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Tag: marijuana

  • DTC Brands Doing Incredible Numbers on Shopify, Says COO

    DTC Brands Doing Incredible Numbers on Shopify, Says COO

    Direct to consumer brands are doing incredible numbers on Shopify, says Shopify COO Harley Finkelstein. He says that Kylie Jenner has generated almost a billion dollars in sales on the platform and many other influencers such as Kanye West, Drake, and most recently Tom Brady are also doing very well.

    “Even if you go beyond just Kylie, you look at companies like Bombas and Allbirds and Tommy John and Fashion Nova, these are brands that didn’t exist five or ten years ago and they’re absolutely doing incredible numbers on Shopify with no slowing down in mind,” says Finklestein. “Shopify was built to help anyone that has an idea start a great business and sell to a global audience.”

    Harley Finkelstein, COO of Shopify, talks about the incredible numbers DTC brands are doing on Shopify, the huge success of Shopify Capital, and their quick acceptance of cannabis stores in Canada and potentially the rest of the world, in an interview with Jim Cramer on CNBC:

    DTC Brands Doing Incredible Numbers on Shopify

    We’re really happy with how we ended the year and certainly, the quarter was great and we’re really excited about our future. We’ve been at this now for almost 14 years. We’ve grown to 820,000 merchants up from 600,000 merchants a year ago. We have a big top of funnel with brand new entrepreneurs getting started on Shopify for the very first time. We also have some very large brands like the big CPGs and some big direct to consumer (DTC) companies all using Shopify to scale their businesses. We’ve got a really great business model and we’re having a lot of fun.

    It’s amazing. I think the Kylie story ($1 billion in sales) was surprising to a lot of people, not for us because we see so many stories like that all the time. Whether it’s Kanye West launching his Yeezy store on Shopify or Drake’s store or Tom Brady’s new store, we see all of these major brands and huge influencers using Shopify to create authentic products and sell it to the audience. I always sort of think back to if DTC and direct-to-consumer were around when Michael Jordan was creating the Jordan brand with Nike I think Nike would be a supplier and Michael Jordan would be the brand. He would own the entirety of his business as opposed to getting a licensing fee.

    We’re really excited about this. But even if you go beyond just Kylie, you look at companies like Bombas and Allbirds and Tommy John and Fashion Nova, these are brands that didn’t exist five or ten years ago and they’re absolutely doing incredible numbers on Shopify with no slowing down in mind. Shopify was built to help anyone that has an idea start a great business and sell to a global audience. We really do bend the learning curve to make it really easy to get started.

    Shopify Helping Democratize the Entire Business Process

    The ones that succeed, not all of them do, but the ones that do succeed they grow really large with us and over time we want to provide them with more services and more solutions. For example, we launched Shopify Payments a couple of years ago. We went to the payments companies and negotiated rates on their behalf. We launched Shopify Shipping and went to the shipping company and negotiated shipping costs on their behalf. We always are trying to find economies of scale to help democratize the entire business process for these small businesses.

    More recently we realized that a lot of these small businesses also need capital. Because we have so much information on them we’re able to make really quick and very effective underwriting decisions so we were able to go and offer them capital cash advances. We’ve given out hundreds of millions of dollars of cash advances to a lot of these small businesses who if it wasn’t for Shopify would not be able to get this money on their own.

    Entrepreneurs Want to Own Their Audience

    Etsy fundamentally is a marketplace. Etsy is a place where someone who makes a product can go to find an audience. But our feeling is that you know for an entrepreneur they don’t always want to rent the audience. They want to own the audience. They want to have a direct relationship with their customers. They want to own the entire to profit margin. They want to be able to sell and have long-term relations with the people that are buying their products.

    So companies like Etsy do a really good job of curating a bunch of products and renting those customers to those makers. We think the marketplaces are really great but we think ultimately makers and entrepreneurs and merchants want to have a direct relationship with the people buying their products. One of the things that is not well known about Shopify but one way to think about what we do is really this retail operating system. Merchants can start a store with us very easily and they can build a beautiful online store but they can also cross-sell to different marketplaces like eBay or Amazon.

    The idea is that it feeds all feeds back in one centralized back office which is Shopify. That’s where they can run the entirety of their business. Really the idea is let’s become the most important piece of software they use on a daily basis. The first thing they open every morning, the last thing they close every night. So obviously marketplace will play a role there but ultimately merchants want to find customers wherever those customers exist and more and more they want to sell direct to those customers.

    Shopify Facilitating Cannabis Sales in Canada

    The reason we started with Canada was there was clarity in Canada. The Canadian government, the legislature, they were very clear with how they were going to roll out the commercialization and the legalization of cannabis sales on the consumer side. We felt it was really important for us to act quickly and effectively to not only win as much of the Canadian market as we possibly could but also to show the rest of the world as they begin to think about cannabis sales that we are the first phone call that they should be making.

    Whether it’s the province of Ontario or British Columbia or most of the largest licensed producers like Canopy in Canada, Shopify is what’s powering those retail sales. We think that we can do a great job helping other countries and other regions do the same thing.

  • Cannabis Triple Venti at Starbucks?

    Cannabis Triple Venti at Starbucks?

    Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson says that cannabis-infused beverages are not on the roadmap. However, he seems open to that possibility in the future.

    “You can’t get a cannabis triple venti today,” said Johnson in an interview on CNBC. “Certainly we’re well aware of what’s happening around CBD and THC and all the trends in the industry. There are a lot of of issues that we would have to think through on that. Right now that’s not on the roadmap. But we are mindful of the trends. We’re mindful of how CBD oils and CBD is viewed as a health and wellness item, so we’re going to keep watching this.”

    “We’re staying focused on the beverage innovation that we’re driving and right now and it’s all about nitro,” the Starbucks CEO added. “We talked yesterday during the earnings call about how we’re deploying nitro and nitro cold brew across our entire portfolio of company operated stores. But we will always stay on top of consumer trends and new ideas.”

    It does seem like Starbucks is leaving some room to jump into this market at a later date. So maybe someday, you will be able to order that cannabis triple venti! Could a future partnership with Canopy Growth be in their future?


  • Even Just on the Medical Side, There’s Big Business in Pot

    Even Just on the Medical Side, There’s Big Business in Pot

    There’s a big business to be built even just on the medical side of legal marijuana says legendary technology investor Geoff Lewis. Lewis was an early investor in Tilray which recently had a hugely successful IPO of which he was pleasantly surprised.

    Lewis thinks the worldwide trend is toward recreational legalization of marijuana and that bodes well for Tilray. “I think quite honestly the US is behind other countries on that score,” says Lewis. “So TBD here, but around the world, the trend is very much toward recreational legalization.”

    Geoff Lewis, the founder of Bedrock Capital and an early tech investor in many companies including Tilray, the global leader in legal marijuana, Lewis recently discussed the recent Tilray IPO and the future of legal pot around the world on CNBC:

    I Didn’t Think the Tilray Founders Actually Used the Product

    One of the reasons I invested in Tilray, via Privateer Holdings, the creators of Tilray back in 2014, was that I didn’t think the founders actually used the product. I spent a lot of time trying to diligence whether I thought the team was actually using it and they weren’t.

    The reason I cared is not that I have anything societally against it, but it was illegal at the time. The company was based at the time in Washington State where it was not legal.

    At this point, I do think the trend has really dramatically shifted from back when we invested in Tilray in 2014 and it’s now obviously a publicly traded company. It’s a big win and we’re really lucky to have been able to back those founders early on. But there were only a few countries in the world where there was a medically legal framework and now there are over 30 countries.

    There’s Big Business to be Built on Just the Medical Side

    We didn’t know the IPO was going to be as successful as it was, that was a pleasant surprise. I would say that we did believe that regulation ultimately follows what society wants. We felt back in 2014 when we made the investment that most people in most countries believe it should at least be medically legal and the regulations were very expected.

    There’s big business to be built just on the medical side. I do strongly believe the trend is toward recreational legalization. This is certainly true in many of the Western European countries and South America. I think quite honestly the US is behind other countries on that score. So TBD here, but around the world, the trend is very much toward recreational legalization.

  • Morgan Freeman Says: Legalize It, Sonny!

    Morgan Freeman is saying what everybody else has been thinking: Marijuana is illegal, federally. Alcohol is not. And one of those is bullshit.

    The Daily Beast spoke to Morgan Freeman recently and the topic of his marijuana use came up. Morgan freeman was in a car accident seven years ago and had to be rescued with the Jaws of Life. His left shoulder, arm, and elbow were shattered; nerves in his arm had to be repaired. He still has daily pain and health concerns over it.

    And The Man with the Golden Voice smokes pot to help with his pain.

    “They used to say, ‘You smoke that stuff, boy, you get hooked!” says Morgan Freeman. “My first wife got me into it many years ago. How do I take it? However it comes! I’ll eat it, drink it, smoke it, snort it! This movement is really a long time coming, and it’s getting legs—longer legs.”

    Here is where Morgan Freeman draws the alcohol-marijuana argument clearly. Remember, alcohol was declared illegal in the United States fora while. That was a dark time. We learned better, didn’t we?

    “Now, the thrust is understanding that alcohol has no real medicinal use. Maybe if you have one drink it’ll quiet you down, but two or three and you’re fucked.”

    As if there weren’t already a mountain of evidence that politicians are choosing to ignore, Morgan Freeman lays out the case clearly.

    “Marijuana has many useful uses,” Morgan Freeman says. “I have fibromyalgia pain in this arm, and the only thing that offers any relief is marijuana. They’re talking about kids who have grand mal seizures, and they’ve discovered that marijuana eases that down to where these children can have a life. That right there, to me, says, ‘Legalize it across the board!’”

    Ok, so some may argue that they can see making it available in some form as a prescription drug. Maybe they are still afraid of the downside. But Morgan Freeman asks about that downside.

    “And what negative effects does it have?” Morgan Freeman asks. “Look at Woodstock 1969. They said, ‘We’re not going to bother them or say anything about smoking marijuana,’ and not one problem or fight. Then look at what happened in ’99,” he says.

  • Roseanne Barr Losing Her Eyesight, Touts Benefits of Marijuana

    Roseanne Barr of the hit TV sitcom Roseanne and a judge on last season’s Last Comic Standing, is going blind. The 62-year-old announced at the Tribeca Film Festival on Monday that “her vision is closing in.”

    “I have macular degeneration and glaucoma,”Barr said of the medical condition that ultimately leaves you blind. “I just try and enjoy vision as much as possible, you know? Living it up.”

    “My dad had it, too,” Barr explained, adding that she’ll miss reading but has thought about hiring someone to “read for me and read to me.”

    Roseanne Barr has long been an advocate for legalizing marijuana. She claims she smokes it to relieve the pressure in her eyes. She is seen smoking it in her film, Roseanne for President.

    “Marijuana is good for me for that because I have pressure in my eyes,” she explained. “[Marijuana is a] good medicine for a lot of things.”

    “It’s expansive,” Roseanne Barr says of the drug. “It opens your mind. You’re like…Wow, you’re in awe. You look up into the stars. It makes you wonder. It doesn’t close that down.”

    How sad that Roseanne Barr is going blind. That must be a desperate realization–especially for someone so young.

    Are you–like Roseanne Barr–an advocate for legalizing marijuana, at least for medical use?

  • Alexis Bortell: Texas 9-Year-Old Uses Marijuana To Cure Seizures

    Young Alexis Bortell is taking on Texas in her bid to legalize medical marijuana.

    The 9-year-old from Dallas started having seizures at the age of 7 and was eventually diagnosed with epilepsy. Her doctors initially prescribed medication but it didn’t do anything for her condition. At one point, it even made her worse.

    According to Alexis’ father Dean, a US Navy veteran, she was initially prescribed with Carbatrol. Her seizures went from “mainly at night to around the clock.” The next drug they tried, Depakote, gave the young girl tremors and altered her personality, but didn’t stop the seizures.

    The Bortell’s started looking into medical marijuana after watching “Weed 2,” a CNN documentary on medical marijuana. After doing their own research and consulting with specialists, Alexis was issued a “red card” in Colorado, allowing doctors to prescribe her with marijuana-based medication. The medication appears to be working.

    “Since the first dose, she has not had a single symptom or seizure and we’re on day 22 now,” her family wrote on Alexis’ Facebook page.

    Unfortunately, Alexis can’t use any marijuana-based medication in Texas. The state has banned its medical and recreational use and even has harsh penalties for those in possession of marijuana oils and tinctures, which are the most common form of medical marijuana.

    Despite Alexis’ appeal that she “don’t wanna leave Texas. I’m a Texas girl,” her family had no choice but to relocate to Colorado.

    Alexis and her family aren’t taking it sitting down though, as they continue to push Texas lawmakers to legalize the treatment.

    Several bills have already been proposed but advocates have described them as “appeasement legislation” that doesn’t really help people suffering from diseases that can be helped with medical marijuana.

    However, things might be looking up for the Bortells and other families like them. New medical marijuana bills from Texas representative Marisa Marquez and Senator Jose Menendez aim to provide patients with a wide range of conditions access to medical marijuana.

    If it’s successful, Alexis’s dream of going back home to Texas might finally come true.

  • Willie Nelson Pot Stores Will Be “the Anti-Walmart”

    Willie Nelson smokes pot. Well technically, Willie Nelson probably vapes pot more often nowadays. That’s what he was doing when James Joiner sat down with him during the SXSW madness in Austin.

    Joiner filed his story about Willie Nelson’s huge Heartbreaker Banquet last week, complete with loads of pics. But one little bit of news that Willie Nelson accidentally dropped in the interview spun off a whole new conversation.

    Willie Nelson is planning to open a chain of pot stores, featuring his own personal strain of weed.

    Willie Nelson has been a champion of all things cannabis, including industrial hemp and marijuana, for decades. But now he’s bringing his wares to Main Street of select towns.

    Michael Bowman is the spokesman for Willie’s pot store enterprise. He says that there is more to this than 81-year-old Willie Nelson selling his favorite pot, which they plan to call “Willie’s Reserve.” They will sell product from other growers, but with certain caveats.

    “There will be our own, and then there will be opportunities for other growers, who meet quality standards. Let’s just call it the anti-Walmart model. Personally, internally, that’s what we call it. A certain standard by which growers have to account for carbon and such, in a way that empowers small growers who are doing the right thing.”

    Bowman went on to explain that a good comparison for what Willie Nelson wants to accomplish with this enterprise is how a well-known health food store chain works.

    “It will be like when you walk into a Whole Foods store. Whole Foods has their 365 brand, or you can buy Stony Brook, or you can buy Horizon… It’ll all fall under that umbrella of ‘here’s our core beliefs, and here’s our mission statement,’ and they will be a part of that, to be a part of us.”

  • Marijuana Legalization Was Facebook’s Most-Discussed Topic on Election Day

    On Election Day, with hotly contested House, Senate, and Gubernatorial races happening all over the country, social media chatter was turned up to 11. According to Facebook, Tuesday’s midterm elections saw 85 million interactions (posts, likes, and comments) from 27 million people. Some of that conversation can be attributed to Facebook’s “I’m a Voter” prompt that had people sharing their voting status with their friends – but even with that, the amount of organic discussion is impressive.

    Facebook says that some of the most talked-about topics of the day were taxes, Obamacare, education, and voter fraud – all of which make sense considering that they were made integral parts of various campaigns (especially the first two).

    But in terms of top conversations, the aforementioned topics are numbers two through five. The big winner of the day, in terms of total buzz, was pot.

    Facebook says that marijuana was the most talked-about topic throughout the entirety of Election Day.

    Pot was indeed on the ballot – and in a big way. Statewide ballot measures in four areas – Alaska, Florida, Oregon, and Washington DC – dominated the conversation all day.

    Proponent of marijuana legalization had a pretty solid day, scoring victories in three of the four major battles.

    In Alaska Ballot Measure 2, an initiative to legalize and regulate marijuana for those 21 and older passed with 52 percent of the vote. In Oregon Measure 91, a similar measure, won big – 55 percent to 45 percent.

    Post by Marijuana Policy Project.

    And in our nation’s capital a legalization initiative sponsored by the DC Cannabis Campaign won huge, with a final tally of 65 percent to 28 percent in favor.

    “The people of the District of Columbia have voted in favor of ending racially biased marijuana prohibition,” said Dr. Malik Burnett, the Vice Chair of the DC Cannabis Campaign. “The harms caused by the war on drugs are not fixed with this vote alone; the real healing begins when the DC Council develops a tax-and-regulate system based on racial and social justice.”

    The only loss on the day was in Florida, where a constitutional amendment to allow medical marijuana failed with 58 percent of the vote. In Florida, amendments put to the ballot require 60 percent to succeed.

    Political races be damned – election Tuesday was marijuana’s day … at least on Facebook.

    Image via DCMJ, Facebook

  • Kathy Bates Outs Susan Sarandon As A Pothead On TV

    On the latest episode of Watch What Happens Live, Kathy Bates was asked a series of tricky questions and may have bitten off more than she could chew. One of the questions Bates was asked by host Andy Cohen caused her to out fellow actor Susan Sarandon as a pothead.

    During a segment called “Plead The Fifth” on the October 30 episode of Watch What Happens Live, Bates admitted that she had smoked marijuana with the 68-year-old Thelma and Louise star as recently as June. The segment entails Cohen asking three difficult questions of his guest, with the guest having the option to “plead the fifth” and decline answering one of the queries.

    Cohen asked Bates, “Kathy Bates, who is the bigger pothead: Susan Sarandon or Matthew McConaughey?” Bates starred with Sarandon in the 2014 film Tammy, while McConaughey played her son in Failure To Launch.

    Bates hemmed and hawed but finally mustered enough courage to reply with her own question. “Oh, that’s tough… Is this gonna get them into trouble legally? Is this going to get me into trouble legally?” she asked.

    Cohen suggested to Bates that it was McConaughey, but the 66-year-old actress didn’t seem sure. “No… No, ‘cause I played his mother in Failure to Launch, he’s a sweet boy. He was headed down the wrong path and now he’s [taking off],” she said.

    “Sarandon—you’re giving it to Sarandon,” Cohen said.

    Although Bates never answered the question directly, the next thing she said hinted at her real answer. “Well, I actually shared some dope with her last June. Yeah, I was with Melissa McCarthy, we were shooting Tammy, and I was staying at Susan’s house in Figure Eight Island off Wilmington, and she had some good s–t… but I didn’t inhale!” said Bates, who currently stars in American Horror Story: Freak Show.

  • Jackie Chan Wants Media To Stop Making False Reports About His Imprisoned Son

    At a press conference for his new movie Skiptrace, Jackie Chan was recently asked about his son Jaycee Chan, who was arrested on drug charges by the Chinese government in August. The elder Chan told reporters on Thursday, October 23, that he wanted to be a better father to Jaycee and implored the press to not hurt his wife, former actress Joan Lin, by printing false news about their son.

    “I know as much about him as everyone else. I ask the media to please not report anything without proof. Please do not hurt Siu Fong Ji’s Mama [Joan Lin] and publish untrue reports. If necessary, I will give a clear explanation to everyone,” said Chan.

    Chan revealed that he has been focusing on his film work, shooting by day and editing by night. He claims that his son’s arrest has had no impact on his career, despite rumors that Chan had to kneel in front of authorities and that the release of his film was delayed. Chan also denied such rumors.

    There were also rumors that Chan and Lin visited Jaycee at a detention center and that Lin wished she had been jailed instead of her son. However, these were denied by Jaycee’s manager, who said that Lin had not left Hong Kong.

    At the press conference in Beijing, Chan admitted that he could have been a better father to his son. “I am always a father. I used to be an unqualified father. Now, after this event, I want to be a qualified father,” he said.

    Jaycee numbered among celebrities who were caught during a crackdown on drug abuse in Beijing and other parts of China earlier this year. More than 100 grams of marijuana were found in his apartment, and Jaycee is accused of accommodating drug users, which could land him up to three years in prison.

  • Marijuana Legalization: Seattle Pot Shops in Standoff Over Shutdown

    Whenever marijuana is legalized in any form, anywhere, there is a bit of red tape that has to be handled. Heretofore, there were no forms, staffing, website sections, and other such trappings to handle the subject. Now a bureaucracy has to be created.

    When Seattle legalized medical marijuana, they ran into just such an issue. Shops were opening, but those shops needed to be licensed by the state. The trouble was, there was no procedure for obtaining a license from the state.

    So Seattle came up with a compromise: allow all shops that were opened before November 16, 2013, to continue to operate without trouble until the licensing issues could be resolved. But other businesses presumed the issues would be fixed soon, so they set up shop anyway. Now those businesses face some real problems, because the state of Washington has not gotten that issue fixed.

    So some businesses are now getting letters informing them that they could be in violation of the law.

    “If you began operating after Nov. 16, 2013 and do not have a state issued license,” the letters inform them, “you are in violation of city law and can be subject to enforcement action.”

    These shops are hoping that the state will understand that the burden lies with the State Legislature and go easy on them until everything is fixed.

    “We’re urging the Legislature to adopt a legal framework that can allow the two programs — adult use and medical — to exist side-by-side,” said Kris Hermes, a spokesman for Americans for Safe Access. “In the meantime, the city of Seattle should back off its stringent stance on requiring medical-marijuana businesses to obtain a license that doesn’t yet exist.”

  • Ebola.com Sold for Over $200K to Russian Weed Company

    Ebola.com, a domain which, at this point, can only boast a few Ebola-related articles and a couple of ads, was just sold for over $200,000 in cash and stock.

    Just last week, a man named Jon Schultz announced that he was prepared to sell Ebola.com for $150,000. He told The Washington Post that he felt the price was more than reasonable, considering the site was already seeing thousands of pageviews a day – and that number will only increase. Schultz bought the domain back in 2008 for $13,500 after watching the movie Outbreak.

    Now, it appears, he’s made even more than he though he would. An SEC filing confirms that Schultz’s Blue String Ventures has sold Ebola.com to a Russian company called Weed Growth Fund for over $200,000 in cash and stock. The deal includes $50,000 cash and 19,192 share of stock.

    But Weed Growth Fund isn’t giving away their own stock. Instead, the company is selling 19,192 shares of another weed company’s stock in the deal – Cannabis Sativa, Inc.

    According to The Verge, those 19,192 shares are currently valued at about $164,000.

    At this point, I’d say this an interesting story. It’s about to get better.

    Turns out, Cannabis Sativa, Inc. just recently appointed a new CEO. Back in July, the company named New Mexico’s former two-term governor and Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson as its new leader. That boosted stock prices.

    So, if somewhere down the line, someone asks you about the story of Ebola.com, just mumble something about pot and Gary Johnson.

    Image via European Commission Dg ECHO, Flickr Creative Commons

  • Halloween Candy: Marijuana Candies Cause Concern This Year

    Halloween is an odd celebration. Parents warn children 364 days a year about the dangers of “taking candy from strangers,” then drive them around to do that very thing one day out of that year. And for decades, parents have been warning children about the dangers of anything they score on Halloween that is not sealed in plastic. Gone are the days of homemade cookies, popcorn balls, and other non-store-bought treats.

    While most reports about Halloween candy laced with poison, needles, or drugs turn out to be bogus, there is a newer concern this year that does bear some attention: marijuana-infused candy.

    This is not a matter of some sick individual intentionally baking pot brownies to give out to unsuspecting kids on Halloween. Marijuana-infused candy is a real item, available commercially in dispensaries and other places, for people who choose to ingest their THC that way rather than deal with the dangers inherent in smoking anything.

    The Denver Police Department spoke of this in a recent podcast. Sergeant Brett Hinkle said, “Apples, gummy bears, there’s a ton of different edible stuff out there on the market that’s infused with marijuana.”

    “What’s happening a lot with the edible manufacturers who have focused on a hard or a soft candy is that the most cost-effective way for them to bring that to the market is to use knock-off candy,” said Patrick Johnson, owner of Urban Dispensary. “So they’ll buy it in bulk form, then they infuse it by using viscous hash oil. They spray that onto the candy and once that candy dries, there’s really no way to tell the difference between candy that’s infused and candy that’s not infused.”

    That sort of bulk production will be a thing of the past in 2016. Colorado has passed a law that by Jan. 1, 2016, all marijuana-infused candies and other treats must be shaped, stamped, colored, or marked with a symbol indicating they contain marijuana and are not for consumption by children. But for now, it is impossible to tell an unwrapped marijuana treat from a regular piece of traditional candy.

    One huge concern about pot candy is that it takes very little of it to have an effect. A regular Hershey’s chocolate candy bar is considered one serving. But an identical pot-infused chocolate bar is considered five servings. While there is no record in human history of anyone ever overdosing on marijuana, the effects of a single unexpected dose of marijuana on a child could be frightening. Five doses could be a terrifying experience, especially considering the fact that the effects of eaten marijuana last considerably longer than marijuana that is smoked.

    Colorado police have gone even further, producing a video featuring Johnson to help parents know how to handle Halloween until the new packaging law goes into effect.

    One of the things they recommend is throwing away any candy that you do not recognize as being from a well-known manufacturer, and certainly anything that has been opened or tampered with.

    Pro-pot advocates stress that it is highly unlikely that anyone will intentionally distribute pot-infused candy to children on Halloween. Dispensary owners and legal users do not want that kind of trouble. It was, after all, a dispensary owner who worked with Colorado police to produce that video.

  • Sarah Silverman Reportedly Brings Pot to Emmys

    It’s hard to make it through any awards show without someone making a goof, whether it is Jennifer Lawrence tripping or someone’s nipple popping out in a wardrobe malfunction, and last night’s 2014 Emmys was no exception. This time the person who attracted some extra attention was comedian Sarah Silverman, who reportedly brought marijuana to the awards.

    According to E! Online, Sarah Silverman accidentally showed off her marijuana vaporizer pen on the red carpet. During an interview with E!’s Giuliana Rancic, after discussing Silverman’s cleavage, Rancic opened up the star’s purse to show off its contents.

    “This is my pot. Liquid pot,” Silverman told Rancic after she pulled out the vaporizer pen. Check out a picture of the marijuana pen below.

    While some starts might be a little embarrassed by the situation, Sarah Silverman didn’t miss a beat and continue to tell Rancic about the rest of the items she had in her clutch. “This is what everything’s really supposed to be in,” Silverman said. “Money, lipstick, a little mirror, my license—what if I need my license?”

    Check out a video of Silverman flashing her pot pen below.

    Silverman went on to win an Emmy in the Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special category for We Are Miracles. On the way to retrieve her award, Silverman kicked off her shoes and ran on stage barefoot. During her acceptance speech, Silverman commented, “And we’re just all made of molecules and we’re hurtling through space right now.” This led Pitch Perfect star Anna Kendrick to post the following tweet:

    In case you’re a little rusty on acronyms, Kendrick is saying that Sarah Silverman was “high as f***.” Check out Silverman’s acceptance speech below to see if you agree with Kendrick’s assessment.

  • Jackie Chan’s Son Arrested by Chinese Government

    Jaycee Chan, Jackie Chan’s son, most recently made headlines indirectly when his father stated that he was to receive none of his $130 million inheritance. Jackie Chan stated that “If he is capable, he can make his own money,. If he is not, then he will just be wasting my money.” Instead of giving the money to his son after his death, Jackie Chan had decided to donate all of his money to the charities he deems most worthwhile.

    And, unbeknownst to Jackie Chan at the time, that was most likely the wisest decision he could have made, considering his son probably would have blown all the money on weed.

    On Monday, the Chinese state media agency revealed that police had arrested Jaycee Chan on drug-related charges, along with his friend and Taiwanese television star, Kai Ko Chen-tung.

    The two were arrested after police received a tip alluding to the potential drug possession and use by both parties. Upon investigation of Chan’s home in Beijing’s Dongcheng district, police discovered more than 100 grams (or a little more than 3.5 ounces, for those of you in the United States) of marijuana. Chan and Ko also failed to pass a urine drug test when administered.

    The arrest of Jaycee Chan comes as a double-insult to Jackie Chan. Not only is Jaycee Jackie’s son, but Jackie Chan was also appointed as an official anti-drug official by the Chinese government in 2009. Despite what many may fear, Jackie Chan has been on record as stating that if his son was to ever delve into narcotics, he hopes he would be sent to jail in order to teach his son a lesson.

    For Jaycee Chan, the arrest only adds to his lackluster resume. Chan starred in the film 1911 with his father in 2011, but the movie quickly became Jackie Chan’s worst-rated movie in his lengthy career. Jaycee Chan also starred in 2012’s Double Trouble, a film which grossed a whopping £5,400, or $9,0335.01.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9GhW6aD5C4

    Image via YouTube

  • Justin Bieber Lucks Out With FAA

    Justin Bieber Lucks Out With FAA

    Justin Bieber has been dealt a ‘get out of jail free’ pass–at least by the FAA. The Federal Aviation Administration has closed its investigation into what happened on the private jet the As Long As You Love me singer and his entourage were traveling on and were briefly detained on back in January. Bieber and his friends flew into Teterboro Airport in New Jersey for Super Bowl festivities and reportedly both mistreated the flight crew and smoked so much marijuana that the pilots had to wear their oxygen masks during the flight.

    “The FAA closed its investigation into allegations that passengers interfered with the flight crew on a Gulfstream G-IV aircraft that landed at Teterboro Airport on Friday, Jan. 31, 2014,” a statement released on Thursday reads. “The FAA found no evidence that the passengers violated Federal Aviation Regulations.”

    In April Justin Bieber was detained at Los Angeles International Airport, having arrived there from Tokyo. He was detained for about four hours during that incident and it was reported that he will likely be treated this way every time he enters the country because of prior incidents with the law–not only in the U.S. but in other countries as well.

    Problems for Selena Gomez’s on-again, off-again boyfriend definitely aren’t limited to FAA issues either. However a recent report stating that the Home Owners Association where he lives was looking to hire extra security to keep Justin Bieber in line apparently isn’t true.

    “No emergency HOA meeting has taken place but the association is looking into added security on an as needed basis to ensure the privacy of the residents is protected,” a source said, also noting that management and the HOA are working together to make sure all residents are up to date on all regulations. “This is to protect the privacy of all residents, including Justin Bieber.”

    Might this ‘get out of jail free’ card encourage Justin Bieber to settle down a bit and refrain from his ‘thug-like’ ways? The singer is said to be in Miami for the 4th of July weekend. That’s where his arrest for drag racing took place at the beginning of the year. Hopefully Selena Gomez is there with him. She seems to have what it takes to keep the Biebs in line.

    Justin is apparently trying his hand at peacemaking, however. A recent problem that took place upon his arrival in Miami was averted by the pop singer.

    Maybe Justin Bieber has it in his heart to quell his seemingly wicked ways?

    Image via Instagram

  • Amanda Bynes Stays Out Of Trouble, Gets Bong-Tossing Case Dismissed

    On Monday, Amanda Bynes’ bong-tossing case was dismissed. The judge’s ruling was based on Bynes’ compliance with counseling sessions twice a week and staying out of trouble for six months.

    Last year, Bynes was charged with marijuana possession and reckless endangerment. Building managers contacted the authorities, as they said Bynes was smoking pot in the lobby of her apartment building. When the authorities arrived at her 36th-floor apartment, the actress tossed the bong out of the window in an attempt to get rid of evidence. After her arrest, she denied tossing a bong and said that she threw out a vase.

    Bynes’ lawyer denied that the actress threw a bong and Bynes even took to Twitter to say that she has never owned a bong in her life.

    On Monday, Bynes was not present in court, but her lawyer Gerald Shargel was there. Shargel submitted an affidavit in court that stated that Bynes has fulfilled all court requirements. “She did her counseling and it’s now all behind her,” Shargel said. The judge sealed the court records after the ruling.

    Last year, Bynes made headlines for her reckless behavior. After setting fire to the driveway of a home, Bynes was subjected to a 72-hour involuntary psychiatric hold. She then entered rehab for a few months and her mother became her conservator.

    Bynes was able to get back to her usual self after staying in rehab. She deleted the mean tweets on her Twitter account and started afresh with her family. In April, she tweeted a selfie with the caption, “Thank you everyone for all the birthday wishes.” The 28-year-old looked happier and healthier.

    After her stay in rehab, Bynes enrolled in a fashion merchandising program. All in all, the past six month have been good for Bynes. She now seems to be turning her life around.

    Image via YouTube

  • Maureen Dowd’s Paranoid Pot Ramblings, at Your Fingertips, for Just $6 per Month

    Yes, I’m kind of mixing a couple of stories here, but two interesting things happened today in New York Times land.

    First, the venerable newspaper launched a new digital subscription for Opinions only, and second, columnist Maureen Dowd got really, really high (and lived to tell the tale!).

    The New York Times has focused their paywall options to allow readers who presumably only care about the various op-ed columns the paper regularly publishes to gain all access. For $6 a month, the new nytOpinion option gives you access to the full Opinion section online and on the new iOS app, as well as “curated commentary from around the globe and new features like Q&A with columnists.”

    If you jump on it now, they’ll let you have your first three months for just $0.99.

    And if you do, you can (hopefully) expect more articles like this.

    In Don’t Harsh Our Mellow, Dude, veteran columnist Maureen Down shows why you should always ask someone who knows about the drug you’re about to ingest, before you ingest said drug.

    Dowd flew up to Denver to sample the newly legal cash crop, and didn’t have a great time. Edibles can be tricky, Maureen.

    For an hour, I felt nothing. I figured I’d order dinner from room service and return to my more mundane drugs of choice, chardonnay and mediocre-movies-on-demand.

    But then I felt a scary shudder go through my body and brain. I barely made it from the desk to the bed, where I lay curled up in a hallucinatory state for the next eight hours. I was thirsty but couldn’t move to get water. Or even turn off the lights. I was panting and paranoid, sure that when the room-service waiter knocked and I didn’t answer, he’d call the police and have me arrested for being unable to handle my candy.

    I strained to remember where I was or even what I was wearing, touching my green corduroy jeans and staring at the exposed-brick wall. As my paranoia deepened, I became convinced that I had died and no one was telling me.

    Good lord.

    It was only the next day that she thought to ask someone about how much she should eat, considering she was a novice.

    The rest of the op-ed…well, you can go read it yourself–unless you’ve already used up your free views for the day. With the new Opinions only subscription option, this won’t be a problem.

    I can’t wait for Thomas Friedman’s op-ed on that huuuuge bong rip that completely changed his thinking on globalization.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Weed Fairy Visits Seattle, Spreads 50 Nuggets

    The Weed Fairy visited Seattle last weekend and gave away free weed to keep everyone’s spirits high. The fairy tweeted a photo of her note with the caption, “Seattle, I just hit you up. Weed’s everywhere in Capitol Hill. Have a good weekend.” 50 fliers were spread around Seattle with a nugget of weed taped to them. The fliers read, “These are tough times. Take this WEED. And keep your spirits high @danksyappleweed.”

    The Weed Fairy, who is also known as the Goddess of Ganj, is Yeni Sleidi. The 23-year-old is originally from California, but is visiting Seattle for a few weeks. Sleidi also spread weed in New York a few months ago, and the positive response from people who got her little surprise urged her to keep doing her job as the Weed Fairy.

    “I think people are a little worried, because this is something new, and suspicious. But it’s real weed and it’s not dangerous. It will get you high,” Sleidi said.

    Despite the good feedback, there are still some who are suspicious about the Weed Fairy. “I wouldn’t take anything for free from someone I didn’t know,” one Seattle resident said.

    Sleidi said that she is not afraid of being arrested, as Washington is one of the states where marijuana is legal. However, Seattle police are concerned that people under the legal age of 21 could get their hands on the free marijuana. “It could fall into anybody’s hands,” Drew Fowler, the spokesman for Seattle police said.

    In response, Sleidi said that she leaves the signs and the marijuana in areas where majority of passersby are of age.

    Sleidi said that the idea of giving out free marijuana came to her during a government shutdown in New York. Her friends were affected by the incidents, and she thought of a way to distract them from the stress.

    The Weed Fairy said that it was the first time she was comfortable attaching her real identity to her deeds.

    Image via YouTube

  • Wiz Khalifa Arrested For Marijuana Possession

    Wiz Khalifa was taken into custody on Saturday after a TSA offer at El Paso Airport found half of a gram of marijuana on the rapper. Wiz had just finished headlining the Neon Desert Music Festival in downtown El Paso and was on his way to Dallas when he didn’t make it though airport security.

    In an official statement, El Paso chief of police Gregory Allen said, “the TSA Officer learned that Thomaz did not have any identification which led to him being sent for secondary screening. During that screening the TSA Officer located a metal container inside of the backpack which contained a prohibited item.”

    The 26-year-old rapper was charged with possession (a misdemeanor) and had his bond posted at $300. However Wiz doesn’t seem to be too concerned with his jail time; the rapper took selfies in his cell and basically live tweeted the experience, creating the trending hashtag “#FreeTrapWiz” on Twitter.

    Wiz was set to release his new single “28 Grams” today, but delayed the release due to the jail time, apologizing to fans that he “got locced up.”

    This isn’t Wiz’s first run-in with the law; he’s been charged with marijuana possession twice before – both in April and May of 2012. Wiz has always been open about his marijuana use, even naming his 2010 tour the “Waken Baken Tour.” “I thought weed was bad for a minute,” Khalifa said to MTV back in 2010. “But I got to a point where it worked for me. It don’t work for everybody else. People gotta stay free, people need jobs, people got parents that probably wouldn’t be with it, so don’t ruin your life trying to be like me. That’s my advice.”

    After his jail release, Wiz will drop his new single and prepare for his upcoming headlining tour with Tyga and Ty Dolla $ign. His new album, “Blacc Hollywood” will be released later in August. “The album is going to come right after the tour,” Khalifa said. “I’m going to use the tour to set it up and get ’em ready for it.”

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Apple, Eternal Wet Blanket, Bans Popular Weed Firm App

    Eternal wet blanket Apple has removed the most popular free app in their App Store. Of course, that seems like a strange thing to do until you know what the concept of that app was, and remember exactly how Apple feels about adult content and basically anything fun.

    The app was called Weed Firm, and it let players–well–run their own weed firm.

    From the app’s description:

    Follow the story of an expelled botany sophomore Ted Growing as he inherits a growing operation and expands it. Learn to grow weed, plant new varieties to increase your yields, expand your customer base and interact with the characters to become the biggest weed dealer in town. Complete tasks to open new shelves in the store and become a more efficient and prosperous weed grower and seller. Watch out for the thugs and cops.

    I mean, it’s more of a business app than anything, right?

    Maybe, but it’s still too risqué for Apple’s sensitivities. As of today, the app is gone.

    “As you might have noticed the game is no longer available on the Apple App Store. This was entirely Apple’s decision, not ours. We guess the problem was that the game was just too good and got to number one in All Categories, since there are certainly a great number of weed based apps still available, as well as games promoting other so-called ‘illegal activities’ such as shooting people, crashing cars and throwing birds at buildings,” says the game’s developers, Manitoba Games.

    Manitoba promises fans of the game that it will return to the App Store–albeit a censored version that fits with Apple’s principles of refusing to let people make up their own minds. The app is currently out of the Google Play Store, but that’s due to a problem with the publisher. Manitoba says they never had any issues with Google during the application process.

    The list of times when Apple acted like a total fuddy duddy is endless, but just a handful of examples include the time they banned the casual hookup app Bang with Friends because people aren’t adults who can make their own decisions or anything; the time they banned a controversial app that dealt with the dark side of smartphone production because, well, obviously; the time they may or may not have reduced Twitter’s Vine app’s visibility in the App Store because there were too many videos with boobies, because the children, remember; the time they banned beautiful photo-sharing app 500px because porn; and finally, the time they held up approval of Imgur’s official app because someone could find nakie pictures if they were looking for them.

    Apple, meanwhile, may just make Dr. Dre an executive. You know, Dr Dre. of The Chronic fame.

    Anyway, back to Weed Firm:

    “If we let hypocrites determine what content is suitable for us we will soon all be watching Teletubbies instead of Breaking Bad and playing… oh I don’t know… nothing good comes to mind, without some form of ‘illegal activity’ or other really,” says Manitoba.

    True, but don’t act like it’s not fun to get blazed and watch Teletubbies.

    Image via Manitoba Games