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Best States For Medical Marijuana Dispensaries

Despite the extra hurdles required of medical marijuana dispensary owners, there are more markets where medical marijuana is permitted.

The post Best States For Medical Marijuana Dispensaries appeared first on The Fresh Toast.

The One Request Prince Harry Has When He Stays At Hotels

A close friend of Harry’s revealed to CBS the one thing the Duke of Sussex has no patience for when traveling.

The post The One Request Prince Harry Has When He Stays At Hotels appeared first on The Fresh Toast.

The magic of Carlos Santana transcends his status as one of the most legendary rock stars of all time. From shredding at Woodstock to winning ten Grammy awards with his pioneering blend of latin-influenced rock, all the while advocating for cannabis use and launching his own weed brand, the man behind the myth has always existed on a higher plane.

Named in Rolling Stone’s “100 Greatest Guitarists” — coming in at number 20 — Santana shot to stardom from the creative nebula that was San Francisco’s Haight Ashbury in the late sixties. One of the many iconoclastic rock stars that rose from the hotbed at that time, Santana aligned with bands like The Grateful Dead and The Jefferson Airplane. After playing one the sickest sets at Woodstock, which included an 11-minute instrumental version of “Soul Sacrifice,” the largely unknown artist found his fanbase, and the rest is history. 

Known for pausing concerts to speak on the “spiritual use of cannabis” between songs, Santana views weed as less of the product-based commodity market it is becoming, and more as the medicine it’s always been. As a young child growing up in Tijuana, his first experiences with cannabis were in his mother’s garden. 

Santana’s cannabis history

“When I was a child my mom used to have this plant for medicine,” Santana told Weedmaps. “She would put it in alcohol and let it sit there. Then, you were able to take care of your knees for rheumatism or arthritis, any number of things.” 

He continued, “She was really proud of being a gardener and cooking. It was my mom’s fascination besides the family, the flowers that she had. She had beautiful roses and she noticed that the ants would come to get them because the roses were so beautiful and delicious and sweet. So she got the marijuana tincture and put it around the roses and the ants would get so high, they would forget what they were doing and turn around.” 

It wasn’t until Santana moved to San Francisco with his family and started playing music in the local scene that he began using cannabis as a spiritual tool for vibrating at an optimal creative frequency. 

“I didn’t start actually smoking it until ’65, ’66,” he said. “When I started hanging around Haight Ashbury, all that, you know the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver. That whole wave of consciousness awakening took place in the Haight Ashbury and at the Fillmore. That’s when it became normal and natural.” 

Santana believes cannabis is a tool for the artist to activate and realize imagination. “All artists need to stimulate their vision,” he said. “We say if you close your eyes and see it, you can paint it. If you hear it, you can play it. You know? So I think it is mainly for the creative process of stimulating, igniting, and activating your imagination on a whole other level.” 

Santana’s favorite weed

Santana’s lifelong love of weed has recently culminated in a new cannabis line, Mirayo by Santana. “It’s called Mirayo, and it comes from knowing that photosynthesis is a language that talks to plants,” he said. “There’s medicine, and then there’s drugs. Drugs humans make in a laboratory. Medicine, the sunlight makes with the earth.” 

Available in California, Mirayo features sungrown cannabis in a few different forms, 5-packs of half-gram pre-rolls and 7-gram jars of flower. Products are available in three different strains, or “categories of consciousness,” like Centered (indica), Radiance (sativa), and Symmetry (hybrid). 

He continued, “We want to emphasize how much photosynthesis plays a role with soil and water and sunlight to tell this plant to go and be this, so you can go and be you.”

In honor of the Mirayo launch, we spoke to the ethereal and seemingly all knowing being behind the brand on the kind of weed that takes him where he wants to go. 

Here are the three weed products Carlos Santana can’t live without. 

The Ice Cream strains 

While Santana’s relationship to cannabis exists on a broader plane than consciously sampling the strains and products du jour, he does list one of the trendiest product genres on the market today: Ice Cream strains. “I like the ones called Ice Creams,” he said. “Do you know the ones I’m talking about?”

Ice Cream strains like Ice Cream and Ice Cream Cake are award-winning hybrids with a balanced high that’s at once alert and relaxing, making them perfect for creating. 

“You can do martinis or scotch, but if you take a toke, your music or writing and creative process become a little different because it’s not a depressant,” he said. “It seems like people who drink alcohol, they only write depressing songs about misery or victims or whatever. But people who smoke weed, they talk about changing the world, the Berlin wall coming down, or, you know, climbing out and telling the truth that the world needs to hear.”

Sativa strains

“Cannabis is like having a personal relationship with something that suits your own unique authenticity and individuality,” said Santana. “For me, it’s sativa strains because I like to be productive and creative. I can’t do something that all of a sudden I can’t function. So I want to be part of something that stimulates the creative process.” 

He continued, “I like to be able to promote a frequency, which is really what it is. A frequency that’s conducive to creativity. Whether you’re dreaming awake or you’re dreaming in your dreams, either way, you’re still dreaming.” 

Gummies

“Even though I’m 73, I’m still curious like a young teenager and want to experiment, to explore different levels of consciousness,” he said. “Right now, I’m still mostly smoking, but I’m investigating and trying a little bit of the gummy things, too.”

While he wasn’t sure what the brand was, they’re raspberry-flavored, square-shaped, and great for nibbling on corners. “The gummy things, I find those to be interesting, especially because I haven’t really done a lot of them. I’lI just take one little quarter and it helps me just to think like, ‘Oh, that’s what this is.’ It’s like filling in a piece of your curiosity.”

He continued, “For me, it’s still always about consciousness. Finding something to stimulate your creativity, and dive into different kinds of consciousness that can collectively awaken people to create more peace, unity and harmony,” he paused. “That’s what it’s all about.”  

Featured graphic by David Lozada/Weedmaps

The post 3 weed products Carlos Santana can't live without appeared first on Weedmaps News.

How Marijuana Helps These Guys Be Better Dads

When it comes to parenting, certain dads believe that, when consumed responsibly, cannabis makes them a better parent. 

The post How Marijuana Helps These Guys Be Better Dads appeared first on The Fresh Toast.

North Carolina’s AG is pushing for marijuana law reform in the name of racial justice.

How To Work Out In Your Apartment Without Annoying Your Neighbors

Apartment don’t usually lend a lot of space for working out. Here are a few tips that can help you avoid your neighbor’s wrath.

The post How To Work Out In Your Apartment Without Annoying Your Neighbors appeared first on The Fresh Toast.

Dozens of marijuana-related panels have been proposed for next year’s South by Southwest (SXSW) event, and several other submissions mention psychedelics. Now the festival needs the public’s help in deciding which ones make the cut.

Through Friday, SXSW is asking people to comment and vote on 48 proposed panels for SXSW 2021 that involve cannabis and four that mention psychedelics. The festival, normally a trendy annual event in Austin, will be held online in March.

Proposals for the panels span the gamut, from issues of social equity in legal cannabis to DIY healthcare and home entheogenic medicines. Most of the proposals have an industry feel—a nod to the festival’s “cannabusiness” track featured in recent years—while other pitches are especially timely: More than one mentions cannabis and COVID-19.

Anyone is free to comment on the proposals through the festival’s PanelPicker tool. To vote, you’ll need to sign up for a free SXSW account.

Among some of the notable names put forward for the 2021 festival include Bay Area recording artist and entrepreneur Berner, co-founder of the marijuana brand Cookies; Cat Packer, director of the Los Angeles Department of Cannabis Regulation; Al Harrington, a former NBA player who founded his own cannabis company; and Toi Hutchison, senior advisor on cannabis control to Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D).

There’s a lot of overlap between panel topics, so be sure to look through them all. Try searching with terms like “cannabis” or “psychedelics.” Many carry the festival’s “cannabusiness” tag.

Here’s just a taste of some of the options that could be featured at SXSW 2021:

• Celebrities Redefining Cannabis Entrepreneurship — It wouldn’t be SXSW without celebrity. This panel features Gilbert Anthony Miliam Jr., the musical artist better known as Berner, who co-founded and runs the trendsetting cannabis brand Cookies. The panel centers on how entrepreneurs of color in the marijuana space are working to rectify past injustices of the drug war and what the future intersection of entertainment and cannabis might look like.
• The Future of Cannabis Is Appellation Designation — Interested in craft cannabis? Representatives from Big Rock Partners, Sonoma Hills Farm, Henry’s Original and Moonmade Farms discuss how a new California “appellation of origin” law could impact growers and help inform consumers about where their cannabis comes from.
• The Stoners and the Suits: Building Bridges — One of the earliest entrepreneurs to enter legal cannabis, Andrew DeAngelo, president of DeAngelo Brothers Productions LLC, shares how he’s been “both a ‘stoner’ and a ‘suit’” during his 35 years in the marijuana business and offers ideas about how to build trust between groups that often find themselves at odds.
• DIY Healthcare: From Seed to Self Reliance — For those who like to get their hands dirty, Amanda Reiman, CEO and founder of Personal Plants, explains home production and processing of plant-based medicine, including cannabis and psychedelics.
• Can We Ensure Equity In Cannabis Policy? #YesWeCan — This solo panel by Cat Packer, director of the Los Angeles Department of Cannabis Regulation, focuses on how we can “build a more equitable society for those previously and currently affected by cannabis policy,” as well as other areas of society affected by cannabis policy. Packer, who previously worked for the advocacy group the Drug Policy Alliance, shares her perspective as a self-described “agitator” within the space and acknowledges there’s still work to be done.
• The Crop They Won’t Share–Disrupting Legalization — “Legal Cannabis Doesn’t Care About Black People,” begins the description of this panel, which notes that 96 percent of cannabis business licenses in the U.S. have gone to white owners. Featuring speakers such as Toi Hutchison, senior advisor on cannabis control to Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D), and Melek Dexter, founder and CEO of Lets ReUP and Do Better Project, this is yet another worthy look at the need for social justice in the cannabis industry.
• The Urgency for An Equitable Cannabis Industry — Another proposed panel centering on the need for social equity in cannabis, this one features a more industry-side perspective. It includes Tahir Johnson, business development and diversity and inclusion manager at the National Cannabis Industry Association, as well as Curaleaf VP of Social Responsibility Khadija Tribble and representatives from Lantern and Fyllo.
• Psychedelics: Rewiring Mental Health Care — Professors from Johns Hopkins University and the Mount Sinai School of Medicine are among the speakers on this panel looking into the therapeutic uses of psilocybin, the main psychoactive ingredient in psychedelic mushrooms. Panelists will explain psilocybin’s potential benefits to treat psychiatric and behavioral disorders, discuss common misconceptions and examine existing problems in mental health care.
• Reporting on the Corporatization of Psychedelics — With more and more interest in the mental health applications of psychedelics, yet another illicit drug market could soon go legal. In this panel, the CEO and managing editor of DoubleBlind Mag, which covers psychedelics, sit down to discuss how cannabis paved the way for psychedelics and how for-profit interests could upset efforts at equity.

It’s not yet clear how many of the proposals will be selected. In 2019, the festival boasted more than 20 cannabis events, including discussions on entrepreneurship by women and the prospect of marijuana reform in Texas. Sixty-two cannabis proposals were submitted for consideration in that festival.

SXSX’s 2019 cannabis track also caused some controversy when former House Speaker John Boehner (R), who joined the board of a major cannabis firm after leaving office, delivered a keynote address, which drew protests from social justice advocates who argued that corporate marijuana firms had overlooked equity issues.

SXSW 2020 was scheduled to feature 24 different cannabis panels, but the festival was canceled due to the pandemic.

Featured image by Gina Coleman/Weedmaps

This article has been republished from Marijuana Moment under a content-sharing agreement. Read the original article here.

The post SXSW wants you to vote on weed and psychedelics panels for 2021 event appeared first on Weedmaps News.

Everyone knows that music and cannabis make the perfect pairing.

Want to grow cannabis at home? Call your state legislator about it today—or it might be too late.

The post Key details in New Jersey’s marijuana law could be decided this weekend appeared first on Leafly.