The election and holiday season is upon us. So it’s time to settle the toughest questions. Which is better? Smoking weed before a meal, or after? Let’s put this to rest once and for all. The eternal question When it comes to pairing weed with food, timing can be everything. So, what’s your move? Are […]

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Save dough on the good-good without breaking a sweat.

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Connecticut’s Department of Consumer Protection (DCP) released a press release Wednesday, reminding residents that alcohol sales will be banned on Christmas and New Year’s Day, but cannabis and gambling is allowed.

Connecticut officials told residents to buy alcohol ahead of time if they want booze on Christamas and New Year’s Day.

“Every year we remind consumers and businesses that, due to Connecticut law, hours for some liquor permittees change during the holidays. If you choose to consume alcohol with your holiday celebrations, be sure to make those purchases ahead of time, and, of course, please drink responsibly,” said Consumer Protection Commissioner Bryan T. Cafferelli. 

“And, because we regulate many things you may be wondering about, Connecticut Law does not prohibit the sale of cannabis, or limit your ability to place wagers during the holidays. No matter how you choose to spend the holidays, please know your limit, arrange designated drivers and be respectful of the establishments and communities where you celebrate.”

Changes to hours for certain liquor permittees are only in effect on the day of the actual holidays, Dec. 25 and Jan. 1, which both fall on a Monday this year.

The announcement included the specifics of where alcohol can be purchased:

Regarding off-premise alcohol consumption, package stores must remain closed on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day; Grocery stores cannot sell beer on Christmas Day or New Year’s Day; and Manufacturer permits cannot sell alcoholic liquor to go on Christmas Day or New Year’s Day.

Regarding on-premise alcohol consumption, Permittees who serve food may sell alcohol for on-premise consumption on Christmas Day; Normal hours remain the same, except premises may stay open an extra hour New Years Eve evening until 3 a.m. on New Year’s Day morning.

If anyone has questions about the policy in Connecticut they are encouraged to contact DCP’s Liquor Control Division via email or phone.

“Adults who choose to consume cannabis are reminded to do so responsibly, including storing cannabis products in their original packaging, locked up and out of reach of children and pets,” the release reads. “Resources regarding responsible cannabis use, as well as information about addiction and health risks is available at ct.gov/cannabis.”

Cannabis sales in the state have no signs of slowing down, according to state data published each month.

Connecticut Doubles Personal Cannabis Limit 

The DCP announced in an Oct. 10 press release that new preliminary data shows combined sales for adult-use and medical cannabis totaled to over $25 million for the period from Sept. 1 to Sept. 30, 2023. The numbers do not include adult-use cannabis taxes, and medical cannabis patients never have to pay taxes on cannabis purchases.

“The adult-use market recorded more than $14.3 million in sales during the month of September, while the medical marijuana market recorded almost $11 million in sales for the same period. Adult-use sales began on Jan. 10, 2023,” the report reads.

“In September, medical marijuana patients purchased 284,116 products, and adult-use consumers purchased 376,035 products,” the report continues. “The average product price for medical marijuana patients was $38.21 in September, while the average price of adult-use products was $38.37. In September, 52 percent of sales were usable cannabis, or flower, while vapes made up 30 percent of sales. Edible products represented 11 percent of sales.”

Connecticut regulators have doubled the amount of adult-use cannabis consumers can purchase in a single transaction.

Per the new regulations approved by the Connecticut DCP, adult-use cannabis consumers will be permitted to purchase up to a half-ounce (about 14 grams) of cannabis flower or its equivalent beginning next month. 

The limit on purchases of medical marijuana has not been changed. It remains at 5 ounces of cannabis flower or the equivalent monthly, with no limits on purchases in a single transaction.

The DCP noted in a statement that the decision to increase the limit on adult-use cannabis purchases was made based on an ongoing analysis of supply and demand in Connecticut’s regulated cannabis market. The agency also said that the limit will continue to be reviewed over time, adding that the caps are in place to help ensure an adequate supply of cannabis for both adult-use consumers and medical marijuana patients.

“DCP has continually reviewed available supply and demand since prior to the launch of the adult-use cannabis industry in January 2023,” DCP Commissioner Bryan T. Cafferelli said in a statement from the agency. “As more retailers, production companies and other supply chain licensees have come online, the capacity of the industry has increased. We are confident this measured approach to adult-use sales has resulted in a healthy market for businesses, and a safe and fair marketplace for adult-use cannabis consumers and medical marijuana patients.”

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With Puffco Plus, Flower Mill, and Storz & Bickel’s new Venty.

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At the finale of the Christmas show last year in Eugene, OR, I came out as a skid-row Santa, complete with rubber nose, plastic sack full of beer cans, and a pint of peppermint schnapps to fortify the holiday spirit. I also borrowed my wife Faye’s blue egg bucket and labeled it: “Homeless.” I’d jangle the cans like a bagful of aluminum sleigh bells while I worked the mainfloor aisle seats: “Hey, come on, buddy. Put something in the bucket, for Chrissakes. Don’t you know it’s Christmastime? Hey, that’s better. God bless you. You’re beautiful.”

I ended up with only about seventy-five bucks. Not much of a take for a full house at a Christmas show. But even seventy-five bucks was a wad too big to pocket. So after I got out of my red suit and rubber snoot I drove off to seek a worthy recipient. I spotted a likely assortment of candidates in the 7-Eleven parking lot, on the corner of Sixth and Blair. I swung in and held the bucket out the window.

“All right. Who’s the hardest-luck case in this lot?”

The candidates looked me over and edged away—all but one guy, pony-tailed and slope-shouldered, his chin tucked down in the collar of a canvas camouflage jacket. “I got a streak of hard luck runs all the way back to New Jersey,” he said. “What about it?”

“I’m on a mission from St. Nicholas,” I told him. “And if you are, in fact, the least fortunate of the lot”—in the spirit of the season, I refrained from saying “biggest loser”—”then this could be your lucky night.”

“Right,” he said. “You’re some kind of Holy Roller? Where’s the string? What’s the hustle?”

“No string, no catch, no hustle. I’m giving. You’re getting. Get it?”

He did. He took the money and ran, taking Faye’s egg bucket into the bargain. The last I saw of him, he was scurrying away, looking for a hole.

Since then, I’ve wondered about him. Did that little windfall make a difference? Did he rent a cheap room? Get a bath? A companion? Every time I found myself passing through one of Eugene’s hard-luck harbors, I kept half an eye peeled for the sight of a long tail of black hair draggling down the back of a camouflage jacket. Last week, a year later to the day, I made a sighting.

I was in town with Faye and our daughter, getting in some Christmas shopping before we rendezvoused with my mom for supper. We’d done a couple of hours in the malls, and I was shopped out. I announced that I wanted to make some private purchases, and slipped off into the rainy cold—alone. I was headed for the liquor store on Eighth, thinking the spirit could use a little fortification. But the trusty peppermint wasn’t powerful enough. These hometown streets are just too strange, too vacant, too sad. Corner of Sixth at Olive: empty. The great Dangold Creamery that my dad built up from a little Eugene farmer’s cooperative: bulldozed down. I ducked my head and kept walking in the rain.

The street in my memory was the clearer path anyway: John Warren’s Hardware over there, where you could buy blasting powder across the counter; the Corral Novelty Shop, where you could buy itching powder; the Heilig Theater, with its all-the-way-across-the-street arch, flashing what we all took to be the Norwegian word for “hello,” so big it could be read all the way from the windows of the arriving trains: “Heilig, Heilig, Heilig.” All gone.

When I reached the city center, I noticed that the thing people had finally given up trying to call a fountain was newly disguised with pine boughs and potted plants. But to no avail. It still looked like the remnants of a bombed-out French cathedral. Then, when the rain eased up, I was surprised to discover that the ruins were not quite deserted: I saw a loose black braid hanging down the back of a camouflage jacket. That seemed right. He was in the old fountain’s basin, bent in a concealing crouch at one of the potted pines.

I came up from behind and clapped my hand on his shoulder. “Whatcha doin’, Hard Luck? Counting another bucket of money?”

He wheeled around and had my wrist clamped in a bone-breaking grasp before I could finish the word. I saw then that this wasn’t a chinless street rat standing down in the basin after all. This was a block-jawed American Indian built like two fireplugs, sitting in a wheelchair.

“Ouch! Man! Let go! I thought you were somebody else!”

He eased the hold, but kept the wrist. I told him about last year’s longhair and the matching jacket.

He listened, studying my eyes. “OK. Sorry about the twist. I was taking a leak. You surprised me. Let’s get out of the rain and see what kind of medicine you’ve got sticking out of your pocket.”

We retired under some scaffolding. He was less than enthusiastic about my choice of pocket medicine. “I’d rather drink something like Southern Comfort if I have to choose a sugar drink,” he said. But we passed the pint back and forth and watched the rain.

He leaned to spit and a folded Army blanket slipped out of his lap. His legs were as gone as the main gut of my poor hometown.

He was a part-time fillet man from the Pike Place Market, up in Seattle, on his way to spend Christmas with family on “the rez,” outside of Albuquerque. His bus was laid up for a couple of hours: “I think they’re getting the Greyhound spayed before she gets to California.”

When the pint was about three-quarters gone, I screwed on the lid and held it out. “I gotta meet the women. Go ahead and keep it.”

“Ah, I guess not,” he said.

“You’re pretty choosy for a thirsty man, aren’t you? What would be your best druthers?”

“To have the money and make my own choice.”

I reached for my wallet. “I think I got a couple of bucks.”

“And a quarter? If I had two bucks and a quarter, I could get a pint of Ten High. With four and change I’d go on to a fair-to-middlin’ fifth. Cream of Kentucky.”

I hesitated. Was I being hustled? “OK, Let’s see what we’ve got.” I emptied the wallet and pockets onto his blanket. He added a few coins and counted the collection.

“Nine seventy-five. If I come up with another two dollars, I can get a bottle of Bushmill’s Irish. Think I can panhandle two dollars between here and the liquor store?”

“Without a doubt,” I assured him. “With both panhandles tied behind your back.”

We shook hands goodbye and headed off in our separate directions, strolling and rolling through the rain. At the restaurant, my mother wanted to know what I was thinking about that gave me such a goofy grin.

“I was just thinking, if beggars can’t be choosers, then it must follow that choosers, by definition, are not beggars.”

This year for the Christmas show, Santa’s got himself a classier outfit and wrangled some holiday helpers out of the high-school choir. God bless ’em. And we’re gonna work all the aisles. Come on out here you helpers, come on out. Get down there and panhandle! And you guys in the audience start passing your money to the aisles here. This is no time to nickel-and-dime, for Chrissakes! It’s Christmastime.

Ken Kesey, one of the Merry Pranksters, is the author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Sometimes A Great Notion.

Read the full issue here.

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Santa Claus is coming to town—this year, loaded up with cannabis deliveries available at locations in Southern California. Give the gift almost everyone wants this holiday season: weed.

For the time period beginning December 19 and running through Christmas Eve on December 24, Emjay will send a cannabis delivery courier dressed as Santa Claus to deliver orders throughout Los Angeles and San Diego. It’s one of the most creative holiday sales gimmicks we’ve seen in a long time within the cannabis retail space.

In the spirit of the Christmas season, Emjay is trying a different marketing approach this year, giving the company and its leadership a chance to be extra festive.

“We’re always looking for ways to use the Emjay platform to uplift people’s cannabis experience, and so we’re happy to have Santa dressed couriers delivering orders to our customers this holiday season,” said Chris Vaughn, CEO of Emjay. “Having Santa couriers is an exciting and festive addition to our offering and for delighting our customers this time of the year.”

Emjay encourages customers who receive a Santa delivery to take a picture of them and tag Emjay’s Instagram account via Stories (which has been targeted by Instagram Community Guidelines by Meta).  If you do so, Emjay will then DM you for a gift for your next purchase.

In addition to the possibility of receiving a Santa courier, Emjay is also offering curated holiday Kushmas Bundles with $144 or more worth of product on sale for $80, discounts on select products, along with food and toy drives, giveaways, and customer appreciation days at their brick-and-mortar stores in Los Angeles and San Diego.

Kushmas Bundles are available in several options with reindeer names: Rudolph, Comet, Blitzen, Dasher, Donner, Prancer, etc., each coming with a mix of flower, edibles, and other cannabis products. They feature high-end cannabis products from brands such as Lowell Farms, Kurvana, and so on.

Emjay launched in 2019, growing to become one of the leading California-based cannabis delivery and retail platforms. Emjay also opened retail locations in Los Angeles and La Mesa, California. One of the company’s main selling points is to provide prices comparable to prices you’d see at the counter at a dispensary.  

“… Whatever you choose will be brought by one of the most professional couriers in the industry,” the company states on its website. “For us, the entire experience matters—from how you view our curated list of products to how they end up in your living room.All of the weed. None of the markup. A better experience. Because we’re Emjay, and we’re the best cannabis delivery service in the world.”

Santa Claus Roots

Holiday marketing gimmicks are nothing new, especially in the cannabis industry. High Times Magazine has explored the topic in detail—usually when someone dressed as Santa gets into trouble. In North Pole, Alaska, voters in 2015 rejected a measure that would have banned dispensaries in the town.

There may even be a psychedelic connection between the Santa Claus origin story and psychedelics. In the December, 1979 issue of High Times Magazine, the late counterculture correspondent for the publication Glenn O’Brien examined the connections between Santa Claus and a specific kind of psychedelic mushroom: fly agaric, aka the toadstool that conquered the universe. In fact, O’Brien argues, the mere existence of Santa could be related to a shaman in Lapland who ate Amanita muscaria. 

For more cannabis holiday gift ideas, check out The Ultimate High Times Holiday Gift Guide 2022.

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A full-on Dankmas special sharing our most loved holiday songs.

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Europeans have been celebrating the end of December since ancient times, and likely used cannabis to bring good fortune and good cheer at the winter solstice.

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