amount decriminalized in any state and that has lots of repercussions. It’s also not a unit at which marijuana is sold. It’s not an easy standard for people to follow if they’re trying to be in compliance with the law,” Moon said.

The bill would also eliminate the use of cannabis smell as probable cause to search and arrest someone. Police maintain that weed is an important investigative tool, by which they means weed is a great way for police to justify searching your car, house, or digging through your pockets. In 2017, the Maryland Court of Appeals upheld a ruling that challenged police using pot smell as probable cause arguing that because cops cannot, from smell alone, determine if someone has 10 grams or less (a decriminalized amount) or more than 10 grams (a misdemeanor possession amount), they can search anybody they say smells like weed.

HB875 would also no longer allow the Division of Pretrial Detention and Services and the Division of Parole and Probation to consider a positive for cannabis in a urine sample as violation of parole probation, or pretrial release unless a judge specifically requested it.

“If we’ve decriminalized marijuana, do we still think that people who are out on parole or probation should be reincarcerated if they use marijuana?” Moon said. “I took a look at what the District of Columbia did and what they did was they said, ‘It can still be a parole or probation violation but it has to be specifically requested.’ It can’t be on a form that just says, ‘don’t use drugs.’ The judge would have to request it and therefore, presumably have a reason for requesting that into their parole or probation order.”

Lastly, the bill would introduce the presumption that possessing a specific amount of cannabis does not mean the person possessing it plans on distributing it. It would be on the state to challenge that presumption. Currently, the state ostensibly has the presumption of distribution on their side.

“Even with those folks that possess marijuana under 10 grams, they still might have someone try to bring charges against them for possession with intent if, say, they had their marijuana in two or three bags or say, pre-roll several joints,” Moon said.

Cannabis Arrest Data

Mosby’s January announcement arrived a month after the publication of “Structural Racism and Cannabis: Black Baltimoreans still disproportionately arrested for weed after decriminalization,” a piece written by Ethan McLeod, Andy Friedman, and I for the Baltimore Fishbowl in collaboration with the Baltimore Institute For Nonprofit Journalism, the nonprofit which helps support the Beat. Our piece found that 96% percent of Baltimoreans arrested for cannabis possession between 2015 and 2017 were black.

Our work was cited in the policy paper that came along with the announcement, “Reforming A Broken System: Rethinking The Role Of Marijuana Prosecutions In Baltimore City,” our research was cited. When we reached out to Mosby’s office in the fall while we were working on the piece, the SAO declined comment on racial disparities and arrest and whether Mosby would do what she eventually did—decline to prosecute pot the way district attorneys in nearby Philadelphia and Manhattan had done (both of Mosby’s opponents in the 2018 SAO election, Ivan Bates and Thiru Vignarajah said they would do this if elected).

Ethan, Andy, and I also wanted to make the raw data we received via Maryland Public Information Act requests and via the FBI available to any readers. There’s plenty more ways to crunch this data. For example: Which specific officers arrested the most people for weed? Are there specific times of day where more people are hit with weed charges?

You can download the data as a zip file here.

Strain Review: Trainwreck Light Dep

During the Beat’s first run, I reviewed Trainwreck, an especially satisfying pain-relieving strain that I praised in contrast to some other more melty, almost narcotic strains because it left me “more dreamy than cloudy,” and the relief it enables “races through your body and latches on to your joints and then lightly pounds and massages them for a few hours.” This week, I’m reviewing Trainwreck Light Dep, the same strain only grown using the light-deprivation growing technique, which is probably worth explaining to some readers.

Briefly, the plant is hit with enough artificial darkness that the flowering cycle kicks off more often than it naturally would, so the plant grows faster. By exposing the plant to more darkness, it psychs the pot plant out so that it thinks its among the dwindling daylight hours of fall, harvest time, and has to get growing fast. The technique is becoming popular as legalization creates a growing demand for more and more weed—bending nature’s will a bit, all in service to market forces.

Streamlining a process, taking it out of the ground and away from the sun, is something we should all be suspicious of when it is on this level, and some of its proselytizers surely give off the vibes of your average power-hungry and naive tech-doof utopian. Really though, light dep cannabis is almost a different product entirely: Comparing and contrasting a strain grown under these conditions and one grown more conventionally can give us something resembling a scientific approach when it comes to parsing what light dep does to weed.

Trainwreck Light Dep is more cloudy than dreamy and its pain relief is less comprehensive (for some though maybe more focused like a Tylenol): a coy body high that travels and doesn’t so much lightly pound as gauchely vibrate like motel Magic Fingers. Many say light dep creates mostly mid-grade-like weed, which kind of makes sense—such is the case with a sped-up and just generally more artificial process—and Trainwreck vs. Trainwreck Light Dep bears this out for sure. Its smell and taste were interesting, uglier though—a licorice scent with an about-to-rot citrus taste whereas regular Trainwreck I wrote, recalled a “lavender-infused cheap beer.”

One baffling byproduct of Trainwreck Light Dep was that it gave me a cognitive superpower or something, anxiety and focus at the same time on a micro level; like when I smoked some and was about to lock my door and realized I didn’t have my keys. It made me more responsible and responsive. FWIW, on Trainwreck regular I’d have more likely remembered this too late and locked my stupid, stoned ass out of my apartment.

So maybe I welcome more mid-grade at this moment and light dep is the way to get that, since the industry is all behind it. There is just so much weed (knock-you-out strains and potent, even cruel hybrids with names that invoke thrash metal bands) and so many weed-ingesting techniques (smoking dabs off a nail with a blowtorch like you’re cosplaying as some pot version of Pooky from “New Jack City”) that as my fellow reviewer Baynard Woods has said, seemingly intend to “make soft drugs hard,” and that doesn’t make much sense. Here, light dep tempers the fuck-you-up qualities of Trainwreck, turning a strain that may be too much for a whole bunch of people into something only slightly less rewarding and more manageable, less like a trainwreck, more like say, a fender-bender.

• Strength: 7
• Nose: Sambuca and a Tangerine La Croix
• Euphoria: 7
• Existential dread: 3
• Freaking out when a crazy person approaches you: 4
• Drink pairing: Sambuca and a Tangerine La Croix
• Music pairing: LOL Boys, “Changes EP,” or Ariel Kalma, “An Evolutionary Music (Original Recordings: 1972-1979)”
• Rating: 7

The post 17 pounds of pot, House Bill boosts decriminalization threshold—and weed reviews return appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

I’m smoking some AK-47 and while at least it’s not called AR-15, the name of this Sativa-dominant strain is just not sitting right a week or so out from another school shooting. This one in Parkland, Florida, resulting in 17 dead and from there, the expected Republican cowardice combined with circling the wagons on behalf of the NRA, Trump hitting a new nadir, and then that nearly equally tedious moment where Democrats say “no more” but then half-step their way out of responsibility. Meanwhile, the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, amid all this trauma, are at the right age to be pissed off and politically engaged and have called the president and everybody out — famously, Emma González called BS on the predictable political talking points. A nationwide school walk-out’s planned for April 20, the 19th anniversary of the Columbine shooting, and that will keep this conversation going.

April 20 is, of course, also international get high day, and so once again cannabis is weirdly connected to serious pain. What I’m getting at here is there is death and pain emanating from my bowl this afternoon because at some point or another, some cannabis dude-bros decided to name their strain after an automatic weapon and there are people being shot with semiautomatic weapons all of the time, it seems like. The mythography of AK-47 sends you back to the early ‘90s when it was effectively reimagined, though its origins bend back to the ‘70s, supposedly tied to some Thai and Afghani strains. And so perhaps, given the global chaos of that era there was some gallows humor to calling it AK-47, but that has long passed when it’s now sitting in, say, a dispensary so dickweeds like me can buy it.

Another fraught strain name: jittery favorite Green Crack. Let’s be more thoughtful about our weed strain names. And while I’ve never fired an AK-47, I’m pretty sure this strain — or really any strain — doesn’t invoke a famous Russian war weapon. AK-47 actually proves thoroughly calming, with a high that’ll find you forging connections between whatever bullshit’s in your mind and on the news or in the world — this is how you get the rant above, I do beg your pardon — and doesn’t let your mind sit still, even as you feel as though you’re morphing into a water bed. It’s also one of the most tasty strains, a marked plain yogurt taste from the buds that gets a bit more sour on the exhale. Overall, a quilt of alleviating weed feels.

• Strength: 9
• Nose: Chobani
• Euphoria: 9
• Existential dread: 5
• Freaking out when a crazy person approaches you: 2
• Drink pairing: Some kind of mezcal
• Music pairing: Squirrel Bait, “Squirrel Bait”
• Rating: 8

The post Smoking AK-47, thinking about AR-15s appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

A mix of Grandaddy Purple (a knock-you-out strain, previously reviewed here) and Durban Poison (the nervy, edgy, uppity strain that you probably already know), Cherry Pie’s lengthy, hypnagogic high has you half asleep and then wide awake but still somewhere else. The mind meanders on this stuff, in part because the high comes on fast and strong and sticks around for hours, but also because it’s a drowsy sort of stoned that doesn’t turn you dull, just dissociated — like a brain in a jar, all thoughts, no sensation.

The way this all works, the way you can feel the two kinds of weed that make up Cherry Pie interacting, is important. Low-key, I have been on a modest little quest to ground cannabis criticism in something tangible without reducing it to tedious #actually-ing which has led, as I’ve said before, to lots of hot take pot writing. (“Whatever it is you think you know about cannabis is bullshit, man,” declares an edgelord on the internet somewhere at least a few times a year.) And here, without knowing about terpenes or cannabinoids or whatever, you can clearly feel how these strains converse and argue and cede power to one another. Its effects are clear and so are what strains-within-the-strain are causing those effects.

And yes, it has taken me this long to review cannabis and mention reggae, which is fairly un-obsequious for a white boy like me, I must pat myself on the back and say, but here we go: The confluence of smoking Cherry Pie, and avant-dub legend Lee “Scratch” Perry having just toured the country performing a kind of hybrid strain of his 1976 classic album, “Super Ape” — and the closed-circuit, lab-grown reggae sway of Subatomic Sound System that by all accounts did not suck — makes the Cherry Pie/reggae connection worth exploring.

Namely, Cherry Pie’s high (a wild and woolly back-and-forth between two different sorts of zone-outs, HD-clear to cloudy, uncomfortably close to far, job-interview cogent to fully faded, and back again) very much echoes the effects of Perry’s darkened, dub reggae style. Perry would take a previously recorded, relatively conventional reggae song, pull pieces of the original out, rearrange the pieces, remove some altogether, turn vocals and hooks into afterthoughts, and add sound effects often in impulsive real-time, reconstructing a conventional song into an erased and redrawn version of itself. Just one great example: ‘Dub the Rhythm’ off 1975’s “Revolution Dub” where Scratch takes Clancy Eccles’ 1968 ‘Feel the Rhythm’ and turns it translucent, a bumping smeary groove that Scratch, instead of singing over, burps, coughs and almost hacks a lung up, all set to the music.

One moment the song’s loping along pleasantly and the next, it disrupts, totally screwing with your head, in a good way. The same can be said of Cherry Pie.

• Strength: 9
• Nose: Organic hard candy with a hint of vomit 
• Euphoria: 9
• Existential dread: 9
• Freaking out when a crazy person approaches you: 9
• Drink pairing: Water with mint leaves in it
• Music pairing: Lee “Scratch” Perry’s “Revolution Dub” or James Burton and Ralph Mooney’s “Corn Pickin’ & Slick Slidin’”
• Rating: 9

The post Cherry Pie’s high comes fast and strong and stays for hours—also good for reggae listening appeared first on Baltimore Beat.