Ricki Lake is a TV legend, but before that, I simply call her my friend. It’s a bit of a name drop, but it’s straight up wild that someone I grew up watching on television is now someone that I can text when I’m feeling sad. But that’s who she is. Before any of the accolades as a TV host, actress, film producer, or celebrity, she’s a humanitarian first. It showed in the night we connected at SXSW, it shows in the love she gives the world, and it especially shows in the work she’s done most recently.

Lake and her production partner, director Abby Epstein, have been on a mission with their series The Business Of films, including the 2008 documentary The Business Of Being Born, and her news project, The Business of Birth Control. Both documentaries provide an internal look at many of the health issues women face in the world. In addition to their activism for women, Lake and Abby have also highlighted issues in cannabis with their documentary Weed the People, now on Netflix.

Ricki Lake and medical cannabis

Weed the People was a six year endeavor that told the stories of five children fighting various cancers with medical cannabis and the behind-the-curtains look at how hard it is, both financially and legally. Throughout the journey, which was inspired by Lake’s late husband Christian Evans, Lake’s image of medical substances changed forever. 

On medical cannabis and alternative medications in general, Lake told us, “I believe [cannabis] is medicine. And I believe it can heal the planet and heal people on this planet in so many ways. That’s what I learned through my [late] husband [Christian Evans]: it’s a medicine. It’s something I judged, and was fearful of, and I was so indoctrinated with ‘Just Say No’ to drugs back in the ’80s. And my show, when I was hosting that show, I was so anti-drug and so closed minded. And now I could not be more supportive of all medicine.” 

Lake continued, “Psychedelics, I’m a huge supporter of these medicines being used in therapeutic settings. Ketamine, mushrooms, all of it. What the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) is doing is super, super important work, particularly right now when all of our mental health is so at stake. And the chronic pain that comes from our mental state, it’s all connected, our nervous system, all of it is coming from a place of, ‘what the fuck is going on in this world and how are we going to get through the darkest of times?’ So yeah, cannabis can be a lifesaver for that, for all of us.”

WIth Lake’s guest spot on Netflix’ Cooked with Cannabis, you’d expect her to be a huge stoner, but she actually uses the plant pretty seldomly. On her experience with cannabis, Lake said, “I love how it can enhance any sort of experience. Whether something tastes that much better, or something is that much funner, or whether your connection is that much deeper or lighter. One of the things I love about it, but that also freaks me out, is that it’s always unpredictable. Like even the same dose of the same medicine, it’s always different for me, depending on if I have food in my stomach, and all these variables. I don’t really have a handle on it, which is why I tread lightly. Although, in the case of that show, I ate everything that was put in front of me and rolled with it. But for the most part, I’m pretty cautious with my intake.”

Taking caution with her intake, Lake still likes to indulge in cannabis when the time and setting are right. Here are 3 products she can’t live without.

Lowell Farms Pre-Rolls

Immediately out the gate, Lake named Lowell as one of her favorite cannabis brands. She loves everything about them, and especially loves their packaging. 

Lowell Farms produces a full line of cannabis flower, edibles, and concentrates. Out of the line, their pre-rolls are the superstars, touted on their website as California’s best-selling pre-roll. “California has fucking great medicine,” said Lake.

Kiva Camino Gummies

“I don’t get high regularly, I never have. I love indulging in edibles, but I don’t like to smoke, I’m not good at inhaling,” says Lake. Asked which edibles, she responded, “I love Kiva. I used to do the chocolate bars, but now it’s the Caminos. And I like The Chill kind, that’s been my jam. I can take one of those whenever. It kind of peps me up, it doesn’t chill me out. It seems to have the opposite effect of what it says it’s supposed to.

Kiva Confections is a California edibles brand that produces chocolate bars, gummies, mints, and bites. Their Wild Berry Camino Gummies are 5 milligram doses of THC that include “chill terpenes” like myrcene, linalool, beta-caryophyllene, and humulene.

Om Edibles

Om Edibles is an edibles and topicals company started by Maya Elisabeth, formerly of Whoopi & Maya. The company produces three different types of products: body, edibles, and elixirs. The body line includes balms, oils, and epsom salts, which are Lake’s personal favorite. She swears by both Maya and her products, “They have bath products that I love. Her products are beautiful and I’m a big big fan. And the edibles she makes are so good.”

Featured photo courtesy of Ricki Lake. Graphic by David Lozada/Weedmaps 

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Where were you when puff, puff, pass became puff, puff …  nah, I’m good? 

For me, it was a Saturday, March 21, 2020 to be exact. In Seattle, Washington. I was at the last house party I might ever attend, posted on the back patio with a stranger who had an immaculate ponytail. I lit a stogie mcnogie of some homegrown Durban x Tangie, took a few hits, then passed it to the left, only to receive a, “Hmm … nah, I’m good.”

My world collapsed. The first decree of the Weed Smoker’s Constitution has just been amended, and we didn’t even vote on it. Shit just happened. Not only was I hurt by the rules of weed being changed, but I was also judging myself for not adjusting to them. 

It’s not like the changes aren’t for good reason. We’re in the middle of a global pandemic. As I write this, John Hopkins’ COVID-19 dashboard reports nearly 7 million cases in the US and more than 200,000 COVID-19-related deaths. So, it makes sense why people wouldn’t want to put their lips on some stranger’s spit vessel. We now live in a world where people wear hazmat suits to buy groceries, drive-thrus pass your food on a tray like cops feeding Hannibal Lecter, and coffee shop managers might actually slapbox you for not wearing a face mask. Everyone so badly wants to get back to whatever “normal” used to be — before now. Anytime you violate social distancing rules, it feels like you’re resetting the world’s countdown by years.

I miss sharing weed. And so do you — I see it in your eyes (plus the fact that you’re reading this article). The coronavirus has changed everything in the world, and just because weed is essential doesn’t mean we’re untouched. Cannabis cafés have gone out of business, those fancy THC-infused dinners in Los Angeles are on hold, and Oregon dispensaries — where you could stick your nose into the jars — have shifted to a wafting model. 

You can’t even let off a public weed cough without people side-eyeing you like you’re patient zero. 

Even finding new weed is different. When’s the last time someone passed you a jar that made you do two claps and Ric Flair? It’s been a minute since you coughed, “Damn, what’s that?!” huh? COVID-19 stole that from us. We can’t even touch jars, let alone pass along what’s inside of them. Not sharing weed takes away from that feeling of discovering a new Pokémon in the wild. Not to mention, it’s way cheaper to find new weed through smoking with other people than trying every random strain to figure out the few that you love. Real ones know.

In the era of social distancing, fewer face-to-face interactions means fewer opportunities to have a stoney conversation with someone new. It’s not that the art of conversation is dead. You can talk, and to strangers, in person, with a mask and distancing enforced. But with reports that aerosolized COVID-19 particles can remain in the air for up to three hours, the weed conversation game of smoking with a person while y’all chop it up about something weird is in a lockout. No one is standing next to you long or close enough to blow smoke in each other’s faces, and if they are, you’re both silently wondering if it makes y’all assholes. I mean, kinda. 

The dating game is all messed up now too. Not only does the absence of social gatherings force us into the hell of dating apps, you can’t even get off the link-and-smoke anymore. Fam, I hate alcohol (and dating apps). I’ll drink it socially, but if I never had to meet up with a woman over $12 cocktails just to make small talk about work and asking each other “do you like travelling?”, I would be so okay. But I participate in these social norms because, deep down, I’m hoping that she’s radical enough to see this Gelato joint I brought as a better way of connection. That’s gone now — my whole bag is gone. Picture Michael Jordan without the left shoulder fadeaway: that’s Danté Jordan without the, “You wanna just smoke instead?”

“But what about online smoking sessions?” you might point out. Let me tell you something: Online smoke sessions are trash. I’m sorry, but they are. Think about your latest Zoom call with a big group. What was the experience? It’s eight to a dozen people having one conversation. Either no one’s talking, because we don’t have the social queues of knowing when to, or everyone’s talking, because we don’t have the social queues of knowing when not to. And the more people added to the sesh, the harder it is to communicate, ultimately turning your chill time into a virtual panic room. Still, with the heightened risks of spreading the virus, sometimes a bad option like a WIFI smoke sesh is a better option than putting others and yourself at risk, or not seshing at all. 

So, where do I go from here? Like all people with a passion for weed before me, you learn to adapt.

The first time I tried to smoke with friends post-quarantine was a real eye-opener. It was a parking lot post-up where everyone brought Bluetooth speakers, camp chairs, and flow toys. We’d all gone four months without seeing each other, so everyone hugged it out upon greeting. That body-to-body love was needed in a medicinal way. As ice breakers, we exchanged sarcastic remarks about how extreme the world was acting, but when it came time to spark one, the left arm extension was still met with, “Nah, I’m good.” Instead, everyone smoked solo dolos in our own lil’ bubbles. It was a sign that jokes are jokes, but sharing weed is the new character test amongst stoners, and your choice to not adapt speaks volumes.

What are the ethics of sharing weed moving forward? No clue. That really depends on your values when it comes to public health and the culture of weed. In a global pandemic, where almost 1 million total humans have died in relation to a virus that you can spread from just breathing too far, is smoking weed with the homies ever really okay? Again, no clue. Probably not. 

I’ll come clean in saying that I’ve been burning with the people closest to me. As the months of worldwide disease, protests, and wildfires have passed, I’ve started to establish my news normal amidst the chaos, and with that has come a few exceptions. It’s like answering the age old question, “If you were stranded on a desert island, what would you bring and why?” I’ve never had a what, only a who; I’m cool on surviving alone. Nowadays, my four to five friends that I know have been masked up, chilling at the crib, and doing hand sanitizer facials on Self-care Sunday, are the only people I see, let alone smoke with, so we feel alright about it. But long gone are the days where anyone close enough to comment on how good my weed smells could hit the blunt. 

I miss the hell out of them.

Featured illustration by David Lozada/Weedmaps 

The post I miss sharing weed appeared first on Weedmaps News.

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