As the industry’s leading publication for over two decades, we want to remind you all that we are more than just another magazine; WE are the nexus of commerce for the counterculture marketplace; headshops, smoke shops, vape shops, adult novelties, and dispensaries. Both publisher and platform, HQ exists to facilitate the continued evolution of a once-marginalized industry now on the cusp of legitimization. As a publisher, we are your advocate and your advisor, your continual stream of all information that matters to you; from product knowledge, to business insights, to how it all fits into the panorama of the bigger world. As a platform, we are your connection. We are the bullhorn, the billboard, and the bridge; the perfect bullseye of your target market. And as this industry continues to come into its own and navigate the coming seismic shifts in the landscape, we’ll be the light to guide its steps.
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The Psychedelic Underground How a New Counterculture Is Rewriting the Rules of Getting High
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How a New Counterculture Is Rewriting the Rules of Getting High
BY SAM GALATI
Walk into any warehouse rave, desert gathering, or rooftop after-hours in 2026, and you’ll feel it—the psychedelic underground is back: louder, weirder, and far more self-aware than its ‘60s predecessor ever imagined. But this time, it is not about dropping out—it’s about dropping in and tuning deeper.
A new generation isn’t taking psychedelics to rebel against society; they’re taking them because society feels like the illusion.
Microdosing as a Quiet Rebellion
In a world obsessed with efficiency and “crushing it,” microdosing has become the quiet rebellion of the overstimulated. The days of people downing full tabs or chasing kaleidoscopic visions are gone. Today, those same people are slipping sub-perceptual doses into their morning routines like a wink to themselves.
It’s the underground’s form of self-liberation: a subtle rejection of burnout culture disguised as productivity. A tiny mushroom capsule becomes a covert message: I refuse to be a machine.
The Rise of the DIY Psychonaut
Forget polished retreats and glossy wellness brochures; although they are a thing and are still growing. Today’s counterculture is rolling its own psychedelic experience — literally and metaphorically.
Garage growers, balcony mycologists, kitchen chemists, and herb garden psychonauts are building micro-ecosystems of autonomy. They trade spores like baseball cards, debate humidity levels in Discord channels, and post time-lapse videos of mushroom pins breaking the soil like insurgents.
Psychedelics aren’t just substances — they’re symbols of self-sufficiency. Growing your own is the new “power to the people.”
Parties with a Pulse, Not a Script
Out in the wild—the deserts, forests, and forgotten industrial zones—psychedelic gatherings have evolved from chaotic escapades to intentional rituals wrapped in neon. There’s still hedonism, sure, but now it’s paired with collective curation. People don’t go to these gatherings to “lose control.” They go to feel something real.
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GLASS CEILING
BY MATT WEEKS
There are objects Americans buy because they need them, and objects Americans buy because they let them be a certain kind of person. A perfectly functional version exists, usually for a fraction of the price. But the other version comes with a name, a story, and a reason to pay extra.
That is the divide in your glass case: products that offer functionality versus those that offer identity. People who buy American glass want to be part of the community. They want to support the scene that comes infused with specific ideals—ingenuity, independence, pride—that define the counterculture.
And nothing does that better than American glass. It’s the worldwide standard because of its high quality and its inventiveness. Glassblower Brandon Damopoulos, who works under the handle @dmopglass, describes the American scene as a craft on improvisation, experimentation, and shared knowledge.
“We carved the first path, you know?” he said. “If you think of it like skateboarding, American glassblowers are the guys skating backyard pools and building the first ramps, finding out what works and what doesn't. We laid the groundwork.”
Two pipes can share the same silhouette and occupy different realities. One is used and forgotten; the other becomes a display piece. It’s a feeling that veteran pipe maker Ralph Richie (@takoglass) can understand. After decades in the craft, he turned a passion for functional art into a living and then into a community.
Richie came up at the last possible moment when learning glass meant being physically near the people who knew how to do it.
“There was no internet to look up how to blow glass,” he said. “We were teaching ourselves everything. We had a book, called something like ‘Intro to Glassblowing 101,’ and that’s how we taught ourselves to do it. There was a lot of trial and error, but it was fun. Our goal was to have something new to smoke out of every day when we came to the shop.”
Today, Richie is known for two things. The first is Purple Nebula, a signature deep violet hue that changes with use. The second is takoglass.com, a direct-to-consumer storefront that widened into a kind of community hub. Richie originally launched the shop to supplement his sales. But he quickly sold out of his own work, so he added his wife's pieces (@ beezyglass). Soon, the shop started carrying works from his friends and peers he’d known for years.
“Now we support 200 American glass blowers,” he said. “These are people I’ve known for years, people who have families. And this helps support them. It’s helping them buy diapers, pay for Little League, and put gas in the car. They're doing the work, but it feels good to support other American families who get to work out of their garage and still be home with their kids and create art.”
Passing the Flame
Today’s younger artists have more options. Instead of studying books, they can take advantage of formal programs. Thirty-one-year-old Dmop cut his teeth in trade school, studying scientific glassblowing at Salem Community College in New Jersey. Officially, the school instructs students in the fine art of making laboratory apparatuses, such as distillation units and condensers. In practice, the skills are directly transferable to pipe making.
“A lot of my work reflects the knowledge I learned there,” he said. “I cater to the scientific aspect of things … I focus on the form and the function of glass.”
After completing his studies, Dmop moved back to Columbus and began to spread his newfound skills across the scene.
“There's a certain flame called an annealing flame that engulfs the entire piece and warms it up in a soft way to keep it from cracking. It's very common in the scientific field, but when I came back to Ohio, nobody knew it. Everyone called it the Dpop flame for a while because they'd never seen it anywhere else. That felt really cool, being 21 years old, and I got to teach these dudes who were 15 years older than me and had been in the game for a long time, I got to teach them new stuff.”
The knowledge transfer from maker to maker keeps American glass evolving, especially as the market changes.
“Legalization definitely affected us. Ten years ago, there were random people that were making a living selling weed, and now that's few and far between. And those people had extra money to go spend $1,000, $2,000, or $5,000 on a bong. Now there's just less of those people out there, and
that money's tied up in the corporations. So we’re selling to a different crowd,” Dmop said. “I think of it this way: a majority of people like Bud Light, they don't like craft beers. There is a smaller percentage of people that like craft beers. When it comes to my glass pipes, they are not the Bud Light of glass pipes. Mine are like the special heady IPA that there's only 20 of.”
Bright Lights, Small Cracks
Societies can be judged by the art they create and celebrate. Collectors use “Team Japan” as shorthand for a loose confederation of Japanese makers whose work leans into finely honed detail and disciplined craftsmanship. American glass, by contrast, earns its reputation through a more diverse aesthetic and looser, more inventive execution. Its defining features are high-quality glass and vibrant colors.
Richie puts the practical version of that difference in blunt terms.
“What we call ‘import glass’ is thin. They're using cheap colors that are not as vibrant as, like, the USA colors. The color work isn't blown in and not melted all the way together, and so it makes the glass not as strong, so it breaks really easily,” he said.
The consequences of bad build quality arrive late, usually after the sale. A hairline rupture your customer couldn't see under display lights shows up with a vengeance a week later. Colors that never truly fused split on the first hard clean.
Pipe glass has long carried a stigma that many buyers wear like a badge of honor. The people who stay in it for decades aren’t doing it because it’s easy; they’re doing it because the work still feels like building something that’s greater than the sum of its parts.
“I really think pipe makers are, in a way, true patriots,” Dmop said. “We are doing work that benefits society and benefits the individual creatively. Regardless of the stigma, we're trying to find happiness and live an abundant life. People want to express themselves and be proud of their work. That's the American dream.”
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women
IN cannabis
BY EMILY LONG
Even without the representation and recognition they deserve, women have always been at the center of the cannabis movement. From policy and advocacy to entrepreneurship and technology, women have played key roles in both industry breakthroughs and cultural change. They are nurses on the frontlines helping medical patients in need; they are policy advocates and lawmakers challenging an unjust legal system; they are chemists and researchers ensuring safety at scale; they are groundbreaking business owners and leaders, even though only 3% of cannabis financing goes to womenowned businesses. In honor of Women’s History Month this March, we’re celebrating some female trailblazers and historic “firsts” who have profoundly shaped the cannabis industry as we know it.
Compassionate Cannabis with Mary Jane Rathbun
More commonly known as “Brownie Mary”, Mary Jane Rathbun (1922-1999) was a volunteer at San Francisco General Hospital during the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis. She baked cannabis-infused brownies and distributed them illegally to AIDS patients—often baking up to 600 brownies a day—to help patients ease nausea, keep food down, and reduce discomfort.
While she may have looked like your average, sweet grandma, she was a fierce medical advocate who was arrested three different times, garnering increased and important media attention for the medical cannabis movement. Working with activists like Dennis Peron and Valerie Corral, Rathbun helped pass San Francisco Proposition P in 1991 and later, California Proposition 215 in 1996 to legalize medical marijuana use in California. Everyone who knows that cannabis can be essential care and medicine can thank Brownie Mary.
Reimagining Medical Use with Valerie Corral
Valerie Corral became involved in medical marijuana advocacy first as a patient herself. Suffering daily seizures after a car crash in 1973 left her with severe head injuries, Corral tried every seizure medication on the market at the time before finally finding symptom relief with cannabis. Since she began using only marijuana, she hasn’t suffered a full-blown seizure.
This personal revelation led her to not only grow her own cannabis on her property in Santa Cruz, CA, but in doing so, she also became the face of the medical cannabis
debate in the state when she became the first patient to argue—and win—her case on the basis of medical necessity. With her husband Mike, Corral co-founded the Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana, known as WAMM, to help other seriously ill patients access safe, reliable, and affordable cannabis for their own treatments, often providing it for free or on a sliding scale for those who otherwise were unable to access it.
In 1996, Corral co-authored Proposition 215 in California, making the state the first in the U.S. to legalize medical marijuana. WAMM operated as a collective until 2018, when the state shut it down, making no provisions for compassionate giving and care. Now, Corral runs WAMM Phytotherapies as a new, licensed cannabis company, an offshoot of the original collective that continues to promote accessible and affordable cannabis access.
Science and Safety with Rowshan Reordan
Born in the Pacific Northwest, Rowshan Reordan also formally entered the cannabis space during the HIV/ AIDS epidemic when a close friend was diagnosed with HIV and became a medical cannabis patient. When she later suspected that unsafe and unregulated cannabis may have contributed to this same friend’s death, Reordan decided to do something about it. In 2011, she founded Green Leaf Lab LLC, the first analytical testing laboratory in Portland, Oregon, dedicated to cannabis, hemp, and CBD safety. By recognizing the need for reputable science and rigorous quality control, Reordan helped to legitimize the cannabis industry as activists across the United States advocated for legalization. As a pioneering women-owned cannabis lab, Green Leaf Lab is certified through the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC), as well as the Association of Official Agricultural Chemists, known as AOAC International.
Equity, Social Justice, and Entrepreneurship with Wanda James
In 2009, Wanda James and her husband Scott Durrah opened their first dispensary, the Apothecary in Colorado, making them the first Black cannabis licensees in the United States and making the Apothecary of Colorado the first Black-owned legal cannabis dispensary. Five years later, James opened
Simply Pure Dispensary in Denver, CO, which is still in business in the city’s historic Northside.
James has always focused on social equity and social justice within the cannabis space, fighting to end unjust drug policies in Colorado and beyond. A former Naval Officer herself (and the first Black woman commissioned through the Naval ROTC program), James remains a fierce advocate for veterans, specifically around cannabis use for PTSD.
She now sits on the University of Colorado Board of Regents, where her fight for social justice in the cannabis space has continued in a perhaps unlikely arena. In July 2025, the CU Board of Regents voted to censure Regent James—the first Black Regent in 43 years—after she condemned racist imagery and messaging in a university-affiliated anti-cannabis campaign. Recently, James announced she is running for Congress on a platform championing communities of
color, women, small businesses, and more affordable living conditions for all.
Do you know a powerhouse woman making waves in the cannabis industry? Whether she’s leading, innovating, advocating, or inspiring, we want to hear her story! Our Women in Cannabis spotlight celebrates the trailblazers, changemakers, and unsung heroes shaping the future of the industry. Nominate someone who deserves the recognition— because their work deserves to be seen! Submit your nomination at headquest.com/wic-nomination.
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BY JAMES JOHNIVAN
It’s been a few years since we last visited Pirate Girl Smoke Boutique. Nestled amongst a cozy strip of classic New England storefronts in Plymouth, Massachusetts, the shop itself is a testament to one woman’s love of smoking accessories. However, with many head shops catering more to male smokers, Pirate Girl Smoke Boutique chose a different route.
We recently caught up with the store’s owner, Nicole, to find out how she built her business model on femalefocused smoking accessories, what it’s like transitioning from an online storefront to a brick-and-mortar location, and what might be on the horizon for Pirate Girl Smoke Boutique.
The Origin Story
“It naturally progressed as time went on. I always just call it my snowball. And everyone was always like, well, how did you do this? Where did you start? And I was just saying, rolling my snowball; it just kind of grows and gets bigger as I go,” Nicole said when asked about the ongoing success of her shop.
Nicole started her online business as an Etsy shop in 2011. She expanded into an independent digital storefront shortly thereafter, eventually opening her brick-and-mortar location in 2015.
“It just made sense for me to open a (brick-and-mortar) store. At least everything would be up on shelves, so it was accessible, and I could easily ship it.”
But her journey on the high seas didn’t stop there. Noticing a trend, Nicole soon started offering curated subscription boxes—including the Monthly Pirate Girl Box, the Monthly Rolling Club, and the Monthly Princess Box. Each one is personally curated by Nicole herself, and they all feature a variety of feminine-inspired smoking accessories.
Finding the Right Items
All of the treasures found in Pirate Girl Smoke Boutique—whether they’re purchased online, in person, or included in a monthly subscription box—are handpicked by Nicole herself. While this is a great way to ensure consistent brand messaging, it also guarantees that all of her products are appropriate for female smokers.
“We sell really cute bongs, and we never really have the same ones. We always have styles and inventory going in and out. But, for example, if we had a really cute Hello Kitty bong or a pink, girly bong, we can’t keep that in stock. They go really quickly, especially if it’s a good price on things. A lot of times, we’ll find close-out deals and discounted things, so we always pass those savings on to our customers,” Nicole said.
But Pirate Girl Smoke Boutique isn’t limited to pipes and bongs. They carry other products, too, including a small selection of CBD products.
“We actually sell a lot of CBD cigarettes. Those are popular because they’re an alternative to smoking cannabis, and they’re also an alternative to smoking tobacco. So we’ll use those to help people quit smoking and things like that.”
Playing an Active Role in the Community
Nicole also plays an active role in her community, where she does her best to inform the general public on local cannabis laws while promoting the Pirate Girl brand.
“I’m in a tourist location, so I definitely get tourists coming in wondering what the laws are, what you can do, where they can smoke, where they can’t smoke, because it definitely is confusing.”
She also does pop-up events whenever she can. While these events certainly help drive more business to her brand, they’re also about connecting with the community and having fun.
“We were popping up at different dispensaries this year. We were at South Shore Buds in Marshfield and Capeway Cannabis in Carver. They had a 420 party, so we popped up there to tell people about our monthly subscription box, give away free stuff, and just have fun, because those types of events are super fun,” Nicole said.
Nicole hopes to do more pop-ups in the future, including events that aren’t confined to the cannabis industry.
“I’d like to take my shop and do pop-ups at events that aren’t in the cannabis industry. I just don’t want to stay in our own little bubble. I want to go out into the mainstream and bring it mainstream. I think that’s more fun to me.”
Pulling Back the Curtain on the OneWoman Show
Pirate Girl Smoke Boutique truly is a one-woman show. The original Etsy shop was Nicole’s idea; she was the one who opened the physical store in Plymouth, and, as mentioned, she is responsible for sourcing inventory and curating the monthly subscription boxes.
“Literally everything in the shop is me. I’m answering the chat box on our website. I’m answering emails, DMs, and I’m shipping everything. I’m putting together bundle deals, which is probably the second-most popular thing in the shop. Those are super popular, especially the ones that have the Blazy Susan papers and cones. And we also have a monthly subscription box that I curate every month, and it has a pipe usually worth at least $30, and then there’s a curated little theme around every pipe with accessories. So that’s something that I design and ship out every month to my customers.”
Nicole has already made quite a bit of progress in her journey, but she’s not done yet. With cannabis becoming more widely accepted, she already has her sights set on the future.
“I would like to see us in a big warehouse, shipping hundreds of orders a day off of our website, with our subscription box doing really great. Maybe I’d have a whole bunch of different subscription boxes to offer people and just keep growing and rolling my snowball,” Nicole said.
Heading Back to Port
Pirate Girl Smoke Boutique’s story is one of success. Not only did Nicole manage to turn her small Etsy shop into a fully-fledged online storefront, but she then expanded that into a brick-and-mortar location just outside of Boston. Moreover, she continues to capitalize on the latest trends with a reward program, monthly subscription boxes, and more.
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Too Hot For Regulation
How to Stay Cool Amid Crackdowns
BY MATT WEEKS
In 62 BC, Julius Caesar announced his plan to divorce his second wife, Pompeia. She had been involved in an ancient Roman sex scandal, accused of flirting with another man during a women-only religious event. Even though he thought she was innocent, Caesar didn’t welcome the bad publicity. He served her papers, stating, “The wife of Caesar must be above suspicion.”
While not a great argument for separation, the proclamation articulates a point about society’s unspoken standards: Those who have little power and lots of spotlight must adhere to a higher code. Today, we can see this sentiment play out in the harsh treatment doled out to teachers, flight attendants, referees, and other under-valued roles. Those with power, however, get to do pretty much anything they want and get away with it. To paraphrase comedian Chris Rock, “If you work at McDonald’s and get caught smoking crack, you’ll get fired the next day. But if you’re the mayor…” Caesar’s axiom also applies to entire industries—especially smoke shops. Conversations around hemp and vaping products are heating up, with politicians at every level eager to clamp down on what they see as unsafe and unseemly items. In a typical example, zealous district attorneys in Pennsylvania recently published a 107-page Grand Jury Report entitled, “Unregulated, Unsafe and Illegal — The Reality of Smoke Shops” that bluntly couches the need for regulation in terms of moral collapse. It calls for increased oversight “in order to protect the public, especially children.”
The only way to withstand the pressure of powerful regulators is to remain above suspicion. It’s something the most profitable industries have understood for years. The best way to escape the crosshairs of bureaucratic scrutiny is to police yourself.
Countering the Hammer
Like a teenager with a neck tattoo and a muscle car, hemp products invite increased scrutiny. And it’s not completely the fault of prejudiced politicians. Nearly the moment the 2018 Farm Bill legitimized American hemp, product producers began to edge toward the legal line.
The first years brought headlines about “hot hemp” products that contained higher-than-legal THC levels. Since then, a raft of little-known and newly discovered cannabinoids has pushed legal loopholes to their breaking points.
The proliferation of these new products doesn’t sit well with regulators, and it remains their primary grudge against smoke shops. (The Pennsylvania grand jury report notes that undercover buys sampled 144 products and found that 93.75% tested over the legal limit.)
The easiest way to find a steady path then is to stay within the spirit—not the letter—of the law. Think of it like practicing Originalism, the legal theory that dominates the thinking of the U.S. Supreme Court. Originalism holds that laws should be interpreted by the original intent of the law, not what its words mean in a modern context. In simpler terms, it’s all about concentrating on the spirit of the law instead of sticking to technically correct workarounds.
In practice, it looks like due diligence. Don’t leave it to your customers to check third-party testing sites, do it yourself— every time. Stock only the products that reliably pass THC tests, don’t contain heavy metals, and deliver what they promise. If you’re not sure which products are the most egregious law violators, check out that Pennsylvania grand jury report (or search online for a similar report closer to home). It’s always a smart idea to know which products have already caught the attention of regulators. It’s common sense to avoid stocking the products that politicians and law enforcement officials have warned against.
Think of the Children
When regulators decide to crack down on hemp and vaping products, it’s often about making a big splash. They want to dominate the news cycle because they want voters to see their work. Paradoxically, that’s good news for smoke shops. When politicians want to be seen on the front lines, they have to publish their battle plans. That makes it easy to spot what will draw the most attention.
If regulators in your area beat the drum for child safety, phase out the brightly colored packaging. If they’re concerned about high potency, make sure your stock stays under the limit. Some jurisdictions fold smoke shop regulations into supply chain issues, taking issue with the cheap Chinese stuff. If that’s the case where you are, make sure your floor is handsomely decorated with only the finest American-made vape carts and glass. Stock only what you can document, like brands with verifiable sourcing, with packaging that doesn’t look like it fell off a truck.
The Fog of War
When it comes to vapes, the rules for staying ahead of enforcement aren’t as clear. For years, smoke shops have sold non-FDA-approved products with a smile and a shrug. Police mostly abide by the unsaid understanding that everybody does it, and new laws will eventually sort things out. Now, signs indicate the tenuous peace is cracking. Shop raids rose throughout 2025, with a particularly wellpublicized Chicago-area bust that snagged over $85 million in “illegal” e-cigs. This high-priced seizure came courtesy of federal authorities, who consistently outpace their state and local counterparts when it comes to vaping busts. They’re
also more interested in supply chains than fruit flavors. If you can show you’re selling products that don’t come from places like China, you’ll be less likely to encounter federal resistance. You want to sell flavored stuff, keep it behind the counter.
Think Smart
Because they exist at the convergence of youth culture, new products, and foreign supply lines, smoke shops are an obvious choice for regulatory crackdowns. And, unfortunately, no one is coming to save us. Big Pharma and Big Tech get greater leeway because they’ve got deep pockets. Big Hemp isn’t so lucky.
Politicians’ impulse to regulate products is only partially about producing laws; these days, they seem just as interested in producing culture. Some officials want to determine, through some combination of data-driven polling and gut vibes, the villains of our culture wars. When they point fingers at smoke shops, the response is clear: Adopt the Caesar’s wife standard.
Don’t trust in legal technicalities to protect your livelihood. Stay above suspicion. And don’t get caught selling dirty.
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Ancient Creations Ceramic Hookahs are crafted to elevate shared smoking experiences through thoughtful design and artisan quality. Measuring approximately 5 inches tall and 5–6 inches wide, each piece features dual hoses with in-house glass mouthpieces, a colored handle martini bowl, and glass slide set with a sturdy and wide-based design that sits safely flat on any surface. Hand-thrown from pure white clay, every hookah is finished with food-safe glazes, real platinum and gold lusters, and 22-karat gold detailing for both beauty and performance.
The THC-P Knockout Blend Disposables and Cartridges by Uplift bring three distinct strain experiences together in one smooth, balanced product. Durban Poison provides an energizing lift with citrus and earthy notes that spark creativity and focus. Girl Scout Cookies follows with minty-sweet cherry and lemon aromas for calming, euphoric relaxation. Granddaddy Purple rounds out the blend with rich grape and berry flavors, delivering deep, full-body relief ideal for unwinding.
