This past summer, as the US military exited Afghanistan, and the country has fallen back into a transitional phase. Afghanistan first became a nation just over 100 years ago in 1919, but one thing that has always transcended the country’s rocky political history is its legendary hash scene. Despite the Mujahideen, Taliban or communists, Afghanistan’s hash industry has transcended the people and policies that have made life for Afghan hash producers difficult over the past 50 years. The flood of hash that once hit Europe and America following the first major hash haul in 1967 has long since been forced out of practice, but the stories of this prime time of hauling hash across multiple country’s borders remain fascinating tales of a different time. High Times obtained an exclusive interview with Ray, who recounted his trips through Europe and Asia and the challenges he and his companions encountered on their journey.

The first hash haul is said to have occurred one year before things really hit the gas on the “Hippie Trail,” where thousands of westerners traveled east through Afghanistan on their way to find enlightenment in India. But for many, their trek would make a stop in Kabul, the capital city of Afghanistan. There they would start their quest to stock up on as much hash as possible before heading back west to wherever they called home; be it Germany, Amsterdam or southern California.

Much of what we know about the smuggling aspects of the trail come directly from one of the first groups to make it happen—The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, which included members from southern California. Brotherhood member Ron Bevan is considered to be the first to run an operation out of Kabul in 1967, although there were many groups doing it at the time.

Among these other groups, there was a young man named Ray. High Times sat down with Ray to talk about his past hash smuggling experiences, as we discussed the fallout from the US exit from Afghanistan, wondering what it could mean for a hash scene that has already been devastated for decades.

Hop In—We’re Going Smuggling

The days before Ray’s first trip to Afghanistan were filled with proper hippie business. “We went to southern Oregon in the late ’60s and for whatever reason out of pure synchronicity a bunch of us from northern California and southern California all ended up in this one house in southern Oregon,” Ray told High Times.

The group decided to take things to the next level and looked to start a commune. They spent some time hunting for a property, but after some hiccups with the search, they regrouped in California in 1968. A lot of the people that originally tossed that idea around remain friends to this day after originally finding each other all those years ago.

Part of that group included some friends who had already been smuggling hash from Afghanistan a year or two before that, and they had just brought back a load. In those days, Ray and his friends were staying in the High Sierras—the perfect place to unload some hash.

Most people associate the “Hippie Trail” with the image of a classic Volkswagen bus and a Hanomag Camper that rolled up to their spot in the same hills that was also very popular with other hash smugglers, such as Darrell. “He came, we unloaded it there, and it took a while. And after he got what he thought was the load amount he goes, ‘Okay, you guys can have the rest.’ And so we picked away at it because it was in the framework,” Ray said, “We had to use all kinds of tools we implement to dig it all out but I think eventually we got like another 10 pounds.”

This would be the first time Ray mentioned the man that he eventually partnered with to make the travel east. “So you know we are quite thrilled to make a connection with him. This is Long Beach, brother, I can give you his name because he’s no longer with us. Well, he had many names, but we knew him as Darrell,” Ray noted with a laugh.

Before connecting with Ray, Darrell had already made two or three trips. He was always a driver, and for good reason. In this critical role, he was the main person who drove from Holland to Kabul and back, through every border. He didn’t even need a map when he was on his runs.

Eventually Darrell shared his next plan with Ray: “Here’s what I want to do next time because I’m gonna have another Honomag, but also I’m going to buy a really nice motorhome,” Darrell told Ray at the time.

The motorhome was called a Revcon. It was the top-of-the-line in 1968 when it was designed. It had an aerodynamic aluminum body, and the 26 rails that ran the length of its frame were a hash smuggler’s dream.

“Very cool, very modern, front wheel drive. And he goes ‘I’m gonna buy this and we’re gonna, this is the vehicle we’re gonna make special rails that go inside the rails and we’ll have little hooks to pull it out,”’ Ray said of Darrell’s original plan.

Ray and Darrell had some friends that were engineers who helped them with building the rails. Eventually they would drive the Revcon across the country from California to New York, shipping it on to Rotterdam, Netherlands.

Darrell asked Ray to tag along for the full run to Afghanistan. “I go, ‘Sure, I’ll go slide and sit shotgun,”’ Ray replied. “It was like the coolest ride I ever took. But we were vegetarian at the time, so we were doing a lot of soups, avocados and carrot juice. We had it all decked out with the Norwalk Press, which is a real good juicing machine. We totally kept our eating habits intact.” Their eating habits would eventually earn them the nickname “The Carrot Juice Boys.”

The group prepped for their journey from Rotterdam after picking up the Revcon. They would make their way through Germany and Austria, then travel through Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Turkey and Iran before finally reaching the Afghan Border.

That first trip would end up taking a few months, after Ray and Darrell got caught up in eastern Turkey. The Revcon’s front wheel drive engine featured torsion bars in the front, which didn’t pair well with the traffic or potholes they encountered on their journey. They lost control of the Revcon for a second, but were able to come to a stop in the center median. “Eastern Turkey is definitely the sticks, very isolated and very desolate,” Ray said of the breakdown.

When you break down out there, it’s common to surround your vehicle with rocks. They did so before hitchhiking to the closest town. They brought mechanics back to the Revcon, knowing they wouldn’t be able to replace the bar, but could rig something to get the Revcon back to civilization.

They hobbled into Tehran, Iran and messaged home for the part they needed. It wasn’t a fast process. “So we were in Tehran for about a good month, repairing the vehicle, but everything got straightened down,” Ray said, “So we rolled into Afghanistan, probably in late summer of 1970.”

Of Science and Borders

The mission was to obtain a couple hundred pounds of hash and five gallons of hash oil. While other groups had brought hash loads back for about three years before this trip, to the best of The Carrot Juice Boys’ knowledge, they were the first people ever to bring a flash evaporator to Afghanistan. Much of the Revcon was loaded with Everclear for their grand chemistry project.

If the idea of driving across the middle east with a chemistry set seemed weird, the opulence of the Revcon stole everyone’s attention at each border crossing, simplifying getting its contents across various borders in both directions. “I mean, they’ve seen the ‘Hippie Trail’ in the VW Vans, the Honomags, but they’ve never seen anything of this magnitude in this amazing really cool motorhome,” Ray noted on the border crossings. “And of course once we got into Persia we decked it out with Persian carpets and runners and it was looking really cool.”

They were very much playing the part of rich Californians, but they would still be pulled from the line at every border. “The head custom guy would come out and just wanted to go inside and look at it and say ‘oh very nice,”’ Ray said, “It’s just amazing.”

One time, a border agent pulled out their chemistry set and pulled out a beaker. He asked Darrell and the pair what it was. “Glass,” they replied. The border guard looked at it again, nodded in agreement with their take, and put it back in the box.

Iran had some of the toughest border restrictions, but once you entered the country, the group found that it was amongst the most welcoming as they attempted to Westernize before the Shah fell in 1979. Ray emphasized that it was one of the nicest places he’s ever been to, as they spent the month waiting for car parts. “They just want to make sure you’re [not] smuggling weapons or anything, doing nefarious stuff, but all the people there were so nice,” Ray noted of Tehran. “They just were so hospitable and helped us [with] whatever. If we’d go looking for the embassy, [residents] would take us in their car, take us to their home, feed us and then take us to the embassy.”

But with a repaired Revcon, things got a bit rougher as they approached the Afghanistan border. Every hotel featured signs that warned a prison sentence of 10 years in prison for a gram of hash, and life in prison for a kilo. “They try and put the fear in you, but we got some good hash in Turkey,” Ray said with a laugh.

After getting into Afghanistan, the group headed straight for Kabul. They stayed in a fancy neighborhood fitting of rich Californians. From there, they would head to The Solan Hotel, a hotspot for hash enthusiasts and general tourists heading in both directions on the trail.

One of Ray’s favorite things about The Solan Hotel was a space attached to the courtyard where you could park your van and camp near a little park attached to the hotel. There was always an ongoing rotation of Europeans and a few Americans, and it was always a good time.

The locals did their best to keep the hippies and smugglers happy, too. “Afghanis just loved us because we had money and we were very careful about religion,” Ray said. “We were very aware of how they are and how not to trespass or do anything [that] goes counter to them. There’s just some things so you don’t mess with. You don’t eat during the day during Ramadan and walk around chewing food.”

But Ray argued that besides that kind of thing, the religion of Islam was based in hospitality. Over the course of three trips that, in total, took about a year to complete, Ray picked up some language skills. One of the things he noticed immediately was how caring and personal everything was. He noted that a lot of the conversation focused on how the other person was feeling.

Back in their Kabul neighborhood, they rented out a two-story mansion and set up the hash lab. They would do a lot of the extraction work offsite and then bring the crude material back to the flash evaporator in the bathroom to get all the alcohol out. It would take them a couple of months to get the five gallons of hash oil they were shooting for.

Unloading the Goods

High Times asked Ray how much hash they needed to make the five gallons. Ray estimated that about 200 kilos were concentrated into the oil. He also noted the unpressed hash made for much better oil, then they hid the rest to stuff in the specialized frames of the Revcon. “The rest we had pressed up and put into the containers, the square tubes, it actually ended up making the hash look like a Hershey bar. We sold most of that in Amsterdam and I’m sure to this day, there are a lot of people there who call it ‘screw hole hash,’” Ray said.

The hash received this name when they put five to seven of the bars together and put a screw through the stack, just to tighten it up before they tossed it down the tube designed to fit into the Revcon’s internal storage system. “It was a precise measurement that we had all the patties pressed,” Ray noted on the precision used to fill each tube with as much product as possible.

As for the oil, that came out pretty great, too. The flash evaporator kept the oil at a reasonable temperature as it sweat off the Everclear used in production. “I mean, it was a black oil. But because of the flash evaporator we didn’t have to heat it in a high temperature, it was in a vacuum, so you got the real essence of really, really good hash,” Ray said. “I don’t know if you’ve had really, really good hash but it’s very floral and very sweet.”

Just like today, in order to make the best oil possible, they had to get their hands on the best material possible. Ray described the process that took them around the country from their upscale Kabul hash lab and base camp. The first connection they ever made was in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

“We used to go to Kandahar, but that was a tough place to be,” Ray noted on the trip. “Kandahar was like going back 1,000 years. I was like ‘Oh my God. That was an ancient town.’ And you couldn’t help but get dysentery just hanging out there for any amount of time. But Kabul was more modern.” In addition to the more modern vibe in Kabul, you could basically get whatever you needed. And in reality, it wasn’t that competitive with other smugglers in town because there was just so much hash to go around.

When it was time to return, the Revcon would leave Afghanistan without Ray. They hired a German woman to play the role of a fancy lady with a fancy motorhome. “We paid her like $10,000 or something. And she was great! She had like a fur coat. I mean, she’d look the part of being wealthy,” Ray said. She was the perfect accessory for a driver who had already completed this trip five times before. The key was the balance of looking like a regular person. Not being an asshole, but also not being too nice, in the hopes of getting waved through borders smoothly.

Ray and Darrell made it to Holland with no problems. The Revcon worked like a charm before being unloaded on a small farm outside Amsterdam. Most of the load would be sold locally.

“But here’s a luggage story for you,” Ray laughed. While the hash moved in Europe, they decided to bring a bunch of the oil back to America. At the time, Ray estimated that the oil was selling for about $10 a milliliter, so a whole liter was worth roughly $10,000 bucks. “We went to a liquor store in Amsterdam and bought Kahlua. Then we’d melt the little seal and stretch it and pull it over the bottle, undo the cap and pour out all the Kahlua and then poured in the hash oil. Then we heated the seal back up and you know back the cap and so it looked sealed, and we’d take two bottles,” Ray said. “So, we go to the airport and we’d go to the duty free and buy another bottle of Kahlua and we traded out the bottle we bought at duty-free. So, we just carried it right across check-in.”

Ray emphasized not to forget the exchange rate. That $10,000 bottle in 1970 would be worth over $70,000 today. He can’t recall how many bottles made it back, the whole five gallons would be worth $1.2 million today.

Adapting the Experience

On Ray’s two trips to Afghanistan, he already had the lay of the land. He flew into Kabul and would buy the hash ahead of time to limit the time spent in the country compared to the marathon road trip and hash oil production of his inaugural adventure.

Ray’s first trip lasted so long he actually overstayed his visa. When he returned for the second run the customs people at the airport noticed it on his passport and gave him a shorter amount of time. After learning his lesson, he got a new passport for the third run. It did the trick, and it was clear sailing at customs. “So, I’d go ahead of time and get there and order up and make sure everything’s ready,” Ray said, “So when the vehicle came through it wasn’t just there, it was like it was going across. It wasn’t there longer than a week or two, which is about the average tourist time somebody might spend there.”

The later runs wouldn’t feature the Revcon. The team moved on to four-wheel drive Suburbans with special compartments in the gas tank that could hold over 100 pounds of gas. The only problem with it was you had to stop a lot more to fuel up, but the trucks did a lot better on the roads than a motorhome.

“But it was pretty safe because to get to it you’d have to take out the whole gas tank and cut into it,” Ray said, “And that was the last time that we did it. We actually hired a professional race driver, who was a dear friend, and he did a good job.”

The gang had a mission of wider psychedelic enlightenment between trips. As they made the runs through the early 1970s, a lot of the resources went into furthering that mission. The freedom Ray and his peers were in search of came with the smuggling and they wanted to make sure to pay it forward. What would start as personal projects for the group would eventually end up in the hands of nonprofits down the line in the form of an unfinished boat. “So the majority of the money that we ever made went on that boat, eventually when the Russians started coming in and put in the puppet government and everything we said, ‘okay, that’s done. We’re not going back there again,”’ Ray said.

Expanding Lore of the First Smuggler

Three years prior to Ray’s first run, Ronnie Bevan of the Brotherhood of Eternal Love would make the first major smuggling run out of Afghanistan. He released the first autobiography of a hash smuggler entitled Brotherhood Hashish: The Story of Ronnie Bevan in 2018.

Many people speak of the “Hippie Trail” as intertwined tales of the many tourists that passed through and a handful of preeminent smugglers like him. High Times asked Bevan to weigh in on that idea. “One thing was there was more than just the two,” Bevan quickly rebutted. “You could get on a bus in London and end up in Kathmandu and there are photos of those people going in 1967 or 1968. The girls have bouffant hairdos and they’re in tight skirts. And then you see him a year later in Kathmandu, and we’re in the hippie clothes and their hair is all down.”

Bevan found that was really the basic motivation of the of the European travelers. Thousands of Europeans made that trip, but very few Americans did, because of the overseas aspect. “We didn’t have the buses. There just weren’t that many. I know, all of the guys that were in Afghanistan smuggling because I was there through several years, and there just weren’t that many,” Bevan said.

Bevan explained that a lot of people in London, or wherever they went from, by the time they got to Nepal all of a sudden they were into the metaphysical side of everything and taking psychedelics. But not everyone. Some people were there for the opposite of self-help. “There also was another large group of people that just did drugs,” Bevan explained, “You could buy heroin, cocaine, you could buy either from the pharmacy in Afghanistan. And consequently, we saw a lot of druggie type people just hanging out. So that’s just another dimension to what you’re talking about.”

Technically, many date the “Hippie Trail” to beginning in 1968, one year after Bevan’s first run. Bevan went on to explain how those increased crowds impacted business. “In the early days nobody got busted for anything, it wasn’t until 1971 that somebody busted [in] one of the vans,” Bevan said.

By 1973, Bevan and his friends had a warrant poster, and he was on the run. That same year Afghanistan’s King Zahir Shah made hash illegal following a $47 million dollar payment from the US government. “Our people had to move into Pakistan to do their work, and it was pretty much destroyed after that. And then it faltered and then a lot of people got busted and especially in those Volkswagens. I think about eight of them, and from that point on, none of them made it they got every one of them but when the Russians came [in] 1979 it was over for sure. That it’s, been over since then.”

A recent article in the South China Morning Post spoke with a cannabis farmer and hash producer outside of Kandahar named Ghulam Ali. Ali noted he hasn’t had any problems since the most recent transition of power, despite concerns that the Taliban would crack down a lot more than the coalition-backed government that fell last summer. “We don’t hear a lot over there. But I think the Taliban is pretty much leaving everything alone,” Bevan replied after reading Ali’s story. “I think what they’re doing is they’re trying to get in there economically.”

It’s also important to remember that hash and Afghanistan have a much longer history than the Taliban does with the nation. “And I think the Taliban probably see that and realize that the people are going to be much happier and much easier to deal with if they let them have their culture,” Bevan argued.

This article appears in the January 2022 issue of High Times. Subscribe here.

The post From The Vault: The Tale of the Hippie Trail (2022) first appeared on High Times.

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A sharp tongue of blue flame licks the titanium as a plump glob of wax awaits above, then drips from the tip of the dabber and plops onto the domeless nail’s fading crimson glow, where it’s instantaneously liquefied and vaporized. A sudden burst of smoke is drawn through tiny holes in the nail’s head and into our model’s eager lungs. It’s a ritual that’s repeated time after time at booth after booth within the Prop. 215 area of our Los Angeles Medical Cannabis Cup. There’s nary a seed company, dispensary or retailer in attendance that doesn’t have a dab station set up or an extract entered into the competition—38 solvent-based concentrates in all, nearly maxing out the category and all but eclipsing the nine water-hash entries. Every glass company at the expo has rigs on display, and nearly every clothing company some T-shirt with an oil-based slogan or design. This is the state of the modern cannabis community. This is the dab life.

To many in this up-and-coming generation of young stoners, smoking “flowers” (as weed is now referred to) is fast becoming passé—a quaint custom practiced by hippies, lightweights and the socio-geographically disadvantaged. For hardcore oilheads, “treebasing” has raised their THC tolerance to the point where a joint just doesn’t cut it—they want a quicker, longer and stronger high than mere marijuana can provide. As word of this new way of getting stoned continues to spread and the demand for BHO grows, the market begins to respond: One-hitters are replaced by vapor pens, butane is bought in bulk, and sales of crème brûlée torches skyrocket. Apparently, even major retailers are beginning to get wise.

“I was in Bed Bath & Beyond last week, and they had torches, turkey basters and Pyrex dishes all on display next to each other,” swears Hitman Glass founder Dougie Fresh. “Isn’t that crazy? Either they have some kind of inventory software telling them what items people buy together, or somebody working there knows what’s up!”

But blow torches and butane aren’t the only things in short supply these days.

“Trim is so hard to come by … it’s the most valuable thing right now,” a representative from Cheeba Chews tells me. “We can’t even get trim to make our edibles.”

“Forget trim,” one breeder says. “People are ripping whole growrooms down and just blasting them.”

That’s right: In some circles, pot plants are now regarded as nothing but raw material to be transformed into a variety of waxes, oils and shatters—concentrates that are more potent and profitable, and easier to conceal and consume. As the focus of pot nerds everywhere slowly shifts from botany to chemistry, so shifts the spotlight from growers to the modern-day alchemists known as extract artists, who can transform a pile of leftover leaf into taffy-esque, translucent gold.

The unfortunate slang term that’s arisen for this process is, as mentioned above, blasting—unfortunate because, though it refers to “blasting” the essential oils out of the herb with butane gas, it’s also eerily appropriate in describing the explosive accidents that occur when the process isn’t done safely. But accidents like those are almost unheard of among the pros, who prefer the less dramatic terms “running” or “processing” flowers. These gurus of goo take every precaution, carefully controlling each variable, tweaking temperatures and monitoring pressures to ensure that their final product is exactly what they intended and suitable for consumption by the patients they serve. For them, quality is key, and it begins with the raw material.

“We use what our clients give us, which is typically trim for cost-effectiveness,” says Nikka T, a consummate concentrate maker from Denver. “But we prefer fresh-frozen buds, which we’ve been getting more often recently.”

Frozen buds? That’s right—apparently freezing the weed before processing it prevents contaminates from being extracted by the butane, enabling the savvy concentrate maker to extract more cannabinoids and terpenes and less fats and waxes, as well as less moisture and chlorophyll. In an effort to get the cleanest concentrates possible, many extract artists also “wash” the extract in a secondary solvent (typically alcohol) and then freeze it—a process called winterization. This not only removes any final traces of butane, but also solidifies undesirable components (bio-waste such as lipids, fats and waxes) that are then filtered out before evaporation, thus creating a clearer concentrate known as glass, shatter or snap.

“This is in everybody’s wax,” says Jerett, the cherubic extraction expert from West Coast Cure with the McDabber’s hatpin, as he compares a wad of ugly goop to the amber glass he pulled it from. He drops it onto the nail of the Big Lebowski torch tube on the table in front of us, and an acrid smoke pours forth. “That’s what you’re smoking when you smoke wax,” he adds.

While eliminating these elements technically makes the concentrate purer, some believe that it also eliminates textures, aromas and flavors (via terpenes) that many people find desirable.

“Purity isn’t everything,” says Dan de Sailles of Denver’s Top Shelf Extracts. He has a point—moonshine is purer than Cognac, but which would you rather drink? “Besides, if you’re smoking flowers, you’re already ingesting all of those fats and waxes anyway,” he continues. “So smoking a wax or budder is no more harmful to you than smoking a joint.”

Often, a concentrate’s interesting texture is part of its appeal. For example, the Alien OG “Raw” pictured in “Contact High” on pg. 15: This fluffy, off-white extract, whose consistency resembles Funyuns or cheese puffs, was brewed up using an undisclosed technique by an extract artist who takes his name from that most hated of all Star Wars characters, Jar Jar Binks. If handled, this “Heisenberg hash” quickly disintegrates into a sparkly sand; when heated, its aeration is released and it shrivels like a Shrinky Dink into a tiny worm of wax. Then there’s sha-budder, a full, winterized shatter that’s been placed on low heat, allowing it over time to become budder-like again. Generally speaking, a concentrate’s consistency is just a result of how much moisture it contains. Which is why, when you leave certain extracts out in the air for a while, they begin to goo up—a process known as auto-buddering. Basically, by manipulating the extract in different ways (temperature, moisture, pressure, agitation), the extract artist can produce a variety of textures to appeal to all palates and preferences.

As of yet, there’s still no solid scientific evidence that BHO itself—if made properly—is dangerous to ingest, even if it does contain trace amounts of residual butane. If made improperly, however—using plants containing pesticides or mold, or with inferior-quality butane—there may be legitimate health concerns. Hopefully, as more cannabis labs begin to test for contaminants and solvents (something that Seattle’s Northwest Botanical Analysis, for example, has started doing), these concerns may be addressed by buying from reputable sources.

Other possible health issues that have been raised, such as metal-fume fever (from inhaling trace amounts of metal that may flake off the nail) or cannabinoid hyperemesis (a syndrome characterized by symptoms of nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain), will likely remain unsubstantiated until real clinical studies can be done. In the meantime, to minimize these potential risks, we recommend always seasoning the nail (heating it until glowing red, then cooling it off in water) to burn away any possible impurities before use.

Frankly, the greatest likelihood of injury we’ve encountered so far seems to be from passing out and falling over after doing a dab. Make no mistake—this stuff is potent, and even seasoned stoners have been known to get a bit dizzy after a decent-sized glob. For this reason, we recommend dabbing in a seated position whenever possible or, if you’re in line for a dab at an event, asking the person behind you to be your spotter. You hear that, guys? Be ready to perform a “dab grab” in case the person in front of you faints!

Seriously, though—while the health risks of ingesting BHO may be somewhat exaggerated, the risks involved in making it cannot be overemphasized.

For every master blaster, there are likely dozens of idiots out there who think they can make their own wax with a can of cheap lighter fluid and a piece of PVC pipe, and end up blowing up some hotel room instead—or, worse, their parents’ house. We’ve said it before, and we’ll continue to say it: Blasting should never be done indoors, and never near a flame or any electronic appliance or device that could cause a spark (refrigerators, cell phones, etc.).

Think it won’t happen to you? Think again: Last November, a medical marijuana patient in Portland, OR, was severely burned and blew out a wall of his apartment while attempting to make BHO. In January 2013, a young man in a San Diego hotel sustained life-threatening burns after he caused an explosion that was described by other guests as “like an earthquake.” Two similar incidents happened in February (in Lakewood, CO, and West Hollywood), and another three in March: in Forest Grove, OR; Petaluma, CA; and Edmund, OK (where, owing to the state’s House Bill 1798, which makes it a felony to perform any type of THC extraction and was signed into law in April 2011, the poor perpetrator could now face life in prison). Sadly, these instances have become far too frequent—so much so, in fact, that in the February 7 edition of their Infogram newsletter, FEMA included a section entitled “Hash Oil Explosions Increasing Across U.S.” In it, they instruct first responders and law enforcement on what to look for to distinguish BHO blasts from bomb-making or terrorist activity.

Unfortunately, it’s stories like these that are introducing BHO to the mainstream media—and as one might expect, the results haven’t been good. On March 11, an NBC News affiliate in Grand Junction, CO, ran a feature about the “potent and potentially toxic new form of marijuana” called dabbing. Instead of interviewing experts on the topic—such as one of the many professional extract artists or medical marijuana doctors that have appeared on our dab panels—the producers instead chose to interview a high school girl and the obligatory reformed “pot addict” who claimed that, after smoking marijuana for the first time at age 13, he got “hooked” and proceeded to waste the next 18 years of his life. (You know, unlike everyone else in the world who smokes some weed, gets a snack and then manages to go on with their life.) The report also claimed that dabbing could result in overdoses and increased cases of schizophrenia, which it called a “known potential side effect of marijuana.” Talk about bullshit … as usual, network news prefers to drum up ratings with halftruths and scare tactics aimed at paranoid parents rather than presenting an objective, scientific examination of the issue.

Nevertheless, with news coverage like that, it’s easy to see why pro-pot activists fear that the dab phenomenon—with its seeming “hard drug” overtones—could throw a roadblock in front of the otherwise overwhelming prolegalization wave sweeping the nation. And let’s face it: The PR problem is bound to get worse before it gets better. But if there’s one thing we should’ve learned from the DARE and “Just Say No” campaigns of the 1980s, it’s that scare tactics and misinformation don’t help keep kids off drugs—if anything, they end up doing the opposite. Which means the best formula for ensuring the safety of all would-be dabbers is the same as it is for plain old pot: open dialogue, an honest examination of the facts, establishing quality controls on the product and an age limit on its sale—and all of these aims are better served by legalization and regulation than by prohibition and propaganda.

History teaches us that once a new technology or paradigm arrives, there’s no turning back. When rock’n’roll hit the scene, it was condemned as dangerous and corrupting—and today, it’s as American as apple pie. Dabbing isn’t a fad—it’s a paradigm shift, and rejecting it won’t make it go away. Attempts to stop a new generation of cannabis enthusiasts from dabbing will ultimately prove as futile as trying to stop them from tweeting or texting. Ultimately, all we can do is make sure they have access to the most accurate information and the best-quality concentrates at their disposal so that when they’re old enough, if they choose to dab, they can do so safely and responsibly.

Read the full issue here.

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The post From The Vault: Generation Dab (2013) appeared first on Paradise Found.

As someone who started in the medical cannabis space, I was completely freaked out when the hemp CBD craze emerged. To this day, there’s no head of the hemp world. That’s why, for many years, when someone asked for a reliable CBD topical for sore muscles or a tincture for mental calm, I recommended TONIC. I interviewed the founder, Long Island native Brittany Carbone, for an article that centered around the tours she’d hosted at her hemp farm in 2018, and the more we talked, the more I was impressed. Carbone and her husband grew and harvested their own hemp, processed the plant material themselves, and formulated their own products. Carbone was among the only independent CBD brands growing their own hemp in 2017, and she was also an early face at cannabis-related events in general, helping build a new cannabis community of people looking to get into the legal cannabis or hemp game.

In addition to inviting tours out to the farm, Carbone is passionate about empowering people to make the most of their newfound right to grow cannabis at home and connecting good people, like when she helped Housing Works, New York’s first legal shop, get in touch with trusted, licensed brands when they were frantically filling shelves for launch. Now, TONIC has a THC line of vapes, gummies, and pre-rolls stocked in New York dispensaries in addition to their hemp CBD offerings, which is a damn good thing because while I am a fan of their gummies, their CBD face oil remains my skin’s favorite weed-related product.

Excerpted with permission from Green Scenes by Lauren Yoshiko, published by ‎Hardie Grant Publishing, March 2024.

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Yet another state is cracking down on hemp-derived products, some of which have intoxicating effects, and South Carolina’s approach to food products that contain hemp is among the most extreme.

The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) issued a warning in a letter dated Jan. 22, banning the manufacture, distribution, and sale of food and beverage products containing hemp-derived products as ingredients in the state’s marketplace.

While CBD products can easily be found in most states thanks to a lack of clarity in federal regulations, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has repeatedly warned that products containing CBD are illegal under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. 

The FDA routinely issues warnings that adding CBD to a food means those products are adulterated, or against products with any sort of medical claims, but the agency has delayed finalizing rules.

“Therefore, the following hemp products are NOT APPROVED to be added to food or beverage products,” the letter reads. 

• Viable, non-sterilized hemp seeds, raw hemp leaves, and raw microgreens, and any other raw, unprocessed form of hemp biomass as they are considered “plant material” and may not be possessed without a Grower or Processor License 
• Pure CBD Isolate 
• Delta-8 THC, Delta-9 THC, or Delta-10 THC 
• THC-0 or any other derivative 
• “Full spectrum” whole-plant extract (i.e. “full spectrum hemp oil/extract” from biomass) if it includes health claims, or bears any sort of declaration of THC or CBD 
• Any hemp product that is NOT manufactured in a food-grade establishment inspected under GMP or cGMP regulations. 
• Any hemp or hemp-derived product that promotes its medical or health benefits

The only exceptions are basically hemp seed derivatives. “The FDA evaluated three Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS) notices for hemp products and found that the use of such products as described in the notices is safe. Therefore, the following hemp products may be legally marketed in human foods and are APPROVED to be used as ingredients in food and beverage products,” the letter continues.

• Hulled hemp seed (GRAS Notice GRN No. 765; FDA Response Letter), 
• Hemp seed protein (GRAS Notice GRN No. 771; FDA Response Letter)
• Hemp seed oil (GRAS Notice GRN No. 778; FDA Response Letter) 

“While DHEC’s goal is to educate while we regulate this growing niche of manufacturers and distributors of foods and beverages containing hemp-derived products as ingredients, our obligation under the requirements of both federal and state law is to remove from commerce all food and beverage products containing non-conforming hemp-derived products as ingredients,” Sandra Craig, Director of the DEHC’s Division of Food and Lead Risk Assessments, said in a letter announcing the bans.

Sellers can use full-spectrum whole-plant extract as an ingredient in food and beverage products if and only if the hemp-derived ingredient meets the following requirements: 

• A “full spectrum” hemp oil or extract from biomass contains the naturally occurring ratios and array of phytonutrients found in hemp. 
• Using a full spectrum hemp oil as an ingredient must be referred to in the ingredients list on the food or beverage label as “Full Spectrum Hemp Oil” or “Full Spectrum Hemp Extract.” The label may not contain health claims and may not bear any sort of declaration of “THC”, “CBD”, or “Delta-9” products or isolates. 
• When companies in South Carolina receive their “full spectrum hemp oil/extract” from their approved supplier, it must contain no more than 0.3% Delta-9 THC, as evidenced by Certificates of Analysis (COAs). The use of concentrates or “work in progress hemp oil from biomass” containing more than 0.3% Delta-9 THC, is illegal. Companies may NOT use “crude” hemp-derived oil, “work in progress” hemp oils over 0.3% Delta-9 THC, non-food grade oils, or dilute hemp oils containing an illegal amount of THC (> 0.3%) to a “legal” level. Hemp products containing more than the legal limit of THC are no longer considered to be hemp but are a Schedule I Drug. Hemp products that contain more than 0.3% THC are NOT ALLOWED to be possessed by anyone in South Carolina, and they are NOT ALLOWED to be introduced into foods or beverages.

The letter also bans any mention of THC, dosages, and several other restrictions. The letter also reminds hemp sellers that only intrastate hemp product sales are allowed.

But they’re not only going after hemp-derived cannabinoid products that are synthetically derived from hemp biomass, and known for psychoactive effects—i.e. delta-8 THC, THC-O, etc.—they’re going after products with CBD, hemp leaves, plant material and more as well. Delta-8 THC only appears in nature in minute amounts, and intoxicating amounts have to be re-added to hemp via a refluxing process in a lab. This is why states are opting to either crack down on it or regulate it like marijuana. The 2018 Farm Bill opened a legal loophole, accidentally legalizing these ingredients. Delta-8 THC products seeped into the medical markets in some states.

At least a dozen other states are actively pursuing solutions to ban hemp-derived products in one form or another.

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One person was killed on Saturday morning and another is in critical condition after an explosion at a Los Angeles commercial building that housed what authorities say was a “clandestine” cannabis extraction operation. The fire and death, which occurred at a one-story commercial building in the Green Meadows neighborhood of L.A., is now being investigated by the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles Fire Department, according to multiple reports. 

The LAFD responded to the fire after a 911 call to report the blaze was made at 1:17 a.m. on Saturday. As first responders arrived at the scene, heavy fire was visible at the seemingly vacant commercial building, and several small explosions could be heard within the structure, the LAFD reported on Saturday.

The first firefighters to arrive on the scene forced entry onto the property and into a portion of the well-secured building to begin an offensive attack on the fire. The firefighters retreated, however, after facing “ever-increasing flames, a series of additional explosions, the presence of unknown chemicals and physical compromise of the structure, that rendered it untenable,” including a collapsed roof.

The firefighters then transitioned to a defensive posture, using multiple hose streams of water from aerial ladders. As firefighters battled the blaze, a woman approached the command post that had been set up and reported her belief that a man was still inside the building that was at that point “largely consumed by flames.”

“It took 113 LAFD responders under the command of Assistant Chief Douglas Lewis, 75 minutes to fully extinguish the inferno, confining fire damage to the structure of origin,” the LAFD noted.

Deceased Person Found In Aftermath of Fire

While searching the scene, fire department personnel discovered the body of what appeared to be an adult male deep within the smoldering remains of the building. Authorities also found a large volume of cannabis products, processing machinery, chemicals and pressurized gas cylinders. 

A positive identification of the deceased person and the time and the cause of death are to be determined by the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner. The cause of the fire and circumstances surrounding the incident are being investigated by the LAFD and the LAPD.

Although fired department officials originally reported no additional injuries as a result of the fire, LAPD Spokesperson Officer Jader Chaves said that a second person was transported to an area hospital in critical condition, according to a report from the Los Angeles Times. The nature and cause of the person’s injuries were not known, however.

‘Clandestine Lab’ Found 

Chavez added that the operation housed by the building is being investigated as an “illegal butane honey oil clandestine lab.” Many cannabis operators use butane, propane or other hydrocarbons held by containers like those found in the burned-out building to produce cannabis extractions commonly known as butane hash oil, butane honey oil or BHO. The process can be hazardous if not executed carefully, and explosions and fires at such cannabis labs have occurred many times.

Although cannabis is legal in California for both recreational and medicinal purposes, the state has a pervasive and thriving unlicensed marijuana production and processing economy. Authorities investigating Saturday’s fire believed the Green Meadows cannabis operation was part of this gray market.

“We can’t say for sure because we don’t know exactly what permits they had…but we did not see any placarding from the outside that would indicate that this was a cannabis operation, which they should have had,” said LAFD Captain Adam Van Gerpen, according to a report on local television news. “There are multiple different types of chemicals that they use to do this and some of them could be explosive…and have deadly results.”

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Vermont law currently caps THC for cannabis flower and concentrates but that could soon change under a new bill packed with amendments to improve the state’s cannabis market.

The Vermont Cannabis Control Board is asking lawmakers to drop the caps on the potency of cannabis and concentrates from state law, while the edibles caps would remain. Lawmakers argue that the bill could keep more consumers in the legal market, while some medical leaders in the state disagree.

Dropping the THC caps is one of several proposed changes to the state’s cannabis policies included in the new bill H.612, which the House Government Operations Committee took up on the floor for the first time on Jan. 12.

The bill targets hemp-derived products that are vaguely marketing intoxicating effects from synthetic cannabinoids such as delta-8 THC and so on. It would codify rules the board adopted last year, limiting the sale of intoxicating hemp-derived products in the state and regulate them as cannabis products if they contain more than 0.3% of total THC. The bill would codify rules the board already adopted last year that limit the sale of some  intoxicating hemp-derived products and regulate them as cannabis products if they contain more than 0.3% THC.

Current state law caps the THC percentage in smokable cannabis flower products at 30%—which is high but exceeded in certain varieties—and the amount of THC in solid or liquid concentrated cannabis at 60%. Vermont also imposes a 5 mg serving size/dose cap on edibles and 100 mg cap on entire packaged edibles. The edible dosages align with what you’d see in most other states.

“This section proposes to eliminate the first two,” Cannabis Control Board Chairman James Pepper said at the committee meeting. “The CCB has been asked in two subsequent years to evaluate the efficacy of these caps and submit reports about them.”

The problem is this leaves out potent cannabis forms that are needed by people with serious conditions like cancer or other conditions that require high amounts of THC. Valley News reports that the bill would remove those caps and also include “a laundry list of the commission’s requests.”

The bill was introduced by Reps. Michael McCarthy (D – Franklin-3) and Matt Birong (D – Addison-3) on Jan. 3.

Regulated Concentrates Safer Than the Black Market

Some people at the committee meeting argued that potency caps on concentrates only forces manufacturers to use potentially harmful fillers. You can’t just smoke anything, when it comes to vape thickeners and ingredients. 

“By limiting potency to 60%, you’re creating a perverse effect of giving the black market a monopoly on a product,” Dave Silberman, co-owner of FLORA Cannabis in Middlebury, said. “It’s a niche product—it’s maybe 4% or 5% of the entire market—but you’re giving them a monopoly on it.”

Regulated markets are more likely to vet products for harmful additives by requiring lab results and so on. If people are going to the black market to get concentrates over 60%—which are many—they’re going to have a higher risk of smoking an unapproved thickener or additive.

High Times has reported on potentially dangerous fillers such as vitamin E acetate, which is not safe to vape, and others, however it’s important to note that dangerous fillers have been used by the media to fan fear about cannabis.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed in 2019 that the additive vitamin E acetate is the likely cause of the nation’s rash of lung injuries caused by vaping. Dr. Anne Schuchat, the principal deputy director of the CDC, told reporters that the additive, which received early attention as a potential cause of e-cigarette or vaping product use–associated lung injury (EVALI), was found in the lung tissue of patients by investigators.

Others have speculated that some hemp-derived compounds have similar traits. Published in the Journal of Medical Toxicology on Dec. 12, 2022, a team of researchers led by Neal L. Benowitz discovered a link between THC-O acetate and significant danger to the lungs. THC-O acetate shares structural similarities with vitamin-E acetate—an additive that becomes dangerous to the lungs when converted by heat.

The bill would also reduce operating fees the state imposed on medical cannabis dispensaries, reducing an application fee from $2,500 to $1,000 and dropping the annual renewal fee from $25,000 down to $5,000.

It would also increase the timeframe of a medical cannabis card from three years to five years for people who consume cannabis for a chronic condition other than pain.

Last October, WCAX in Vermont profiled various school officials to probe what their plans are and how the conversation around cannabis will continue, now that sales are legal for adults.

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Friday, Oct. 27 was a historic day for cannabis in Georgia and throughout the country, as it was the first day that pharmacists were legally allowed to sell cannabis at the pharmacy counter.

Dr. Ankit Patel was the first pharmacist to begin selling cannabis at his pharmacy, Robins Pharmacy. “It’s awesome. It’s historic,” Patel told CNN. “I’ve been following the laws in Georgia about passing it, and I’ve been excited about this possibility for about four years now. When they finally said independent pharmacies will be able to carry it, I filled out the license form immediately. I knew I had to get this.”

So far, Robins Pharmacy (located in the city of Warner Robins) as well as Omega Pharmacy and Allen Pharmacy Group, were among the first to receive a state license for selling low-THC medical cannabis products, which is defined as less than 5% THC. According to People, there are more than 400 independent pharmacies in Georgia that could apply to be a part of the program.

In order to obtain approval from the state, pharmacies must receive an inspection from the Georgia Drugs and Narcotics Agency, where they examine the pharmacy’s security and interview staff about proper product knowledge and handling.

State law dictates that cannabis products must be kept on shelves along with other prescription medicines, according to Allen Pharmacy Group owner Bill Posey. “Just like all other ‘dangerous’ drugs,” Posey said. “Blood pressure medicine is also considered a ‘dangerous’ drug in this circumstance. Everyday we sell drugs that I would consider more dangerous than medical cannabis.”

Posey’s pharmacy began selling cannabis as of Monday, Oct. 30. “We have already had someone calling, wanting to know when they can come in and make a purchase, so I know there’s a need,” Posey said ahead of the starting sale date.

Posey told CNN that cannabis is a useful replacement for opioids, but the state allows a total of 18 conditions that qualify patients for medical cannabis. This includes patients with severe, terminal, or end stage conditions associated with cancer, Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, seizure disorders or trauma head injuries, multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s disease, mitochondrial disease, Parkinson’s disease, sickle cell disease, Tourette’s syndrome, autism spectrum disorder, epidermolysis bullosa, Alzheimer’s disease, AIDS, peripheral neuropathy, hospice patients, intractable pain, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Omega Pharmacy owner Dr. Jordan Day told CNN that her pharmacy will begin selling medical cannabis sometime this week. She also spoke about cannabis as a way to wean patients off of opioids. “We’ll be able to show them the products, hopefully give them a little bit of information, find out what they are wanting to use it for,” Day said, adding that medical cannabis could be useful for replacing general pain, sleep, and anxiety medication. “With the pharmacist and the doctor involved, that really is the best thing that the patient could have,” Day said.

Posey also explained that pharmacies like his own are independent, and he’s able to spend more time with patients that he’s served regularly for many years. “We don’t just give people medication and say, ‘OK, you’re done.’ We like to make sure that we always treat everyone who walks in like family,” Posey said.

Patel informed all of his pain patients the benefits of medical cannabis. “Right now, we’re going through an opioid shortage, and I talked to all my pain medicine patients about it, and I let them know that if this is something that they’re interested in, it’s legal in the state of Georgia,” Patel said. “You know, it’s much more natural, [a] less addicting option than opioids.” 

On Oct. 20, one week prior to the official launch date, Georgia Access to Medical Cannabis Oil Commission chair Andrew Turnage said that this will increase accessibility for medical cannabis like never before. “It’s just a 15-to-20-minute drive from where patients are located across the state. That’s going to be so much easier for them to get access,” Turnage said.

Gov. Brian P. Kemp signed House Bill 324, also called “Georgia’s Hope Act,” in April 2019, and it took effect starting in July 2019. “Over the years, I’ve met with children who are battling chronic, debilitating diseases. I’ve heard from parents who are struggling with access and losing hope,” Kemp said in April 2019. “This compromise legislation is carefully crafted to provide access to medical cannabis oil to those in need. This is simply the right thing to do.”

The law directs control of cannabis license regulation, cultivation, production, manufacturing, and sales of low-THC oil to the Georgia Access to Medical Cannabis Commission. In November of 2019, seven members of the commission were appointed. However, it wasn’t until July 2021 when the state revamped its original medical cannabis program and the commission approved six companies to sell cannabis.

Earlier this month, Georgia officials reported that its medical cannabis patient number has been updated and is much less than previously thought. Originally, they believed there were more than 50,000 patients, when in reality there are roughly 14,000, which was due to “anomalies” such as the system not updating when patient cards expired or patients passed away after 2015.

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The Drug Enforcement Administration recently defended their decision to fire an “outstanding” special agent fired earlier this year for using CBD oil to replace his pain medication, a decision which caused him to test positive for cannabis on a drug test.

According to court documents, Special Agent Anthony Armour filed a wrongful termination lawsuit in May of this year against the DEA. A response brief was filed recently in which the DEA fully defends their decision to terminate Agent Armour, calling his actions “reckless” and “incompatible with the agency’s sole mission to enforce our Nation’s drug laws.”

Armour served as a DEA agent for 15 years before he was subjected to a random drug screening which came back positive for THC. Armour reportedly came forward voluntarily with samples of the CBD products he was using for lab analysis, two out of three of which came back under the .3% THC limit set by the Controlled Substances Act, and the third came in at .35% which is within the acceptable margin for error. 

Armour also stated in his lawsuit that he was using the CBD products to treat pain from injuries sustained playing football and during his career in law enforcement. Needless to say, as a member of the DEA, Armour was fully aware of the dangers of opioids and alleged that he was using the CBD as an alternative to his pain medication, pursuant to the 2018 Farm Bill which legalized commercial hemp products (and a whole slough of other weird shit).

“For Armour and many others in this country, this change meant new opportunities—particularly as to CBD, a non-THC cannabinoid in the cannabis plant,” the lawsuit said. “Armour hoped CBD oils could play a role in his pain management. That he did is unsurprising. From Martha Stewart to Wrigley Field, CBD has become embedded in American culture.”

Despite Armour’s rationale and despite the lawsuit he filed, the DEA doubled down on their decision in their court response brief filed August 30.

“Mr. Armour was an outstanding DEA agent when he took a chance in 2019. He believed it was unlikely that CBD products would cause him to test positive for marijuana, but he knew it was possible, and he bought those unregulated products on the internet and consumed them anyway,” the brief said. “Mr. Armour argues that he ‘displayed negligence or poor decision-making,’ and DEA properly held him accountable for his poor decisions when they resulted in a verified positive drug test. DEA lost trust in Mr. Armour and properly removed him.”

The response brief was filed just days prior to the Department of Health and Human Services official recommendation to move cannabis to Schedule 3, putting the ball into the DEA’s court to decide whether or not to honor the recommendation of the DHHS. It is not immediately clear if rescheduling cannabis would allow federal employees like Agent Armour to use cannabis products. 

The filing went on to say: “This was an unfortunate ending to a lengthy and productive career in Federal law enforcement. But DEA is charged with enforcing our Nation’s drug laws, and Federal employees are responsible for what they put in their bodies. There is a clear and genuine nexus between a removal for illegal drug use and the efficiency of the service at a drug enforcement agency.”

The DEA has clarified since terminating Armour in 2020 that agents are under no circumstances to use any CBD products for exactly this reason. All hemp contains at least trace amounts of THC (hemp and cannabis are the same plant after all) and thus, it’s far too easy to accidentally or mistakenly test positive for THC while using such products. They have also clarified that synthetic cannabinoids and some of the hemp-derived cannabinoids are not legal products in their purview. Their tireless fight against opioid abuse also carries on, if not in a somewhat contradictory fashion.

“One wonders then, why they are in federal court defending the termination of a special agent who was taking these dangerous drugs off the street for doing nothing other than, for his pain, ingesting a product advertised as CBD oil that, unbeknownst to him, would test right at the border between hemp and marijuana—precisely because he didn’t want to use opiates,” an attorney for Armour said to Marijuana Moment on Friday.

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A recent report shows that the state of Kansas once had hundreds of licensed hemp cultivators, but that number has decreased significantly. Numbers for 2023 show that there are only 41 licensed hemp cultivators currently operating in Kansas.

The surge in hemp cultivators was initially caused by the passage of the 2018 Hemp Farm Bill, which prompted over 200 cultivators to apply. Most of those cultivators prioritized CBD hemp oil production, but due to a more recent decrease in production (for health-related use, or as a food product) only 41 cultivators are now licensed.

According to Sarah Stephens, CEO of Kansas-based Midwest Hemp Technology, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s just a sign of the industrial hemp industry shifting focus to cultivating hemp for fiber or animal feed. “There’s been a reduction in the number of growers and the number of acres on the CBD side,” Stephens told KAKE.com. “But there’s been an increase in the number of growers and number of acres on the fiber and grain side.”

Kansas Department of Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kelsey Olson also shared insight about the shift, explaining that hemp production has declined due to other neighboring states legalizing recreational cannabis. “The landscape has changed over the last few years across the country,” said Olson. “I think that may have shifted some of the use.”

Another Kansas cannabis business owner, Melissa Nelson of South Bend Industrial Hemp, said that she has always focused on growing hemp as a source of fiber. Now, she sees the current trend of using hemp stalks to make animal bedding material, which is stronger than standard straw.

According to Stephens, the hemp industry in Kansas has a lot of paths for expansion, including hemp grain food products. Since most cultivators do not grow hemp for the grain, a lot of hemp grain is imported from Canada. “We have the right landmasses, the right farmer know-how, the right seasons and temperatures to lead in this industry,” Stephens said.

Earlier this year in May, Kansas State University (KSU) architecture students created a hemp structure (which they called the “K-state Hemp Casita”) that was showcased around the state. According to KSU assistant professor Michael Gibson, the house was built over a 16-week period and measured at 10 feet by 7 feet. “We started off the semester passing around a bag of hemp hearts so that the students understood the full range of possibilities with hemp, in other words that it isn’t just like wood or other natural fiber materials,” Gibson added. “[Hemp’s] value as human and animal nutrition, in the CBD industry, and making industrial fibers was an important starting point to understanding why we should be using it more in buildings.”

Kansas Gov. Laura Kelley recently said in June that she had no intention of using her executive power to legalize medical cannabis. “I don’t think I can do that,” Kelley said in June. “I just don’t think that is within my purview. … We’re just going to keep pushing through the legislative process.”

This is a considerable difference in comparison to states like Kentucky for instance, which also doesn’t have legal medical cannabis. However, last year Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear signed an executive order in November 2022 to allow patients with chronic or terminal conditions to use medical cannabis. “With 37 states already legalizing medical cannabis and 90% of Kentucky adults supporting it, I am doing what I can to provide access and relief to those who meet certain conditions and need it to better enjoy their life, without pain,” Beshear said in a statement last year. Although his executive order does not legalize medical cannabis statewide, it does permit patients to purchase medical cannabis in a different state that offers legal medical cannabis.

However, it’s important to note that Gov. Laura Kelly does support medical cannabis overall. “Three out of the four states surrounding Kansas have legalized medical marijuana,” Kelly said on social media. “Legalizing medical marijuana would boost our economy and provide relief to Kansans suffering with severe illnesses.”

Cannabis-related bills have not gained much traction in the legislature. Earlier this year, House Bill 2363 was introduced to decriminalize cannabis throughout Kansas, but it didn’t move forward.

A different bill was tabled by a Kansas Senate Committee in March, which would have allowed doctors to approve medical cannabis products for patients with 21 different medical conditions (including cancer, epilepsy, spinal cord injuries, and chronic pain). “I am disappointed that some legislators are saying they don’t want to move forward with legalizing medical marijuana this year—effectively turning their backs on our veterans and those with chronic pain and seizure disorders,” said Kelley. “If they get their way, for yet another year thousands of Kansans will be forced to choose between breaking the law and living without pain. I encourage Kansans to call their state legislators and tell them to legalize medical marijuana this session.”

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The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) publishes a weekly column called “Fridays on the Farm” where it highlights various farmers from across the country about how they embrace sustainable agriculture or protecting local species of wildlife. One of the more recent posts in this series includes an interview with the father and son duo, Jeff and Jeffrey Garland, who co-own Papa G’s Organic Hemp Farm in Indiana.

The interview explains how Jeff (the father) previously cultivated corn, soybeans, and hay on his 200-acre farm before his son, Jeffrey, asked him if he had ever considered growing hemp back in 2020. Although Jeff initially had considered selling his farm, Jeffrey helped connect them with the right people to get a hemp farm set up.

During their first season, they cultivated both in an open field as well as a high tunnel, or large, domed greenhouse. “At the end of the season, they tested the quality of the plants and the ones grown in the high tunnel had well-outperformed the ones in the field. They had grown longer and larger, which led to more oil being produced, and the oil itself was a better quality,” wrote USDA article author Brandon O’Connor.

With the improved results for the hemp grown in their high tunnel greenhouse, the duo sought out assistance from the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and the Environmental Quality Incentives Program to expand the tunnel and maximize their hemp oil production. “They applied for an EQIP contract in 2021 and were approved with construction on the tunnel slated to take place in time for the 2022 growing season,” O’Connor explained. “Because of the ability to control the growing environment for their plants, the high tunnels enable the Garlands to extend their season by multiple weeks on both sides. It [is] a major part of turning their hemp operation into a truly year-round operation.”

Jeff added that the tunnel allows them to extend their growing season and increase their yield. “We’ll have to pull early [in the field]. Two to three weeks earlier in the field than we do in a high tunnel,” Jeff said in the interview. “When you let them go longer, you’re going to produce more oil. It’s important to have that high tunnel.”

Like other farms featured in the USDA’s “Fridays on the Farm,” soil health is of utmost importance. “It all starts with the soil,” Jeffery said. “If you don’t have good soil, you’re not going to have good plants and then you’re not going to have the best oil. So, we really put lots and lots of organic matter back into our soil.”

The Garlands add “multiple forms” of compost and fertilizer to feed the soil, but they also asked the NRCS to help them create a cover crop plan as well. With the help of conservationist Lee Scnell, they developed a cover crop mix that includes 17 species of plants.

Papa G’s Organic Hemp Farm cultivates hemp that’s used in a variety of salves, tinctures, soft gel capsules, gummies, and topicals.

Last year, the USDA released a report stating that the hemp market was valued at $824 million. As of last February, industrial hemp growers planted more than 54,152 acres of hemp, with 33,480 harvested. 

According to USDA’s National Agriculture Statistics Service (NASS) Administrator Hubert Hamer, the report was a “needed benchmark” to assess the state of the industry. “Not only will these data guide USDA agencies in their support of domestic hemp production, the results can also help inform producers’ decisions about growing, harvesting, and selling hemp as well as the type of hemp they decide to produce. The survey results may also impact policy decisions about the hemp industry,” Hamer explained. 

The USDA first mailed out surveys to collect hemp farm data back in October 2021.

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