The premise for Jerry Seinfeld’s hit series ‘Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee’ couldn’t be more simple: Get two comedians. Put them in a classic car. Drive to a coffeeshop. Drink caffeine and have a conversation. Hilarity ensues.
Michael Stusser, the brain behind Higher Ground, took Seinfeld’s concept but substituted the mild intoxicant: Instead of coffee, Stusser thought it would be interesting to try cannabis instead. The results? Comedy gold.
Stusser an award-winning filmmaker (“Sleeping with Siri”), launched Higher Ground a few years ago as the “world’s first entertainment and news program highlighting the revolutionary cultural and political changes related to the legalization of marijuana.”
Still unclear of the concept? Stusser says: “Imagine The Daily Show meets The Soup meets The Situation Room – just without that annoying Wolfe Blitzer fellow.”
Comedians In Cars Smoking Cannabis was released last year, featuring a beat-up 1965 VW van and comedian Lauren Weedman (The Daily Show, HBO’s Hung and Looking, Curb Your Enthusiasm). But since it was announced last month that Netflix and Seinfeld have joined forces in a massive exclusive deal, we thought it would be worthwhile to show this hilarious parody of the show. Who knows, maybe Stusser will get a call from Netflix.
“We’re really trying to elevate the dialogue about cannabis,” Stusser says. “And we’re using humor and social media to not only normalize the use of marijuana – but put it in context. People like weed – and they’ve been smoking it forever; time to make it legal.”
On Thursday, the latest episode of Seinfeld’s show was released, featuring Christoph Waltz.
Whether you believe it’s an over-hyped commercialized holiday or not, V-Day is a chance to get extra-thoughtful with your romance game.
If you and your sweetheart are marijuana enthusiasts, give them one of these extra-thoughtful gifts and share in the endorphin — and cannabis — high, together.
DIY Stashimal
Yep, it is what it sounds like: A stuffed animal that’s meant to stash your weed. Don’t buy any ol’ stuffed bear to show your cuddly side. Turn it into a useful place to store your favorite plant with this Instructables guide. You’ll have to decapitate a cute toy and pull its cotton guts out, but it’s worth it in the end. Just don’t forget to fill it up with your fav strain, first!
Cannabis Chocolates
Don’t show up with a heart-shaped box from the clearance section of your nearest bodega. It’s not a good look. Raise your game with edibles! Like these beauties from Zuma Chocolates, that come in flavors including peanut butter & pecan, frosted red velvet cupcake, and coconut + dark. Check out more drool-worthy canna-chocolates, here.
https://www.instagram.com/p/9Sh1CeKvTf/
Super-Luxe Boozy Desserts
Cake is great no matter what, but cake made with Hennessy or Baileys is a thousand times better. Give one of these recipes for booze-filled baked goods a shot, pair it with a sexy strain, and have yourselves a sweet night.
A romantic breakfast in bed is even better if it comes after getting baked in bed. This coffee mug turned bowl is exactly what your bedhead sweetheart ordered.
Medicated Massage Candles
What’s sexier than a oiled-up massage? A cannabis infused massage, of course. California-based WOW Candles claim to give pain relief in the form of massage oil candles made from coconut oil, organic palm wax, essential oil blends, and infused with one gram of cannabis concentrate.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BE7LiGBvI7V/
Take A Romantic 420 Trip
February may be the worst month — no major holidays for time off work, short days and long, cold nights before a hint of spring arrives — but that doesn’t mean you have to shuffle through it. Take your partner on a canna-getaway to one of these locales off the beaten path.
Sometimes you need something reliable to get you through the day when you have anxiety. For some, that’s calling up an old friend, or putting on a much-beloved record, or bingeing a favorite TV show. For others, it’s chilling out with a joint on the back porch.
But the thing is, marijuana isn’t always reliable. Because there are just so many different types out there, you might get a nice, light get-you-through-the-day blaze one day and then melt-into-the-sofa high the next. Cue ebbu’s latest product, Genesis–a vape pen that delivers the same type of high each and every time.
Cannabis research and development start-up ebbu has a goal to make their products as predictable as possible. This line of thinking is innovative in the cannabis industry, and is sure to appeal to many consumers.
This goes double for folks who use cannabis to treat anxiety, since certain strains can minimize the disorder while others can exacerbate it. ebbu, who have been around since 2013, have spent the past two years doing extensive research with a team of scientists and 400 volunteers. By isolating three essential cannabinoids and three terpenes that amplify the potency of THC in cannabinoid receptor 1 (CB1), ebbu has created a formula that makes for an experience that is at once relaxing yet free of the fog that can often accompany other cannabis products. It’s an approach that ebbu’s chief scientist, Dr. Brian Reid, believes sets the company apart.
Photo courtesy of Ebbu
The Genesis vape pen comes in a pleasantly-packaged container, complete with a cartridge full of ebbu’s well-engineered canna-oil. The pen itself is sleek, black, and lightweight–much like a regular pen. Hold the button down until the light around the button turns green, then take a hit. I knew to be cautious with the product as it boasted 500mg of THC, which is unheard of from my usual flower purchases. However, Genesis also includes a high percentage of CBD, which must minimize some of the effects of the THC.
There’s a distinct flavor upon exhalation, reminiscent of cloves, but it quickly dissipates. For those looking for a discreet high, though it certainly does not smell like cannabis, anyone around would notice at least some sort of aroma in the air momentarily.
Immediately after the first hit, I caught myself staring at some distant porch lights, mesmerized, and realized that the high had hit me instantly. There was no need to wait, or even take a second hit. What followed was a few hours of an incredibly relaxing high, with zero anxiety. This is definitely a product that works well for daylight hours as you’re able to maintain a pretty clear head throughout the high.
After using it a few times, I noticed that it does almost motivate me into more patient and creative states of mind. That said, I would tread lightly with this product. Though I am a frequent consumer, when taking more than one hit, I find it to become more on par with hitting a standard flower vape. My advice: take one hit if you’ve got work to do, and two if you’re set to simply catch up on some Netflix or sleep.
Oregrown Industries, Oregon’s premier farm-to-table marijuana company, will offer home delivery of craft cannabis products and locally made glass pipes from its flagship store in downtown Bend, Oregon, beginning next week.
“Home cannabis delivery is coming to Bend, and Oregrown is your door-to-door connection,” said Oregrown cofounder Aviv Hadar. “We have worked very hard to make the Oregrown store experience the best in the state, but even so, there’s something magical about placing an order and having top shelf, craft cannabis delivered right to your door. Now we can make that happen.”
Under Oregon law, recreational cannabis stores can deliver between the hours of 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. to residential addresses within the store’s jurisdiction. One delivery per day is allowed to any single address or customer. Deliveries must be made to the individual who placed the order, who must be 21 or over.
“Our location in downtown Bend means that we can deliver anywhere in the city, any time of year, including to a lot of properties that are primarily vacation rentals,” said Hadar. “We like to think that Oregrown is already enhancing the Bend experience for locals and visitors alike. Now we can do it even more conveniently.”
Hadar said Oregrown’s delivery vehicles will be discreet, and their drivers as friendly and professional as their retail staff.
“What could be better than visiting or living here in Central Oregon? Having the best cannabis delivered right to your door,” Hadar said. “Now you really can have it all.”
For more cannabis business coverage, visit the MJ News Network.
Last year, a man named Luke published a video of someone—probably himself—describing an early morning sunset. As the sun rises, Luke says, “Man, the sun is coming up,” before panning up to the still dark sky and accurately noting, “Fucking cheeky moon is still hanging around.”
“Get out of here dude,” Luke adds, still speaking to to the moon. “He’s going to be here any second!”
Our question about this video, which should have been nominated for Best Short Film at this year’s Academy Awards, is: How much weed did this guy smoke or otherwise consume before staying up all night to warn the moon about the sun’s impending reign?
If we were forced to guess in vague terms, we’d say “a lot.” But if we had to put a hard number on it, we’d say “at least 2.4 grams.” Then again, it’s possible Luke was just high on his natural enthusiasm for the passing of time and the changing of guard between the moon and the sun.
Regardless, we salute Luke, and the moon, and the sun.
Man has been fermenting since the dawn of time, with ancient cultures scribing love letters to booze in stone as far back as 6000 B.C. One of the oldest alcoholic beverages is a drink both sleep-deprived mothers and blowhard stockbrokers hold close to their hearts: beautiful wines.
Back in the day of these foregone civilizations, wine was a term thrown at anything fermented into alcohol. The tipple as we know it today is most commonly identified as fermented grape juice, even more specifically from vinifera grapes, but the clustered fruit doesn’t have exclusive rights to the word. Wine is pro-choice when it comes to fruit ferments.
Banana wine is a best selling commodity in Rwanda, America’s Great Lakes region is heralded for its decades of cherry wine production, and the late Frenchman André the Giant once allegedly downed 16 bottles of plum wine before a wrestling match (which is a bit irrelevant but entirely impressive). To say fruit wine is popular on a global scale is an understatement.
Perched high above the Rockfish River Valley in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, this you-pick berry farm-turned-winery is aptly located on Berry Hill Road, making “true to the fruit” wines like this dessert wine-style sipper. Wild Virginia persimmons and honey are blended together in sweet tribute to the Commonwealth.
The shrub fruit is king at Three Lakes in Wisconsin, a winery that has been on fruit wine map since 1972. No additives or juices will be found here, the philosophy is devoted to whole-pressed fruit only, with the tangy-sweet cranberry topping the list as its number one selling wine.
A hybrid of the red raspberry and blackberry, loganberries make up the base of this wine from the northwestern Washington State fruit-focused producer. The 13,000-case winery produces 800 cases of this wine on an annual basis and, outside of its inherent raspberry and blackberry flavors, the sweet palate also gets a lick of cotton candy in the finish.
Michigan produces more Montmorency tart cherries than any other state in the country and ranks fourth for its cultivation of sweet cherries. The prosperity is too good not to ferment and this winery out of Traverse City — also known as the Cherry Capital of the World — has been turning the stone fruit into wine for 40 years. All natural and all tart cherry, the wine boasts ripe, sweet cherry flavors and is best served chilled.
From the “whale capital of the Oregon Coast,” Depoe Bay exclusively makes wines made from Oregon-grown fruits and berries from its seaside locale. Pure Italian plums from the Beaver State go into this bottling, a fruity and floral sipper perfect for sitting on a beach log and watching the whales go by.
Quick: name a wine region in America. Chances are, no matter where you’re from, you said “Napa Valley.” Easily the most recognizable and well-known grape-growing region in the United States, Napa has enjoyed tremendous success in both commercial and critical senses over the last several decades. Yet another reality is hard to ignore: wine from Napa is really damn expensive!
So why exactly is that? Unsurprisingly, there are some simple economic reasons, and a few cultural reasons as well. Napa Valley isn’t actually all that big, and the amount of land under vine has remained fairly limited despite ever-increasing demand, mostly to protect the surrounding environment. So yeah, increase demand, hold supply constant…sounds like costs are going up. Fittingly, the per-ton price of every grape has risen dramatically over the last decade, in particular Cabernet Sauvignon, which now represents nearly half the plantings in Napa.
That price creates its own trap, because the extraordinarily high cost of land and grapes means that the resultant wine has to earn back that investment, not to mention the costs of labor, materials, marketing, and the opulent tasting room (complete with mini-golf course or petting zoo or what-have-you) that can bring tour bus after tour bus through in a given day. The style of wine that can command that price tends to be that of ripe fruit aged in lots of new French oak and bottled at relatively high levels of alcohol. It creates something of a feedback loop: the grapes and land are expensive, and the bottles and barrels and buildings are expensive, so the price just keeps increasing. It’s gotten to the point where a winemaker can, with a straight face, talk about their $200 Napa Cabernet as a value.
Now, this might read as a criticism of Napa wine, but it’s not really intended that way: many of these wines are very well-made and quite delicious. It’s just that I rarely have $200 or more extra dollars just burning a hole in my pocket, and I’d kind of doubt that you do, too. (If I’m wrong, feel free to send some of that excess my way.) For those of us who want to drink good wine, but have to be a bit budget-conscious, here are a few suggestions on wines to consider that deliver nearly the same level of quality at a slightly more agreeable price point.
Photo by Bill Williams via Unsplash
Bordeaux
It might seem odd to offer Bordeaux as a price-conscious alternative to Napa: after all, many of the world’s most expensive wines are from Bordeaux. Yet when you move beyond the dizzying realm of those wines, there are great wines and great values to be found, whether they’re the powerful yet lithe wines from Margaux and Pauillac, to the more generous wines of St. Emilion and Pomerol, to a host of other offerings from through the region. There’s a tremendous history of winemaking here, and whether you’re looking to spend $20, $50, or $100, you can get excellent wines at each price point.
Rioja
Many of the same factors are at play in this Spanish region as in Bordeaux, including something of a shared history: many Bordelaise winemakers relocated to this region after their vineyards were devastated by phylloxera. Even after the disease reached Spain, the style and knowhow stuck around. Made mostly from Tempranillo, these wines offer great complexity and often long aging regimens for very reasonable prices. Look for Reserva and Gran Reserva bottlings to get the best of the best.
Chile
Finding high-quality Chilean wine can be a bit of a task in much of the country, but when you can get your hands on it, you won’t be disappointed. These wines balance bold, ripe fruit with a bright acidity that’s the byproduct of the extreme elevations that the grapes are grown at. As the skill of the winemakers there continues to improve, the wines have only gotten better.
Washington State
The most direct analogue for Napa in some ways is this region some 700 miles to the north. While the state’s reputation isn’t the same, and there’s not quite as much history, Washington produces more wine than any state besides California, and several specific AVAs have received a lot of acclaim for their Cabernets (Red Mountain and the Wahluke Slope in particular). For lovers of bold, concentrated, dense, tannic Cabernet, this is a great spot to start.
Napa’s contributions to the world of wine are vast, and its success and growth ushered in a revolution in winemaking, as well as the convergence of wine and the wine lifestyle. Yet for those of us for whom Napa has always been famous, and expensive, it’s nice to know that there are some other options out there.
MedMen, a Los Angeles-based cannabis management and investment firm, announced that it has acquired Bloomfield Industries, Inc., one of only five Registered Organizations licensed to operate a medical marijuana business in the State of New York.
The acquisition provides MedMen with the opportunity to apply its operational expertise and institutional best practices to one of the largest potential medical marijuana markets in the country.
Adam Bierman, CEO of MedMen / Photo by Daniel Yi, courtesy of MedMen
The transaction occurred through a sale of Bloomfield Industries’ capital stock, thereby allowing Bloomfield Industries to remain as the Registered Organization under the New York State Public Health Law.
Since October of 2016, MedMen has been working with Bloomfield Industries to help streamline operations, improve production capabilities and provide a better overall patient experience.
MedMen’s post transaction plan includes the development of a state-of-the-art cultivation and production facility in Utica, as well as applying MedMen’s industry-leading retail model to Bloomfield’s current three pharmacies in Syracuse, Buffalo and Lake Success.
Bloomfield Industries also intends to roll out a new pharmacy in Manhattan, making it one of only two medical marijuana pharmacies operating in the city.
“New York is critical to our broader strategy,” said Adam Bierman, co-founder and chief executive officer of MedMen. “We are talking about the fourth most populous state in the country and home to one of the largest, most densely populated cities in the world. We have the opportunity to serve roughly a fifth of that market, perhaps more and we are very excited about this opportunity.”
For more cannabis business coverage, visit the MJ News Network.
Stick figures have captivated the internet. These weren’t just any stick figures, but ones that seemingly came to life when splashed with a pool of water. Was water such an elemental force it could animate stick figures? Was that one SpongeBob episode about DoodleBob a real thing?
With all the fake news going around, you’d be forgiven for believing this was some hoax. But YouTuber Steve Mould explained that the trick can be explained by the science of erasable markers.
Whereas permanent markers, like a Sharpie, contain ink that utilizes a strong adhesive so it can stick to any surface, the ink of dry-erase markers uses a minimal adhesive so it can be wiped away.
Mould also claims that the ink is insoluble, meaning it won’t be dissolved in liquid and less dense than water. This is why, when the water pours over the stick figure, it slowly peels off its surface and rises to the top.
Somehow, knowing the science behind this illusion doesn’t make it any less incredible. Because even knowing the truth doesn’t translate to the world making more sense.
The majority of the police officers in the United States believe that marijuana should no longer be a criminal offense for the majority of its users, and are pushing for marijuana legalization according to the results of a new national survey.
Recently, the Pew Research Center in conjunction with the National Police Research Platform published a new report that shows nearly 70 percent of the boys in blue are of the opinion that the federal government’s total ban on the cannabis plant should be changed.
A dissection of the data shows that a third of the respondents believe marijuana should be made legal for medicinal purposes, while 37 percent would like to see it legalized in a manner similar to other recreational substances, like beer and tobacco. However, there are still those cops (30 percent) who would prefer to see the nation continue to wage war against the average cannabis consumer.
Although it is encouraging to see an increasing number of law enforcement changing its opinion of marijuana, the main takeaway from the report is that cops are still not as passionate about bringing down the scourge of prohibition as the people they are hired to protect. It was just last year that a Gallup poll found the strongest public support for marijuana legalization in American history. There is now a whopping 60 percent of the population who believes weed should be taxed and regulated the same as alcohol.
While the overall attitude of the American police force seems to support policy changes geared toward legalization, these folks are still responsible for busting hundreds of thousands of people every year just for weed. A recent study from Human Rights Watch and the ACLU shows that cops arrested 574,000 people in 2015 for simple possession — putting marijuana-related arrests above the culmination of all violent crime.
“Every 25 seconds in the United States, someone is arrested for the simple act of possessing drugs for their personal use,” the report reads. “And despite officials’ claims that drug laws are meant to curb drug sales, four times as many people are arrested for possessing drugs as are arrested for selling them.”
Interestingly, the Pew report, which was assembled with the responses of roughly 8,000 law enforcement officers, indicates that most cops are more likely to gravitate toward violence when dealing with the public than utilizing anything that resembles Mayberry charm. Fifty-six percent of the respondents believe “an aggressive rather than courteous approach is more effective” when handling people with certain neighborhoods. Another 44 percent said that getting physical is the best possible method to get a person to listen to reason.
In the majority of the news stories to surface last year involving police shootings, the suspect/victim was almost always shown to be in possession of marijuana. It is for that reason that many cannabis advocates believe a nationwide policy legalizing marijuana would be the best solution.
