Fruit Fantasies & Period Spliffs
Fruit Fantasies & Period Spliffs
Plus: Lonely <3s Returns
The Broccoli Report
Monday, October 17, 2022
Time to read: 5 minutes, 24 seconds. Contains 1081 words.
Good morning, Reportées!
A few Lonely Hearts posts have started to roll in—don’t hesitate to chime in if you’re looking for extra hands/hires/clients/partners ahead of the holiday season. Any brands or freelancers interested in participating in the next round of the Lonely Hearts Board have until EOD Monday, October 24th, to email their brief descriptions of dream business connections and a contact email to include in your post to yoshikolauren@gmail.com. Please include “Lonely Hearts” in the subject line.
It really is nuts that it’s already mid-October. We are six weeks from Black Friday, people—it’s go time. I hate to add to the capitalistic fervor, but I’d also hate for any deserving brands to miss out on opportunities to get ahead while the people are feeling shoppy. This is also a reminder to text your loved ones about plans for holiday dinners—I just realized that I have to figure out my game plan. And cat plans. 😿
To help everyone make the most of the rest of the year, we’re sharing a big, juicy bundle of our most useful marketing and press advice for the season this Friday. PR advice from the pros, advice on getting into gift guides, explainers on the affiliate network realm (hint: If you want to get into gift guides and aren’t on one already, now’s the time), and more relevant reads from around the web. Subscribe to get ready for anything the holidays may bring your business’s way.
One-Hitters: Cannabis News at a Glance
There is a myth in stoner lore that ancient Greek ambrosia refers to honey made by bees that pollinated cannabis plants. I dug into it for a past Broccoli issue and found that the notion, though lovely, is scientifically very unlikely. Wind-pollinated cannabis plants don’t have a relationship with bees—it’s why they lack the colorful blossoms needed to attract them. But bees and cannabis may develop a different sort of relationship, according to a recent study indicating that CBD-rich hemp extract may be good for bees. In the experiment, researchers fed two bee groups mixtures of pure sugar syrup and hemp extract while a third control group got pure sugar syrup. They found that the hemp extract increased the lifespan of bees to 49-52 days vs. 35 days for the control group. You might recall a past interview with Joline Rivera, who sells honey made by bees that feed on hemp nectar in a similar manner.
California’s Attorney General Rob Bonta is ramping up efforts to eradicate illegal cultivation sites. He announced an expanded year-round program aimed at detecting who is behind the illegal grows and prosecuting labor and environmental crimes, like destructive pesticide run-off and theft/pollution of nearby water supply. While I have a knee-jerk reaction to the idea of increased prosecution and more people in jail, Bonta’s comments indicate that the office will focus on going after the leaders of these organizations, not workers. In an interview with Fortune, Bonta recognized that many workers at illegal grows are victims of human trafficking, “living in squalid conditions alone for months on end and with no way out. These are not the people who are profiting from the illegal cannabis industry…They are cogs in a much bigger and more organized machine.”
One alternative to composting unsold cannabis: cannabis festival bud pits. 😳
Barbari collaborated with fellow herbal hemp brand Xula on a novel smokable: The 1:1 Period Daze Herbal Spliff contains a strain of CBD-rich hemp from Ranchera Familia, a strain of CBG-rich hemp from High Desert Nectar, raspberry leaf, mugwort, chamomile, pink rose, and cramp bark—herbs that are associated with supporting womb health and physical discomfort during the menstrual cycle.
Mona Zhang penned an intriguing piece for POLITICO pointing out the contradictions of residency requirements and interstate commerce. In a recent decision, the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals struck down residency requirements for licenses in Maine’s medical marijuana program as contravening the Commerce Clause—a line in the U.S. Constitution that gives Congress the power to regulate interstate and international commerce. The Commerce Clause may make residency requirements legally untenable—and offer a pathway to make interstate cannabis commerce a reality sooner than later. But interstate commerce will trigger fresh chaos—just consider how testing, licensing, and labeling rules vary state by state. Until I read Zhang’s piece, I never considered interstate commerce as a real, near-term possibility, and now I’m quadruply more hesitant about rushing that prospect.
NYT published a profile on Dasheeda Dawson, New York’s freshly anointed director of Cannabis NYC. This small team, situated within the city’s government, is charged with coordinating city services to build sustainable cannabis businesses, including helping entrepreneurs apply for licenses, access financing opportunities, and navigate municipal regulations. The health equity-minded Dawson previously ran a similar office in Portland, Oregon.
Fair State Co-op—a cooperatively-owned and unionized brewery based in Minnesota—launched a “THC and CBD seltzer” called Chill State. Interestingly, it’s a hemp product made with hemp extract with a legally-limited 5mg THC and 25mg CBD per can, and it’s only flavored with terpenes from Grapefruit Kush and King Louis cultivars.
In Asheville, North Carolina, this Wednesday, October 19th, Legalize Appalachia will host a cannabis community meet-up and film screening of the award-winning short film “Somewhere Higher,” a powerful series of vignettes capturing the unique identities of people who enjoy cannabis. IRL attendees can join the community discussion and enjoy CBD mocktails and good company at Different Wrld. If you’re not in town, you can experience some of the night via their IG Live.
Ceramic accessory brand Summerland dropped all-black versions of their pipes and bongs, and the black apple Fruit Fantasy pipe is giving wicked witch vibes in a delightful way.
Speaking of apples: Sackville & Co. celebrated legal cannabis’ arrival in New York with a fun collection combining the visuals and concepts of the Big Apple and smoking out of an apple. The drop includes an apple grinder, a ceramic cup designed to look like NYC’s iconic blue coffee cup, and a tote emblazoned with a how-to on carving an apple pipe.
I was not wowed when I sampled Bella Thorne’s white-labeled flower eighth last year, but I am very into the smoking section of her jewelry line, which includes this adorably ornate Juliet Is The Sun Fumette Ring joint holder. With its carved band and bejeweled crown joint-holder, I can totally imagine it completing Claire Danes’ angel costume in Romeo + Juliet.
Parting is such sweet sorrow,
Lauren Yoshiko