By WILL HOUSTON | whouston@marinij.com

Novato’s second round of prospective cannabis business owners received unanimous approval from the City Council.

The council voted last week to conditionally approve three businesses, including a new cannabis delivery business, a 7-year-old cannabis testing laboratory and an all-in-one microbusiness. The businesses must receive state licenses and then return to the city for final approval before they can receive a city license.

The proposed Marin Haven would become the city’s second cannabis delivery business and is proposed to be located at 4 Commercial Drive. Attempts to contact Marin Haven owner Suzanne Brogger on Monday were unsuccessful.

The Velvet Fog Cannabis Co. also received conditional approval from the council. The microbusiness, which would include cannabis product manufacturing, distribution and delivery services, had previously received council approval as part of the first round of cannabis business applicants in 2021.

At the time, Velvet Fog was set to be located at 5400 Hanna Ranch Road, but now proposes to set up shop in a warehouse at 11 Digital Drive because of construction delays at the previous location. The company’s chief executive officer, Michael Clarkson, said he and his business partners plan to open in July or August depending on how the state and local permitting processes last.

Clarkson said they decided to start the business because he felt the cannabis industry focuses too much of its marketing and its jargon toward younger adults, but does not give enough attention to older adults.

“It’s something I think we can provide that niche in the market in our local Marin County,” Clarkson said on Monday.

The third license went to CB Labs, which has been operating since 2015 under the city’s medical marijuana program.

After adopting an ordinance in 2019 to allow for recreational cannabis businesses in Novato, the council inadvertently caused CB Labs to be out of compliance and ineligible for a license. The lab at 1615 Hill Road is located within 600 feet of the Hill Education Center at the Hill Recreation Area, which violated the city’s minimum setback rules for businesses near youth centers such as schools and playgrounds. To address this, the council reduced the minimum setbacks for testing laboratories last year to a range of up to 300 feet, with the distance at the council’s discretion.

“I’m grateful to the city of Novato for allowing us to continue to operate,” CB Labs co-owner Scot Candell, a Larkspur city council member, said on Monday. “We look forward to many years of a flourishing partnership in the future.”

All three businesses are inaccessible by the public. The city does not allow storefront retail sales of cannabis.

While the city does not have a special tax for cannabis businesses, it does enter into “community benefit agreements” where the businesses provide the city or other organizations such as nonprofits a percentage of its gross receipts each year. All three businesses will be providing 1.5% to 4% of their gross receipts in these agreements.

The city staff now plans to accept delivery business applications year-round. While the city has put a cap on the number of licenses it gives out to other businesses, such as cultivation or manufacturing operations, no cap exists for delivery businesses.

“Those are most of the inquiries I get,” Novato senior management analyst Will Morat told the council. He said requests come in every few weeks, if not weekly.

While a majority of Novato voters approved Proposition 64, the statewide ballot measure in 2016 that legalized recreational cannabis in California, some residents have expressed opposition to the change.

“I don’t have a whole lot of appreciation for the City Council allowing pot stores to open in Novato,” resident Sam Roth told the council.

By ISABELLA VANDERHEIDEN | Times-Standard

The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors appointed 1st District Supervisor Rex Bohn to serve as a county representative for the California Cannabis Authority (CCA) Tuesday following 5th District Supervisor Steve Madrone’s decision to resign from the appointment. Bohn will represent Humboldt County for the CCA alongside county Treasurer-Tax Collector John Bartholomew.

“The CCA is a Joint Power Authority created by contract between counties with cannabis regulatory or taxing authority,” according to the staff report. “The purpose of the organization is to develop and manage a statewide data platform that will gather, collect, and analyze information from a myriad of data sources into one resource, to help local governments ensure cannabis regulatory compliance and also provide necessary information to financial institutions that wish to work with the cannabis industry.”

Bohn emphasized the need for “more unity” between counties and the Department of Cannabis Control to deliver an across-the-board approach to cannabis taxation.

“I would do it. I mean, it’s not like I don’t have enough committees or anything else. But, I think, after watching yesterday and the importance of getting a focused across the board situation so everybody is on the same page (is important),” he said, referring to the board’s decision to slash the county’s cannabis cultivation tax Monday.

Bartholomew noted that he has served on the CCA “since before it was established as an organization” but questioned whether the $28,000 annual membership was really worth it.

“Data can be tracked from Humboldt County and thereby make the platform that CCA offers useful for county operations and understanding of what’s happening within the cannabis industry here in Humboldt County. Unless the county is going to do that, I don’t know that there’s a lot of value in staying active with the CCA because it’s costing I think $28,000 a year,” he said. “I hate to say this because I’ve been a huge supporter of CCA since the beginning. …I think the county should decide if operators will be required to participate on the CCA platform or not. If not, your board should make a decision for what kind of value the CCA is really providing to the county.”

Bohn made a motion to sit on the board in the meantime. Third District Supervisor Mike Wilson offered a second.

Madrone agreed and encouraged the board to consider a future agenda item regarding future CCA membership.

“The main reason (other counties) are involved, as I understand it, is because they use it as an enforcement tool in terms of trying to use the metric data to figure out if farmers are reporting accurately or not,” he said. “Frankly, it does nothing for enforcement, for compliance, or unlicensed applicants because that’s not the way it’s set up and it costs $28,000 a year for the county to be involved in this and we get very little value out of that.”

County Administrative Officer Elishia Hayes said staff could bring back an agenda item to reevaluate the board’s involvement with the CCA at a future date. “Supervisor Madrone and I did discuss this yesterday and given the reductions to the excise tax revenues, this can also be incorporated into the budget process as well,” she said.

During public comment, Natalynne DeLapp, executive director of the Humboldt County Growers Alliance, expressed her support for Bohn’s appointment to the CCA and asked whether it would be possible for California counties involved with the CCA to negotiate a lower cost for membership. DeLapp also thanked the board for approving tax relief for cannabis cultivators.

The board ultimately voted 4-1, with Madrone dissenting for an unknown reason, to appoint Bohn to the CCA.

Isabella Vanderheiden covers Humboldt County government, environment and cannabis news for the Times-Standard. Isabella earned a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from Humboldt State University and has written for several Humboldt County news outlets.

By  ISABELLA VANDERHEIDEN | ivanderheiden@times-standard.com |

For the last year, Humboldt County’s cannabis farmers have struggled to make ends meet as the price per pound of cannabis continues to fall as a result of massive overproduction across the state.

Many agree that decreasing the costs of production and eliminating the state cultivation tax would be the quickest path to immediate relief for cannabis farmers. Some say the key is branding and developing a marketing strategy that will help secure Humboldt County’s name as a world-renowned producer of high-quality sun-grown cannabis. Further integrating the cannabis industry into the local tourism industry is yet another strategy that could uplift small farmers.

While there is no silver bullet to saving the industry, one thing is clear: The legacy must be preserved.

Leveling the playing field

The Humboldt County Growers Alliance, a trade association that represents 275 licensed cannabis businesses in Humboldt County, recently joined the Origins Council as a regional partner for state and federal cannabis advocacy. The Origins Council, which also represents the Mendocino Cannabis Alliance and the Trinity County Agriculture Alliance, is the largest membership-based cannabis advocacy organization in the state representing nearly 900 licensed cannabis businesses across California.

By unifying the three Emerald Triangle counties with other major cannabis producers across the state, Natalynne DeLapp, executive director for the HCGA, said Humboldt County will be in a better position to advocate at the state and, ultimately, federal level.

Budtenders show patients different strains of marijuana in jars at a local dispensary. (Shaun Walker/ Times-Standard)

“One of the biggest costs of production is the state cultivation tax, which is a set fixed rate that recently went up which only added insult to injury,” DeLapp said. The cultivation tax for flower per dry-weight pound will increase from $154.40 per pound to $161.28 beginning Jan. 1, 2022, according to the state Department of Tax and Fee Administration. “Sun-grown farmers that are only getting $300 a pound are being disproportionately impacted whereas indoor operators are getting a much higher rate per pound. We need to deal with that discrepancy.”

Julie Benbow, executive director of the Humboldt County Visitors Bureau, echoed DeLapp’s call for immediate tax relief. “The difficult situation right now is that the legal cannabis farmers in Humboldt County, not only have their prices tanked but they are taxed a huge amount of money per pound,” she said.

Ken Hamik, operating partner of the Ganjery cannabis dispensary in McKinleyville, chair of the Arcata Chamber of Commerce and chair of the Humboldt County Visitors Bureau’s marketing committee, agreed that “tax relief should be at the top of the agenda.”

“Just write them off, give the farmers a pass this year. Prices have been historically low and it’s no fault of theirs, it’s a big fault of the regulations,” he said. “We are who we are because of our small farmers. If we do not give small farmers the proper pathway to viable business, then Humboldt County is in trouble. Legacy farmers need to be protected immediately.”

Keeping the legacy alive

As the 1960s drew to a close, hippies looking to start anew headed to Humboldt County in what would later become the back-to-the-land movement. Once there, they erected little houses in the hills and many began growing cannabis. These are the people who would lay the foundation for Humboldt County’s cannabis legacy.

“Is Southern Humboldt the birthplace of American cannabis culture? I would say so,” said Rio Anderson, owner and operator of Lady Sativa Farms in Southern Humboldt. “The intellectuals that left San Francisco in the 1960s decided to create a land-based living that was anti-industrial and communal and took care of its citizens. I actually don’t think they’re really viewed as our legacy farmers. The legacy farmers that we talk about are the sons and daughters of those back-to-the-landers.”

As legacy farmers, Anderson said it is critical to keep local history intact.

“We’ve got to evolve, but we also can’t lose sight of who we are and who we were,” he said. “But we have to be real about our history and how it was in the 70s and through the 90s when it was very anti-cannabis here. That’s got to be a part of the story, too.”

To keep the legacy alive, legacy operators must be protected, DeLapp said.

“My mission is to preserve, protect and enhance Humboldt County’s world-renowned cannabis industry. Right now, we need to preserve as many of our legacy operators as possible,” she said. “We have not lost them, there are still thousands of them that have held on through this crisis, but we don’t know how many we might lose in this next year. We need to preserve as many of our legacy operators as possible because we’re not creating a new batch of them.”

DeLapp likened it to environmental conservation.

“We need to protect and ensure that our county and state policies are not detrimental to their health and habitat — I think of this like endangered species,” she said. “… We need to make sure that the habitat is conducive and not actually detrimental to their health, which is questionable at both the state and local levels. Then we need to enhance them, which means helping promote their stories, promoting their brands and it’s not just the people who are still part of the industry.”

If legacy cultivators are able to hang on, Humboldt County’s cannabis industry might have a fighting chance. “The legacy is important for the future, not the past,” Hamik said.

Integrating cannabis into local tourism

Matt Kurth, owner of Humboldt Cannabis Tours, said the best way to protect the county’s legacy is to bring people here.

“We all know that this magical place truly has to be experienced,” he said. “How do you take a photo of the Redwoods or a video of a cannabis farm just before harvest? People must be present to experience these things. Cannabis tourism is the only option for Humboldt County if we are to remain economically and culturally relevant into the future. I say this after much thought and soul searching about my motivations.”

Matt Kurth (Times-Standard file)

Kurth started Humboldt Cannabis Tours, California’s first cannabis tour company, ahead of statewide legalization in 2015. He offers tours to legal cannabis businesses across Humboldt County. To date, he’s conducted more than 400 tours with more than 1,000 guests.

“Everyone is really worried about the consequences to our community of the market continuing to collapse. They are leaning more into tourism as it provides a diverse income stream and more stability,” he said. “… We need to move away from selling pounds and shift towards selling experiences.”

Kurth envisions Humboldt County becoming the France or Napa Valley of cannabis.

 “Napa and France wine economies are heavily reliant on tourism. Wine tourism is a $5 billion industry in France and accounts for 25% of wine’s economic impact. In Napa, wine tourism contributes about $2.23 billion to their economy, that is about 30% of wine production’s impact,” he said. “A large part of what makes France France is tourism.”

Benbow agreed that cannabis tourism “has the potential to be a really strong player” in the future of the cannabis industry.

“There is quite a bit of cannabis tourism already. Humboldt Cannabis Tours, the owners of the Scotia Lodge and Humboldt Bay Social Club offer consumption at their hotels, Papa & Barkley Social is a new cannabis lounge in Eureka, there’s really a lot going on already,” she said. “…I’d say that as a major player in tourism it’s a nascent industry, but so was craft beer 10 years ago.”

Benbow also underscored the importance of Humboldt County boosting marketing efforts.

“Humboldt cannabis was a brand long before Humboldt cannabis was legal and we need to push that message forward. We’re running on fumes right now,” she said. “There some amazing farmers throughout the county and they all have incredible stories to tell. That’s what the tourists want to buy, the history and the story of it.”

Laura Lasseter, director of operations for the Southern Humboldt Business and Visitors Bureau, said her main mission “has always been tourism marketing and destination development inclusive of the cannabis industry.”

“For us, integrating cannabis and tourism is nothing new but everchanging,” she said. “We have embraced the cannabis industry with open arms and do our best to help showcase what we can with our events, external marketing and networking to help advance the integration of cannabis and tourism through our partnerships in the hospitality and tourism industry. We’re making a concerted effort to work towards destigmatizing, normalizing  cannabis with education.”

Lasseter emphasized the need to preserve the cannabis culture, heritage and legacy craft farmers that made Humboldt County world-renowned.

In addition to being an economic driver, cannabis tourism also has the potential to build bridges between industries, DeLapp added.

“There is an incredible opportunity to partner between the cannabis trade associations, the various tourism organizations, chambers of commerce and pool resources together where we’re building each other up and not tearing each other down,” she said. “It’s time for us to put some of the past behind us and to openly acknowledge that cannabis is part of the future. If we all understand that and accept that as reality, then we can really come up with different plans and strategies for how we can work together.”

October 19, 2021 at 3:30 p.m.

A recent survey from the Center for the Study of Cannabis and Social Policy and Cooperation Humboldt found that the vast majority of local cannabis cultivators want more cooperative support, yet there are almost no cannabis cooperatives on the North Coast.

The survey “Corporate Cannabis is Coming: Cultivators, Are You Ready?” sought to identify what services cannabis farmers are lacking locally. Of the 82 survey respondents, 85.6% said they would like assistance in developing cooperative systems, according to Nicole Riggs, affiliate researcher for the Center for the Study of Cannabis and Social Policy.

“Our hypothesis is that the problem is due in part to regulatory roadblocks, and in part because farmers are yet to define what an ideal cooperative would look like,” she said. “In the next phase, we’ll be exploring just that. We’re interviewing many farmers to understand what their needs, their hopes are for co-ops, and simultaneously, we’re seeking advice from legal experts in cannabis to get clarity on how a particular rule will impact co-ops.”

Drew Barber, owner-operator of East Mill Creek Farms in the Mattole Valley, helped start Uplift Cooperative in 2018 – the only cannabis cooperative in Humboldt County.

“Uplift Cooperative is a cannabis producers cooperative that was founded by myself and some of my neighbors in the lower Mattole Valley between Honeydew and Petrolia,” he said. “We’re using a bunch of different tactics and strategies to do that and we’re really just trying to reduce the cost of production and increase costs of value at sales. A lot of it has to do with the complexities of regulations.”

In essence, they’re looking to connect small cannabis farmers to increase their viability in the marketplace.

“The small producer doesn’t necessarily have all the skills needed to produce their product, get their product to market at the value that they need and do all of the various compliance pieces,” Barber said. “So we’re trying to ease some of those burdens and basically work together where we can to gain those benefits. Other businesses that we’re competing against — like these larger-scale operations — have plenty of funding, plenty of staff and personnel but most small farms don’t really have staff and personnel. I get these calls, ‘Hey, can we talk to your compliance officer?’ and I’m like, ‘Well, you’re talking to him! You’re also talking to the owner and the grower.’ ”

Barber said the Uplift Cooperative is also looking to market their product together.

“That involves having a cooperative brand that all the farmers own that we can put out in the world and really share the burden of the entire marketing process from finding the right distributor, putting the product in the right bag or jar, getting it to the right shelf space at the retail shops, and then communicating with the community of people who frequent those shops as well as the budtenders who work at those shops,” he said. “Those are a lot of steps for each individual farm to handle.”

As cannabis producers struggle to make ends meet as the market tanks, Barber said it is crucial for the county and the state to offer more support to cultivators.

The Center for the Study of Cannabis and Social Policy and Cooperation Humboldt’s ultimate goal is twofold, Riggs said.

“First, we want to arm farmers with solid research and realistic options to establish formal or informal cooperatives or to go to trade associations to lobby for improved policy based on their needs,” she said. “Second, to document the process of putting at the center of decision-making the very people that will be impacted by decisions, in this case, cannabis farmers on the North Coast. This is design thinking for social innovation, an approach to problem-solving that’s particularly suited to complex situations.”

Barber believes cannabis cooperatives would serve as a significant stabilizer in the marketplace for farmers.

“Both in terms of how the entity works in that all the profit belongs to the member-owners, but it can be returned in a variety of different ways,” he said. “Some farms have big years and then small years, just based on the nature of agriculture. You might have a farm that’s not making much money this year but they’re making a lot of money next year, so they end up having these highly cycling tax burdens. If the co-op steps in and are helping to bring in the capital to the farms by holding the brand and by running sales, they’re able to mellow out those spikes and drops in income for the member farm.”

Barber noted that the process “is a little wonky” but said cooperatives are a great tool in keeping capital local and keeping quality high. Famers just need a little bit of incentive to initiate the process.

Isabella Vanderheiden | Reporter

Isabella Vanderheiden covers Humboldt County government, environment and cannabis news for the Times-Standard. Isabella earned a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from Humboldt State University and has written for several Humboldt County news outlets.

By RICHARD HALSTEAD | Marin Independent Journal
PUBLISHED: September 26, 2021

MarinHealth Medical Center is calling on Gov. Gavin Newsom to sign a bill that would require hospitals and other health care facilities to permit terminally ill patients to use medical cannabis in their institutions.

The legislation, Senate Bill 311, has become known as Ryan’s Law – named after Ryan Bartell, who was forced to move from California to Washington state in order to use cannabis instead of coma-inducing morphine for his pain while in end-of-life hospice care. Jim Bartell, Ryan’s father, has campaigned tirelessly for a change in the law.

The bill passed with overwhelming support in the Legislature and was sent to Gov. Newsom on Sept. 17 for his signature. It would prohibit smoking or vaping as methods to use medical cannabis.

“Our district board unanimously voted in support of Ryan’s Law SB 311 this year and I am writing in support of that bill being signed into law,” David Klein, CEO of both MarinHealth Medical Center and the Marin Healthcare District, wrote in a letter to Newsom on Wednesday.

MarinHealth is a publicly owned hospital overseen by the publicly elected Marin Healthcare District board. Dr. Larry Bedard, a longtime member of the district board, has been championing the cause of medical cannabis for years. He is a member of the American Medical Association’s cannabis task force.

“Maybe MarinHealth can show some leadership and be one of the first hospitals in California, if not the country, to approve the use of cannabis,” said the retired emergency medicine physician.

Managers at Marin’s other two hospitals operated by Kaiser Permanente and Sutter Health did not respond to a request for comment.

Bedard said the district board voted in March to endorse Ryan’s Law and ask Klein to write a letter of support. In his letter, Klein notes that in 2016 the district board voted to explore allowing cannabis in MarinHealth facilities.

“This was done in recognition of the fact that patients and their families were already bringing cannabis to the hospital,” Klein wrote. “It was also put forward with the knowledge that medical cannabis could be treated like any other patient-submitted medication, or (over-the-counter) product, by our pharmacy and staff.”

Bedard said MarinHealth patients may be using cannabis without informing their physicians, risking dangerous interactions with other medications they are taking. He said cannabis can interact with anticoagulants, which thin blood to prevent strokes; painkillers such as Vicodin and Oxycontin; and anti-anxiety medications such as Valium.

“It’s really an argument for physician education,” Bedard said. “The vast majority of the physicians are completely unaware.”

The resolution approved by the district board in 2016 quoted from a Journal of the American Medical Association article, which reported that medicinal cannabis is significantly helpful with chronic pain, neuropathic pain, muscle spasms in multiple sclerosis and paraplegia, cancer chemotherapy nausea, and AIDS wasting syndrome.

Marin Public Health Officer Dr. Matt Willis wrote in an email, “Cannabis is a psychoactive substance, and while we have real concerns about the known harms of its use among youth, potential palliative effects at the end of life are a different question. If cannabis is being used by terminally ill patients, it makes sense for hospitals to find ways to take it into account in their pain management plan.”

In 2019, Gov. Newsom vetoed a nearly identical bill, SB 305.

“This bill would create significant conflicts between federal and state law that cannot be taken lightly,” Newsom wrote at the time. “Therefore, I begrudgingly veto this bill.”

The California Hospital Association, which opposed adoption of SB 305, has drafted a letter to the governor calling for him to veto Ryan’s Law.

“We do not oppose the use of medical cannabis — or even necessarily its use in a hospital — as a matter of principle,” the letter states. “While California has legalized both the medical and recreational use of cannabis, it remains a Schedule I controlled drug (no accepted medical use) and is illegal under federal law.”

The association notes that the law would require health care facilities to treat medicinal cannabis as a medication and comply with the same storage and dispensing rules required under state and federal law for other controlled substances by requiring a physician order and dispensing from the pharmacy.

“This puts the facility/pharmacist in direct violation of the federal Controlled Substances Act, as the DEA license does not allow for purchase or dispensing of Schedule I substances,” the letter states. “It also puts the pharmacist in charge in direct conflict with the federal Controlled Substances Act, which will put their personal professional license in jeopardy.”

When Bedard testified before the State Assembly Committee on Health on June 8, he said, ““The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services does not prosecute hospitals for in-facility use. They have no federal mechanism to do so.” Donald Lyman, a retired physician and former board member at the California Medical Association (CMS) who testified at the same hearing, said, “They (CMS) have no regulatory mechanism for penalizing medical facilities regarding cannabis use. Nor is there any record of the CMS ever penalizing a facility for cannabis use.”

Source: Associated Press

A federal judge has ruled Northern California county officials can’t stop trucks from delivering water to Hmong farmers who are illegally growing marijuana, saying the practice raises “serious questions” about racial discrimination and leaves the growers without a source of water for drinking, bathing and growing food.

Chief U.S. District Judge Kimberly J. Mueller last week issued a temporary injunction against Siskiyou County’s prohibition on trucked-in water deliveries to Hmong farmers who run illegal operations in the Mount Shasta Vista subdivision in the Big Springs area about 300 miles (480 kilometers) north of San Francisco.

“Without an injunction, the plaintiffs and other members of the Shasta Vista Hmong community will likely go without water for their basic needs and will likely lose more plants and livestock,” she wrote in the ruling issued last Friday.

“The plaintiffs have also raised serious questions about their constitutional right to be free from racial discrimination,” she added.

Mueller’s injunction, which was reported by the Sacramento Bee, takes effect immediately and will remain in place until the conclusion of a federal lawsuit filed by the Hmong community against county ordinances aimed at cutting off the water supply to illegal marijuana grows. They allege the ordinances were racially motivated and violated their civil rights. No trial date has been scheduled.

Authorities estimate there are 5,000 to 6,000 greenhouses growing pot in the Big Springs area, with as many as 4,000 to 8,000 people tending them, most of them Hmong and immigrants of Chinese descent who have moved to the area in the last five years.

Recreational marijuana became legal in California in 2018, but the illegal marketplace continues to thrive. Growing, processing or selling pot requires a license and the businesses must pay taxes — costs that illegal operations don’t have. Legal businesses say they are being undercut and have urged authorities to crack down.

In Siskiyou County, officials this spring approved ordinances that prohibit selling well water without a permit and ban water trucks on the roads leading to the subdivision after residents complained the expansion of the greenhouses was causing local wells to go dry and because of a rise in violent crime.

The permit forms are all written in English, despite a language barrier for some residents, and the county requires anyone who signs an application to swear not to violate any county rules, which Mueller notes includes not having a proper water supply at their homes.

The judge left in place a county ordinance that prohibits selling well water specifically for illegal cannabis cultivation. The injunction only covers water sales and deliveries for residents’ needs such as bathing and gardening, said Allison Margolin, one of the attorneys for the Hmong.

Siskiyou County’s attorney, Edward Kiernan, didn’t immediately return a request for comment. In previous interviews, Siskiyou County officials denied their motivations were driven by race.

By Rebecca Victoria Olmos

This year marks 50 years of the cannabis culture phenomenon, 420. 420 is a term for all things weed. It is celebrated daily at 4:20 (am or pm) by consuming cannabis, but the largest celebrations come on every year April 20th, 4/20.

Some of the largest, renowned events, like Hippie Hill and the Cannabis Cup, are held in California, where the term 420 originated in 1971.

According to a Huff Post article, a group of high school students from San Rafael called The Waldos coined the term. They heard about an abandoned crop of cannabis plants ready for harvest and made it their mission to find it. Every day they met at 4:20 to smoke weed. Then they’d venture into the Point Reyes forest to find their green gold.

The Waldos searched and smoked for weeks. They never found the plants but the term stuck.

Over the years, 420 has developed from a secret stoner code into a major holiday. Cannabis enthusiasts gather in groups of thousands of people to share their admiration of “Mary Jane.”

Due to COVID-19, there have not been large festivals for two years running – however, people are still using cannabis. According to a Cova Report, in 2020, the foot traffic in dispensaries decreased as much as 50 percent on 4/20, but the average cost of consumer’s cannabis baskets increased.

So the legend of The Waldosand 420 lives on. You can celebrate this year with virtual events throughout California and the rest of the world.

Even better, you can celebrate this year by watching our 420 podcast that will drop on our media charnels (appropriately) on Tuesday, 4/20 at 4:20 pm – in conjunction with our Weekly Dose Newsletter we send out every Tuesday!