With the legalization of pot in California this month comes a cascade of creativity as cannabis startups take off and new ideas flow as profusely as ganja-generated revenues.

High There! is one such animal. Describing itself as “a social network that promotes uniting cannabis users and enthusiasts with each other in a friendly and judgment-free environment,” the folks at High There!, based in Florida, are off to a great start as pot goes legal in the Golden State. Here’s what they did:

“To better understand California’s cannabis consumers, we’ve parsed our user data out by city,” says the group’s co-founder Darren Roberts, sending along geographical data that shows pot-users’ preferences in different parts of California. “This data is collected when users sign up for HighThere, and the cities here are the twelve California cities with the most participating users.”

Roberts explains that “when users sign up, they’re asked to list their favorite activities and can choose as many as they like. Because of that, clear patterns emerge across all cities for activity preferences. Everyone loves food, music, and screen time when they’re stoned, for example. Even when users are asked to select a specific preference, as in dabbing over smoking, overall patterns emerge. To tease out a bit more of what makes the cities different from one another, we looked at this data from the perspective of which city each activity, social goal, or ingestion method is most popular in.”

Dabbing, for those not in the know, is a method of inhaling a concentrated dose of cannabis that have been heated on a hot surface, usually a nail, and then inhaled through what’s called a dab rig.

In any case, on with the show:

“Because our business is bringing people who love pot together, it’s important for us to get to know our users,” writes Roberts. “When people sign up for HighThere, they share their activity preferences, social goals, and favorite ways to consume cannabis so that we can match them with other users who have common interests.

“California’s historic legalization bill just took effect, so we–along with everyone else!–are very curious about what moves the cannabis lovers of the Golden State. What kind of social connections they’re looking to make, what they want to do with their new friends, how they want to consume cannabis together, and so on.”

To find out, he says, High There! “aggregated and anonymized profile information from 1000 California users, breaking down the data by age, gender, and region. Here are the major takeaways:”

• Clear preferences for ingestion methods haven’t truly emerged in California. While smoking ranks highest among our California users who did express a specific preference, the overwhelming majority of them said they were up for everything;
• Vaping, using an electronic cigarette or similar device, was most popular in the Los Angeles County area, while smoking was most popular in the Sacramento area;
• Specific preference for edibles was also highest around Sacramento’
• Vaping was also the most popular among both men and women over 44, which makes sense, given its reputation for being a healthier choice;

Because so much of “cannabis culture is about sharing and socializing with cannabis,” says Roberts, “we were especially interested to see what kind of interactions our users were seeking on our service.”

• “Chat” was the most commonly selected category, with “Stay In” about 10 percentage points behind;
• Stay In (22.2% overall) was more popular overall than Go Out (16.5%), “suggesting that cannabis users are still more comfortable consuming out of public view;”
• “Food” and “Music” were the top two most popular activities overall; “After that, Californians like to get out and enjoy their state’s exceptional outdoor opportunities. And if they’re not having a bonfire on the beach, they’re catching a movie;

Here are High There!’s Top California Ingestion Preferences by Region

• Edibles and Smoking: Sacramento
• Vaping and Dabbing: Los Angeles
• No preference: Orange County

Top Activities by Location

(with percentage of respondents favoring each)

Activity: City
Outdoor: Irvine (77.3%)
Music: Bakersfield (87.2%)
TV/Movies: San Francisco (75.2%)
Fitness: Irvine (4.6%)
Gaming: Anaheim (54.7%)
Food: Sacramento (80.3%)
Sports: Fresno (13.9%)
Travel: Fresno (16.6%)
Volunteer: Irvine (0.7%)

Ingestion Method: City
All/No Preference: Riverside (58.69%)
Dabbing: San Jose (0.8%)
Edibles: Sacramento (2.4%)
Smoking: Long Beach (41.8%)
Vaporizing: San Francisco (8.85%)

Social Goal: City

(examples of what various pot users enjoy doing while high)

Chat: Bakersfield (42.26%)
Down for Everything: Long Beach (4.43%)
Friendship: Fresno (3.11%)
Go Out: San Francisco (22.08%)
Relationship: Long Beach (3.61%)
See What Happens: Riverside (11.27%)
Smoking Buds: Fresno (9.33%)
Stay In: San Francisco (28.8%)
Strictly Platonic: Bakersfield (1%)

Finally, here are some additional thoughts about the survey that Roberts wanted to share with us:

“TV/Movies, for example, was more popular than Outdoors among Angelenos by a percentage point, which makes a whole lot of sense. While there are plenty of breathtakingly beautiful places to be outdoors within driving distance of LA, it’s also the cinema capitol of the world. In other cases, some of the city preferences are obvious. San Francisco being the most popular city for vaping seems very natural, given the tech community’s early adoption of e-cigs. If they’re doing it for tobacco, they probably take their cannabis the same way.

“Irvine’s proximity to great hikes and great beaches explains their preference for outdoor activity. In terms of demographics, the majority of respondents here are men. However, Bakersfield and Fresno had the highest rate of female participation, with 25.2% and 26.7% women, respectively. In terms of age, the overwhelming majority of respondents are Millennials, although all ages are represented.”

This story was originally published on TheCannifornian.com

Editor’s note: In our Other Roots series, we share the stories of the underrepresented individuals in and around the marijuana movement — women, ethnic minorities and others whose voices aren’t as prevalent in the conversation surrounding legalization. If you’d like to suggest an individual to the Other Roots team — an activist, a budtender, a regulator, an executive — give us a jingle.

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Ashley Kilroy, the “pot czar” of Denver, has heard all the jokes about looking quite unlike a pothead. “I should have worn my tie-dyed shirt,” she said when she showed up for her interview with The Cannabist.

In fact, the petite blonde lawyer, a former safety manager and mother of three, turned to Wikipedia to research terms like “dab” and “hash oil” when the Mayor appointed her executive director of marijuana policy in late 2013. Now cannabis terminology rolls off her tongue as she recounts experiences in the field; meetings with regulators from France, Germany, Canada, Caribbean nations and all over the U.S.; and leading conferences for those hoping to follow Denver’s lead in regulating legalized marijuana.

The first-ever social experiment presented some unexpected challenges. Working across agencies, Kilroy is immersed in safety issues involving the fire department, the hazardous materials unit, departments of excise and licensing, zoning, electrical inspectors, environmental health, food safety, waste disposal and more. For example, she says, hash oil put in food must be refrigerated, and requirements involve several agencies: Hash oil machines must be inspected to assure no gases escape and exhaust systems are in place. OSHA has special rules for explosion-proof rooms and wiring. In the case of pot brownies, zoning has certain requirements for commercial kitchens but other rules for heavy industrial kitchens. It’s complicated.

“Our fire department lectures all over the country,” she said. Our whole team has been doing consulting… It’s been like dog years. I say working in marijuana, one year equals seven human years.”

Kilroy is reserved when appraising the overall effect of legalization in Colorado. “It’s truly too early to tell,” she said, noting that until recently, data on youth use, crime and hospital admissions haven’t been tracked with specific attention to marijuana.

And she won’t venture a prediction for nationwide legalization, saying only that Millennials are driving the change toward acceptance. “It’s quickly evolving,” she said, citing the recent Pew study concluding that 57 percent of U.S. adults believe marijuana use should be legal.

Do you partake?

I did 25 years ago. Not now.

What’s the future of her office?

Long-term we don’t need to run policy out of the Mayor’s office. But right now, while the world is watching… Our immediate priority was safety. Next, do we need to tweak some laws? I’m in close contact with the Governor’s office as well.

What’s the biggest misconception about legalized weed?

That it’s a tax windfall. While it’s on track to be a $1 billion a year industry, that’s part of the $330 billion state GDP. While 40 percent of the licensees are in Denver, it accounts for only 2.3 percent of tax revenues to the city.

What are your current priorities?

We’re placing more emphasis on our youth outreach plan. More funding in 2017 will result in a new (educational) campaign to kids. We know education works.

What would your mother say about your profession?

On New Year’s Day 2014 I was on CNN. The TV was on at a family gathering in New Orleans (Kilroy’s hometown) and an elderly family friend gasped, “Do her parents know?” (Kilroy’s parents have passed on.)

What’s been most surprising about marijuana legalization?

The international interest, hype and exaggeration. Reporters initially thought they’d see people smoking on every block. The key is, we’re not all about weed in Denver.

What quality do you dislike in yourself?

Sometimes I talk too much and don’t listen.

What quality do you dislike in others?

Same thing. I don’t like being talked at.

What’s your greatest extravagance?

Buying art. (Kilroy was an art history major before going to law school at Tulane.) Every two years my husband and I buy a painting, mostly by Colorado artists.

What’s an overrated virtue?

Thrift.

When and where were you happiest?

Now. I’ve loved each stage of life. It gets better and better. (Married in 1991, the couple has two girls in college, one at home.)

What talent would you like to have?

I wish I could sing. I try!

If you could come back as any person or thing what would that be?

I’d be in musical theater.

If you could have dinner with anyone, living or dead, who would you choose?

(Retired Supreme Court Justice) Sandra Day O’Connor. I spent an hour with her in Phoenix at a conference on marijuana at the O’Connor Institute. As a lawyer, I would love to have had more time.

What’s your greatest regret?

(With apologies to Sinatra…) “Regrets, I have a few, but then again, too few to mention.”

Any serious hobbies?

I rollerblade and ice skate. I’m really fast but I can’t stop.

Do you have a favorite food?

I love olives and capers.

Your motto?
The Mayor’s motto: “Right, not fast.”

In some cool cannabis collaboration news, on-the-rise lifestyle brands Tokyo Smoke and Van der Pop have officially joined forces.

Tokyo Smoke, which is moving toward U.S. expansion from its Toronto headquarters, has acquired Van der Pop, a Seattle-based company with a female-focused line of smoking accoutrements. Financial details were not disclosed in Wednesday’s announcement.

“Canada’s impending legalization has made us ever more confident that thoughtfully conceived and design-based brands will define our future,” Tokyo Smoke co-founder Alan Gertner told The Cannabist via email.

The new collaboration is a match made in high style heaven, as Van der Pop has emerged as one of the hippest online head shops in the retail space. Seattle’s style-savvy set might already know the name April Pride — the eponymous label founder and CEO, whose line luxury stash jars, cases, rolling papers, grinders and greeting cards is rooted in her signature style, which while geared toward women, is minimalistic and discreet for all.

With $3 million in fresh capital from recently completed Series A fundraising, Tokyo Smoke has also developed four branded soon-to-be released cannabis strains in partnership with one of Canada’s largest licensed producers of medical marijuana, Aphria Inc. Under the guidance of Gertner, a former Google strategist who traded in corporate life to work in weed, the brand has expanded from its flagship coffee shop and boutique with a second “Outpost” location and launched an online shop with private-label threads and accessories.

Pride and Gertner shared with The Cannabist how the entrepreneurs connected. After reading an article about Tokyo Smoke, Pride immediately sent a blind email to Gertner giving him props for creating a brand from what she learned was a very similar mind-set.

“The next day, thanks to a chance trip to Seattle while he was scouting retail space for Tokyo Smoke’s first U.S. flagship (slated to open later this year), the two of us found ourselves talking pot shop talk over a beer in the middle of the afternoon in the middle of the week,” Pride said.

“We were approaching the industry with similar ideology, from products to partnerships to standards of pot itself. In the most important ways, the values and plan for his company starkly resembled the same I’d adopted for Van der Pop,” she said.

According to Gertner, “We found common ground in design-driven products that will enhance consumer experiences and elevate the cannabis market.”

Van der Pop’s full line will be sold at all Tokyo Smoke retail locations, and the brands will also collaborate on limited new products with Pride assuming the role of chief creative officer for both companies. The Van der Pop website — which allows users to host private “Session” shopping parties and explores the cannabis lifestyle with a “Dear Vandy” advice column, strain reviews and “Stash Check 1-2-1-2” series — will also remain up and running.

[Full disclosure: I was honored when the Vandy gals recently asked me to share my own stash with them. You can take a peek here.]

Americans seem to have a persistent notion of what marijuana policies look like around the world.

The vision sold by Hollywood and globe-trotting backpackers is of people free to get high by the canals of liberal Amsterdam, or on the beaches of laid-back Jamaica, while anyone caught with a joint in Phuket risks landing in a Thai prison for life.

But none of these notions really ring true. Around the world, cannabis policies are evolving as quickly — if in different ways — as they are in the United States.

“When I started here five years ago, there wasn’t a single jurisdiction in the world that had legal marijuana,” said Hannah Hetzer, senior international policy manager with Drug Policy Alliance, whose action group backed California’s cannabis initiative in November.

A few regions have long tolerated limited recreational consumption, such as the Dutch city of Amsterdam, where pot is sold in some coffee houses without police interference, and Spain which is home to a growing cannabis social club scene. But just half a decade ago, no country or jurisdiction had actually legalized weed.

Domestically that changed in 2012, when Colorado and Washington voted in recreational marijuana. Since then, six more states – including California – have since followed suit, with 28 states now permitting medical marijuana.

Given our country’s key role in the international war on drugs, the rise of legalization domestically is, in the view of some, ironic. And Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, says that while cannabis remains illegal federally (and a crackdown on state laws might yet be coming from the Trump administration) the U.S. now leads the world when it comes to “designing and implementing innovative cannabis regulation policies.”

California in particular broke new ground with the Nov. 8 passage of Proposition 64. Nadelmann said it is the first legalization initiative to incorporate a number of social justice components, such as removing criminal penalties for most marijuana-related crimes and dedicating tax revenues to communities hard-hit by the war on drugs.

Yu-Wei Luke Chu, an economics professor in New Zealand who studies marijuana polices, said his country is taking steps toward legalizing medical cannabis and, as part of that process, is following legalization experiments in the United States.

But even as the U.S. paves the way, marijuana policies are shifting rapidly in places as diverse as Canada, Israel and Morocco.

Uruguay shocked the world in 2013 when it became the first country to fully legalize cannabis, Nadelmann said. Two years later, Jamaica passed a bill decriminalizing up to two ounces of marijuana. And countries throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, from Chile to Colombia to Puerto Rico, now are looking to permit medical marijuana and remove criminal penalties for adults who use it recreationally.

Weedmaps, an Irvine-based company that maps and rates marijuana dispensaries, now has offices in Barcelona, Toronto and Berlin, where Germany’s newly approved medical marijuana program slated to roll out in March.

There are a handful of places where marijuana policies are moving the opposite direction, Hetzer noted, such as the Philippine government’s brutal crusade against anyone who consumes cannabis or harder drugs. But other regions of both Asia and Africa are considering loosening their harsh stances, she said, including Thailand and Ghana.

“We are definitely a world away from where we were five years ago,” Hetzer said. “And I think we will only continue to see marijuana reform… pick up steam.”

New policies

Here’s a quick look at six countries (aside from the United States) with marijuana policies worth noting:

Israel: Since legalizing medical marijuana in 1992, Israel has become the global leader in cannabis research. Israel’s Ministry of Health treats tens of thousands of patients with medical cannabis.

Recently, the Israeli government took steps to decriminalize recreational marijuana, with minor possession likely to soon result in fines rather than criminal records.

Canada: Our neighbor to the north has run a federal medical cannabis program for more than a decade. And in 2016, the courts upheld patients’ right to grow cannabis at home, finding that a federal proposal to limit patients’ rights was not “in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.”

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said he plans to make good on his campaign promise to also legalize recreational marijuana throughout the country, probably within the next 24 months.

“Justin Trudeau was I think, more or less, the first national political candidate to run (and win) on a campaign platform that included legalizing marijuana,” Nadelmann said. “I think it’s going to represent a major step forward.”

Uruguay: While American legalization schemes (with the exception of Washington, D.C.) have created robust commercial markets aimed at generating new tax revenue, Uruguay went the opposite direction when it legalized marijuana in 2013. Hetzer, of the Drug Policy Alliance, said the South American nation’s policy is all about fighting organized crime. That’s why Uruguay committed to making legal cannabis cheap enough (about $1 a gram) to match black market prices.

The country has been “remarkably slow” in actually rolling out their cannabis program, Nadelmann noted. But he said they haven’t shown signs of backing down from their commitment to eventually make it happen.

Australia: A year ago, the land down under became the first continent to legalize recreational marijuana. Regulators since then have been working on details of how that program will work.

On Feb. 22, Australian Health Minister Greg Hunt announced that imported medical marijuana will be made available to patients within weeks.

The Netherlands: Since it’s home to the marijuana tourist mecca of Amsterdam, many people have long believed that marijuana is legal in The Netherlands. But the government actually just tolerates recreational consumption in so-called coffee shops, with no legal way for people to cultivate and sell cannabis to those businesses.

That appears poised to change. This month, Dutch lawmakers voted to permit cultivation.

“It now looks quite possible that The Netherlands may formally move towards legalization next year,” Nadelmann said. “Some very smart people are betting 50-50 that the Dutch would finally get past the backdoor issue and actually move toward full legalization.”

Mexico: If Canada does legalize cannabis this year or next, Mexico will be the last country in North America with no legal pot laws. But Mexican leaders have taken steps recently toward legalizing medical marijuana and decriminalizing recreational pot. President Enrique Peña Nieto spoke about the limited benefits of prohibition during a 2016 United Nations drug summit.

Public support still isn’t behind legal weed in Mexico, Nadelmann noted. It’s shot up from just 7 percent a decade ago to around 37 percent today.

Tough on pot

Some countries where marijuana remains illegal in at least some cases:

Japan: Possession for recreational use illegal; punishment up to 5 years in prison.

Malaysia: Possession of 7 ounces or more punishable by death.

Nigeria: Possession illegal; up to 12 years in prison for personal use and up to life in prison for trafficking.

Saudi Arabia: Possession for recreational use illegal and punishable by six months or more in jail; possession for sale can result in execution.

United Arab Emirates: Possession illegal; punishment up to 4 years in prison.

Sources: JapanToday; Centre for Research and Information on Substance Abuse; United Nations.

This story was first published on TheCannifornian.com

A string of broken promises – from tax cuts to electoral reform – has left Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau desperate for a quick win on one of his surviving marquee platform pledges. Thus, late last month, it was announced that his Liberal government would finally get around to legalizing marijuana, with the gimmicky kick-off date at one time even rumored to be set for April 20 – the traditional holy day of pot smokers.

Those who consume marijuana on a regular basis have been persuaded to swallow all manner of nonsense about the drug, from it’s supposedly miraculous medicinal properties (vigorously denied by the Canadian medical establishment) to its ability to unlock vast reserves of creative brilliance in otherwise dormant minds. Yet even by the standards of marijuana mythology, the idea that Trudeau’s pot legalization will be a straightforward process that will effect great demonstrable improvement – or even visible change – to Canadian society is an insulting con. If the prime minister seeks to derive any political benefit from the initiative it will come from the false hope he’s sowing in the present, not the unglamorous future that awaits.

To begin, the passage of any legalization bill in parliament will immediately force the 10 provincial governments to pass regulatory legislation of their own. As former MP Brent Rathgeber noted in an insightful column, the provinces will be free to be as restrictive or draconian about this as they please – they “could authorize only one agent to sell marijuana, locate it on top of a mountain and limit its hours to 4 a.m. to 4:15 a.m. every second Christmas Day” – given the broad constitutional powers provincial governments hold over regulating intoxicants.

Rathgeber’s words remind that “legal” is not synonymous with “anything goes.” Driving is legal, but it is still possible to commit an endless assortment of crimes – from going too fast in a construction zone to not wearing a seatbelt to displaying an out-of-date license plate – while engaging in the practice. Alcohol and tobacco have been legal for decades, yet consuming or selling is governed by an elaborate latticework of criminal, provincial, federal, and municipal statutes.

Given that the evidence of pot’s physical harm has grown less ambiguous in recent years, no Canadian government seeks a world in which pot sales to minors, under-age consumption, selling without a license, or general public exposure continues or increases. The prime minister himself has repeatedly stated that one of his primary motives in legalizing the drug is to curb its currently high rates of use. In other words, legalization could very well make pot-related persecutions more common than now, given it will herald the end of Canada’s current status quo, in which most big cities explicitly do not enforce the politically unpopular pot laws presently on the books, and the beginning of a new era of arrests, trials, and even incarcerations to demonstrate how much better Trudeau’s promised “new, stronger laws” work.

What about tax revenues? A 2016 report from CIBC economist Avery Shenfeld estimated that legal pot could generate $5 billion a year in revenues– that is, if government can kill off the black market for the drug – an enormous stipulation. As The Beaverton recently observed in a satirical article (“Liberals plan legislation to make marijuana (expletive), harder to get”), nothing is more efficiently distributed than an illegal good whose illegality is not enforced. High taxes and bureaucratic micromanagement actually encourage the persistence of illegal sales, which is why many of the American states where pot is legal have been forced to cut pot taxes to price out criminals, and why a quarter of all Ontarians buy tobacco on Indian reserves.

In any case, against the fashionable fantasy of a pot-fueled revenue boom, Prime Minister Trudeau has vowed any drug-generated cash will be funneled into addiction and education programs. A net profit would only be possible if legalization occurred in a context of lowered government spending on policing – which is to say, cop layoffs, since police don’t charge by the crime – and no government has given any indication that’s in the cards. Just the opposite in fact. Premier Wall’s government in Saskatchewan, for instance, has gone on the record stating it anticipates “increased enforcement costs” relating to pot-impaired driving, “whether technology or additional police officers – or both.”

Legalizing marijuana will be a bizarre undertaking, one unprecedented in modern government. Ottawa is giving its explicit seal of approval – there may indeed be literal seals of approval – to a commercial product it has explicitly stated it believes the public should not consume. The state will exert enormous effort protecting the public for the risk they have willingly exposed them to, efforts which will only become more bossy and frantic as proof of pot’s dangerousness accumulates. Anti-pot laws and medical marijuana regulations which are barely being enforced at present will be swapped for an incoherent, unprofitable web of regulations that will please neither drug users nor those anticipating some great libertarian transformation of their society.

Voters will be asked to thank the prime minister for keeping his promise.

J.J. McCullough, a political commentator and cartoonist from Vancouver, is a columnist at Loonie Politics.

Via The Associated Press. The following editorial was published in the The Eugene Register-Guard, Jan. 17:

Say what you will about U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, he may have succeeded in finding common ground for conservatives and liberals where others have failed.

Sessions announced earlier this month that he is rescinding the Obama administration’s policy on marijuana, which was to take a hands-off approach toward law enforcement in states that legalized it as long as they kept it out of the hands of children, criminal gangs and people living in other states where marijuana is not legal.

Federal officials are leaving how to enforce the new policy up to the U.S. attorneys for each state, offering only the vague guidance that the attorneys should follow “well-established” principles.

Oregon U.S. Attorney Billy Williams — who could be forgiven for occasionally rethinking his career choice these days — has claimed something of a middle ground. Williams says he will target those who are exporting marijuana from Oregon to other states that have not legalized it — a no-no even under the Obama policy — and criminal organizations.

But, while the dust was still settling on Sessions’ initial announcement of a change in federal marijuana policy, another issue involving marijuana popped up: guns.

What seems to have triggered this association was the decision by Pennsylvania to begin a medical marijuana program, with the first dispensary scheduled to open next month.

The president of the Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association promptly said that federal law prohibits marijuana users from having guns or ammunition. “They’re going to have to make a choice. They can have their guns or their marijuana, but not both,” John T. Adams told The Associated Press.

Marijuana users who are also strong gun-rights supporters were simultaneously up in arms and puzzled. “I don’t know of any time anyone’s been using marijuana and committing acts of violence with a gun,” one Pennsylvanian said. “Most of the time they just sit on their couch and eat pizza.”

Sessions’ war on marijuana — a throwback to the days of “Reefer Madness!” — is in and of itself puzzling. Although more scientific research on marijuana is needed — federal laws currently restrict this — the opioid epidemic and related increase in heroin usage are of far greater concern nationally.

Also puzzling is the National Rifle Association’s silence on the subject of gun owners’ rights. This is an organization that has been unwilling to brook any discussion of laws aimed at decreasing mass shootings in the U.S. if they involved limitations on gun ownership.

If the NRA is willing to tacitly concede that it is all right to ban marijuana users from owning and bearing arms, then surely there is good cause to look into ways to restrict gun ownership among people who pose a far greater risk, such as those on no-fly lists or suffering from a severe mental illness that impairs their judgment. Tackling these issues would put Sessions squarely in line with the majority of Americans. Guns and drugs are two of the most controversial topics in America today. Sessions is doing nothing to work toward a sensible policy for either.