They come from the same plant. What separates them is a distinction in federal law that many consumers don’t fully understand.

Picture two THC gummies sitting side by side. Both contain five milligrams of THC, produce the same effect, and would appear identical under laboratory analysis. Yet one can only be purchased inside a licensed dispensary, subject to state taxation and seed-to-sale tracking, while the other can be ordered online and shipped directly to a consumer’s home—in states where no dispensary exists at all.

The plant itself does not account for that difference. The chemistry is effectively the same. The distinction was established through federal legislation rather than biology, and for the growing number of Americans purchasing THC products online for the first time, it has become one of the most confusing aspects of the market.

That confusion is precisely the problem Edibles.com set out to solve. 

Launched in 2025 and based in Atlanta, the wellness-focused marketplace was built around consumer education first, on the premise that people entering the modern THC market deserve to understand what they are buying before they buy it. Operating under a “health, not high” philosophy, the platform organizes hemp-derived products by the outcome they support—sleep, recovery, energy, relaxation, or social occasions—rather than by strain or potency.

But before a shopper can choose an outcome, they often have to get past the market’s most basic point of confusion.

Hemp and Marijuana Are the Same Species

For many consumers entering the category, understanding the difference between hemp and marijuana is the first lesson. It is also one of the most widely misunderstood.

Hemp and marijuana are not two different plants. They are both classifications of Cannabis sativa L.—the same species categorized under two different legal definitions.

That legal distinction comes down largely to a single measurement. Under current federal law, cannabis containing no more than 0.3% Delta-9 THC by dry weight is defined as hemp. Cannabis that exceeds that threshold is classified as marijuana and regulated as a controlled substance, even in states where adult-use cannabis is legal.

As a result, two plants can look identical, share a similar aroma, and produce comparable effects while being governed by entirely different regulatory systems. What is being regulated here is a molecule and a threshold, not the plant itself.

The determining factor is not the plant. It is the law.

How One Plant Ended up With Two Markets

The current framework traces back to the 2018 Farm Bill, which legalized hemp at the federal level and, in the process, helped establish a new cannabinoid economy built around hemp-derived Delta-9 THC gummies, beverages, and a range of newer compounds sold across state lines.

Products such as THCA flower have further blurred the line. THCA is non-psychoactive until heat converts it into THC, which means a product can meet the federal definition of hemp at the point of sale—the law measures Delta-9 content as the product ships, not after a lighter touches it.

At the same time, state-regulated cannabis has continued to operate on a separate track, with its own licensing, taxation, and retail systems. The result is a marketplace that can appear contradictory. A hemp-derived beverage ordered online and an edible purchased at a local dispensary may originate from the same species yet fall under two distinct sets of rules.

Those rules continue to evolve. Congress has folded hemp restrictions into broader legislation, while individual states pursue their own approaches, ranging from Kentucky’s move to regulate Delta-8 to Florida’s effort to restrict hemp cannabinoids , or Georgia’s codifying of hemp sales where Edibles.com is based. Proposed federal revisions would redefine hemp based on total THC rather than Delta-9 alone, a change that could significantly reshape the market once again.

Shopping by Outcome, Not Category

Many hemp consumers who are not in legal cannabis markets don’t have the same shopping distinctions as those who go to dispensaries. Hemp has reached a broader market where cannabis policy, functionally, doesn’t exist. These consumers are more interested in access, outcomes, and efficacy for alternative approaches to wellness. Accordingly, the hemp-versus-cannabis distinction matters far less than it does to regulators.

A shopper looking for a product to support better sleep is generally less concerned with whether a cannabinoid is hemp-derived or marijuana-derived than with whether the product works, whether it has been tested, and whether the label accurately reflects the contents.

That gap between how products are legally classified and how consumers actually shop is central to the Edibles.com model. 

Rather than organizing products around the traditional indica, sativa, and hybrid framework, the marketplace sorts them by the solution they support and stocks established names in the category, including Wyld, Wana, and Camino. For much of the country, it represents one of the first times industry-leading brands can be ordered and shipped directly to the door, outside of a dispensary.

“Our goal is to demystify the access point,” the company explains, “to help people understand what they’re buying, why it’s legal, and how to shop by outcome rather than just potency. We want consumers to shop the outcomes, not the THC alone.”

The approach is designed with a specific consumer in mind: the canna-curious or canna-familiar shopper approaching the category with intention rather than established tolerance. For these consumers, a marketplace that vets and curates in advance does the sorting work that an open, national market otherwise leaves to the shopper.

Why Testing Matters More Than the Label

Both markets are tested. What differs is who mandates it and where the results live.

State cannabis programs fold testing into licensing and seed-to-sale tracking, and the results stay inside a closed system—the state has already read them by the time a product reaches the shelf. Compliant hemp is verified against the federal 0.3% standard by accredited third-party labs, and those results travel with the product.

Which is why a certificate of analysis, or COA, is the single most useful document a THC consumer can learn to read. It verifies cannabinoid content, confirms total-THC calculations, and screens for contaminants including pesticides, residual solvents, and heavy metals. In a dispensary, someone has read it on your behalf. Online, you read it yourself—and the good operators make that easy to do.

Third-party testing and product vetting are central to the Edibles.com model, which delivers vetted, lab-tested products discreetly to the consumer’s door, each one curated to fit a wellness-backed outcome.

As hemp products increasingly resemble dispensary cannabis in both potency and consumer expectations, transparency—rather than a product’s legal origin—is what distinguishes a confident purchase from an uncertain one.

Family, Not Competitors

The distinction at the center of the hemp debate may not remain as sharp as it is today. Lawmakers continue to revisit the rules, and the line between the two markets narrows with each new product and each new piece of legislation.

For now, consumers are left to navigate two versions of the same plant, sold under different names and governed by different regulations. The most useful starting point is also the simplest. Hemp and cannabis are not competitors. They are the same plant, separated by legislation rather than biology.

Photos courtesy of Edibles.com Instagram

Sponsored Content Disclaimer: This article was published as part of a paid commercial arrangement with Edibles.com. It is not independent editorial content. References to cannabinoids, formulations, product features, consumer use cases, or company claims reflect the sponsor’s perspective unless otherwise noted and have not been independently verified by High Times.

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The industry’s attention still gravitates toward the legacy states. But through operators like SWADE Cannabis and its parent, BeLeaf Medical Co., Missouri has become one of the most dynamic cannabis stories in the country.

Ask most cannabis insiders which states matter, and you’ll hear the usual suspects: California. Colorado. Maybe Michigan or New York. Missouri rarely makes the first cut. That may be the industry’s biggest blind spot. 

Yet on the measures that count right now—sales, stability, the ambition of the operators building there—it has quietly become one of the country’s most compelling markets, and one of the few still climbing while others stall.

Much of that story runs through a single company. SWADE Cannabis, the retail brand owned by BeLeaf Medical Co., opened in 2021 as one of Missouri’s first dispensaries and has spent the years since scaling into one of the state’s defining operators. They are vertically integrated, statewide, and built for a market that keeps maturing around it.

A Market That Keeps Setting Records

Missouri launched adult-use sales in February 2023, and the numbers since have been hard to argue with. State retailers reported a record $1.5 billion in cannabis sales in 2025, up about 4% over the year before, with adult-use purchases making up nearly 90% of the total, according to the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. 

That figure lands harder in context. While several established markets contract, like how Colorado’s annual sales slid to $1.32 billion last year, and Michigan’s legal sales dropped sharply after a January tax hike, Missouri has kept growing, pushing cumulative sales past $4.9 billion since legal sales began in 2020.

Part of the state’s edge is structural. Because Amendment 3 wrote legalization directly into the Missouri constitution, operators work from a legal foundation that local or state officials can’t easily unwind, allowing companies to plan and expand without bracing for sudden political reversals. 

Another part is homegrown, literally: every gram of cannabis sold in a Missouri dispensary has to be grown in the state, keeping cultivation, jobs, and tax dollars inside its borders. For a market barely three years into adult use, that combination of steady demand and legal durability has made Missouri a magnet for new and established brands alike.

Why Vertical Integration Matters Here

The clearest sign of how Missouri’s operators built for this moment is vertical integration. Rather than specializing in one link of the supply chain, companies like BeLeaf Medical Co. handle the whole run of cultivation, manufacturing, and retail in-house.

“We are a vertically integrated cannabis company, which is super beneficial in the industry, as we have the ability to do all functions necessary to operate,” says Kevin Riggs, CEO of BeLeaf Medical Co. “This means we can grow, sell, and transport our products anywhere in the state.”

The approach has drawn notice across the state’s cannabis industry. Greenway Magazine named BeLeaf Medical Co. its 2025 Company of the Year, while Sinse earned Brand of the Year recognition and picked up 2026 product honors, including a Best Pre-Roll win for Blueberry Muffin and Best Vape AIO for Pink Lemonade. The recognition extends beyond the shelf, too: BeLeaf Medical Co. co-founder Mitch Meyers was named to Inc.’s 2025 Female Founders 500 for her leadership in cannabis. 

Integration also lets a company invest in the parts of retail that pure resellers tend to skip. SWADE’s Overland store runs a 24/7 preorder drive-thru pickup window, the first of its kind in St. Louis, and its same-day, discreet delivery reaches customers across its service areas, with the full menu available to browse and order online. It’s the sort of modern-retail access still uncommon in much of the country, and easier to pull off when one company controls the product from seed to sale.

Scaling Across the State

Reach is its own signal of a maturing market, and SWADE has been building it quickly. The company now operates 12 dispensaries across Missouri, and much of its Kansas City footprint came from taking over a group of former BesaMe Wellness locations. An expansion that carried a St. Louis-rooted brand clear across the state.

That pattern says something about the market itself. When established operators are scaling into new metros through acquisition rather than a market being flooded with first-time entrants, it’s usually a sign the industry is consolidating and professionalizing—maturing, in other words, the way older consumer categories eventually do. Missouri, only a few years into adult use, is already showing that shape.

Where the Money Goes

The maturation shows up in the state’s ledgers, too. Missouri’s legal cannabis industry generated a record $255.57 million in sales-tax revenue in 2025, divided between state government and the local jurisdictions that host a licensed store. By constitutional design, the state’s share of adult-use tax dollars is then routed to a specific set of beneficiaries: health care and services for military veterans and their families, the state’s public defender system for low-income residents, and substance-use treatment programs. 

That structure ties every legal purchase to services a lot of Missourians depend on, and it recasts the dispensary as a civic contributor rather than a merely tolerated business.

For an operator like SWADE, that becomes part of the case it makes to customers. Buying from a licensed store isn’t only about product safety and quality; it’s about where the dollars land once the sale is done.

A Market Worth Watching

Missouri’s cannabis story is still being written, and no single company defines it. But SWADE Cannabis and BeLeaf Medical Co. make a useful case study for why the state has climbed into the top tier. A homegrown operator using in-state cultivation, vertical integration, and steady expansion to build something meant to outlast the early rush.

The runway ahead looks long, too. Several of Missouri’s neighbors still lack a legal adult-use market, which keeps regional demand pointed squarely at the state’s dispensaries, while an ongoing rollout of microbusiness licenses reserved for disadvantaged owners stands to bring a wave of new craft operators into the mix.

The legacy markets will keep drawing the headlines. Missouri, in the meantime, just keeps setting the records. For companies like SWADE, that’s the opportunity. Not simply to grow alongside Missouri’s cannabis industry, but to help define what its next chapter looks like. 

All photos courtesy of SWADE Cannabis

Sponsored Content Disclaimer: This article was published as part of a paid commercial arrangement with SWADE Cannabis. It is not independent editorial content. References to products, services, cannabinoids, formulations, consumer use cases, or company claims reflect the company’s perspective unless otherwise noted and have not been independently verified by High Times.

<p>The post Missouri’s Cannabis Market Grew Up Fast first appeared on High Times.</p>

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The summer’s biggest cultural stories are not just about winning. They are about pressure, passion, and the strange magic that happens when underground energy meets the main stage.

Some summers arrive with a clean storyline. Others show up holding a stack of chips, a half-burned matchbook, and a striker built like a cheat code.

This is one of the weird ones. Erling Haaland has Norway crashing deeper into the 2026 FIFA World Cup than history expected. Alex Foxen, an ACR Poker Pro, added a fourth World Series of Poker bracelet to a résumé that already reads like a warning label, while reclaiming the lead in the Global Poker Index (GPI) Player of the Year race. High Times, after years of turbulence, is back in the mix as one of the few counterculture brands old enough to remember when rebellion did not come with a media kit.

On paper, a World Cup pitch, a Las Vegas poker table, and a cannabis magazine do not have much in common. Look closer and the overlap is obvious: risk, spectacle, devotion, myth, and the kind of audience that does not casually watch. They sweat it.

The Summer of High Stakes Culture

The mainstream has always had a funny relationship with subculture. First it ignores it. Then it borrows the language. Then it builds an industry around it.

Poker knows that cycle. Cannabis knows it too. Soccer, for all its global power, still runs on tribal feeling that looks a lot closer to street culture than polished entertainment. Every chant, every scarf, every bad beat, every strain name with a local legend behind it carries the same charge: this matters because people decided it matters.

That is why this summer feels bigger than a sports calendar. The 2026 World Cup has turned North America into a temporary football planet. The WSOP is once again turning Las Vegas into the center of the poker universe. High Times is reemerging at a moment when cannabis culture is legal in some places, criminalized in others, and still fighting over who gets to profit from a movement built by outlaws, growers, patients, artists, and people who took real risks before the suits showed up.

The connection is not that these worlds are the same. They are not. It is that all three understand the value of stakes. Not branding stakes. Real stakes. The kind where one touch, one card, one raid, or one ruling can change the whole story.

Haaland Breaks the Bracket

Norway’s 2-1 win over Brazil in the Round of 16 was the sort of result that makes a tournament feel alive. Brazil entered carrying the weight of football history. Norway came in with Haaland, belief, and the dangerous freedom of a team that had already surpassed expectations.

Haaland scored both goals, sending Norway into the World Cup quarterfinals for the first time, and was named Player of the Match (MVP). That is not just a stat. That is a national memory being made in real time. For fans, it is the exact reason these tournaments still hit so hard. The global machine can be massive, commercial, and overproduced, but the game still leaves room for the irrational.

That is where the cultural power lives. Not in the sponsorship boards or the broadcast packages, but in the moment a favorite looks vulnerable, and an underdog realizes the door is open.

Poker players know that feeling. So does anyone who has ever watched a culture move from the margins into the light.

ACR Poker Pro Alex Foxen and the Bracelet Summer

While Haaland was putting Norway on his back, Alex Foxen was building another chapter of his own in Las Vegas.

Foxen captured his fourth career WSOP gold bracelet this summer, adding another major marker to one of poker’s most consistent modern résumés. In a game where variance can humble anybody, staying dangerous year after year is the real flex. Poker has never only rewarded nerve. It rewards memory, discipline, patience, selective aggression, and the ability to look calm while the floor drops out from under you.

That is why the WSOP still matters. First held in 1970 at Binion’s Horseshoe, the World Series of Poker has become the game’s mythology factory. The bracelet is not just jewelry. It is proof that a player survived a specific kind of pressure in a room full of people who all believe they are the one meant to win.

The modern poker dream still owes a lot to Chris Moneymaker, who famously turned an $86 online satellite into a 2003 WSOP Main Event title and $2.5 million. That story did not just make one player famous. The Moneymaker Effect cracked open poker’s imagination. Suddenly, the distance between the poker weekend warrior and the biggest stage in the game felt shorter.

That same underdog current runs through ACR Poker’s summer programming. The Run Up Series features more than $10 million GTD, the biggest Venoms ever guarantee a combined $15 million across two Mystery Bounty events, and the schedule also includes a $66 buy-in, $1 million guaranteed Mystery Bounty event. It is a very modern version of an old poker promise: the next story can come from almost anyone, anywhere.

That does not mean poker is easy money. It is a game of variance and skill, and players should understand the risks and play responsibly. The appeal is not hard to understand. Poker turns pressure into theater. Every decision is public. Every mistake has a receipt. Every win feels like a confession that the player saw something the rest of the table missed.

Why High Times Belongs in the Conversation

High Times has always lived around that same edge. Founded in 1974 by Tom Forçade, the magazine emerged from a counterculture world where cannabis was not a lifestyle vertical. It was illegal, political, funny, dangerous, communal, and deeply tied to music, art, protest, and underground economies. High Times treated weed like culture long before much of the mainstream could say the word without smirking.

That history matters because cannabis is now surrounded by the same tension poker knows well. What happens when a scene built in back rooms becomes an industry? What gets preserved? What gets sold? Who gets welcomed in after the heat dies down, and who paid the price when the heat was still real?

The brand has not had a clean, frictionless path. It has been through financial trouble, ownership changes, and print pauses. In 2025, Josh Kesselman acquired the High Times brand and assets in a $3.5 million deal, setting up a new chapter for one of cannabis culture’s most recognizable names.

The Point Is Not the Odds

There is a reason poker, football, and cannabis culture keep producing legends. They all understand suspense.

A football match can turn on one touch. A tournament can turn on one river card. A cannabis movement can turn on one election, one court case, one grower willing to risk freedom, or one publication willing to say the quiet part out loud before the rest of the media catches up.

That is the thread running through this summer. Haaland and Norway are giving the World Cup a fresh underdog charge. Foxen is adding another bracelet to a career built on precision and nerve. ACR Poker is leaning into the summer tournament grind, where amateurs and killers sit inside the same digital ecosystem chasing their own version of the big score. High Times is stepping back into a landscape it helped shape, older, stranger, and still carrying the fingerprints of the underground.

Strip away the broadcast gloss and the same truth shows up in all three: they reward passion over predictability. Whether you are betting your stack on the river, launching a cross-field volley in front of millions, or treating a plant like culture in the face of federal bans, the moment belongs to whoever is willing to risk the most and flinch the least.

The clean corporate version of culture wants everything to be smooth and safe. But the stories people actually remember come from somewhere messier. A bad beat. A miracle goal. A magazine that should not have survived. A player nobody wants to face when the blinds get ugly.

That is the summer of high-stakes culture. Not a slogan. Just three worlds reminding everyone that the edge is still where the story lives, and it still belongs to the bold.

Puff Puff Pass: It’s 4:20 Somewhere

For decades, 4:20 has been more than just a time—it’s been a ritual, a signal, and a shared moment across cannabis culture. Now, ACR Poker is bringing that same spirit to the virtual felt.

Puff Puff Pass is a new daily rebuy tournament built for players who like action, value, and a little extra time to build a stack. With a $420 guaranteed prize pool, players can jump in every day at 4:20 PM Pacific, 4:20 PM Central, and 4:20 PM Eastern, because when it comes to 4:20, it’s always somewhere.

More chips. More chances. More action. Just good poker and good vibes.

Join the Puff Puff Pass and take your seat at the table.

All photos courtesy of ACR Poker

Sponsored Content Disclaimer: This article was published as part of a paid commercial arrangement with ACR Poker. It is not independent editorial content. References to the company, its services, events, offerings, or business claims reflect the sponsor’s perspective unless otherwise noted and have not been independently verified by High Times.

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For years, growers filed autoflowers under “easy but weak.” Hypno Seeds is one of the breeders rewriting that rule, applying the same rigorous selection to its autos as its photoperiod line, and posting potency numbers to prove it.

Ask a grower about autoflowers a decade ago, and the verdict rarely changed: easy to grow, not worth the trouble. They finished fast and stayed small, but the buds came in light on both yield and THC. That reputation stuck for a reason, though it no longer describes what a modern auto can do, and Hypno Seeds is among the breeders making the old assumption look dated. The appeal of the format was never in question. 

Autoflowers flower based on age rather than light schedule, which strips away the most error-prone part of a grow: there’s no vegetative-to-flower light flip to time, and no timer or light-leak worries to manage. A plant moves from seed to harvest in roughly 8 to 10 weeks and largely runs itself. For someone new to cultivation, that’s the easiest possible entry point, and a big part of why autos have become the on-ramp for so many first grows.

Not Always a Choice

Plenty of growers don’t reach for autos because they’re easy. They reach for them because their space or their season leaves no other option. 

Short summers, punishing heat, and cramped indoor footprints all push cultivators toward a plant that finishes fast and stays small. Someone with a two-month window before the weather turns can’t afford a long vegetative stretch; someone growing in a closet doesn’t have the height for a photoperiod plant to stretch out. Outdoor growers in northern latitudes run on the same math, squeezing a finished harvest (sometimes two) out of a season too short to ripen a photoperiod crop.  For those growers, the auto is simply the only genetics that fit the room they have.

That practicality is why the “weak” label did so much damage. A grower boxed into autos by their environment was, by the old logic, also accepting a ceiling on potency and weight. The format’s greatest strength came bundled with an apparent penalty, and that tradeoff shaped how a generation of cultivators thought about their options. 

If your situation forced you into autos, you were also, supposedly, resigning yourself to a weaker harvest.

Where the Reputation Came From

The weakness had a genetic root. Autoflowering behavior traces back to cannabis ruderalis, a hardy subspecies from the cold climates of Russia and Central Asia that evolved to flower with age rather than in response to light. Ruderalis gives autos their resilience and compact stature, along with the ability to flower regardless of the light cycle. 

But the same genetics that made the format possible also carried naturally low THC, and the earliest crosses inherited that limitation.

For years, that was the accepted tradeoff. 

The genes that triggered automatic flowering tended to drag potency down with them, and breeders who wanted both the convenience and the strength had to work at it. Selecting carefully across generations to lift cannabinoid content back up without losing the automatic trait that made the plant an auto in the first place. Plenty of early breeders didn’t put in that work, and the market filled with quick but underwhelming seeds that hardened the reputation.

None of that was a fixed ceiling, though. It was a breeding problem, and it stayed unsolved mainly because so few breeders bothered to solve it. Most of the market’s early autos hadn’t been pushed hard enough, and the ones that had were rare enough to read as exceptions rather than proof of what the format could become.

Same Standard, No Exceptions

This is where Hypno Seeds draws its line. The breeder says it runs its autoflowering line through the same phenotype hunting it uses on its photoperiod genetics—growing plants out, evaluating them for growth habit, terpene expression, yield potential, and cannabinoid content, then culling hard and keeping only the phenotypes that deliver on every front. 

That hunt is the slow, invisible part of the job. The step that weeds out unstable plants and off-types before they reach customers and throw scattered results in someone else’s room. The standouts become mothers and the rest get cut.  The autos get the same scrutiny as the flagship photoperiod cultivars, not the lighter vetting a beginner tier might expect.

The numbers carry the argument.

Hypno Seeds’ Sticky Kitty Auto reaches up to 35% THC, while its Blackberry Kush Auto reaches roughly 30%. Most growers would have called those figures impossible for an autoflower a few years ago. Photoperiod-level potency, by the breeder’s account, in a plant that’s hard to mess up. 

Hypno bills itself as a high-THC brand first, and that standard runs across everything it produces, not just its photoperiod line.

What “Beginner-Friendly” Actually Buys You

The convenience that once seemed to cost potency is real. Because autos flower on age, they fold the two-stage light schedule most grows depend on into a single hands-off cycle. A grower never has to flip the lights and hope the vegetative stage was timed right, one of the most common ways a first grow goes sideways. That’s a big reason grow guides aimed at the aspiring home cultivator now start people on autos before anything else.

The short cycle brings its own advantages. An 8-to-10-week turnaround lets a grower run several harvests in a season, learn faster from each one, and recover from a mistake in weeks instead of months. Speed cuts both ways, of course: a stunted seedling has almost no time to bounce back, which makes stable, well-bred genetics the thing that matters most when the margin for error is this thin. The compact frame that suits a tight tent also keeps the plants easy to manage and easy to keep discreet.

The End of the Tradeoff

For most of the format’s history, growers had to choose: a plant that was easy to grow, or one that was potent. Environmental limits often made the call for them, and the result was a lot of forgiving grows that finished light. Ease and power sat on opposite ends of the tradeoff, and the format’s reputation was built on that split.

That’s the assumption Hypno Seeds is built to retire. Its autos are designed to deliver what the format has always promised—speed, a small footprint, a forgiving learning curve—without asking a grower to trade away power for it. Growers can browse the breeder’s full high-THC catalog to see how the autoflower line stacks up against the rest of the lineup. The easy plant and the potent plant, the brand argues, can finally be the same plant.

For anyone who wrote autoflowers off years ago, the plant they dismissed isn’t the plant on the shelf anymore.

All photos courtesy of Hypno Seeds

Sponsored Content Disclaimer: This article was published as part of a paid commercial arrangement with Hypno Seeds. It is not independent editorial content. References to products, services, cannabinoids, formulations, consumer use cases, or company claims reflect the sponsor’s perspective unless otherwise noted and have not been independently verified by High Times.

<p>The post Autoflowers Aren’t Weak Anymore: Inside Hypno Seeds’ High-THC Autos first appeared on High Times.</p>

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During the Philadelphia leg of Kicking Back, Ethan Zohn follows soccer and cannabis from Massachusetts to the Jersey Shore and into the city, finding the people who turn a road trip into a squad.

Ethan Zohn loves pickles enough that he had a pickle bar at his wedding. So when he walks into Shore House Canna in West Cape May, New Jersey, and spots Fernway’s Pickle Traveler PRO Vape on the shelf, the reaction is immediate.

This is not polite sponsor enthusiasm. The man is genuinely thrilled.

It is a brief, funny moment in the second episode of Kicking Back, High Times’ World Cup road series, but it also captures what makes the show work. Soccer provides a destination. Cannabis opens doors. The people and unexpected discoveries along the way turn the drive into a story.

The series began in Massachusetts, familiar ground for both Zohn and Fernway. Zohn grew up there, while Fernway built its identity around the idea that good food, music, scenery, and company are better when they are shared. Then Kicking Back left home and headed south, following the energy surrounding the tournament from Cape May to Philadelphia.

The pickle vape is one stop on the road. The squad forming around it is the larger point.

The Road Leaves Massachusetts

Fernway’s Squad Goals campaign begins with a simple idea: summer is better when people make time to gather. The brand describes it through watch parties, cookouts, soccer, and the collective energy that turns an ordinary afternoon into something people remember.

Kicking Back gives that idea somewhere to go. Rather than staying inside stadiums or treating the World Cup as a string of scores and fixtures, the series follows Zohn through the places where soccer culture actually takes shape. That means neighborhood fields, local businesses, crowded bars, beaches, food, and conversations with people who may not have started the day expecting to end up on camera.

Massachusetts provides the starting point in episode 1. The next episode stretches the map.

Before reaching Philadelphia, Zohn heads to Cape May to reconnect with Dave Christian, an old friend whose path has crossed Zohn’s through adventure racing, hemp farming, and now legal cannabis. Christian helped build Shore House Canna, a veteran- and women-owned dispensary that feels less like a polished chain than a surf shop that happens to sell weed.

That distinction matters. The store reflects where it is. Surfboards hang overhead. Local references run through the menu. A roll-up window lets customers make a purchase without losing the rhythm of a day spent near the beach. Then Zohn sees the pickle vape.

The Pickle Vape Finds Its Person

Fernway describes its Pickle Traveler PRO as bright, briny, tangy, and herbaceous. Zohn requires less analysis. He is a pickle guy, and he knows what he wants.

The scene lands because it is personal. Fernway does not need to interrupt the episode with a long product explanation. The flavor catches Zohn’s attention, the wedding story comes out, and the vape becomes another odd, memorable discovery collected along the route.

It also fits the larger Fernway idea better than a formal product showcase would. Squad Goals is built around shared experiences, and Kicking Back keeps finding them in places where sports, cannabis, and local identity overlap.

At Shore House, the conversation quickly widens beyond what is on the shelf. Zohn meets operators, veterans, and a former West Cape May mayor who supported bringing legal cannabis to the area. West Cape May does not collect the beach-tag revenue that helps fund nearby shore towns, she explains in the episode, which made cannabis tax revenue more than an abstract policy question. It offered a practical way for the borough to bring in money.

That is where legalization becomes local. Not in a press release or an industry panel, but in a small town deciding what kind of business belongs there and what it can contribute.

The veterans Zohn meets add another layer. One Shore House co-owner describes spending decades on the other side of the drug war, boarding boats and helping seize cannabis by the ton before eventually becoming part of the legal industry himself. His story is not presented as a clean conversion narrative. It is a reminder that legalization has forced plenty of people to reconsider what they were taught, what they enforced, and what they now believe.

Then everybody heads to the sand. Beach soccer turns the dispensary visit into something participatory. Portable goals go up, teams form, and the line between host, guest, business owner, customer, and local starts to blur. It is exactly the kind of scene Squad Goals is built for: the game matters, but mostly because it gives people a reason to show up.

The City Is Bigger Than the Match

From the Jersey Shore, Kicking Back continues into Philadelphia, where the episode picks up another Survivor winner, Wendell Holland, and finds a city with no shortage of opinions about food, sports, or how either should be done.

The local delicacy arrives in the form of an infused cheesesteak. The serving catches up with Zohn on camera, adding an unscripted lesson about respecting edible potency and giving THC time before consuming more. Adults using cannabis should always follow labeled serving guidance, wait before taking more, and never drive while impaired.

But the food is only another stop. The episode keeps moving toward the people behind it.

By the time Zohn reaches Odunde, the annual Philadelphia celebration of African and African diasporic culture, soccer has become less about a single national team and more like a common language. He speaks with fans connected to Nigeria, Ecuador, and Ivory Coast, trading stories, names, and the different words people use for cannabis around the world.

“Put a ball down anywhere on earth,” Zohn says, “and you have friends instantly.”

That line carries the episode. Soccer creates the opening. Cannabis gives the show another way into conversations about community, policy, health, culture, and how people relate to one another. Neither needs to dominate every scene for the connection to work.

Fernway’s role follows the same logic. The brand does not need to sit at the center of each encounter. Its Squad Goals campaign works best when the people remain in focus and the product appears naturally inside the experience.

Sometimes that means a watch party. Sometimes it means a pickup game on the beach. Sometimes it means finding a pickle vape in a West Cape May dispensary and reacting as though the road trip has finally understood you.

The Squad Forms Along the Way

Kicking Back may use World Cup cities as its route, but the series is interested in everything surrounding the tournament: the places people gather, the businesses they build, the food they insist you try, and the stories that come out when somebody takes the time to ask.

The Philadelphia episode begins before Philadelphia. That is part of what makes it work. Communities do not stop at city limits, and neither do soccer culture or cannabis culture. They travel down highways, across bridges, onto beaches, and into whatever room has space for one more person.

Fernway started from a belief in good company. On this leg of the trip, good company includes dispensary operators, veterans, local leaders, beach players, chefs, festivalgoers, soccer fans, and one host whose commitment to pickles finally pays off.

The match may be the reason to set out. The vape may be the souvenir. The squad is everyone met in between.

All photos courtesy of Fernway

Sponsored Content Disclosure: This article was published as part of a paid commercial arrangement with Fernway. It is not independent editorial content. References to products, formulations, consumer use cases, or company claims reflect the sponsor’s perspective unless otherwise noted and have not been independently verified by High Times.

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Today’s leading dispensaries are moving beyond the sales counter to become community spaces, educational hubs, and cultural destinations. Missouri’s SWADE Cannabis offers a working example.

For most of the legal era, the dispensary has been built around a single moment: the sale. A customer walked in knowing roughly what they wanted, talked to a budtender, paid, and left. Regulation reinforced that rhythm. Operators focused on compliance and efficiency while introducing a brand-new product to a brand-new market.

That model is loosening its grip.

Dispensaries around the country are testing what happens after the sale, and before it. Classes, dinners, festivals, watch parties, loyalty programs built around discovery, partnerships with neighborhood institutions. Consumers who once needed help navigating the dispensary now choose from hundreds of products and walk in with opinions. They expect more from the room they are standing in. For an operator, that raises a sharper question than inventory: what does the store mean to the people who live nearby?

Missouri’s SWADE Cannabis, run by BeLeaf Medical Co., has spent the last few years answering it.

From Store to Gathering Place

The “third place,” somewhere that is not home and not work, usually means a coffee shop, a bar, a bookstore, the corner where regulars know your name. SWADE has been building cannabis versions of that idea on purpose.

In St. Louis, the company runs The Church on Delmar, a cannabis-friendly venue in the Delmar Loop that hosts gatherings for consumers, artists, and local organizations. In Kansas City, SWADE is bringing that idea to The Tree Room, a consumption-friendly event space in the Crossroads, where it will host a free World Cup quarterfinal watch party on July 11. 

With the FIFA World Cup in town, the July 11 event offers designated consumption areas and a limited match-day lineup built around the tournament: the Golden Goal Live Resin Bar, plus special releases of Lemon Royale, Jungle Cookies, and Permanent Marker. 

The logic borrows from an older playbook as well. 

Beverage brands have anchored sports culture for generations, and SWADE is testing whether cannabis can take the same seat. Plus, the venue is alcohol-free, which has a lot of potential to be a calmer alternative to the standard sports bar.

Education as the Draw

Cannabis retail has gotten complicated. Flower, concentrates, beverages, vapes, edibles, tinctures, topicals, and a growing list of minor cannabinoids can overwhelm a newcomer and stump a veteran. The dispensary that can explain the difference, rather than just ring it up, has an edge.

SWADE treats teaching as part of the job. In-store specialists walk guests through their options and field questions rather than pushing a house pick. New consumers get plain answers about formats and effects; longtime ones get a sounding board for products they have not tried yet. The goal is a customer who understands what they are buying and why, not one who simply leaves with a bag.

The company’s Aging & Wellness Program takes that further. It is built for older adults, many of whom arrive with real questions about dosing, formats, and what responsible use looks like for them, and it answers through presentations, workshops, and dispensary tours rather than a hard sell.

“Whether you’re brand new to cannabis or a longtime enthusiast, we’re here to help you discover what works for you and build confidence in your own journey,” says Cierra Sally, Senior Director of Retail Operations. “Our goal is for every customer to leave feeling more informed, more comfortable, and more connected to themselves.”

That instinct tracks with where the wider industry is heading. Colleges and universities now offer cannabis-focused degree programs. A marker of how fast the field is professionalizing. A field that once ran in the margins is building curricula, credentials, and a professional class of its own. For a dispensary, meeting that moment means treating customers as people who want to learn, not just buy.

Loyalty Through Discovery

Most loyalty programs reward buying the same thing twice. SWADE rewards curiosity. Its Passport Program, an annual membership across the company’s Missouri stores, borrows the language of travel and nudges guests toward strains and formats they would not have tried on their own. The point is not the next purchase. It is helping people figure out what they actually like.

The same instinct runs through SWADE’s events. The Best Buds dinner series is chef-driven, pairing cannabis with a table full of strangers in Kansas City and St. Louis. The brand turns up at the Flyover Comedy Festival, the Mound City Film Festival, Open Space STL, River City Outdoors, Mattie Rhodes in Kansas City, and hosts the annual Voodoo Christmas Markets, joining the culture already in those spots instead of asking them to rearrange themselves around cannabis.

It reaches what people wear, too. Cannabis apparel like STÄSH Smokewear treats the culture as something you can put on, not just consume.

Hospitality and Convenience

Community does not cancel out convenience, and SWADE chases both. With 12 dispensaries across Missouri, it has matched that statewide reach to the access customers now expect: a 24-hour preorder drive-thru pickup window at its Overland location, and same-day, discreet delivery throughout its service areas.

That hospitality extends to SWADE’s deli-style flower program, where guests can see, smell, and select flower before purchase rather than choosing from prepackaged options.

The wider operation rests on BeLeaf’s model. 

“We are a vertically integrated cannabis company, which is super beneficial in the industry, as we have the ability to do all functions necessary to operate,” said Kevin Riggs, CEO of BeLeaf Medical Co. 

The structure lets SWADE grow, sell, and move products anywhere in the state, and stock its exclusive Sinse brand beside a curated lineup from other makers.

A Model Still Taking Shape

The modern dispensary is a work in progress. Some operators are betting on automation and faster fulfillment. Others are betting on the dinner, the watch party, the workshop, the room. SWADE Cannabis is betting that you can have it all.

None of it replaces the basics. People still walk in for product, price, and a budtender who knows the menu. But the watch party, the Passport Program, the Aging & Wellness tours, and the deli case full of flower are all aimed at the same thing: a reason to come back that a competitor cannot copy by cutting prices. That kind of loyalty is harder to win and harder to lose.

“As Missouri’s cannabis market continues to mature, our focus is on creating a more modern, convenient experience for our customers,” Riggs said.

Where all of it nets out will not be clear for a while. But the dispensary that lasts may turn out to be the one measured by more than what sits on its shelves.

Sponsored Content Disclaimer: This article was published as part of a paid commercial arrangement with SWADE Cannabis. It is not independent editorial content. References to products, services, cannabinoids, formulations, consumer use cases, or company claims reflect the company’s perspective unless otherwise noted and have not been independently verified by High Times.

Photos courtesy of SWADE Cannabis

<p>The post The New American Dispensary Is Becoming More Than a Store first appeared on High Times.</p>

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Fernway’s Squad Goals campaign is built on a simple premise: the good life is better shared. From World Cup watch parties to backyard cookouts, the best summer moments are the ones we spend together.

Fernway starts from a simple belief: cannabis makes the good life even better. However you define the good life, the brand is there for it, and for Fernway, the good life comes down to good music, good food, good scenery, and especially good company.

That belief isn’t a marketing afterthought; it’s stitched into where the company came from. Fernway was founded in 2018 in Northampton, Massachusetts, by a group of friends who shared a love of cannabis and a belief that the right vape could turn good experiences into great ones. The name nods to fernweh, a longing for faraway places, the idea being that cannabis is part of life’s adventure rather than the destination. A brand built by friends was always going to build its products around the time people spend together.

Summer is when all of that lines up. The season has always been about gathering: outdoor concerts and backyard cookouts, beach days and long evenings that don’t really have an end time. Cannabis has a place in the quiet solo moments, but it has always had a social side too. It can ease conversation, spark creativity, and turn an ordinary afternoon into one people remember.

That idea sits at the heart of Squad Goals, Fernway’s summer program. The premise is right there in the name: the best summer moments tend to happen in groups, whether you’re cheering on a team you’ve followed for years or spending the evening with people you just met.

Squad Goals and the Summer of Soccer

This summer, one event dominates global culture in a way that’s impossible to ignore. The World Cup turns living rooms, backyards, and neighborhood bars into gathering points for weeks at a time, and you don’t have to be a diehard soccer fan to feel it. Part of the appeal is simply watching the world come together, and finding any excuse to do the same with the people around you.

Sports have always been social. Whether you’re watching from a crowded bar, a friend’s couch, or a backyard setup, the people next to you are part of what makes it memorable. High Times has followed soccer culture out of the stadiums and into the streets, where much of the experience lives in the ritual itself: the planning the night before, the familiar seats, the shared reaction to every goal. Because the Cup unfolds over several weeks, it gives friends a recurring reason to gather, turning ordinary afternoons into standing occasions.

Cannabis fits naturally into those gatherings. Rather than taking center stage, it tends to become part of the routine around the event, complementing the energy the same way good food, music, and conversation do. That’s the philosophy Fernway keeps returning to: cannabis makes the good life even better, and the good life is usually a shared one.

Built Around the Experience

Every good gathering needs something people are glad to share, and Fernway has built its reputation on flavor-forward products designed to enhance a moment rather than overpower it. The proof is in the numbers: according to 2026 BDSA data, Alpine Strawberry and Berry Haze are the two best-selling flavors in the entire country—a notable distinction for a brand currently available in just five states: Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Illinois, and Missouri.

That standing isn’t a quirk of marketing. Fernway builds its cartridges with high-purity cannabis oil and real terpenes (no fillers, no artificial additives) across a Strain Collection that leans on cannabis-derived terpenes and a Flavor Line built from fruit and botanical ones. The carts run on a universal 510 thread, so they work with most batteries while being tuned for Fernway’s own hardware.

The summer lineup gives groups even more to choose from. Limited releases Key Lime and Pineapple Funk arrive just as the season calls for something new, while Fernway LIVE continues to earn recognition. Mochi recently took Silver at the High Times Cannabis Cup in New Jersey.

The hardware gets the same attention. The Traveler Pro and STYLUS battery systems were built with portability and consistency in mind, practical for consumers who want products that slot easily into everyday routines and social settings.

Fernway’s focus on experience extends past what’s in your hand. In 2022, the company launched what it describes as the cannabis industry’s first vape recycling program, and says it has since collected more than 200,000 used devices through participating dispensaries, making it a straightforward way for consumers to keep hardware out of landfills.

The brand also backs the communities its consumers are part of. Its 2026 Pride capsule collection directs 100% of proceeds to GLAAD as part of a multi-year commitment, and it has partnered with environmental and animal-welfare organizations as well. It’s the kind of consistency—across seasons, not just single events—that many consumers look for in the brands they support.

Your Summer Squad Is Waiting

The best summer memories are rarely made alone. They happen at watch parties and concerts, backyard cookouts and long afternoons that turn into longer nights, in the company of friends both old and new. Cannabis doesn’t create those moments on its own, but for a lot of people, it helps to encourage connection, conversation, and presence.

That’s the spirit behind Squad Goals. However your gatherings take shape from one weekend to the next, they tend to share a common thread: they’re better in good company. Summer is here. All that’s left is to show up.

Sponsored Content Disclaimer: This article was created as part of a paid partnership with Fernway. Product details, company initiatives, awards, and other brand claims reflect information provided by Fernway unless otherwise noted and have not been independently verified by High Times. 

Photos courtesy of Fernway

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When most people think about the FIFA World Cup, they think about moments. The winning goal. The last second save. The eruption of a stadium when a match changes in an instant. When people think about poker, they often imagine similar flashes of drama: a massive bluff, a critical hand, a tournament-clinching moment that changes everything. 

But competitors in both worlds understand something spectators often don’t. The biggest moments are rarely about the moment itself. They’re about everything that came before it. 

That spirit was on display during a recent Kicking Back watch party hosted by High Times, ACR Poker, and former professional football player (and Survivor winner) Ethan Zohn at Torches in New York City. Fans gathered to watch England take on Croatia, turning a single match into something bigger: a shared experience built around competition, community, and the world’s game. 

“We’re excited to partner with ACR Poker, Ethan, and the football and cannabis communities around Kicking Back,” said Kyle Rosner, Director of Partnerships for High Times. “The watch party captured exactly what this moment is about: community, competition, and a once-in-a-lifetime World Cup experience.” 

As Zohn sees it, those communities have more in common than people might think. 

“Football and cannabis bring people together in a way that little else can,” said Zohn. “They give instant access to community, break down cultural stereotypes, and bring positivity to the world.” 

While football is ultimately a physical game and poker is not, both reward competitors who can process information, adjust to changing circumstances, and make smart decisions under pressure. That same competitive mindset sits at the heart of tournament poker culture, including on ACR Poker where players regularly navigate large-field events that test patience, preparation, and decision-making over hours, and sometimes days, of play. 

At the highest levels, both are mental games as much as anything else. 

Mastering the Fundamentals of Decision-Making 

The physical demands of football are obvious. What is less obvious is how much of the modern game is intellectual. Elite clubs and national teams spend enormous time teaching systems, tactics, and decision making—not just where to run or when to pass, but how to read changing situations in real time. 

England’s 4-2 victory over Croatia offered a good example. After a chaotic first half ended level at 2-2, England could have taken a more conservative approach after the break. Instead, they continued to attack aggressively, trusting what they had seen over the opening 45 minutes. The chances were there. The opportunities were there. The fundamentals were working. 

Jude Bellingham rewarded that belief almost immediately after halftime, helping shift momentum decisively in England’s favor. 

Poker players face similar decisions all the time. A player may be holding a strong starting hand after suffering through a difficult stretch of bad results. The temptation is often to become cautious, to play defensively, or to abandon a strategy that has worked over the long run simply because recent outcomes have been frustrating. 

The best players resist that temptation. 

Whether it’s a football manager trusting his system or a poker player trusting mathematically sound decision-making, elite competitors understand that pressure is often the moment when fundamentals matter most. 

The public sees highlights. Competitors focus on the quality of the decisions that created them. 

Reading Opponents Is a Skill 

The best football teams don’t walk into a World Cup match blindly. 

Long before kickoff, coaching staffs study film, identifying patterns, weaknesses, and tendencies they can exploit later. Maybe an opposing fullback drifts out of position, a striker favors one flank, or a team comes apart whenever it has to play from behind. 

The smallest observation can become the difference between winning and losing. 

Iran’s scoreless draw against Belgium provided a strong example of this principle. Belgium controlled possession for long stretches, but Iran appeared to recognize where the danger was most likely to come from. Rather than chasing the ball and allowing space to open centrally, they stayed compact, protected key areas of the pitch, and forced Belgium into lower-quality opportunities. 

It wasn’t necessarily the more talented team dictating the match. It was the team that best understood what its opponent wanted to do. 

Poker players operate with a remarkably similar mindset. Success isn’t simply about understanding your own strategy. It’s also about understanding the people you’re competing against. 

Who plays aggressively? Who becomes cautious when pressure increases? Who changes their behavior after losing a significant hand? Who remains predictable? 

Perfect knowledge isn’t the goal, because it’s never available. The goal is to read the situation more accurately than whoever sits across from you. In both football and poker, information is a resource, and the competitors who use it best gain ground long before anyone else notices.

Adjusting When the Plan Breaks 

No game unfolds exactly as planned. Every coach knows it, and every poker player knows it. A football team can spend weeks preparing for a specific opponent, only for an injury, tactical shift, or early goal to change the entire match. Suddenly, the original plan is only part of the equation. 

The same thing happens in tournament poker. Tables reshuffle, opponents rotate, and chip stacks rise and fall throughout the day. Strong competitors don’t get attached to one approach. Preparation gives them a foundation, but adaptability determines how well they respond when the game changes. 

Pressure Is the Real Opponent 

The World Cup is filled with emotional moments. 

A missed opportunity. A costly mistake. A heartbreaking loss. 

The challenge for elite players isn’t avoiding those moments. It’s responding to them. A footballer who misses a penalty may still have thirty minutes left to play. 

The test is whether they can reset and keep making smart decisions instead of replaying the miss on a loop. 

Poker players face similar tests. 

A player may lose a significant hand despite making the correct decision. They may watch hours of work disappear in a matter of seconds. The emotional challenge is immediate. 

Can they remain disciplined? Can they avoid frustration? Can they continue making strong decisions instead of chasing losses or abandoning their strategy? 

Talent matters. Preparation matters. But emotional control often determines whether competitors can consistently apply those skills when pressure peaks. 

Surviving Tournament Life 

This is where the connection between the World Cup and poker becomes impossible to ignore, because both are ultimately tournaments. And tournaments are designed to eliminate people. 

The expanded World Cup gives more teams a chance to step onto the biggest stage in the sport. Zohn connected that underdog energy directly to cannabis culture, saying, “48 teams. That’s the World Cup giving every underdog nation a shot to shine on the biggest stage there is. Cannabis is having that same moment right now—the underdog stepping into the light, going mainstream, right alongside the world’s game. That’s progress.” 

That sense of opportunity is part of what makes tournament formats so compelling. More entrants mean more stories. More pressure. More paths to an unexpected run.

The World Cup starts with a crowded field and ends with one team standing. Each stage raises the stakes, tightens the margin for error, and makes every decision feel heavier. 

Tournament poker follows a remarkably similar path. Large-field events begin with hundreds or thousands of entrants, and the same arc takes hold. As players bust out, the survivors feel every decision weighs a little heavier. 

This is one reason tournament poker stays so compelling on platforms like ACR Poker. Players aren’t facing a single opponent—they’re navigating an entire field and trying to outlast everyone in it. 

The deeper a competitor advances, the less room there is to recover from a mistake. A football team doesn’t need to dominate every match to win a World Cup. It needs to survive and advance. 

A poker player doesn’t need to win every hand to reach a final table. They need to survive and advance. The principle is the same. The field narrows. The pressure rises. The margin for error disappears. And eventually, only a handful of competitors remain. 

The Reps Nobody Sees 

When fans look back on the World Cup, they’ll remember the highlights. The goals. The celebrations. The unforgettable finishes. 

Poker fans often remember similar moments: dramatic hands, final tables, and championship victories. 

But those moments are only the visible part of the story. Behind every great performance are countless hours spent studying, analyzing, preparing, adapting, and learning how to perform under pressure. 

That is what made the Kicking Back watch party work. It wasn’t only about one match or one brand. It was about the overlap between competition and community, the way a game can pull people into the same room and give them something to feel together. 

Whether the setting is a packed stadium, a New York watch party, or a major tournament on ACR Poker, success is rarely determined by a single moment. 

It’s usually determined by the quality of decisions made long before that moment ever arrives. That’s the work nobody sees. 

And it’s often what separates competitors who participate from competitors who last.

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Sponsored Content Disclaimer: This article was published as part of a paid commercial arrangement with ACR Poker. It is not independent editorial content. References to products, services, promotions, platform features, or company claims reflect the sponsor’s perspective unless otherwise noted and have not been independently verified by High Times.

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As younger consumers rethink their relationship with alcohol, retailers like SWADE Cannabis are betting cannabis can build its own place in sports culture, starting with the watch party. 

When the FIFA World Cup arrived in Kansas City this summer, it brought the kind of energy the tournament always generates. Bars opened early, fans in matching scarves filled the sidewalks, and for several weeks, much of the metro planned its days around kickoff times.

SWADE Cannabis, the Missouri retailer owned by BeLeaf Medical Co., saw an opportunity in that energy. For years, operators across legal markets have been searching for ways to move cannabis beyond the retail transaction and into shared social experiences. On July 11, as the tournament reaches the quarterfinals, SWADE Cannabis is hosting a free, cannabis-friendly watch party at The Tree Room in Kansas City, complete with designated consumption areas and a room built for soccer fans.

“For decades, beverage brands have been a staple of sports culture, giving fans a way to gather, celebrate, and be part of the experience,” said Brandon Cavanagh, Senior Director of Marketing at SWADE Cannabis. “We believe cannabis deserves a place in that conversation, too.” 

It is a meaningful claim, and the data behind it has grown stronger in recent years.

The Ground Is Already Shifting

The change begins with how people drink. Gen Z is consuming less alcohol than any generation in recent memory, and a significant share of those consumers are turning to cannabis and non-alcoholic alternatives instead. The shift has drawn attention from alcohol companies, which increasingly view cannabis as part of the broader competition for consumers’ leisure spending. 

The substitution effect is measurable. In a University at Buffalo study, adults who began using cannabis beverages cut their weekly alcohol consumption roughly in half, from about seven drinks a week to a little over three. Researchers suggested a straightforward explanation: holding a cold can in a social setting feels much the same whether it contains beer or a THC seltzer. The ritual stays intact even as the contents change.

Attitudes are shifting alongside the behavior. In a recent consumer survey, nearly half of Americans said THC products should be as socially accepted as alcohol—a figure that climbs to roughly 60 percent among millennials and just over half among Gen Z. The same survey found that when asked to choose a single way to consume THC, more respondents reached for a beverage than for smoking, and many regular drinkers said they would happily swap a cocktail for a THC drink at a social occasion. 

The shift, in other words, is less about the product than about the gathering, which is the part of sports culture that has always mattered most. 

Cannabis Is Building Its Own Third Places

For much of legalization’s first decade, the industry was built around transactions. Customers walked in, purchased their products, and left, with the experience ending at the door. 

That model is changing. Across the country, operators are designing spaces that invite people to stay. High Times recently profiled New Jersey’s Scarlet Reserve Room, a dispensary that grew out of a cigar lounge and now hosts patients for sporting events, comedy sets, and poetry nights in a relaxed, welcoming environment. In Manhattan, the team behind Torches converted a century-old cigar townhouse near Grand Central into a lounge, building the space in anticipation of New York’s evolving consumption rules.

These are not simply stores with seating. They represent a cannabis version of the corner bar—the “third place” between home and work where community forms. The model itself is hardly new. Pubs, breweries, and sports taverns were never just about what people consumed; they were about the relationships and routines built around those spaces. 

Cannabis businesses are now trying to build comparable gathering places, and sports offer an obvious test case because the audience and occasion already exist. 

Why the Games Make Sense

Sporting events offer a built-in reason to come together. Fans arrive, wear their colors, and share the highs and lows of a match with people they may have just met. The experience has always been as much about the company as the final score. 

Retail data suggests that major sporting events already drive cannabis purchasing behavior. According to retail analytics firm Surfside, the Saturday before the Super Bowl is now the highest cannabis sales day of the year in the markets it tracks, running more than 60% above a typical day. Pre-rolls and THC beverages—among the formats most commonly associated with social occasions—see the sharpest increases, rising roughly 90% and 80%, respectively. High Times has tracked the Super Bowl sales bump for years, and Cannabis Industry Journal recently described the game as cannabis’s biggest retail moment of the year.

Kansas City has already seen signs of that connection. When the Chiefs won the title in 2023, during Missouri’s first week of adult-use sales, some local dispensaries reported dramatic spikes in business. The surge illustrated how closely cannabis consumption can align with major communal events. Whether that translates into demand for dedicated gathering spaces is what operators like SWADE Cannabis are now testing. 

A World Cup Proof of Concept

That context helps explain why SWADE Cannabis chose the World Cup as a proving ground. 

Rather than simply running a promotion, SWADE Cannabis created a free World Cup quarterfinal watch party at The Tree Room, designed around the experience of gathering rather than the sale itself. Designated consumption areas allow fans to take part comfortably and responsibly. 

A retail component accompanies the event, including a limited World Cup product lineup featuring the Golden Goal Live Resin Bar and special releases of Lemon Royale, Jungle Cookies, and Permanent Marker. In addition, SWADE Cannabis is stoked to launch STÄSH, a new apparel brand with all the jerseys and scarves you need to get your game on. The product lineup is part of the event, but the larger emphasis is on creating a communal viewing experience rather than a traditional retail promotion. 

“We’re excited to create a space where cannabis consumers can enjoy the tournament and show that cannabis can be part of the same shared traditions and celebrations that fans have enjoyed around sports for generations,” Kevin Riggs, CEO of BeLeaf Medical Co. said. 

None of this is about replacing alcohol. Many fans will still open a beer at kickoff, and many will enjoy both. The larger shift may be less about what people consume than where they consume it. As legal markets mature, operators are increasingly experimenting with events, lounges, and communal experiences that place cannabis within familiar social rituals. 

Whether those efforts become a lasting part of sports culture remains to be seen. For companies like SWADE Cannabis, the World Cup watch party is one attempt to find out. 

Sponsored Content Disclaimer: This article was published as part of a paid commercial arrangement with SWADE Cannabis. It is not independent editorial content. References to products, services, cannabinoids, formulations, consumer use cases, or company claims reflect the company’s perspective unless otherwise noted and have not been independently verified by High Times.

<p>The post The Next Great Sports Tradition Might Be Cannabis first appeared on High Times.</p>

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Slapwoods is announcing its first-ever official collaboration with DJ Screw, the late Houston legend whose chopped-and-screwed sound changed the pace of hip-hop. The limited release, called The Screw Pack, pairs Slapwoods’ premium natural leaf wraps with a flavor profile inspired by purple soda and dirty Sprite, according to Slapwoods.

For a Houston-born brand built around blunt culture, music, and natural leaf smoking, the move makes sense. Slapwoods didn’t pick a random name for its first official collab. It went straight to one of the city’s most important cultural architects.

The Screw Pack Brings Slapwoods Back to Houston

Slapwoods launched in 2020 with a simple read on the session: smokers wanted better leaf without all the extra work. The brand built its name on premium natural leaf cones with an all-natural corn husk tip, made to keep the look and feel of a hand-rolled blunt while cutting down the mess that came with breaking down, cleaning out, and rebuilding cigar products.

The Screw Pack keeps that same identity but ties it directly to Houston music history.

According to Slapwoods, the limited release features the brand’s signature premium natural leaf wraps, produced in the Dominican Republic using top-tier leaf and distributed out of Houston, Texas. The flavor profile pulls from purple soda and dirty Sprite references, a clear nod to the sound, color palette, and coded language that surrounded Houston rap during DJ Screw’s era and beyond.

That is not a small lane to step into. Screw’s name is not just a graphic. It belongs to a whole ecosystem: slowed-down tapes, freestyles, car culture, Southside Houston, Screwed Up Click, and a city that still treats June 27 like sacred ground.

For Slapwoods, that connection is personal as much as strategic. The brand has described music as part of its DNA from the beginning, with hip-hop artists and creative communities among its earliest supporters. Its first collaboration could have gone a lot of directions. Going with DJ Screw plants the flag at home.

DJ Screw Still Sets The Tempo

DJ Screw, born Robert Earl Davis Jr., created something that could not be rushed.

He began experimenting with turntables and pitch control in the late 1980s, eventually pioneering the chopped-and-screwed style that would come to define Houston hip-hop. By slowing records down, cutting phrases back into themselves, and stretching familiar songs into something heavier and more hypnotic, Screw built a sound that felt inseparable from the city itself.

By the ’90s, Screw was making tapes that moved through Houston like contraband scripture. Cars became listening rooms. Parking lots became release parties. The trunk was the sound system, the tape was the currency, and the whole city learned to move at a different speed.

He produced more than 300 original mixtapes, known as Screw Tapes, and helped anchor the Screwed Up Click, the Houston collective that included names like Big Hawk, Fat Pat, Big Moe, Lil’ Keke, Lil’ Flip, Z-Ro, and others. Screw died in 2000 at 29, but his influence kept spreading.

More than two decades later, you can still hear it in Houston rap, obviously, but also in the slowed-and-reverb internet era, in artists far outside Texas, and in the way music culture keeps returning to the mood he built: heavy, syrupy, patient, and impossible to separate from place.

That is why The Screw Pack has to be treated as a tribute, not just a drop. Screw’s legacy is alive, but it is also guarded. Houston knows when people are paying respect and when they are just grabbing at the purple.

Slapwoods DJ Screw Arrives During A Bigger Moment

The timing is sharp. DJ Screw’s legacy is having a very visible run across music, sports, fashion, and Houston culture.

The Houston Astros released an official DJ Screw collaboration on DJ Screw Day in 2024, with an 11-piece collection that included T-shirts, a bomber jacket, shorts, hats, and a bobblehead. Supreme followed in 2026 with a DJ Screw collection made with the estate, bringing Screw’s image into the global streetwear machine and sparking the kind of debate that always follows when underground legends become mainstream symbols.

Most importantly, the music is getting a wider release. In May 2026, DJ Screw’s catalog began arriving on streaming platforms for the first time, beginning with DJ Screw Originals (Volume 1), with more classic mixtapes scheduled to roll out weekly through the end of June.

That context matters. The Screw Pack is landing at a moment when Screw is not being rediscovered so much as properly re-centered. The people who always knew are watching a new generation catch up.

Slapwoods fits into that moment from a specific angle. It is not a baseball team. It is not a fashion house. It is a smoking brand born in Houston, built around the kind of session where Screw tapes never felt out of place.

A Tribute Built for the Session

Blunt culture and Screw culture have always shared a room. Not in some lazy, surface-level way. More like this: both are about pace. Both are about patience. Both reward people who know the difference between doing something quickly and doing something right.

A blunt session has its own rhythm. Someone breaks down the flower. Someone picks the music. Someone rolls. Someone complains about the roll. Someone gets ignored. Then the lighter hits, the track starts over, and the whole room settles into itself.

That is where Slapwoods lives. The brand’s natural leaf cones were built for smokers who still care about the ritual but don’t always want to fight the wrap before the session starts. The Screw Pack pushes that idea into tribute territory, connecting the act of smoking with the sound of a city that made slowing down feel powerful.

There is also something fitting about this being Slapwoods’ first official collaboration. The brand has said it avoided chasing hype for hype’s sake, staying focused instead on leaf quality, consistency, and culture. Starting with DJ Screw gives that claim some teeth.

Get Yours

The Screw Pack is a limited release, but the idea behind it is bigger than scarcity.

Slapwoods is using its first official collaboration to honor a Houston legend whose sound still moves through music, fashion, sports, and smoke sessions. DJ Screw changed how a city heard itself. Slapwoods is paying respect from inside that same cultural orbit, where music, leaf, and late-night ritual still overlap.

A good Houston tribute does not need to shout. It just needs to know the tempo.

Sponsored Content Disclaimer: This article is sponsored by Slapwoods. High Times may receive compensation in connection with this content. The views and claims expressed are those of the sponsor and do not necessarily reflect the views of High Times.

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