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Washington Tried To Kill Hemp. Lawmakers Just Launched the Counterattack

Congress banned most hemp-derived products, but a new Senate bill offers a national regulatory framework with real testing, age limits and THC caps. The fight now comes down to whether lawmakers choose prohibition or standards that match how the country already consumes cannabis.

For weeks, we’ve been tracking the slow-moving car crash that began when former President Donald Trump signed a spending bill that quietly folded a national hemp ban into the fine print. It was the kind of move that hits you twice: first when you realize it actually passed, then again when you see what it could do to one of the fastest-growing sectors of the cannabis economy.

Now there’s a counterproposal. Oregon senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley introduced the Cannabinoid Safety and Regulation Act, a bill that tries to pull the country back from the edge by swapping prohibition for a structured national rulebook. The idea is simple: replace a ban with standards that actually work.

“We learned from the failed war on drugs that a one-size-fits-all approach that bans hemp products from the market outright does nothing to protect kids and consumers,” Wyden told Marijuana Moment. Merkley added that blanket prohibition “harms research and the entire industry.”

If you’ve been following High Times over the past month, this tracks. We reported how the shutdown deal created the ban. We explained how the 0.4 milligram total THC cap would erase entire categories of products, including nonintoxicating ones. We documented how states are already signaling they won’t follow the federal script. We showed how Project 2025 thinking is shaping the conversation and how alcohol and traditional cannabis interests have joined the political tug of war. This new bill sits inside that same storm.

Under Wyden and Merkley’s plan, hemp beverages wouldn’t disappear. Instead, they’d get clear limits and a national structure. Drinks could contain up to 5 milligrams of THC per serving and 10 milligrams per container. Edibles, topicals and inhalable products would have their own caps. Products would be tested by accredited labs. Labels would show cannabinoid content, testing confirmation, warnings, allergens and a universal cannabis symbol. Sales to anyone under 21 would be banned. Fully synthetic cannabinoids would be prohibited. Semi-synthetic conversions would be allowed only if safe and created through a single chemical step.

This is exactly the kind of clarity the beverage sector has been begging for. The Hemp Beverage Alliance, representing more than 375 members, said the bill “provides a pathway for the hemp beverage industry to continue to thrive.” The group noted it has been advocating for age limits, testing and sensible THC levels since 2023. In its words, this proposal creates the environment the category needs to survive.

The bill would also force the FDA to finally step into the role it has avoided for years. It would be required to create rules for online sales, good manufacturing practices, child-resistant packaging and testing standards. It would need to verify facilities, enforce lab accreditation and establish a “nutrition facts” style panel for cannabinoid products. This could change everything from how labels look to how products move across state lines.

At the same time, states would still have the right to go further. They could ban intoxicating hemp outright or impose stricter rules. But they couldn’t block interstate transport and would have to follow consistent packaging and labeling standards. That matters, because as we wrote earlier this month, several states had already begun carving their own regulatory lanes long before this bill showed up.

The proposal also includes more than regulation. It sets aside $200 million a year for CDC research into cannabis use. It allocates millions more for impaired driving studies and youth prevention programs. It pushes agencies to collaborate on THC beverage rules, something that became necessary the moment these drinks moved from novelty to national shelf space.

What makes this moment interesting is not just the policy but the timing. Congressional Research Service analysts warned there’s no clear roadmap for enforcing the ban. Industry groups are pleading for an extension, so lawmakers have time to build an actual framework. Senator Rand Paul is preparing his own bill to protect hemp markets. And despite widespread public pushback, Trump publicly supported the ban language.

So now the country sits between two possible futures. One is the ban we’ve already dissected: a measure that would collapse an entire supply chain with almost no guidance on how to do it. The other is a regulatory model that treats intoxicating hemp as a category that already exists, already has millions of consumers and already operates with or without Washington’s approval.

This new bill doesn’t settle the fight, but it gives Congress something real to work with. It gives states something predictable. It gives producers a path that doesn’t depend on loopholes. It gives consumers a category with clear rules instead of panic and improvisation.

The clock is still ticking. But for the first time since Trump signed the shutdown bill, there’s a version of the future that doesn’t end with empty shelves.

Photo: Shutterstock

<p>The post Washington Tried To Kill Hemp. Lawmakers Just Launched the Counterattack first appeared on High Times.</p>

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Oklahoma’s Cannabis Cautionary Tale: From Gold Rush to Crackdown

Oklahoma’s Cannabis Cautionary Tale: From Gold Rush to Crackdown

Oklahoma was once the hottest cannabis story in America: ultra-low barriers to entry, no license caps, rock-bottom fees, and easy patient access after medical legalization in 2018. Within a few years, licenses exploded into the five figures, production dwarfed in-state demand, and prices cratered. Now, the state is living with the hangover—market contraction, aggressive enforcement, and a bruised reputation. 

How the boom sowed the bust

With lenient rules and cheap land, Oklahoma invited thousands of small growers and retailers—peaking around 14,000 licenses at the height. But a glut followed: officials have said the state produced many times more cannabis than residents consumed, pushing wholesale prices toward the floor and attracting opportunists who exploited the system. Licenses have since plunged to roughly a third of that peak as the market corrects and regulators tighten the screws. 

Foreign money, straw owners, and high-profile violence

As profits tightened, investigators say criminal networks slipped in, using straw ownership to evade residency rules. The issue became national news after the 2022 quadruple murder at a Kingfisher County grow—an operation later revealed to be fraudulently licensed. The gunman, a Chinese national, pleaded guilty in 2024 and received life without parole, cementing public perceptions that parts of the industry had turned dangerous. 

The political and enforcement whiplash

Voters rejected adult-use legalization in March 2023, an early sign of backlash in a deep-red state where the medical program already felt unmanageable. Since then, the governor, attorney general and the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics (OBN) have leaned into enforcement, forming task forces, revoking licenses, and raiding large illegal grows—officials tout hundreds of arrests and the seizure of vast plant counts. Supporters call it a necessary reset; critics see an overcorrection that punishes compliant operators alongside bad actors. 

What went structurally wrong

• Policy design: No caps + easy qualifying = oversupply and diversion risk.
• Compliance capacity: Rapid licensing outpaced regulators’ ability to vet owners, audit operations, and police diversion.
• Economics: Free-falling prices crushed mom-and-pop margins, making gray-market shortcuts more tempting and compliance more expensive relative to revenue.
• Public trust: Sensational crimes and media narratives hardened opposition, which then fed stricter politics and enforcement.

Lessons for other states

1. Ramp licensing with guardrails. Phased license windows, real background vetting, and residency verification help deter straw owners before the first harvest.
2. Match growth with enforcement resources. If application volume quadruples, investigative and auditing capacity must as well—or bad actors will fill the gap.
3. Data-driven supply management. Monitor canopy and yields vs. in-state demand to keep production within sane bounds.
4. Stabilize the legal market. Predictable taxes, fair testing and packaging rules, and swift penalties for diversion help legitimate operators survive the troughs.
5. Communicate wins. Publicly closing illegal grows while showing support for compliant businesses can rebuild trust.

Oklahoma’s story isn’t just about crime or laissez-faire policy—it’s about sequencing. If you liberalize access before you build durable compliance and market scaffolding, you risk a boom-bust-crackdown cycle that’s hard to escape. The state is now trying to crawl out of that loop with fewer licenses, tougher oversight, and a political reset. Whether it can nurture a smaller but healthier market will be the real measure of success. 

Audience Question: If you were designing cannabis legalization in a new state, which lever would you prioritize first to avoid Oklahoma’s cycle—tight licensing, stronger enforcement capacity, production caps, or price/tax stabilization—and why?

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Jessimae Peluso Didn’t Use Weed to Numb Grief — She Used It to Face It

“Grief is a gift. Right now, it may feel like a curse. It burns every fiber of your being, leaving you feeling lost, alone, and untethered,” says Jessimae Peluso, remembering the period when she lost both of her parents. She does not say it for effect. She says it because she earned it. She says it the way people speak when there is no filter left to protect them.

Peluso is known for stand-up comedy, MTV’s Girl Code, a long relationship with humor and weed, and the kind of irreverent timing that makes even the mundane absurd. But somewhere between growing an audience and after her parents got sick and eventually passed, she found herself holding something heavier than jokes. She found grief.

Most people run from pain, but Jessimae turned toward it with a microphone.

After her parents passed, something strange happened: people online began messaging her about their own losses. She did not ask for that responsibility, nor did she brand herself as a guide for emotional collapse. She was just openly grieving, and her audience recognized something familiar.

In her words, the response clarified the work that needed to be done: “After losing both of my parents, I was struck by how many fans reached out to share that my grief also touched them. I had always included my parents in my stand-up and on my podcast, so when they got sick and eventually passed, my audience felt like they knew them and felt connected to the loss.”

That is where Dying Laughing was born. Not in a meeting or as a pitch, but in the simple fact that loss had made her transparent and her audience felt safe enough to respond.

Jessimae says she did not jump into the concept right away. “It actually took me over a year to rebrand my podcast into something grief and mental health focused,” she explains. She wanted to be intentional. She jokes about being a Virgo, but the truth behind it is focus, avoiding the show to become trauma porn. The goal was to build something that could hold the weight.

“I’m a Virgo, so perfectionism is the cross I bear. I wanted to make sure it had real depth. I dug into grief literature and explored different healing modalities, partly for my own journey and partly to shape the show.”

She was already talking about her family in comedy, so, when her parents died, the audience did not disappear; they leaned in. They wanted to know what comes after the punchline. The answer was the part no one wrote for her.

Grief shows up without a script. Jessimae says humor did not trivialize her experience: it kept her alive in it and made space for breath. “My purpose is to sprinkle joy onto a heavy subject, to show that we can laugh with our grief, not just suffer through it. Suffering is a choice. Healing is a journey.”

The podcast is not “funny takes on death” or novelty sadness. It is a collection of the emotional leftovers no one knows where to store, filtered through someone who understands that comedy is not the opposite of pain. Comedy is how pain metabolizes.

And yes, cannabis sits close to that process.

Jessimae has always had a connection with weed, but she says it did not start in high school, or as a rebellious stoner origin myth. That part of her identity emerged later. “The truth is I actually only started partaking in the jazz cabbage in the last decade or so, having never even smoked in high school.”

The way she describes weed is not as a crutch or hype, but as a companion. “Once I only enjoyed cannabis as a solution to boredom, and that quickly evolved into a portal for healing for me.”

Years ago, Jessimae used to host a live show on Instagram called Weedsday. She smoked, told stories, interacted with fans. It was a loose, intimate hangout, and her family would sometimes appear on camera. Later, when her father became sick, the tone changed. Even though the space was still playful and chaotic and full of personality, something deeper was happening. “Once I lost my father, I used the show as a way to raise awareness and charity for an Alzheimer’s foundation.”

Cannabis stopped being recreational and became relational, allowing her to stay present through the kind of day most people try to escape.

“Cannabis was a medicine that helped me show up deep for myself while I was losing my father. It slowed me down, and gave me some space to feel the feels.”

Her take on weed and grief is not the cliché of stoner enlightenment. It is quieter. More grounded. “I wouldn’t say cannabis opens the door to grief, it walks you through it.”

And then she says something you do not hear often. That grief is not something to fix. “Grief is universal, but it wears a custom suit for everyone.” That sentence is a reminder that no two losses are the same, but we still try to navigate them as if there is a map.

Jessimae talks about the community forming around her work. People write to her, send voice notes, DM her. Not to ask for jokes, but to share something that hurts. “I find it really humbling to be a person many people have turned to for solace, reprieve and relief from their own despair.”

Although the show isn’t therapy, it has become a gathering point: “Through the sharing of my own losses, I am building a community. How beautiful is that? My loss has given me more than I could have asked for. A universally shared experience and one giant grief gang.”

There is an episode where Sarah Barthel of Phantogram talks about her sister’s suicide. There is another where John Stamos speaks about signs from the other side. Jessimae listens. She does not actively try to solve anything. “By talking so much with people about loss, it really proves and highlights that everyone’s grief is so personal. This universal experience is a deeply individualized one.”

Then she shares something that could only come from her: “I think loss can create magic. I know it does. After my mom passed, I saw her in Italy. I called my sister immediately and said, Mom didn’t die, she’s just on vacation in Sorrento.”

It is impossible to tell if she is serious or joking, and that’s the point. Sometimes the pain hits so hard you need a laugh just to breathe. Sometimes the laugh hits so honestly it becomes a kind of prayer. Jessimae lives in that tension.

She also believes in absurdity as survival. “Absurd humor became a survival mechanism.” She tells a story about her father, deep into dementia, getting confused and aggressively hitting on her sister.

“It was truly heartbreaking for me to see. Because I’m the hot sister.” Pain. Then punchline. Not to erase the ache. To hold it.

She does not pretend weed solves grief, but she knows that cannabis shaped her ability to sit inside the hard parts. “It allowed me to just be. To just be sad. To just be angry, and depressed.” She describes the plant as a bridge. Not out of grief. Into it.

“We all know laughter is one of the best medicines. But when paired with a little bit of the jazz cabbage, it can be a super healer.”

It is easy to imagine Dying Laughing filling a room soon. Jessimae sees it too. “Definitely live events and grief seminars are in the future.” Not comedy clubs. Not self-help conferences. Something new.

“There are endless possibilities, but I do know that I am brewing up a unique grief experience that focuses on the blessings and joy that come from and are on the other side of loss.”

In her mind, grief is not a hole, a bottomless pit. It’s a gateway.

“Grief is a doorway to personal freedom if you can have access to the right tools. I want to make that accessible to a wider audience. That’s my calling in life.”

When asked what she would tell someone in the High Times community who is grieving right now, she does not offer a shortcut. She brings truth. “Grief is a gift.”

She knows it may feel cruel, like the world is ending. She has been in that landscape and she knows the terrain. “There is life and love waiting for you. And that’s a gift.”

No slogan. No takeaway. Just the real thing: a woman who lost both parents. A comedian who refuses to pretend pain is punchline-ready. A stoner who used weed not to escape reality, but to feel it.

Grief did not break her. It stripped her.

And what remained was human.

Photos courtesy of Jessimae Peluso.

<p>The post Jessimae Peluso Didn’t Use Weed to Numb Grief — She Used It to Face It first appeared on High Times.</p>

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Your holiday vibe could use a sprinkle of green

The post Your holiday vibe could use a sprinkle of green appeared first on AZ Marijuana.

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Firefighters Discover Cannabis Grow Operation at Sun Valley Fire Site

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From Queens to the Cannabis Cup: Inside Torches, the Social Equity Dream Taking Over NYC’s Most Iconic Cigar Townhouse

Interviewing the Torches team was like talking to one person while chatting with four.

First came José, license holder and big-picture hustler from Jamaica, Queens. Then, Jonathan Santana, a former financial advisor who walked away from banking to bet on weed. Pedro Antonio pops in, the Colombian “spice” of the crew, half-strategist, half-hype man. Finally, there’s William Evans, the “honorary Dominican” and in-house buyer, juggling the call while checking on his sick daughter.

They start the conversation the way a lot of good weed stories begin in New York: in two languages, with jokes and a little bit of biography.

“We’re all Dominican,” Jonathan says.

“And I’m Colombian,” Pedro adds. “Got a little Colombian spice.”

Pedro explains how he was born in the U.S., sent back to Colombia as a kid, came back to New York at four, speaking only Spanish, then got swallowed whole by hip hop and the city.

“My mom says I told her I’d never speak English,” he laughs. “Then New York happened. I learned English, loved hip hop, and never turned back.”

When I tell them the true language is the one you use to curse, everybody cracks up. It’s a throwaway line, but it fits. Torches, which is in Manhattan, is bilingual, bicultural, and very much New York: immigrant roots, street logic, and a really elegant address. A social equity dispensary built by these amazing people.

Torches lives inside the former Nat Sherman Townhouse on 42nd Street, one of the most legendary cigar spaces in the city. And this month, it will become a flagship pickup location for the High Times Cannabis Cup Judges Kits.

If you’ve ever dreamed of what it would look like when legacy New York cannabis finally took over the old money cigar lounges, this is it.

“We always had weed in our story.”

Ask who the Polanco Brothers are and José starts in the most honest place possible.

“As New Yorkers, cannabis has been part of our lives for a very long time,” he says. “I’ve been consuming since I was young, and I’m pretty sure everybody on this call has some kind of experience with cannabis growing up.” 

They grew up in Queens in the 90s.

“Some neighborhoods, they got different choices,” José says. “In ours, it was cannabis, mostly. That was the environment. We enjoyed smoking together, and as we saw the game growing, legalization in other states, we knew one day it could be a possibility for us too.”

José came to the U.S. in 1993, at nine years old, not knowing the language. School wasn’t his strong suit. So instead of chasing degrees, he did what a lot of immigrants do when they want to earn their place: he started businesses. He built a family construction company from nothing. He ran car-sharing operations years before the big names took over. At one point, he and his circle had around 35 employees. All of that would turn out to matter in ways none of them could predict.

Because when New York’s social equity program for cannabis finally opened, the criteria were pretty specific: you needed

1.⁠ ⁠a cannabis-related charge, and

2.⁠ ⁠a proven track record of running a business for at least a couple of years.

José had both.

“It wasn’t easy,” Jonathan says. “That’s why some big players were kind of upset we got in before they did. They spent all this money lobbying for legalization, and then we show up with more power than they have, because they’re limited in how many stores they can open and how they can enter the rec program.”

They applied in the first round, sweating it out, thinking they might rank high and get in, but they didn’t. Then in 2023, in the second round of licenses, the Polanco Brothers’ name came up.

“Some of my friends thought I was crazy,” José says. “But they helped anyway. Some believed it could happen. The rest is history.”

“Giuliani had a locker down here.”

The hard part wasn’t getting the license. It was everything that came after.

First, they had to find a location in a city where cannabis-friendly landlords were rare, and zoning rules around churches, schools, and other dispensaries made compliant real estate feel like “a needle in a haystack.”

Then they found the former Nat Sherman Townhouse on 42nd Street, a three-story cigar temple just steps from Grand Central. “It has so much history,” Pedro says. “It’s its own story. The who’s who of New York used to be down there in that lounge where José is sitting right now.”

We’re talking hedge funds, banks, clergy, mobsters, politicians, celebrities. There’s a hidden entrance from Fifth Avenue where dignitaries would sneak in without being seen. The lockers in the basement once held private cigar stashes for the city’s elite.

“Giuliani had a locker down here,” they tell me. “The same guy pushing stop-and-frisk laws that ended up impacting so many in our communities was probably smoking cigars in that lounge, thinking through those policies.”

Now, those same rooms are being reclaimed by the very people those policies targeted—through a social equity license, in a legal cannabis shop.

Destiny is a word they use more than once.

When they chose the townhouse, there was a problem with MedMen. The collapsing cannabis giant had a store 860 feet away, and under the rules at the time, that proximity gave MedMen exclusivity. 

If MedMen converted from medical to recreational, Torches could never open at Nat Sherman.

“We were stuck for seven months,” Jonathan says. “We couldn’t open. We had to decide: do we walk away and pick another location, or do we wait them out?”

The Office of Cannabis Management even tried to nudge them away from the building, warning them they were passing on easier opportunities.

“They told us, ‘Real estate is so hard to come by. Pick another location. You won’t regret it,’” Pedro recalls. “They said if we stayed, it could be detrimental to the business. But we kept the dream and the vision.”

It really did come down to the shot clock.

If MedMen had filed to convert before the deadline, Torches wouldn’t exist in this format and the landlord might have demolished the building for a skyscraper. 

Instead, the floodgates opened in early 2024. Torches secured its proximity and started building.

Built by the same hands that grew up on the legacy side.

Torches wasn’t dropped in by a corporate general contractor, but built by the same family and friends who used to hustle to get by.

“We came in as builders,” José says. “We have a construction company. My brothers are the builders. Everything you see here was built by us.”

The townhouse already had something no other building on 42nd Street had: industrial-grade ventilation, designed for heavy cigar smoke. One of only three buildings in the entire state with that level of air circulation, they tell me. A structure literally built for people to consume something in comfort.

“It was meant to be a consumption lounge,” Pedro says. “The bones of the building were destined for cannabis.”

For now, the lounge is used for private events and meetings while New York slowly figures out its consumption regulations. But the infrastructure is there, locked and loaded.

“Like Bob Marley said, ‘what’s profitable’?”

William, the buyer, is the one with the deepest hands-on cannabis history. He started in the legacy market as a teenager, moved with the plant, watched the evolution from cheap corner bags to modern branded eighths and solventless everything.

“We really got our ears to the streets,” William says. “We’re nice people, but we’re not pushovers. People come to show us products. We can tell what’s good and what’s trash. We’ve learned a lot about marketing, too. Some folks come in trying to get over on us, and we close the door. Then two weeks later, they crawl back like, ‘We can do 50% off.’”

For Torches, “Torches-worthy” is a combination of Quality, Price and Relationship: brands that show up, do activities, educate, and give something back to the community.

“There are products for everybody,” William says. “Some people want the best of the best. Some just want a good deal, like a cigarette. We want to make sure the $25 eighth is actually decent, and the $50 eighth really earns that price.”

“Profitable” for José, though, goes beyond the ledger.

“Like Bob Marley said, what’s profitable?” He remembers Marley’s philosophy. “The relationships we’re building here, the currency we’re building for the culture—that’s more than just financial. We’re paying our bills, we’re growing, we’ll open more locations, sure. But profit for me is being in this space, having this conversation, building something for our people.”

“You shouldn’t be buying weed from the same guy you’re buying a sandwich from.”

New York has been cracking down hard on the unlicensed market for the past year, raiding smoke shops, padlocking corner stores selling gummies and mystery “zaza” out of glass cases.

The Polanco crew has complicated feelings about it.

“If you’re asking about enforcement on illegal stores on 42nd, we weren’t too impacted,” Jonathan says. “Here, rent is very high. Most of the raids hit community stores and corner spots in rougher neighborhoods. But if you’re asking about the legacy market, that’s where we all come from. We did the right thing to get here, and we pay a lot of tax. But I still respect legacy growers that take pride in their product, people who built real communities before legalization.”

The line for them is clear: they don’t support people flooding the market with contaminated, unsafe, or purely opportunistic products.

“It’s like what’s happening with some of the hemp stuff,” José says. “People putting anything out there, no pride in the product. If you’re doing that, unregulated, without caring, I don’t stand with you. But the legacy people who’ve been growing, who care, I wish them nothing but the best. I hope they all find a way into licensing and bring that fire to the legal market.”

Then Jonathan drops the line that should probably be printed on a poster somewhere:

“You shouldn’t be buying weed from the same guy you’re buying a sandwich from.”

Fair enough.

“We are the torch.”

Their relationship with High Times started at a cannabis expo and through Josh Kesselman.

“William spotted him,” Pedro says. “‘Yo, Josh is here.’ We went straight over. He was super cool, very real. We showed him a video of the store before renovations, with Nat Sherman still intact. He was blown away.”

Later, Josh came to visit Torches in person, unannounced. He filmed a tour of the entire space and posted it on Instagram, giving them a massive boost with zero ask in return.

“For us, that was huge.”

So why Torches as the flagship pickup location for the High Times Cannabis Cup Judges Kits?

“We really come from this,” says William. “We’re connected to the streets, but we also have this beautiful location in the heart of the city. There are smaller stores with culture, but they don’t have what we have. I feel like we really shine a light on the culture. And we’re still the little guys compared to the big companies. It’s a David and Goliath story.”

Then José brings it home.

“The reason you chose us is because we are Torches,” he says. “We are the light for the ones before us and the ones after us. When you accomplish something, we want to hand you your torch. We picked a name that means something to share, something to celebrate. We want to be like the Olympics. The Cup is the Olympics, and we’re the torch right behind it.”

He’s not exaggerating about location, either. This isn’t just Times Square tourism. It’s 42nd and Grand Central, a literal gateway where the whole world passes through.

“Every tourist, every businessperson, every kind of New Yorker comes through here,” José says. “We’re not just saying cannabis is coming. We’re saying it’s coming elegant, strong, smart, with swag and substance.”

“The people get to decide.”

“We always heard about the High Times Cannabis Cup,” William says. “We’d be like, ‘Oh my God, that brand won it.’ But we were never a part of it. It was all West Coast. Now we get to host the kits in New York.”

They’re showcasing the kits in custom glass cases upstairs, surrounded by the kind of old-world architecture that wasn’t built with weed in mind but somehow fits it perfectly.

“We’re curators,” Pedro says. “We’d love nothing more than to test every kit. But what we love about the Cup is that the people get to decide. No politics. No backroom deals. Just the community judging.”

What they want people to feel when they pick up their Judges Kits:

When I ask what vibe they want people to feel walking into Torches to grab their Cannabis Cup kits, José keeps it simple.

“The same thing they already feel when they come in,” he says. “We want them to know the level of quality in our menu is the same level of quality in the kits. We’ll have budtenders ready to educate, so people know what they’re picking up and can judge better.”

William adds the emotional side.

“I want people to be excited,” he says. “It’s fun. It’s different. You’re part of history. This townhouse is already historic, and now we’re launching something historic again.”

“The people get to decide,” adds Pedro.

“We want to inspire people like us to not give up”

At the end of the interview, I asked if there was anything they wanted to add.

“We just want to inspire people,” says José. “People like us to not give up, to get up and do things. To see that there are professional careers in this industry. We happen to be first right now, but we want to be good at it so other people feel like, ‘We can all do it.’ The more people do it, the better the space is going to be, the better the cannabis, the better the products.”

Pedro sees it as a responsibility.

“You’re talking to people at ground zero,” he says. “New York is still in its infancy as a legal market. We’re just crossing a billion in sales, pushing toward two, aiming at six. It’s still stigmatized. But we’re not going anywhere. We’re going to leave a legacy in New York cannabis.”

If you’re in New York, this is the moment. 

The High Times Cannabis Cup is officially in the 212, and Torches is the place to grab your Judges Kit. 

Step inside the old Nat Sherman townhouse, pick up your box, and make history this year.

Photos by Kyle Rosner.

<p>The post From Queens to the Cannabis Cup: Inside Torches, the Social Equity Dream Taking Over NYC’s Most Iconic Cigar Townhouse first appeared on High Times.</p>

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Cereal Killa Feminized Grow Report

Cereal Killa Feminized wasn’t quite what we’d expected. With a predominantly indica lineage, this strain’s lanky, stretched-out frame, delayed flowering time, and smallish flower clusters are distinctly sativa-like. On the other hand, the rapid development of the buds once started, their density, and their sedative effects are classically indica.

The post Cereal Killa Feminized Grow Report appeared first on Sensi Seeds.

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