Author: Ed Murrieta (page 1 of 4)

In San Francisco, pot’s greenest day stays fogged in gray

January 17, 2019 / / 0 Comments

City’s Police Code prohibits cannabis sales at events; long-running Golden Gate Park 4/20 celebration remains BYO; local implementation of new state law in doubt.

BY ED MURRIETA 

SAN FRANCISCO — Tweak your 2019 4/20 expectations.

Two years into cannabis legalization in California, you may be able to openly smoke pot on cannabis’ most highly revered day of celebration but you will still have to bring your own, never mind scoring any legal state-licensed commercial cannabis at America’s first and longest-running pot party in a public park.

You may blame The Man.

While a new state law took effect Jan. 1 allowing commercial cannabis events in venues beyond previously allowed state-operated fairgrounds, San Francisco’s Police Code prohibits events featuring cannabis sales.

And although cannabis consumption at Golden Gate Park’s Hippie Hill 420 celebration has been officially tolerated by San Francisco police since 2017, the first year the gathering was sanctioned by the city’s Recreation and Park Department since it began about 40 years ago, a Hippie Hill 420 featuring permitted cannabis sales won’t get the state’s blessing because in order to get the state’s blessing it must first get the city’s blessing and Article 16 of San Francisco’s Police Code trumps any hope.

San Francisco cannabis czar Nicole Elliott said the Board of Supervisors would have to amend the City Code, a legislative process with more steps than there are indoor cultivation seasons.

“In the absence of those legislated changes, no legal commercial sales may occur at a 420 event such as this,” Elliott said.

West Hollywood Radically Mainstreams Cannabis Lounges and Restaurants

December 25, 2018 / / 0 Comments

WeHo officials envision the high-energy city becoming a buzzworthy legal cannabis destination.

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BY ED MURRIETA

West Hollywood’s selection last week of 16 licensees to operate cannabis consumption lounges and cannabis restaurants in city business districts located on some of Southern California’s most famous streets revolutionizes and mainstreams public consumption in America’s legal cannabis states.

Eight licensees were approved to operate lounges that may allow all forms of cannabis consumption — smoking, vaping, eating edibles — as well cook and serve fresh-made “virgin” foods with THC and CBD sauces on the side. Eight licensees were approved to cook and serve cannabis-infused foods in restaurant settings and for private dinners not featuring smoking or vaping. All lounges will be tied to retail cannabis stores.

Other retail cannabis licenses issued include on the world’s first hotel-based cannabis boutique and white-glove delivery service, Lord Jones at The Standard Hotel on world-famous Sunset Strip.

Proposed lounge designs, environmentally conscious and alternative-energy aware, are contemporary eye-candy ranging from modest-chic to full-on lavish, befitting Sunset and Santa Monica boulevards, West Hollywood’s primary drags where lounges and retail stores are allowed, along with Melrose Avenue. Many lounges will feature entertainment. All will offer wellness and community services and will contribute to neighborhood security.

While licensees include veterans of Los Angeles hospitality, entertainment, wellness and cannabis industries, four of the best-known cannabis chefs in America — Jeff Danzer, Andrea Drummer, Holden Jagger and Brandon Allen — are involved in approved teams. One of Southern California’s best dispensaries, Greenwolf, and an owner of L.A.-based mids- and sub-mids bargain brands Loudpack and Dime Bag scored too, as did longtime medicinal cannabis activist Don Duncan of Americans for Safe Access.

When business secure locations and obtain operating permits in 2019, West Hollywood officials envision the high-energy city becoming a buzzworthy legal cannabis destination. WeHo leaders see WeHo cannabis lounge clientele and WeHo bar, hotel and restaurant clientele overlapping and visiting other businesses in the city that’s more stylish than nearby Hollywood and hipper than abutting Beverly Hills.

The story I propose highlights radically mainstreaming and consumer-and- industry-friendly aspects of West Hollywood’s lounge ordinance, which allows on-premises cooking and food service; attracted some of California’s top cannabis-cuisine talent; allows outdoor and rooftop smoking; allows operating hours 6 a.m.-2 a.m. seven days a week; and may rocket West Hollywood — home to the famed Sunset Strip and legendary music clubs Whisky a Go Go, The Viper Room and The Troubadour — to the top-ranking cannabis destination in America.

Meanwhile, for context, West Hollywood’s radically mainstreaming cannabis consumption lounge regulations advanced while Ontario’s clean-air smoking regulations are putting cannabis lounges out of business and Canadian cannabis consumers out on the streets; as Alaska just approved cannabis lounge regulations after two years of fits and starts; as San Francisco’s Vapor Room, now the city’s ninth lounge, reopened in a brighter space and climate six years after being closed by the feds; just before Tick Segerblom, the Nevada state senator who championed cannabis legislation, joins the county commission that controls the artsy part of old Las Vegas set to welcome lounges in 2019; and while consumption lounges aren’t sparking in Denver.

Cannabis Lounge Dreams Afoot in Sacramento Microbusiness Permits?

November 23, 2018 / / 0 Comments

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BY ED MURRIETA

Microbusiness licenses allow permit holders to operate three of four types of cannabis businesses: cultivation, manufacturing, distribution and retail.

This California license type is up for adoption Tuesday by the Sacramento City Council.

Soon, Sacramento will also consider increasing the number of cannabis retail stores it permits, currently capped at 30.

With one or two more tweaks — Sacramento will consider cannabis lounges in 2019 — I can envision a day when  microbusiness license holders in Sacramento — the self-appointed Farm-to-Fork Capital of America that prides itself on local — open self-sufficient boutique retail stores and adjacent lounges featuring their own “house-grown” cannabis in product styles and portion sizes — grams, joints,  micro-dabs — suitable for safe consumption at places of purchase near population centers, not necessarily destination dispensaries hawking BOGO deals at the edge of town.

Important Cannabis Events Rules Changes on Sacramento Agenda

November 22, 2018 / / 0 Comments
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An agenda item facing the Sacramento City Council’ Law and Legislation Committee Tuesday.

BY ED MURRIETA

The Sacramento City Council’s Law and Legislation Committee is expected to advance two important issues related to cannabis events at California’s best and most welcoming venue for legal, state-licensed cannabis events.

Tuesday afternoon’s meeting features a resolution that would streamline approval of cannabis events at Cal Expo, the state-owned fairgrounds and event complex that hosted California’s first legal cannabis event in May.

The committee is expected to pass a motion recommending the City Council authorize the City Manager or his designee to approve cannabis events at Cal Expo.  Currently, cannabis events at Cal Expo require City Council approval. The council approved May’s event 6-2; one of the no votes was cast by the City Council member whose district encompasses Cal Expo and who, as a member of the Law and Legislation Committee, is expected to oppose the notion Tuesday.

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Las Vegas Museums: The Artful Side of Cannabis Tourism

October 2, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Immerse yourself in cannabis and Instagrammable museums and art installations. 

BY ED MURRIETA

If you’ve been to Amsterdam, you know the allure of cannabis and museums.

Whether you’ve visited the Rijkuseum, Sex, Stedelijk, Van Gogh or Hash, Marijuana and Hemp museums, consuming the botanical drug deepened appreciations of art and culture.

Simply staring stoned at Vincent Van Gogh’s mad slathering swirls illuminating fields, flowers and famine immerses hedonistic art lovers in the visual, sensory and emotional relationships among artists, drugs and creativity.

And who didn’t crave a soothing spliff after two claustrophobic minutes inside the enervating Anne Frank House?

Las Vegas is America’s Amsterdam. While Sin City lacks the Dutch capital’s open sex commerce and legendary smoking cafes, museums of all sorts bloom in the desert, offering visitors curated glimpses of  Las Vegas culture and history in venues dedicated to the Mob, neon signs, pinball and more.

Las Vegas’ newest museum, Cannabition Cannabis Museum, celebrates cannabis in the most totally modern expression of immersive art: Instagrammability.

Here are five uniquely Las Vegas museums and art exhibitions, plus recommended cannabis pairings and social-media poses.

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San Francisco’s Psychedelic Cooking Treat

September 23, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Cable-access production values are a few grams shy of a ‘good thing,’ but The Hippy Gourmet has more in common with Martha’s Kitchen than Wayne’s World.

 

BY ED MURRIETA

Behind the heavy-lidded gaze, shaggy gray beard and mellow baritone of a Summer of Love dee-jay lays a classically trained French chef who wants to feed the people and feed your head. If his television cooking show, cookbooks and DVDs reap profit and popularity, that’s far out, too, man.

Bruce Brennan is The Hippy Gourmet, a Jerry Garcia-meets-James Beard bear of a man whose cable-access cooking show originates from San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district. The show, 50-plus episodes strong, airs weekly on nine Bay Area stations and recently started in Amsterdam, Boston, Chicago and New York.

Production values lean a few grams shy of a “good thing,” but “The Hippy Gourmet” has more in common with “Martha’s Kitchen” than “Wayne’s World,” pardoning the psychedelic music, paisley graphics and occasional presence of Manny the Hippy, famous for his tripped-out tete a tetes with David Letterman.

“‘The Hippy Gourmet’ is the antithesis of most TV cooking shows,” says producer-director James Ehrlich. “Bruce is the anti-Emeril.”

“Not a lot of clip, clip, clip, action, action, bam, bam, bam,” Brennan adds in his best mellow bellow.

Published Feb. 19, 2003, San Francisco Examiner.

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Chicano’s Pot Sharpens Chicano Art

September 22, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Eduardo Carrillo’s mystical surrealism became mucho mas claro when I smoked Cheech Marin.

BY ED MURRIETA

Art museums and cannabis are a match that make magic in your head.

A joint rolled from Cheech Marin’s stash helped me see the fallacy of technology mirrored in a painting. 

I’d arrived at Sacramento’s Crocker Art Museum to see Chicano master Eduardo Carrillo’s mystical surrealism.

In the weeks I’d waited for my delivery of Cheech’s Private Stash to coincide with the next corporate-sponsored, pay-what-you-wish third Sunday, I’d Googled Carrillo.

The first image I clicked was on the museum’s server, the painting whose name titles the exhibit, “Testament of the Spirit,” the very painting that greets visitors

On the Crocker’s wall, a dog lies curled on the floor under the family kitchen table, on the right, beneath a bowl of soup. The painting I’d memorized from the museum’s server was flopped — the dog and the soup on the left side.

I’d just smoked an intoxicating melange of premium small-batch flowers marketed by Cheech Marin, the Chicano godfather of cannabis culture, a collector of Chicano art himself.  

I had not walked through the doors of misperception but I was stoned on first sight: The digital image mystically mirrored the original painting.

Suiting Up for George Zimmer Cannabis and Business Interview

September 21, 2018 / / 0 Comments

george-zimmer-splashA successful cannabis user since the 1960s, Zimmer will speak at the New West Summit in Oakland on Oct. 12.

Zimmer has agreed to my request for a separate interview and photo sesh before or after next month’s “fireside chat” in front of cannabis, business and media executives.

I specifically asked Zimmer’s assistant if we can discuss Zimmer’s  cannabis use during his business career and, vis a vis Elon Musk smoking pot on Joe Rogan’s podcast, get his advice for entrepreneurs and executives about how they should handle professional and public disclosure of their own cannabis use.

Got any questions for George Zimmer about cannabis and business? I’ll ask him the best ones. I guarantee it.

— Ed Murrieta

Just say, ‘Si’ to THC Tacos

September 20, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Oct. 4 is National Taco Day. Here’s how to celebrate tacos with cannabis every day.

ED MURRIETA

Tacos stretch budgets and feed villages.

With a little meat, some vegetables, a few tortillas, we eat.

With a little cannabis spicing each bite, we eat better, feeding our bellies and heads.

As popular street food throughout Mexico, tacos are filled with anything from beef to chicken to mushrooms to potatoes to tongue to goat.

Everything is a taco,.

Tacos are for everyone.

As National Taco Day approaches Oct. 4, tacos are seemingly everywhere, from trusty trucks to high-end restaurants. Cannabis, it seems. is everywhere too.

Here are six ways to infuse street-food classic tacos with totally legal THC — in meat and veggies, in tortillas and cheese and in toppings and condiments, micro-dosing each bite.

You can always wash down infused tacos with cannabis beer or similar beverage for extra kick and cool crispness.

Eat too many infused tacos and you’ll take a THC siesta.

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Positively Haight Street Legal

September 20, 2018 / / 0 Comments

The Upper Haight-Ashbury — really, the only Haight-Ashbury to many, may finally get its first cannabis store.

Buying pot in San Francisco’s hippie ‘hood hits you like a surrealistic pillow in the very Aquarius age of cannabis legalization.

BY ED MURRIETA

SAN FRANCISCO — “Dank.”

“Green bud.”

“Need weed?”

Cannabis come-hithers hang over the Haight-Ashbury like body funk on street waifs — beacons and warnings signifying pot peddlers holding black-market bags.

I palmed two twenties and slalomed the sidewalk demimonde of dreadlocks, dogs and dubious hygiene.

I made eye contact by mistake.

Ganja girl flashed a broken smile and a digital scale.

“Full weight,” she said. “No Haighths, man.”

Haighths. That’s local lingo for notoriously pinched bags, two or three nugs shy of what both stoners and connoisseurs would agree is the common unweighed standard for an eighth of an ounce of cannabis flowers.

In the era of cannabis prohibition, Haighths were a form of street tax and convenience fee. Overpaying cash for underweight weed was the street-buyer’s bargain if you were a tourist, if your regular dealer was out of town, if your medical card expired or if you needed a last-minute housewarming gift on your way to dinner at your friend’s pad.

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Pothead Hall-of-Famers Defy Jerry Brown’s Cranky-Old-Man Opinion of Cannabis

September 19, 2018 / / 0 Comments

California’s governor has bestowed awards on high-achieving cannabis users.

BY ED MURRIETA

Despite California Gov. Jerry Brown’s cranky-old-man views on the productivity of people who consume cannabis, The California Hall of Fame honors people who have made distinguished achievements in the arts, education, business, labor, science, sports, philanthropy and public service in the Golden State.

Since its creation in 2006, the California Hall of Fame has quietly proven that cannabis is no barrier to success. About 10 percent of inductees are famous and successful cannabis users.

Brown himself has bestowed awards on high-achieving cannabis users.
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Cheech’s Private Stash: Review of Premium Pot, Reflection on Chicano Culture

September 16, 2018 / / 0 Comments

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BY ED MURRIETA

A lot rode on my first taste of Cheech’s Private Stash, a premium cannabis brand fronted by Cheech Marin, the Chicano half of the comedy improv duo that fed my head in my formative years.

By the time “Up In Smoke” dropped on Sept. 15, 1978, portraying and defining cannabis culture in a uniquely multicultural California way, I was 13 years old and totally assimilated in Cheech and Chong, two grenudo marijuanos who looked and talked like my older Mexican-American cousins, my Aunt Frank, her hippie friends Eddie and Benny and various vatos and low-riders in my family’s Tortilla Flats homestead ‘hood near the railroad tracks in Roseville.

Even before I’d first bought and tried pot — a “lid,” the Seventies’ name for an ounce, purchased with money I’d earned delivering the afternoon newspaper — I could recite lines from Cheech and Chong comedy albums word-for-word like kids today spew rappers’ rhymes.

Who ate all the baloney?

Dave’s not here.

Bailiff, whack his pee-pee! 

Good thing we no step. 

No stems, no seeds that you don’t need.

Acapulco Gold is …

{make toke sound then hold breath through next line}

Bad-ass weed. 

Cheech’s Private Stash arrived with the baggage and burden of smoking your old heroes. My encounter last year with Tommy Chong’s Chong’s Choice joints was a bummer.   I didn’t have the higest hopes for Cheech’s Private Stash until I saw the high prices of Cheech’s Private Stash eighths in a Sacramento store: up to $65 with tax.

Cheech’s Private Stash had better be some bad-ass weed, que no?

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Gastro a-Go-Go in Victoria, B.C., Fueled My Cannabis Tourism Research

September 15, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Ed’s Note:  I researched and wrote food, beer and travel stories in British Columbia when I lived in Tacoma WA in the mid-2000s.  I was a card-carrying member of The Cannabis Buyers Club of Canada and visited Victoria regularly. Canadian cannabis tourism opportunities I envisioned then bud today.  British Columbia’s royally quaint capital is directly and easily reachable via ferry from Seattle. A walkable city with double-decker buses that get you around, you can visit Terp City and Nuage vapor lounges and Victoria’s great gastro pubs without risking DUIs. 

Sustainability and seasonality rule Victoria, where the art and science of food is a cut above pub grub.

BY ED MURRIETA

VICTORIA, British Columbia – A bartender asked where I’m from. I told him.

“You guys have a lot of great beers down there,” he said.

“Thank you,” I replied. “The food’s better up here.”

I wasn’t simply acting polite in this commonwealth capital better known for flowers than food. I was trying not to act like one of those Pacific Northwest Americans who get googly-eyed over Canada.

It was a rainy day in November. I’d just enjoyed a glowing bowl of carrot soup that parted the clouds.

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Up In Smoke: Where’s Classic Cinematic Stoner Cast Today?

September 11, 2018 / / 0 Comments

BY ED MURRIETA

At the end of “Up in Smoke,” Cheech and Chong, in their most famous roles, drive off in the California sunset, destination unknown but stoned.

“Up in Smoke” was released 40 years ago, on Sept. 15, 1978.

Here’s where the cast of cinema’s cannabis comedy classic is today:

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Fall into Seasonal Fruit Highs

September 9, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Cannabis makes fall fruit more fabulous and autumn colors more awesome.

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BY ED MURRIETA

Read my latest for Leafly here and try my killer candied quince.

Hungry for Hemp

August 30, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Originally published in the Tacoma News Tribune, Jan. 12, 2005

downloadBY ED MURRIETA

When the pipe dreams of food entrepreneurs, hemp activists and libertarian farmers come true, America’s fruited plains will be ripe with emerald waves of industrial hemp, a plant deeply rooted in the nation’s fabric and politics.

In this imagined world, we’ll eat a perfectly balanced, scientifically documented source of the essential fatty acids we need to keep our arteries supple and our brains finely tuned, in consumer foods from hemp tofu to hemp ice cream. Never mind debunked claims of positive drug tests.

Hemp will rotate with corn and soybean crops, boosting domestic farming, processing and manufacturing as the United States joins industrialized economies from Germany to China in hemp cultivation.

Before American consumers get a mainstream hit of hemp, however, some hemp activists insist the ultimate shift in consciousness must occur: The United States government must end its prohibition against marijuana, hemp’s heady cousin.

These entangled political, market and consumer issues have bummed hemp’s high hopes of becoming the greatest thing since soy.

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High Times Blows Smoke over $140,000 Pledged to Black Activists?

August 27, 2018 / / 0 Comments

UPDATED: SEPT. 12: High Times has not yet paid the City of Sacramento tax revenue generated from May event. High Times had told Sacramento the event would generate $200,000. A city official told me today only $60,000 was generated and that money has not yet been paid. “This event will generate roughly $200,000 in additional tax revenue for the City of Sacramento,” High Times lobbyist told me in May.

UPDATED: SEPT. 18: High Times’ permit application was removed from a council agenda today.

UPDATED: SEPT. 19: Video from Sacramento City Council meeting.

UPDATED: SEPT. 20: High Times has met its tax obligation, according to Sacramento Mayor Darrel Steinberg’s chief of staff, Kelly Fong Rivas.

Money promised for cannabis festival permit not paid.

BY ED MURRIETA

SACRAMENTO, CA — Was High Times blowing smoke when it pledged $140,000 to Sacramento community groups in order to receive the City Council’s approval for California’s historic first legal cannabis festival in May?

Is the world’s oldest and best-known media brand dragging its feet over payment while rushing news of an upcoming event, which has not yet received Sacramento’s approval?

Four months after pledging the money, High Times hasn’t paid a penny.

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Favorite Cooking Strain? Chef Coreen Carroll Loves Red Congolese’s Party Perk

August 24, 2018 / / 0 Comments

‘It’s a really light and delicious and uplifting flower’

What’s your favorite cannabis strain for edibles?

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BY ED MURRIETA

What’s your favorite cannabis strain to cook or bake with? For her first cannabis cookbook, San Francisco cannabis chef Corren Carroll used Sour Diesel, a popular sativa-dominant strain that’s widely available wherever cannabis is grown and sold.

But her favorite strain, especially for edibles that’ll be consumed in lively social situations, is Red Congolese, a landrace strain of Mexican, African and Afghani roots whose hallmark effects are weightless euphoria and mental clarity.

“I’m a big fan of Red Congolese,” Carroll said. “It’s hands-down my favorite. It’s a really light and delicious and uplifting flower.”

It’s the ideal party strain.

“With party edibles, I’m a proponent of using uplifting flowers like sativa strains because it is a party and you don’t want people to be couch-locked,” Carroll said. “If it’s edibles for your home use or medicinal uses, then the indicas are better.”

Those cannabis marshmallows on the cover of “Edibles: Small Bites for the Modern Cannabis Kitchen,” co-authored with Stephanie Hua, a San Francisco food blogger and marshmallow edibles company Mellow? They’re made with Sour Diesel for the photo shoot but normally made with Red Congolese for retail sale.

“It’s something Stephanie uses in Mellow marshmallow edibles, a recipe we feature in the book,” Carroll said. 

Loaded with recipes foodies will dig with or without cannabis — roasted red beet hummus, duck meatball sliders, roasted grape crostini with cashew cream and pear-ginger float, all dosed at 5 mg per serving — “Edibles: Small Bites for the Modern Cannabis Kitchen” (Chronicle Books, $19.95) drops in November.  Read my report on “Edibles” and my interview with Coreen Carroll next month in the San Francisco Chronicle.

What’s your favorite cannabis strain to cook or bake with?

Red Congolese, a sativa.

5 Pipe-Dream Venues for California Cannabis Events

August 20, 2018 / / 0 Comments

BY ED MURRIETA

AB  2020, currently moving through the Legislature as an Aug. 31 deadline approaches, would allow cannabis events to be held in any venues willing to host them — beyond the current designated few state-sanctioned fairgrounds.

Here are five dream venues for cannabis events in California:

Hollywood Forever Cemetery

Cooks Valley Campground

Del Mar Fairgrounds

Esalen Institute

Empire Polo Club

Sacramento Models Designer Cannabis

August 17, 2018 / / 0 Comments

How the self-proclaimed Farm-to-Fork Capital of America quietly blossomed into California’s boutique bud capital.

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BY ED MURRIETA

Not only is Sacramento the Farm-to-Fork Capital of America, it’s California’s designer cannabis capital, home to elite cultivators whose exotic, meticulously grown plants burst with frosty trichomes, odoriferous terpenes and trippy sex appeal, marketed, priced, packaged and sometimes hard to find like estate wine and craft beer. All are multiple winners of High Times Cannabis Cup awards and cite local growing success on Sacramento’s friendly regulations, including the city-designated “green zones,” and lower rents vs. the Bay Area.

Roots in Sacramento

#Gelato #41 #Bacio #Top #Shelf #Cali

A post shared by Connected Cannabis Co. (@connectedcannabis.co) on


Connected Cannabis
connectedcannabisco.com
@connectedcannabis.co Instagram

Launched in Sacramento in 2004 as Fruitridge Health and Wellness, Connected popularized the Cookie Fam’s Girl Scout Cookies, Gelato and Sunset Sherbert strains, all now widely copied.  After growing gold with Girl Scout Cookies and rebranding as Cookies, the cultivator and retailer finally rebranded as Connected Cannabis, running dispensaries in San Francisco, Long Beach and Santa Ana from Sacramento.  

The Village
TheVillageGrows.com
@_thevillage Instagram
Specializing in eco-friendly flowers, Michael Ish began working in and growing for his father’s medicinal cannabis dispensary, South Sacramento Care Center, in 2010. Post-legalization, Ish now grows in 6,000 square feet and is seeking a permit for an additional 10,000 square feet. “The city was working with dispensaries and grows before Prop. 64 and it attracted people to ‘safe spots’ because the city was so welcoming as long as you played by the rules,” Ish said, who also operates Symbiotic Genetics. 

Roads to Sacramento

Alien Labs
alienlabs.org
@AlienLabs Instagram
Founded in 2014 in now-fire-ravaged Redding, Alien Labs moved 160 miles south to Sacramento in 2016 due to Redding’s harsh regulations. Alien Labs grows in 10,000 square feet in one of Sacramento’s “green zones” and outdoors in adjacent Yolo County. “Sacramento was the first to offer licensure,” said Lidie, a former budtender at the capital city’s All About Wellness. “No cities offered it at the time. Sacramento’s where we always felt our home was.”

Lumpy’s Flowers
lumpysflowers.com
@lumpstatus Instagram
Lumpy’s CEO Josh Veal and partner Jason “Lumpy” Dias started growing in Napa County 15 years ago. They made a big impression with gassy-funky Apple Fritter six years ago. Napa’s anti-cannabis regulations drove them to Sacramento last year. Lumpy’s currently grows in half of its 25,000-square-foot facility in one of Sacramento’s city-designated “green zones.” “Sacramento is very friendly and prices are cheaper than Oakland,” Veal said. “You’re less likely to get your door kicked in by people with AR-15s. So Sacramento it is. The city has been more than helpful for us.”

Sherbinski
sherbinskis.com
@Sherbinski415 Instagram

A member of the original team that bred the blockbuster Girl Scout Cookies and numerous follow-up crosses, Sherbinski crafted Gelato and Sunset Sherbert, powerful strains that burst with dessert flavors, Sherbinski started growing outdoors 15 years ago in the Emerald Triangle’s Mendocino County and eventually migrated indoors in San Francisco and Oakland. Sherbinski moved to Sacramento, his hometown, in early 2017, partnered with local store Zen Gardens and currently grows in a 22,000-square-foot space.

My Latest Cannabis Lifestyles Service Journalism in Leafly

August 16, 2018 / / 0 Comments

BY ED MURRIETA

Read my latest in Leafly:

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S.F.’s $2 Billion Bus Depot in Heart of City’s Pot

August 12, 2018 / / 0 Comments

High-speed rail is years off but Transbay Transit Center can speed your journey to cannabis — and offers stunning views from a quarter-mile-long rooftop park you can visit after you get high nearby.

BY ED MURRIETA

San Francisco’s old temporary bus station is only two blocks away and itself served routes where cannabis is legally sold and consumed in neighborhood stores and lounges, from the Financial District and South of Market to the Mission District and Bernal Heights and beyond.

San Francisco’s fancy new $2 billion bus station — the Transbay Transit Center or the Salesforce Transit Center depending on how you honor naming rights for public amenities — grand opened on Saturday and today begins doing what it was built to do: be a transportation hub for the city’s Muni bus lines, Greyhound buses, Amtrak buses and regional commuter buses entering and exiting the city.

In addition to an exclusive skyway that carries buses off the Bay Bridge, the new Transbay Transit Center offers bus riders architectural eye candy and a stunning urban amenity: a quarter-mile-long rooftop park open to the public that provides towering, intoxicating views amid steel-and-glass skyscraper construction.

You can’t legally smoke cannabis in the Transbay Transit Center’s Salesforce Park. (It’s guarded by people and video cameras 24/7.) But you can certainly consume at a nearby cannabis lounge and return to enjoy the park. Do be aware of each bus line’s rules about carrying cannabis.

The subterranean high-speed trains in the architect’s rendering above? They’re part of a future plan. For now, Transbay Transit Center, or the Salesforce Transit Center, is a fancy bus depot that’ll soon feature pop-up food vendors, public art and entertainment.

See the map below for all the cannabis stores and lounges that easily reachable by bus or walking from the Transbay Transit Center.

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QR Code on Pot Product Label — Other Examples?

August 11, 2018 / / 0 Comments

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BY ED MURRIETA

This QR code on a jar of Lumpy’s Flowers designer cannabis links to lab test details.

Can you point me to other examples and uses of QR and augmented reality technology in the cannabis industry?

5 Wine-Style Appellations California Needs

August 9, 2018 / / 0 Comments

The California agency charged with creating an appellations system that will let cannabis cultivators market sun-grown flowers by region of origin like wine is sold to discerning consumers is seeking public input as it prepares for workshops on the CalCannabis Appellations Program that was authorized by Gov.  Jerry Brown nearly three years ago.

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The First Cannabis Supper: Holy Iron Chef with Pot!

July 31, 2018 / / 0 Comments

5 Infused Ingredients.
5-Course Menu.
What Will Ed Cook?

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BY ED MURRIETA

Here’s the gimmick: I’ve got five cannabis ingredients and a five-course supper menu.

INGREDIENTS

  • Fresh Cannabis Flower
  • Kin Slips
  • Sprig THC soda
  • Defonce chocolate bar
  • Kiva Petra Mints

MENU

  • Sopa de Mota
  • Ensalada con Salsa Yesca
  • Ganja Granita
  • Chocolate Mole Wellington
  • Pot de Creme Brulee

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Clearing Air (and Mellowing Your Head) in re: ‘A Spike Lee Joint’

July 27, 2018 / / 0 Comments

BY ED MURRIETA

Google the phrase “A Spike Lee Joint.”

Lest you’re thinking the New York filmmaker doobied the right thing and branded his own line of joints, baby, please, baby, please, baby, baby, baby, please remember that “A Spike Lee Joint” is the brand Spike Lee slaps on all his films, including his latest, “BlacKKKlansman,” a story so soberingly provocative and racially enraged you’ll want to a smoke a mellow indica before, during and after watching this joint.

 

 

Regardless of Spike Lee films’ limited cannabis themes and content in films set in the pre-legalization cannabis era, some of you may think A Spike Lee Joint is a cinematic spleef. Pipe dream anew  then — please baby, please, baby, please, baby, baby, baby, please pipe dream anew —  now that New York legalization looms.

El Famoso Joaquin Murrieta Captured in Movies, TV and Booze

July 25, 2018 / / 0 Comments

July 25 is the 165th anniversary of the government-sanctioned killing and beading of Joaquin Murrieta, early California’s most famous anti-hero.

BY ED MURRIETA

There’s no DNA proof but my people say we’re related to Joaquin Murrieta, the early California legend whose legacy survives 165 years after the governor ordered him killed and beheaded for the revenge he reaped upon the men who raped and killed his wife in a racist attempt to scare him and other Mexicans out of California gold mines.
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What We Toke When We Toke About Love

July 22, 2018 / / 0 Comments

If Raymond Carver wrote country loves songs, they’d go like this

Another Cup of Coffee and a Smoke

BY ED MURRIETA

Another cup of coffee and a smoke
Brush your hair and open up your robe
Tell me one more story
Feed me spoons of hope
Virginia Slim, I ain’t your man
One of us must go
After another cup of coffee and a smoke

Grind the beans and roll the weed
Do the ritual
Wait until the water
sounds like tears about to boil

French press your lips to mine
Bite robustly complete
Steep me in your memories
Pour me with your cream

Another cup of coffee and a smoke
Brush your hair and open up your robe
Tell me one more story
Feed me spoons of hope
Virginia Slim, I ain’t your man
One of us must go
After another cup of coffee and a smoke

Grind the beans and roll the weed
Do the ritual
Wait until the water
sounds like tears about to boil

After another cup of coffee and a smoke
Brush your hair and open up your robe …

#PermitPatty Victim Gets $3,120 in Fundraiser

July 15, 2018 / / 0 Comments
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That’s just a fraction of the money raised for Jordan Rodgers, who posed Saturday with Charmaine Grays of The Apothecarium.

BY ED MURRIETA

About 600 people showed up in Oakland’s Lake Merritt Park on Saturday for a fund-raiser for the 8-year-old girl who was the victim of racism perpetrated by Alison Ettel, aka #PermitPatty, the now-disgraced pot pet company founder who was run out of the industry after calling the cops on Jordan Rodgers for selling bottled water outside her home.

The fundraiser, sponsored by Bay Area cannabis companies Kind Culture, The Apothecarium and Magnolia Wellness, raised $3,120 for Rodgers’ education fund.

Rodgers also received brand-new equipment for a water stand — tables, chairs, coolers and two custom-made signs that say “Jordan’s Stand,” along with enough bottled water to generate an additional $1,600 to $2,000.

Event organizer Kind Culture donates a portion of its profits to pay for private education and college for African American children with a parent jailed for war on drugs/cannabis offenses.

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Media Flashback: First Cannabis TV Ad

July 14, 2018 / / 0 Comments

BY ED MURRIETA

We’re coming up on the 8-year anniversary of the broadcast of the first medicinal cannabis television advertisement, which aired on Sacramento’s Fox 40 on Aug. 30, 2010.

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California Prohibits CBD in Food, Beverages and Pet Treats — Updated with CDPH Comment

July 13, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Updated with comment from the California Department of Public Health

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BY ED MURRIETA

Many consumers regard CBD as the magic cannabinoid — a therapeutic agent that heals bodies without messing with heads. In hipster, circles, CBD is like a super-food on par with acai and baobab in purported healthful benefits. But according to the State of California, CBD, whether it’s derived from cannabis or industrial hemp, is not a food ingredient or dietary supplement fit for humans or animals.

The California Department of Public Health, which oversees cannabis manufacturing and edibles production, released an updated FAQ last week that explicitly states CBD is not allowed in food, drinks, confections, condiments or chewing gum not manufactured for the legal cannabis market.

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Bay Area Cannabis Companies Will Raise Funds for #PermitPatty Victim

July 12, 2018 / / 0 Comments

BY ED MURRIETA

San Francisco Bay Area cannabis companies will hold a fund-raising party Saturday for the 8-year-old girl now-disgraced pet pot company founder Alison Ettel, aka #PermitPatty, reported to police for selling bottled water, an act many saw as flat-out racism by a white lady against a black kid.
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The Best Ice Cream I Ever Made Is Illegal

July 8, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Start with raw milk and add cannabis if you wish.

Raw milk I purchased in 2008.

Raw milk I purchased in 2008.

BY ED MURRIETA

If you’ve got any health hangups about drinking raw unpasteurized dairy products, raw milk isn’t for you.

If you have no qualms, then raw milk is for you.

Raw milk tastes like fresh grass. It’s creamy yellow in shade, and thick and creamy to the mouth. Stays fresh in the fridge for two weeks.

Raw milk is great for drinking, making cheese, yogurt, creme fraiche or ice cream.

I don’t want to mess with raw milk’s flavor by infusing the dairy with cannabis. Cannabis chocolate can be folded into spun ice cream for a special spin.

Raw milk is illegal in most places. Good luck finding it.

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Do You Know the Way from San Jose to San Francisco Cannabis Lounges?

July 6, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Beeline from conference panel on public consumption to the nearest places to smoke, vape and dab.

BY ED MURRIETA

Cannabis lounges and public consumption will be discussed at the National Cannabis Industry Association’s Cannabis Business Summit and Expo July 27 in San Jose, Calif.

There are no cannabis lounges in San Jose. If panel participants and attendees jones for what they discuss, the nearest cannabis lounges are in San Francisco.

If you don’t know the way from San Jose, here are San Francisco’s cannabis lounges, mapped and reviewed.

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Ron Jeremy Joints and Gummies Shaped Like Porn Legend’s Claim to Fame?

July 2, 2018 / / 0 Comments

BY ED MURRIETA

Ron Jeremy is one of the most legendary pornographic movie stars of all time. He is huge.

He tweeted that folks should contact his manager if they want him to do promotional work.

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CRUISING FOR CANNABIS

June 30, 2018 / / 0 Comments

West Coast Boasts a Dozen Pot Ports of Call

High-end boutiques, pot-paired dinners, wine-and-weed and bud-and-beer pairings, CBD massages, CBD hotel mini-bars, decadent lounges and smoking excursions await cruise-ship travelers from Alaska to the Mexican border.

BY ED MURRIETA

Cruise-ship travelers are disembarking to legal cannabis on the West Coast of the United States and soon in Canada.

Major cruise lines docking in Juneau, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Long Beach and San Diego today are just gangways away from legal ganja.

On Oct. 17, when legalization begin in Canada, Vancouver, BC, will become the West Coast’s 10th significant pot port and one of the rare places in all legal lands where tourists can smoke in cafes.

When Massachusetts’ recreational cannabis stores go online sometime this summer, there’ll be an international East Coast pot port enclave extending from Boston to Quebec City, Canada.

Today, you can pull into ports on many major cruise lines working the Pacific Ocean and immerse yourself in the best cannabis stores, the best cannabis lounges, the best cannabis dinners and the best cannabis activities in legal cannabis states.

Depending on how long you’re in port — some cruises pull in for several hours, some for a day or two — you can book tours or DIY your own excursions.

But just don’t carry or use cannabis on board cruise ships. Here’s the bottom line from one major cruise line servicing North America’s Pacific Ocean coast:

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Public Service Post: Consume Responsibly

June 28, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Ed’s note: This is a prototype of Public Service Content on a California cannabis politics blog  I produced in 2015.

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Public Service Post: Consume Responsibly

June 28, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Ed’s note: This is a prototype of Public Service Content on a California cannabis politics blog  I produced in 2015.

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Public-Service Media Note: Correct Language About CBD’s Federal Scheduling

June 27, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Important language distinctions noted. Press release distributed as public service to the media and readers.

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Chalice Has No Shot at Victorville Event OK

June 21, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Cannabis festival organizers can make their case to city council but there’s no way Chalice will get local jurisdiction approval.

By ED MURRIETA

Regarding Chalice Festival’s attempt to stage a recreational cannabis event at the San Bernardino County Fairgrounds in Victorville, Calif., next month and its chance to make its case to the City Council next week, here’s a note from the city public information officer, who makes it sound like Chalice is being placated prior to the ultimate truth sinking in.

TONIGHT

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San Diego Brewery Set to Release First Cannabis Beers in Nevada

June 15, 2018 / / 0 Comments

UPDATED JUNE 19: Press release below.
UPDATED JUNE 18: I interviewed the brewery today. Stand by for story.


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Press release is embargoed but Two Roots Brewing Company is already promoting non-alcoholic craft beers infused with THC.

BY ED MURRIETA

One of my sources in my recent Leafly hemp/cannabis beer report tipped me to this last month but I could not get the brewery to confirm it. Now the San Diego brewery is releasing the nation’s first non-alcoholic THC beer. It will be sold in California cannabis stores starting in July.

Two Roots is brewing a deal with Cresco Labs to brew dealcoholized THC-infused cannabis beers in the six medicinal states it operates in.

San Diego’s Two Roots Brewing Company now promotes its “CannaCrafted” cannabis beer on its website:

Two Roots, the worlds first “CannaCrafted” beer

Good-for-You

High-Quality

Cannabis Infused

Non-Alcoholic

Craft Beer

Southern California Born

Cannabiniers Expands Portfolio with THC & CBD infused Craft Beers, Cold Brew Iced Teas, and Cold Brew Iced Coffees

Leading US Company Enhances Product Offerings, Further Normalizing the Consumption of Cannabis

SAN DIEGO, Calif. (June 19, 2018) – Cannabiniers, a foodservice, technology & brand management company, that is revolutionizing the cannabis industry with patented, safe and natural flower-based extraction technology, has announced the expansion of its alternative beverage portfolio. Two Roots Brewing Co, the world’s first line of CannaCrafted non-alcoholic THC and CBD infused craft beer, and Just Society, a line of THC and CBD infused cold brewed iced coffees and teas, both join the company’s cannabis infused beverage collection.

“The popularity of craft beer and coffee has grown across all demographics, tea is the second most consumed beverage in the world, 2nd only to water. We’re excited by the potential for Two Roots Brewing to be the first to market, offering products infused with THC & CBD, with the ultimate goal of normalizing the consumption of cannabis-infused products, especially given the recent announcements of potential development from the former Blue Moon founders and Constellation Brands, as well as its investment in Canopy Growth.” said Timothy Walters, president of Cannabiniers. “Beer, coffee and tea hold such a widely accepted and even celebrated place in society, so we are thrilled to offer a line of beverages to fit anyone’s preferred beverage choice within the rapidly expanding cannabis market that have been responsibly formulated to emulate the effects of alcohol, micro-infused, onset within 5 – 10 minutes and dissipation in less than two hours.” “What Does It Take To Be A Pioneer”

Crafted by expert brewers and artisans, Cannabiniers has sourced the first of its manufacture and design technology to enter the United States, to create Two Roots Brewing Co the only line of craft beer in the United States using state of the art technology for de-alcoholizing beer. Brewed in California and infused with THC and CBD in Nevada and California, Two Roots initial product offering consists of five flavors including Lager, Stout, New West IPA, Blonde Ale, and Wheat; with a “Tribute” style beer that tastes like cannabis to immediately follow.

“After two years of research and development, we are thrilled to see our creations on product shelves in July. Our portfolio is continuing to expand and we are proud to be providing the highest quality products made in the USA and changing the perception of consuming cannabis and the entire industry,” said Director of Product Development, Kevin Love of Cannabiniers. “We are committed to offering products that consumers are demanding and we are proud of both lines being released.”

Just last year, Cannabiniers launched the world’s first line of cannabis infused coffee, tea and cocoa delivered through a patented, 100 percent compostable flower-based single-brew pod, BrewBudz. Based on consumer trends and feedback from customers, Just Society is the next evolution with flavors of iced teas including: Lemon, Mango, Mint, Raspberry, and Honey; and iced coffees including: Original, Café Mocha, Salted Caramel, and French Vanilla.

This announcement coincides with Cannabiniers Series B capital raise of their multistate rollout of both Just Society and Two Roots covering a twelve state product release.

For more information about Two Roots, Just Society and other products developed by Cannabiniers, please visit: www.cannabiniers.com.

RELATED
In re: cannabis and beer, cannabis marketers may learn something from women craft brewers’ tales of sexist beer marketing in my previously unpublished report from the 2007 Craft Brewers Conference in Austin, Texas.

Eve of Cannabis Destruction: Here’s How Pot Will Be Destroyed in July

June 14, 2018 / / 0 Comments

BY ED MURRIETA

Any cannabis flowers and manufactured products  — edibles, concentrates, tinctures, beverages, transdermal patches and suppositories — that have not been lab-tested cannot be sold in California cannabis stores as of July 1 under state law that mandates such products must be destroyed.

Don’t expect to attend any pot bonfires.

Here’s how destruction must happen, per the state Bureau of Cannabis Control’s Cannabis Waste Management regs:

A licensee may not sell cannabis waste. (b) Licensees shall comply with all applicable waste management laws including, but not limited to, Division 30 of the Public Resources Code. (c) A licensee shall dispose of cannabis waste in a secured waste receptacle or in a secured area on the licensed premises.

For the purposes of this section, “secure waste receptacle” or “secured area” means that physical access to the receptacle or area is restricted to the licensee and its employees and the local agency, or waste hauler franchised or contracted by a local agency.

Public access to the designated receptacle or area is prohibited. (d) If a licensee is composting cannabis waste on the licensed premises, a licensee shall do so in compliance with title 14, California Code of Regulations, chapter 3.1 (commencing with Section 17850).

(e) If a local agency, or waste hauler permitted by a local agency, is being used to collect and process cannabis waste, a licensee shall do all the following:

(1) Provide the Bureau with the following information for the local agency, or waste hauler franchised or contracted by a local agency, who will collect and process the licensee’s cannabis waste; (A) Name of local agency providing waste hauling services, if applicable; (B) Company name of the local agency franchised or contracted or permitted waste hauler, if applicable; (C) Company business address; and (D) Name of the primary contact person at the company and contact person’s phone number.

(2) Obtain documentation from the entity hauling the waste that indicates the date and time of each collection of cannabis waste at the licensed premises; and (3) Obtain a copy of the certified weight ticket or other documentation prepared by the entity hauling the waste confirming receipt of the cannabis waste at one, or more, of the following solid waste facilities: (A) A manned, fully permitted solid waste landfill or transformation facility; (B) A manned, fully permitted composting facility or manned composting operation; (C) A manned, fully permitted in-vessel digestion facility or manned in-vessel digestion operation; (D) A manned, fully permitted transfer/processing facility or manned transfer/processing operation; or (E) A manned, fully permitted chip and grind operation.

(f) If a licensee is self-hauling cannabis waste to one, or more, of the solid waste facilities in subsection (e)(3) of this section, a licensee shall obtain for each delivery of cannabis waste by the licensee a copy of a certified weight ticket or receipt documenting delivery from the solid waste facility. Only the licensee or its employees may transport self-hauled cannabis waste.

Elite Regulators and Entrepreneurs Will Meet in Mendocino Retreat

June 5, 2018 / / 0 Comments

California cannabis regulators, entrepreneurs and activists will gather for Meadowlands2018 in the redwoods next week. 

BY ED MURRIETA

California’s top cannabis regulators will join some of Northern California’s top cannabis entrepreneurs and activists in the cannabis-friendly Mendocino County redwoods June 15-17 to network and discuss the state of the industry.

Sponsored by San Francisco cannabis technology company Meadow, the exclusive, all-inclusive Meadowlands 2018 gathering will feature gourmet catered  cuisine and open cannabis consumption. It will be held at Camp Navarro, a rustic retreat offering cabin, tepee and tent camping, plus yoga, meditation and climbing near both the Navarro River and the Pacific Ocean.

Regulators scheduled to appear include include California cannabis czar Lori Ajax, San Francisco cannabis czar Nicole Elliott , Sacramento cannabis czar Joe Devlin and Los Angeles cannabis czar Cat Packer. Other speakers include leading Northern California entrepreneurs and activists and legendary hashmaker Frenchy Cannoli.

The weekend includes Friday night’s non-infused dinner prepared by cannabis chef Coreen Carrollof The Cannaisseur Series. Saturday’s agenda includes speaker sessions, lunch and lawn games, fireside chats, BBQ dinner and entertainment.  Wake and Bake Brunch wraps up the weekend on Sunday.

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Scent of Craft Brewers: Beer Marketing Lessons to Cannabis Marketers

June 4, 2018 / / 0 Comments

What do women craft brewers want? Flavor, variety, class and less skin.

Ed’s Note: Written in May 2007. Not published anywhere but my dormant food portfolio and now here.

BY ED MURRIETA

AUSTIN, Texas — Never mind Miller, Bud and Coors’ foam-soaked fantasies. Jenny Talley is a craft brewer who doesn’t squirm when sex sells suds.

“We have a sexy girl on the bottle,” said Talley, a 38-year-old blonde from Utah, who bears an outdoorsy dream-girl resemblence to the midriff-revealing Provo Girl on the label of her award-winning pilsner.

Though decidedly G-rated like the Provo Girl, (Talley brews 4 percent ABV in Utah, after all), Talley is pictured on Squatter’s Pub’s Web site with two gold medals she won at Great American Beer Festivals; the awards plunge down the T-shirt that clings to her taught torso.

“The Great American Beer Festival was founded on scantily dressed women trying to get you to vote for someone’s beer,” Talley said. “If a woman wants to use her body to sell beer, she has every right. If it works and it sells beer, I’m OK with it.”

Natalie Cilurzo, general manager of Russian River Brewing Company in Santa Rosa, isn’t OK with it. Aside from free-flowing beverages and the occasional kilt, the Craft Brewers Conference was a buttoned-up affair. (“We like it classier,” Cilurzo said.) One vendor’s scantily clad model stood out at the trade show.

“I was very uncomfortable for her because that’s not what we’re about,” Cilurzo said. “She’s not going to help that guy sell more tanks. I don’t want to do business with him because I don’t like his marketing. Can you believe this guy?”

The comley model stirred Cilurzo’s incredulity kettle. She recalled a radio advertisement for a Sonoma County beer festival that she and her brewmaster husband, Vinnie, sponsored in March.

“I told Vinnie: I’m offended by this commercial,” she said. “The whole commercial was just about people being totally disgusting and drunk. And then the guys says, ‘Hey, babe, you bring the beer, I’ll bring the condoms.’ Vinnie said, ‘We’re pulling out.’”

As interviews with a dozen women brewers and brewery executives at the Craft Brewers Conference here in April revealed, figuring out what women want — both in beers and their marketing — is obvious and impossible.

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Marketing Content Creation

June 4, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Ed Murrieta provides native content and content marketing solutions for cannabis companies and brands.

joaquin-murrieta-gold-rush-blends

BY ED MURRIETA

This an example of the marketing content creation I can do for cannabis businesses and brands. The Joaquin Murrieta brand above is my concept brand. The content below — a travelogue story and map stalking early California’s most notorious legend — fits the brand. Imagine smoking Joaquin Murrieta joints at the historical sites and beautiful open spaces related to Joaquin Murrieta’s legend. There’s already wine, beer, tequila and a cocktail in Joaquin Murrieta’s honor.

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To Make Dank Beer, Brewers Forced to Get Creative

May 30, 2018 / / 0 Comments

My latest for Leafly.

Read all of my cannabis news, culture and lifestyles journalism reports for Leafly.com, the San Francisco Chronicle, GreenState.com and other leading cannabis publications.

Handicapping Sacramento Cannabis Lounges

May 22, 2018 / / 0 Comments

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Top five contenders for opening capital city’s first cannabis lounge for social consumption.

BY ED MURRIETA

Sacramento’s City Council recently voted overwhelmingly in favor of the nations’s first event featuring open consumption of cannabis in public.

The next milestone facing Sacramento is whether the city should permit cannabis lounges — licensed and regulated places where adults age 21 and over can congregate to consume cannabis in social settings, like the lounge scene in San Francisco.

The city is expected to consider allowing cannabis lounges this fall. If allowed, applicants will be limited to currently operating businesses holding retail sales licenses from the state, and locations will be tied to stores’ physical addresses.

Until then, here are my top five contenders for opening Sacramento’s first cannabis lounge:

  • Northstar
  • Hugs
  • A Therapeutic Alternative
  • 515 Broadway
  • Abatin Wellness

My observations and comments, based on the nature of the current operation, management’s credibility, and future lounges’ locations and proximity to public transit, are contained within the embedded map below.

Here’s my vision and pitch deck for a cannabis lounge.

Read all of my previous cannabis lounge coverage.

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Weed Weekend: San Francisco

May 16, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Legal cannabis is best enjoyed in social lounges, with gourmet food and in the hands of five-star hotel spa masseuses.

BY ED MURRIETA

SAN FRANCISCO — Like Amsterdam, this lusty city-state boasts picaresque history, edgy authenticity, mind-blowing art and Instagrammable sights,  and among inclined travelers is a cannabis bucket-list destination. From Barbary Coast Bohemians to Beat generation poets and the Sixties’ Summer of Love to today’s legalized renaissance, cannabis has enshrouded San Francisco in intoxicating fog, a heady come-hither whether you wear flowers in your hair or Kate Spades on your feet. Once, tourists scored baggies of pot from hygiene-challenged ragamuffins on hippie-haven Haight Street; modern visitors marvel at the commercialization and wide-spread availability of California’s top agricultural product now that it’s taxed and regulated by the state and innovated by artisans and entrepreneurs. So dive into world-class cannabis retailing; decadent social-consumption lounges; gourmet meals and five-star hotel spa massages incorporating the plant; and local craft beer and cocktails spiked with cannabis extracts, toasting San Francisco’s gay and high history.

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California State Capitol Smoking Spots Mapped — Even Under Moon Tree

May 14, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Thanks to cigarettes, medicinal cannabis users can smoke cannabis at the California Capitol, atop a subterranean building resembling an abandoned Star Trek set, against a tree-shrouded stone waterwall and beneath the Moon Tree.

BY ED MURRIETA

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Twenty years before recreational cannabis was legalized in California and public consumption was explicitly prohibited, the state’s medicinal cannabis users were already allowed to smoke cannabis wherever it’s legal to smoke cigarettes. In the state capital, thanks to the tobacco lobby, cigarette smoking is allowed on state property and near some state buildings in downtown Sacramento.

That means qualified medicinal cannabis users can smoke on steps of the state Capitol, on park benches surrounding the Capitol’s grounds, atop a subterranean building, in a cool, shady bamboo thicket set against a waterwall near the state’s really cool, harlequin-esque power tower, and beneath the Moon Tree, a Sequoia Redwood grown from seed that went to space aboard NASA’s Apollo 14 in 1971.

Here are some of the best and most convenient locations for medicinal cannabis users walking, biking or commuting downtown Sacramento’s famous tree-lined streets.

Take a break.

Medicate.

It’s legal.  Nonetheless, carry valid ID and your current medicinal cannabis authorization.

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Pairing San Francisco’s Culinary and Cannabis Treats

May 13, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Enhance the city’s 2018 James Beard winners with the city’s best dispensaries and smoking-vaping lounges.

Dominique Crenn, left, and Barbary Coast.

Dominique Crenn, left, and Barbary Coast.

BY ED MURRIETA

Four San Francisco culinary stars were recognized by the 2018 James Beard Foundation Awards this week. By way of toasting their accomplishments and complementing their allure, here are my suggestions for pairing San Francisco’s Beard award-winners and the city’s best legal commercial cannabis experiences.

Dominique Crenn + Barbary Coast

Poetic, adventuresome, traditional and modernist all describe San Francisco’s two Michelin star chef and the city’s sexiest cannabis destination.  Dominique Crenn, chef and owner of Atelier Crenn, Bar Crenn and Petit Crenn, won the Beard award for best chef in the Western United States. If there was an analogous award for best all-in-one store-dab bar-smoke lounge in the West, it would be Barbary Coast. Aesthetically an homage to old-school San Francisco’s Gilded Era vice district. Barbary Coast is straight-up state-of-the-art — from high-end concentrates to high-tech vaporizers and HVAC systems that silently suck smoke from the room so it doesn’t stink up your clothes.  

B. Patisserie + SPARC

The work-and-life partners behind B. Patisserie, a small Pacific Heights bake shop with a cult-like following, are San Francisco baking royalty. Belinda Leong was pastry chef at San Francisco fine-dining notables Gary Danko and Manresa. Michael Suas founded the San Francisco Baking Institute. Get their killer kouign amann to go and enjoy the buttery Britney-style croissant buns South of Market at SPARC, along with Volcano-vaped, farm-grown, lab-tested cannabis and free hot tea from the self-serve bar. (SPARC told me $2 cups of organic family-farmed coffee are on the way.)

In Situ + Urban Pharm

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s restaurant serves “borrowed” dishes “on loan” from world-renowned chefs. Feed your head on a la carte dabs at Urban Pharm (or smoke joints if that’s your jam) then feast your eyes on intentionally spare alternate dimensions at In Situ, which won the Beard award for Outstanding Restaurant Design (76 seats and over). Like In Situ, Urban Pharm elides polished and raw, a steampunked Burning Man blend of cut metal and re-purposed wood.   

Zuni Cafe + The Apothecarium

The iconic restaurant’s roast chicken and hamburger are both longtime legends. Now. Zuni’ Cafe‘s front of the house gets its due — Beard’s Outstanding Service award. Hop on a classic street car for a half-mile ride to The Apothecarium, the flagship of three local cannabis stores where chandeliers, marble counters and soft music ooze elegance of high-end jewelry boutiques. To match Zuni’s service, let The Apothecarium’s professional consultants guide you through a delicious selection of California’s best edibles, concentrates and cannabis strains.

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