Sensi Magazine - Boston (February 2019)

BOSTON

THE NEW NORMAL

2.2019

THE SEX ISSUE

Photos

Cooking With Cannabis

Maine Report

Food Trucks

2018 Harvest Cup

$3 Dewey’s Is Coming Back

Kowloon Mobile

sensimag.com FEBRUARY 2019 3

4 FEBRUARY 2019 Boston

sensimag.com FEBRUARY 2019 5

“The country’s first powerhouse marijuana law firm.” —

BOSTON . DENVER . LOS ANGELES . LAS VEGAS Call our Boston office for legal assistance with all facets of the marijuana industry

(617) 934-2121 www.vicentesederberg.com 6 FEBRUARY 2019 Boston

sensimag.com FEBRUARY 2019 7

8 FEBRUARY 2019 Boston

ISSUE 2 // VOLUME 2 // 2.2019

FEATURES 26 Cannabis in the Bedroom:

A Love Story?

32

A Cannabis Plant by Any Other Name

Dosed love lube. Body response variations. Cannasexuals. Weed viagra. Proceed this way for all things cannabis and sex.

SP EC IAL R EP OR T

Hemp and “marijuana” come from the same plant. So, if hemp is now legal, shouldn’t “marijuana” be, too?

40 Just Add Water

Water-soluble cannabinoids and terpenes are disrupting cannabis cuisine.

TOWEL THOUGHTS Our editor has thoughts on dry towels, for good or for ill.

20

every issue 11 Editor’s Note 12 The Buzz 16 NewsFeed

PROTO-SYNTHESIS

20 LifeStyle

12

IN DEFENSE OF EXCESSIVE TOWELING

49 The Scene

A CAR MADE WITH HEMP You can buy it if you’re rich.

2018 HARVEST CUP

50 HereWeGo

MAINE DEWINGS

Sensi magazine is published monthly by Sensi Media Group LLC. © 2019 SENSI MEDIA GROUP LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

sensimag.com FEBRUARY 2019 9

sensi magazine ISSUE 2 / VOLUME 2 / 2.2019

EXECUTIVE FOLLOW US

Ron Kolb ron@sensimag.com CEO, SENSI MEDIA GROUP

Tae Darnell tae@sensimag.com PRESIDENT, SENSI MEDIA GROUP

Alex Martinez alex@sensimag.com CHIEF ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER

sensimediagroup

NECANN 2019 CONVENTION SCHEDULE

EDITORIAL Stephanie Wilson stephanie@sensimag.com EDITOR IN CHIEF

Dan McCarthy daniel.mccarthy@sensimag.com MANAGING EDITOR, SENSI BOSTON

Leland Rucker leland.rucker@sensimag.com SENIOR EDITOR

UTAH MAY 10-11

RENO APRIL 6-7 VERMONT MAY 18-19

Dr. Angie McCartney askangie@sensimag.com sensimagazine

BOSTON MARCH 22-24

Robyn Griggs Lawrence CONTRIBUTING EDITOR COLUMNIST

Jameson Viens, Robert “Bobby Nuggz” DiVincenzo CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

A RT & D E S I G N Jamie Ezra Mark jamie@akersmediagroup.com CREATIVE DIRECTOR

MAINE OCT 5-6

NEW JERSEY SEPT 14-15 RHODE ISLAND OCT 12

sensimag

SPRINGFIELD JUNE 22-23

Rheya Tanner, Wendy Mak Josh Clark, Deb Matlock akers@sensimag.com DESIGN & LAYOUT

BUSINESS & A D M I N I S T R AT I V E Leon Drucker leon.drucker@sensimag.com PUBLISHER

Sean Curley sean.curley@sensimag.com Maia Jolicoeur maia.jolicoeur@sensimag.com Heather Parsons heather.parsons@sensimag.com ASSOCIATE PUBLISHERS

Amber Orvik amber.orvik@sensimag.com

THE LARGEST CANNABIS CONVENTION SERIES IN THE WORLD

CHIEF ADMINISTRATOR

Andre Velez andre.velez@sensimag.com MARKETING DIRECTOR

Hector Irizarry distribution@sensimag.com DISTRIBUTION

M E D I A PA RT N E R S

L e a r n m o re at N ECA N N . co m i n f o @ n e c a n n . co m Co n n e c t i n g b u s i n e s s e s w i t h lo c a l c a n n a b i s co m m u n i t i e s s i n ce 2 0 1 4

10 FEBRUARY 2019 Boston

Marijuana Business Daily Minority Cannabis Business Association National Cannabis Industry Association Students for Sensible Drug Policy

STAYING ON TOP ADVISORY BOARD 420 Suites //

CANNABIS-FRIENDLY APARTMENT RENTALS

Ardent, LLC // DECARBOXYLATOR Beantown Greentown // CULTIVATION Boston Gardener // GARDENING SUPPLY Boston Green Health //

CONSUMER AND COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT

Chronic Trips //

RECREATION, FITNESS, AND WELLNESS

Cloud Creamery // INFUSED ICE CREAM Cloudponics //

AUTOMATED SMALL SPACE GROWING

Flourish Software // SEED TO SALE

OF IT ALL

editor’s

NOTE

Longtime readers of this magazine during its short lifespan of existence will likely have noticed something consistent running through every issue falling warmly into their waiting paws each month. First, given our scant resources and minimal staff, the editorial model at work here is something of the iterative sort. Or put another way, we don’t follow a particular format to fill the pages so much as we let the events and news and coverage-worthy topics instruct the ways we wow you with meaningful, local cannabis and city culture lifestyle in any given issue.

And like dipping a found stick in a fast-moving river, all the news and points of interest are constantly in motion all around us. Sometimes it’s stuff like the January news that ExxonMobil had been instructed to turn over a “tankerful” of climate-change documents to the state, all related to not only the corporate giant’s suppression of known evidence of human-made climate change (at its

Gibson Sotheby’s International Realty //

own hands, no less), but to its actual discrediting of the emerging science sur-

RESIDENTIAL REAL ESTATE

facing on the matter and informing intelligent consent over the years between

Green Goddess Supply //

the 97 percent of the global science community that agrees we are in deep

PERSONAL HOMEGROWN BIOCHAMBER

doo-doo. That ExxonMobil tried to argue that Attorney General Maura Healey

Green Matters, LLC // SUPPLY CHAIN

was exceeding the bounds of state consumer-protection law by demanding to

Greenhouse Payment Solutions //

see the documents, local breaking news stalwart UniversalHub.com reported:

The Holistic Center //

setts Supreme Judicial Court ruling that Healey had the right to see them.”

Irie Bliss Wellness //

ing, which as of this writing brings us up to close to 10 rec shops opening or being

The Leaf Collaborative // EDUCATION

after some negative press back in the late fall when the first shops to open cre-

PAYMENT PROCESSING

MEDICAL MARIJUANA EVALUATIONS CANNABIS & HEMP WELLNESS

Liberty International CBD // CBD FOR PAIN MANAGEMENT

Myofu An Bujutsu Dojo //

MARTIAL ARTS INSTRUCTION

Nine Point Strategies // INSURANCE OxyGreen, Inc. // NATURAL INSECTICIDE

“The Supreme Court’s decision not to hear the case lets stand a MassachuOther times it’s just news about the latest recreational cannabis shops opengranted the ability for recreational sales across the state, and more coming. And ated doomsday headlines for prohibitionists focused on traffic woes, those early headaches are already subsiding and will more and more as access and options for patronage in the legal recreational cannabis game increases through the year.

For now though, with a sex and relationship themed issue before you, grab your favorite flower or concentrate or edible or vape or sex lube or edible underwear dipped in THC oil (particularly if you have no experience in any of it and are curious about including weed when getting hot and heavy),

Positive Dif Holistics // HOLISTIC HEALTH SERVICE

and check out this month’s issue with casual whimsy. Or whatever kind of

PotGuide //

whimsy you engage with all the sexy intel on the local and national front

TRAVEL & TOURISM

Pro Garden Solutions // HARVEST CONSULTING Revolutionary Clinics // MEDICAL DISPENSARY

where cannabis and city life intersects today.

Yes, that whimsy can mean self-pleasure. Especially in February.

Sira Naturals // CANNABIS PRODUCT INNOVATION Sprout //

CRM & MARKETING

Stalk & Beans // DELIVERY Tess Woods Public Relations // PUBLIC RELATIONS Vicente Sederberg, LLC // LEGAL SERVICES

Dan McCarthy

M ANAG I NG E D I TO R SENSI BOSTON

sensimag.com FEBRUARY 2019 11

A Porsche Racecar After Your Own Heart Hemp + Super-Performance Street-Illegal Porsche = This Sexy Beast

bile and thought, “Some day”?

hemp-enhanced Porsche is gorgeous, ridiculously unnecessary (but when has owning a super race car been

Have you ever looked at a high-performance race

anything else, really?), and totally awesome even if it’s

car made by Porsche, maybe something with monster

just a pipe dream. If it’s not so much pipe dream and a

wheels, an 80-liter fuel cell, handheld fire extinguishers,

doable reality with some details, observe the following:

rescue roof hatch, jet cockpit six-point harness able to

“The power of the engine has increased considerably”

withstand the hard breaking of the 380mm discs, and

in the new hemp built Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 Club-

said, “I can actually buy that”?

sport, Fritz Enzinger, Porsche’s head of motorsport, told

Finally, have you ever been through both of those options? Have you thought, “You know, if Porsche would just

car-enthusiast blog VWVortex, and he says this guy has “more racing genes than its successful predecessor.”

get off its ass and create the 718 Cayman GT4 with panels

Swell. If you got the cash, the want to fuse your love

made of natural fiber composites comprised of hemp and/

for high-performance supercars with your love of hemp

or flax—making the material weaker than carbon fiber but

and what it’s doing for the planet—and don’t mind a car

in the end creating a super insane racecar that will bring

that isn’t even road legal—then hey, they begin shipping

Paul Walker back from the Fast and the Furious beyond?

in February.

Well, that car would be so badass—made from the glorious gift to the world that multi-use hemp should be, is slowly becoming, or in some cases now is the best choice for a climate-change wary car culture, as much as a thing exists”?

Then damn, just sit back and check out the combination of all three of those things. Because this new 12 FEBRUARY 2019 Boston

–Dan McCarthy

PHOTOS COURTESY OF PORSCHE AG

Have you ever looked at a high-performance automo-

Bakin’ Buckets

A field test of some glorious new German quartz gear via the coldstart dab revolution* underway.

Cold-start dabs, known to some as reverse dabbing, has taken the world of extracts by storm.

This has created another avenue for concentrate and glass enthusiasts to create products that tailor to this dabbing technique.

The one-man show OG Quartz has designed the first cold-start nail made specifically for reversing the heating process for optimal vaporization and flavor. OG Quartz buckets are made from Heraeus German quartz, some of the finest on the market, and they are leading new age quartz science and technology.

OG Quartz’s cold-start banger contains a flat top and round bottom instead of the normal flat bottom shapes we are used to, and the longer nail neck keeps your oil from running down the stem. Thanks to the rounded bottom thicker than the side walls, the concentrate being consumed forms a pool at the surface of the quartz dish and prevents the oil spreading too much across the surface area of the nail.

The overall thickness of the quartz retains heat immensely well, which is ideal as most connoisseurs will freely admit, and at mid-point in the dabbing process the carb cap really does the work for you.

The look is a draw, and its nozzle reminds me of a hummingbird’s nose, with the shape and way it dips down into the quartz bottom to suck out the vapor like a straw. By rotating and spinning the cap, you direct the oil, and the cap causes restriction, therefore trapping the vapor in a sort of cyclone.

I would say that the rounded bottom can be a little more difficult to treat with the post-burn Q-Tip clean regiment (respect your etiquette, people), but I’ve found using a couple extra ones each time assures cleanliness and a functioning setup. Optimal heating time for my flavor preference has been about six seconds, but that of course will vary depending on user and flavor preservation of the terpenes of your chosen concentrate.

It’s safe to say cold start dabs have officially caught on in the cannabis community, and if this is the quality of gear we can expect, it’s a whole new world indeed.

–Robert “Bobby Nuggz” DiVincenzo Follow @ogquartz on Instagram for orders and imaging. * We love dabs at Sensi. With all the hype around local cannabis activist, writer, and dab afficiando BOBBY NUGGZ’s video tutorial filmed at the 2018 Boston Freedom Rally, where he demonstrated a perfect cold-start dab method, we asked him to tell us what gear to know about and what to know about said gear.

Healing Tree Edibles strives to use organic ingredients whenever possible. We make both THC and CBD edibles and all ingredients are non-GMO, with gluten-free and sugar-free items also available.

Edibles with CBD available for your furry friends too!

healingtreeedibles.com sensimag.com FEBRUARY 2019 13

PARANOID?

Insurance For Your Cannabis Business Made Easy!

What A ‘Loon

Route 1’s grand mama of yesteryear Tiki glory, Polynesian flavors, and stand-up comedy is mobile, people Maybe you’d already caught wind of it because you’re ahead of the curve and/or you have a thing for pu-pu platters that come to you.

Maybe it was something whispered to you by a loved one who had read a social media post about it while you savored kitschy glory and Polynesian flair flanked by legendary comedy acts swinging through the Route 1 staple of eggroll dining.

Or maybe you just got that little sensation that makes Spider Man’s hair stand on end when something good or bad is about to happen, and it may or may not involve sweet and sour chicken, delicious meatstuffs wedged onto sticks, and the other classics of a true legend of Greater Boston.

Either way, had you not heard that Kowloon of Saugus has not only launched a mobile food kitchen for private parties (two words: Super Bowl) but also has plans for a real deal on-the-street food truck, consider this your giant duck sauce and teriyaki-dipped alert to both matters. Kowloon of Saugus is calling for fans to tell them where to go and with what tasty delights. You may now do with this information whatever you feel you must.

Particularly if what you must do is now eat your weight in Kowloon. –DM

Visit us online at NINEPOINTSTRATEGIES.com

Call us today at

(603) 548-9217

14 FEBRUARY 2019 Boston

For party reservation or schedule and locations, follow @Kowloonmobile on IG and Twitter.

PHOTOS BY STANLEY R. WONG

INSURANCE HR SAFETY BENEFITS

sensimag.com FEBRUARY 2019 15

PROTO SYNTHESIS News has happened. Things are in motion. It’s a lot to process.

Let’s Cliff’s Notes the month.

It’s hard to think that somewhere out there, you, gentle

Anyway, now that we’re into February, it’s worth taking a

reader, are at a loss about the latest news in the local can-

minute to cast a wayward eye to the recent past as its waves

nabis world. But we get it. The holidays. The New Year. Mon-

break upon the present. Because between the final days

days. We get lost in the shuffle, especially when the shuffle

of December and us now headway into the Year of the Pig,

won’t stop shuffling all around us.

there’s plenty to brush up on. Observe the following chapters…

Which is why the news, at the time this issue went to press,

The idea that actions taken by consenting adults in the

that State Senator Jason Lewis (D) is planning to introduce

privacy of their own home, engaging in acts of pleasure and

legislation (tentatively dubbed “Bernadette’s Bill”) that would

relief surrounded by things that spark joy in their own and

completely prevent any employer terminating an employee

others’ lives, can be penalized by their place of employment

for private home cannabis use is a major move in a major pos-

seems, at its core, a downright un-American conceit.

itive (if uncertain) direction. It’s also nice to see Lewis, who op-

Bernadette Coughlin felt that sense of betrayal of person-

posed decriminalization in 2008, medical legalization in 2012,

al freedom and liberties firsthand. After falling at work and

and recreational in 2016, educate himself to the point of hav-

breaking her wrist at the food service firm Sodexo, Berna-

ing said his position going back to 2008 was a “mistake” and

dette vaporized cannabis at night at home. Colleagues came

is now rectifying matters in small ways such as this. Small, but significant.

to her defense, insisting she had

I personally know at least

never been impaired at work, but Sodexo fired her before the holidays based on a positive drug test,

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey

one career employee of a corporate retail pharmacy chain

regardless of context, or heart, for

who is counting down the

that matter. (She’s now in a legal

days until this kind of mea-

case fighting the matter, claiming

sures are in effect. It would

the company was trying to eek out

loosen the grip of fear that

of paying workers’ compensation,

a random drug test might

as per the Boston Globe).

come his way and reveal the

16 FEBRUARY 2019 Boston

PHOTOS (LEFT TO RIGHT) BY ANDREW HARNIK / AP AND JESSE COSTA / WUBR NEWS

Workers’ Rights

minimal cannabis use that provides relief from stress-related physical pain and anxiety to damning eyes so he can watch his livelihood along with his career go up in flames. Pretty shit position to be in.

As to the measure being passed, there’s still work to be done, but Lewis told the Globe: “Things are changing very quickly. I think views among the business community are evolving, too, and I think most employers and workers would see this [bill] as fair.” The news even received some commentary on the Globe’s website, with two faculty members in the department of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School writing: “Impairment in the workplace is a serious matter and ought to be rooted out and addressed. But referring people for treatment or firing them merely for a positive marijuana test is truly reefer madness.”

Probably a good one to keep an eye on in the encroaching months, as more and more shops open and access improves and procurement options widen for both patients and recreational users alike.

A Cannabis Control Commission Meeting

DRE Day(S) Just after the New Year, BOSTON.COM ran a story on the 2019 plans for members of the Cannabis Control Commission (CCC). A notable one was CCC public safety appointee Britte McBride’s entry, stating she was focused on working with “industry and government officials to prevent marijuana-impaired driving.”

If anyone’s plans are going to come to light, it will be McBride’s. Because back in December, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey followed up on the state’s marijuana law by forming a special OUI commission and chose attorney and law enforcement for-profit instructor John Scheft as a member. Scheft is known to some in the local cannabis community as a vocal opponent of legalization in the Bay State; back in 2016 he filed a lawsuit opposing Question 4 on grounds that citizens didn’t realize what dosed edibles were, that “nature’s pot” should max out at 2.5 percent THC, that “cannabis crack” would find its way into children’s willing paws should the ballot measure pass, and other prohibitionist rot.

Scheft and the other seven members voted for a measure where anyone refusing a drug test under suspicion of impairment due to cannabis–be it a biological one via sensimag.com FEBRUARY 2019 17

saliva, hair, or urine, or by that of a Drug Recognition Evaluator (DRE), an “expert” ostensibly trained to assess possible cannabis impairment in addition to classic field sobriety tests (think: Romberg balance, walk and turn, finger to nose)–would automatically result in the loss of driver’s license for a TBD amount of time.

All acting commission members of the Cannabis Control Commission agreed that biological tests for assessing impairment while driving are imperfect because they demonstrate–at best–past drug use, not current impairment. Which doesn’t even get down to the real matter, like the difference between daily users’ and infrequent recreational users’ tolerance levels, reasons for use, experience, and body type, let alone there is no federally set standard or agreed upon state limit on THC in one’s system to prevent impairment. It’s a mess.

But it was only Matt Allen (@ACLU_MASS), field director of the Massachusetts ACLU and special OUI commission member, who spoke up during a late December meeting in opposition to general consensus within the commission. While members cast votes in support of the early language, Allen was the one to point out (rightly) that 12-step tests have never been scientifically valid proof of impairment.

MassLive reported Allen said the ACLU would rather “see a new study done to confirm that the drug recognition expert tests are scientifically valid before these tests are used to suspend someone’s license or provide evidence against them in court.”

By the time the OUI Commission amended its recommendations, stating implied consent for drug testing only applies to blood/saliva tests, or the physical/ non-testimonial/non-questioning part of DRE), CCC Commissioner Shaleen Title commented on the impactful role having one alternate voice going against the grain, especially in a room filled with neo-prohibitionists, can do to the ongoing law and industry creationism saturating the burgeoning Massachusetts cannabis landscape. From her Twitter thread on the matter:

Fit your lifestyle grow system for up to 6 medicinal plants and up to 10oz. yield “It’s striking to me how much of a difference it

Get $250 OFF use code SENSI at checkout

made to have Matt there. Despite being the lone dissenting vote multiple times, the conversation and result would have been completely different if he wasn’t there. He totally put the goalposts where they needed to be.”

Fully automated nutrient dosing, odor control, climate control, LED lighting, air filter, watering

Since the January 1 deadline when the OUI commission was mandated to sub-

GroBox @cloudponics

1-888-534-7066 cloudponics

18 FEBRUARY 2019 Boston

www.cloudponics.com

mit recommendations on the measure to the Legislature, the CCC has posted the doorstopper 500-page report. Call it a bit of weekend reading.

If you’re into that sort of thing.

sensimag.com FEBRUARY 2019 19

{lifestyle }

by DA N M C C A R T H Y

20 FEBRUARY 2019 Boston

IN DEFENSE OF

EXCESSIVE TOWELING I like using fresh, dry towels, and I don’t care.

February. A month typically signified by romance, love,

be around...I like having a big dry towel to use. A fresh one.

passion, and blissful relationships in a person’s life (or the

Maybe two. It’s not that absurd, nor is it me discarding lump

lack thereof...a good or bad thing, depending on your subject).

after lump of cloth and gobbling up all the available towels

With that in mind, I’d like to turn the floor over to myself. And

and whose shirt this is I don’t care, I need it, give me all the

I’d like to talk about towels.

dry things kind of thing.

I figure this is an issue many people confront, if not in form,

I can’t recall the last time I stared into the empty soul of our

then at least in thought during the average commonalities

hampers, careful not to disrupt the separation of whites and

all people adhering to certain rites of cohabitation with a sig-

colors (cross pollination before a load with, say, a rogue red

nificant other inevitably face. Especially when you happen to

sock—again—would be the end of my life) and didn’t heave

bathe frequently (and aren’t big on the air-dry phenomenon).

a once-gleaming white billowy cloud of wetness-killer into

My girlfriend and I have rattled sabers on the matter, and no

the basket for laundry attention in place of a still gleaming

manner of discussion, logical debate, impassioned pleas, nor

fresh one. On record, there have been gloomy Wednesdays

sexy-voice talk will sway her to my point.

where a third shower pelt was lifted with a defeated man’s

When I get out of a shower or a bath (okay a shower) or

arm, so worn from these days of Big Weird and rotten news,

emerge from the ocean or a lake or fresh from a Wet Wil-

only to feel the sound and the fury within me once again sim-

lie vintage sprinkler setup calling my name from a neigh-

ply by the quasi-bourgeois act of draping no more than three

boring yard when I’m out and about and nobody seems to

of various thread count over my chest like a state dignitary sensimag.com FEBRUARY 2019 21

of antiquity readying a speech that’s sure to end in chanting and lions roaring. It’s a small pleasure before it all. Anything...the chores...that deadline...moving apartments in the last week of the year after a funeral and holiday craziness and why the hell did we pick this week again...the average day. Life as it is.

This isn’t to say I’m insensitive to environmental conservatism. I get it. Use and reuse. And I do. In bachelor times I let a towel reach the point where it was awake before I was and making flapjacks and coffee before I had even wiped the morning dust from my eye. It was less from the conservationist appeal and more because many young bachelors often only have one towel available for use at a time. Especially single men. Especially especially single straight men. Please do not act like you do not know what I’m talking about.

In Mark Twain’s hilarious Letters from the Earth, he writes a diary of an alien writing home (to ma and pa as well as the government), and through this lens the whole lot of humanity looks strange and beautiful and utterly ridiculous and often violent. Had the topic of towels been something of a concern to the guts of his story, I’d imagine it would involve tales of “the feel of some cut stretch of milled cotton and plant-stuffs, made soft and big, and marked with the names of powerful natives who control many like Ralph Lauren and Target and Mickey Mouse. They call them towels, and they use them every time. Some of them only have one. The males, I’ve found.”

It’s a small joy and one of many things human civilization has worked on and struggled with and made better and worse and then worse still—like creating tools and celebrating the Kardashians—marking us as a step above the other mammals and creatures of the world. Even hippos. Hippos look like they

22 FEBRUARY 2019 Boston

could use a towel, and probably would like them, but they decidedly do not use towels. Their choice. Ours as smart humans was to ply cotton and sewing material and branding patterns into one big (or sometimes nonsensically big) body napkin. Sometimes they’re even made into full body napkins with pockets and a belt, and when you wear it out of the house, people call the authorities.

But that sensation of wet skin pulling a dry towel over one’s self both for the utility (getting dryer faster to ensure one isn’t arriving to work naked, again) and the pure pleasure of it brings daily momentary feelings of relief in what feel like increasingly doomed times.

I feel no remorse in my ways. I will continue at a moment’s notice or when the spirit hits me, while my phone channels some thunderous soundtrack to life from various streaming services, to grab my daily towel still damp from a late-evening shower the night before or a “shit, I left that on the bed all day didn’t I?” realization and send it down to its temporary hoosegow along with the other laundry. Two fresh ones off the shelf, middle column. All white, and the extra-large please. Yes, this will do. I am Caesar. Ahab, commanding The Pequod. I am The Lord of this Manor. Fuck... and I’m late for a meeting.

Better grab a third just in case.

But the sensation of pulling

More

a dry towel over one’s self both for the utility and pure pleasure of it brings

HUMBLE HEALINGS 90 Washington St. Haverhill, MA

daily momentary feelings of relief in what feel like increasingly doomed times.

Owner Sandy Kattar & Son, Calvin Kattar sensimag.com FEBRUARY 2019 23

When you look great you feel great.

KRISTEN SALON Come visit us at 21 Vinal Square North Chelmsford, MA. Call or book appointments on line.

KristenSalon.com • 978-251-7767 'S ON T S Y BO ONL HOP S W O GR

Boston Gardener is Bostons first and only full service indoor and outdoor garden center. We have everything the cannabis grower needs, including seeds!

(617)606-7065

2131 Washington Street Boston 02119 www.boston-gardener.com 24 FEBRUARY 2019 Boston

sensimag.com FEBRUARY 2019 25

26 FEBRUARY 2019 Boston

In the first decade of the 20th century, WHEN PSYCHOANALYSIS WAS

BRISTLING WITH LIFE AND BIRTHING GREAT THINKERS OF THE AGE, A BRILLIANT FRIENDSHIP STRUCK UP WITH TWO CONTEMPORARIES FOND OF EXPLORING THE HUMAN PSYCHE AND ALL THE ROT FOUND WITHIN: CARL JUNG AND SIGMUND FREUD. It’s a famed friendship and was a true-blue bromance

sexual potential. Working towards our sexual potential,

while it lasted. The two once travelled to the United

with our partners, is part of developing a higher capacity

States to lecture on psychoanalysis at Clark University,

for intimacy, passion, and deep connection.”

and during the long boat ride, they regularly analyzed each other’s intimate dreams (naturally).

Depending on what social media feeds you’re attuned to, it’s not hard these days to get at least one story

Freud, savant of “it’s all sex, baby” thinking, was re-

fanned your way in a month about something to do with

portedly seeking an acolyte of his theories who would

weed and sex. Particularly if you’re looking for it, at it,

accept his views sans argument; a perennial father

or engaging with either on any platform in the modern,

figure to whomever resided under his authority. That

phone-slave epoch we are living in.

wasn’t Jung’s cup, and soon a chasm grew between the

Sure, a lot of it can be a bunch of fluffy prose or some-

two men. Among other deviations from accepted theory

times blatantly obvious diatribes on how consuming 200

on the human condition, Jung didn’t believe it was all

milligrams of a cannabis edible, in fact, doesn’t do much

about sex. Freud, in Jung’s eyes, had stretched his the-

for one’s ability to pleasure another (doesn’t help when

ory that all psychic life from birth to maturity is driven

you fall asleep in your romantic couple’s dinner, either).

by sex drive too far to explain and account for too much.

But the fact remains that with very little searching, it’s

For Jung, the prince of the psychoanalytic community

becoming easier to locate the mavens, mavericks, and

by 1909, it was about looking at the wider picture of the

manufactured goods, experiences, and bold claims or-

human mind, beyond his old pal’s thoughts on sexuality,

biting the star Stoned Sex. A good example of that is the

and he aimed to redefine psychoanalysis along the way.

sex coach, relationship educator, and proud “cannasex-

Whether he did or not is of no concern here, because

ual” (those concerned with mindfully combining weed

if you’re reading this, your brain, loins, and thoughts

and sex for desired positive results) Ashley Manta.

are likely oiled up and fully engorged. Because we’re

Speaking to the men’s culture digital publication MEL

here to talk about sex, cannabis, and how the two are

Magazine in 2017, Manta made it clear she’s not a blanket

coming together today. Cannabis is often championed as the cure to all bedroom ailments, while at the same time often being misunderstood or simply (if cautiously) being introduced as an acceptable commonplace component to one’s love tacklebox, much like a bottle of wine and 1970s R+B is for some or a Tinder match on a Tuesday night and fistful of Viagra is for others.

Seth Prosterman, a San Fransisco-based certified sex

Speaking of viagra, if you’re wondering: Yes, weed viagra does exist. It’s called CannaMojo (CANNAMOJO710.COM ), and it claims to do just what you’d want an weed-fueled erection pill to do. Have we used it? No. Do we want to hear if you have? Of course.

therapist, told Vice in 2017 that weed isn’t a one-way ticket to pleasure town, but it can help you get there.

“While pot can help bring out our most sexy selves, disinhibit us, or relax us during sex, I would highly recom-

proselytizer out to turn every client into a cannabis-for-

mend that people learn to be in the moment and deeply feel

ward sex enthusiast. “I’m not out to convert people,” she

and connect with their partners without using enhancing

said. “If people are happy not having cannabis in their

drugs,” Prosterman said. “Pot can give us a glimpse of our

sex lives, I’m not going to tell them they’re wrong for not sensimag.com FEBRUARY 2019 27

wanting to consider including it. My approach is more

na from three installments of the large, ongoing Nation-

like, if you already consume cannabis or you’re open to

al Survey of Family Growth—data from 2002, 2006-2010,

the idea of it, here are the best practices for mixing it

and 2011-2015. Their total data set included 28,176 wom-

with sex. The idea of being cannasexual isn’t limited to

en and 22,943 men, average age 30, who formed a reason-

one specific sex act either, or even just partnered sex.

ably representative sample of the U.S. population. Com-

I speak of it in terms of one’s overall relationship with

pared with cannabis abstainers, men who used it weekly

their body, sexuality, and self-care.” If you want to see

reported 22 percent more sex, women 34 percent more.

her theory in action, her Instagram (@ASHLEYMANTA ) is

Among those who used marijuana more than weekly,

rife with content to back it up.

sexual frequency increased even more. This study did

Additionally, Manta is known for her cannabinoid-enhanced “play parties,” which if you’re imagining a swinging group of couples gathering under the banner of self-exploration, relationship tonic, or just consenting group sex-fests with weed lube, that sounds about right.

On her website, she posted feedback from a satisfied customer, presumably still reeling in coital bliss given the tenor

Oh, and now speaking of weed lube, there are loads of companies out there doing versions of it. Here in the Bay State, KindLab (KINDLABCO.COM ) out of Marblehead manufactures a range of cannabis-infused tinctures and even THC-dosed edible body butter sex cream.

of what could be called one hell of a Yelp review: “Throughout the evening I had the opportunity to witness my friend in an element that was so clearly her own. Over the course of the

not ask if participants found cannabis sex-enhancing,

night I watched from my spot at the vape bar as Ashley shift-

but to an extent, that can be inferred.”

ed seamlessly from teacher, to participant, to confidant, to

No study exists to confirm that cannabis can totally

chaperone. She was a listener, a cheerleader, a connoisseur,

impair sexual function the way alcohol can, but that

a lover, and a comfort. Even when the beautiful debauchery

doesn’t mean all green is all go when combining weed

had built in momentum, it was kept from a state of complete

and sex. All too familiar with this is Dr. Jordan Tishler,

entropy by her drifting gentle presence as she made her way

founder of the Cambridge-based Inhale MD, which spe-

around the crowd. Nobody and no body was neglected by

cializes in cannabis therapeutics, including the inter-

her. She guided the under informed on the mindful marriage

section of cannabis and human sexuality.

of cannabis and sex. She allowed the calming rituals of med-

A Harvard Medical School graduate and practicing

icating with cannabis to bring those who indulged in it to

emergency physician, Tishler says people read things

that place of body-peace which only the right combination

on the internet or dive into discussions about different

of carefully selected strains can induce.”

strains and cannabis topicals (see: weed lube) or cook-

It’s clear someone got plenty of bang for their buck (sor-

ing romantic-dosed dinners for loved ones, and that’s

ry), and that’s great. But there’s often a lot of anecdotal

fine. “Those things certainly play a factor,” he says, “but

crisscrossing and conflicting messages about that last

generally it’s not my recommended approach regarding

part, the use of specific strains as particular keys for un-

cannabis altering sexuality.”

locking sexytime happiness in a universal sense.

It comes down to a lack of a standard of research and un-

Alcohol, on the other hand, has no shortage of both

derstanding. If you were to ask 20 casual (or, nay, nu-expert)

anecdote and hard facts about the good, bad, and ugly

CBD preachers about its positive effect during sex, you’ll

regarding drunk sex. Depending on body factors, two or

get 20 answers. To those who claim it’s the golden ticket

more alcoholic beverages will depress the central nervous

to humping happiness, Tishler says keep it in your pants.

system. You know where that goes when bad–limp noo-

“CBD for sexuality is a non-starter,” he says. “It doesn’t

dles for men, reduced clitoral sensitivity in women, and

provoke libido…it may help with anxiety or pain if that’s

often both people don’t have the prefect romp in the rick-

an issue, but what we’re really looking at in treatment

shaw. (It’s also not all bad, either, but facts are facts).

of sexual dysfunction, or enhancement with cannabis is

There are plenty of positive studies coming out about

how it’s used to create healthier relationships.”

general findings on cannabis and sex interacting. In Au-

Which isn’t to say the new canna-sex experts popping

gust 2018, Psychology Today ran a column discussing

up, creating new businesses and products or hawking

recent academic work exploring the topic:

themselves as self-described anything-experts is neces-

“Stanford researchers conducted the largest study to

sarily a bad thing in these early days of legal weed. That

date. They extracted information about sex and marijua-

there are people doing this, and finding an audience, sug-

28 FEBRUARY 2019 Boston

gests bringing such topics and experimentation to light is meaningful to people.

And that is worth its weight in dildos. (Tishler was once asked to advise for a company trying to invent a dildo that squirted out weed lube during use.)

“I could make jokes, but I believe it’s actually a good thing,” he says. “That we are comfortable even mentioning sex with cannabis is part of the breakdown of generational stigma.”

Unlike Manta,Tishler thinks strain specifics regarding bedroom activities isn’t really an issue. Additionally, sexual lubricants, toys, and so on are fun, but its about body type, effect, and all interested parties being in synch with each other. Or, if on a solo mission, in synch with one’s self.

It’s about how cannabis introduced into sexual settings or relationships is a means to stimulate the big sexy organ everyone has on their shoulders, and that, of course, is where the Infinity Stone of getting it on rests for everyone.

“Cannabis can help facilitate situations and discussions and different levels of honesty and intimacy in relationships that need it,” he says.

“But what we know about humans is that over 90 percent of what’s going on [to enhance/improve] sex is going on between your ears.”

Don’t let that stop your next pre- and post-sex joint, though.

“The idea of being cannasexual isn’t limited to one specific sex act, or even just partnered sex. I speak of it in terms of one’s overall relationship with their body.”

—Ashley Manta

sensimag.com FEBRUARY 2019 29

rganic, handcrafte d herbal tea blends 100% O

Loose-leaf teas for an organic lifestyle

Three unique blends for nourishment, revitalization, and grounding straight from Mother Earth to you! coastalrootsapothecary.com •

30 FEBRUARY 2019 Boston

coastalrootsapothecary

Enjoythe Journey

American Made!!

High End Functional Glass Art NEW Production Line Wholesale • Retail Custom Work Available Venture-Glass.com • @venture-glass ventureglass.sales@gmail.com

301 Newbury Street Boston • (617)421-9944 /// 36 JFK Street Cambridge • (617)868-HEMP 2 Conz Street Northampton • 413-585-9707 /// Hempest.com

Largest selection of Hemp Gear and CBD oil in the World Receive 20% off entire purchase by mentioning this ad sensimag.com FEBRUARY 2019 31

SPEC IAL REPORT

A CANNABIS PLANT BY ANY OTHER NAME

32 FEBRUARY 2019 Boston

Industrial hemp and psychoactive “marijuana” are the same plant, Cannabis sativa, bred and cultivated in very different ways. So, if hemp is now legal, shouldn’t “marijuana” be, too?

by R O BY N G R I G G S L AW R E N C E

Perhaps the most remarkable thing ABOUT THE US CONGRESS LEGALIZING HEMP LATE LAST YEAR WAS HOW UNREMARKABLE IT WAS. LEGALIZATION OF HEMP AND ITS NON-PSYCHOACTIVE CANNABINOID CBD SAILED THROUGH THE HOUSE AND SENATE WITH RARE BIPARTISAN SUPPORT AS PART OF THE 2018 FARM BILL, WHICH PRESIDENT TRUMP SIGNED INTO LAW WHILE COMPLAINING ABOUT THE BORDER WALL. (TRUMP TURNED DOWN SENATE MAJORITY LEADER MITCH MCCONNELL’S OFFER TO LOAN HIM HIS HEMP PEN FOR THE OCCASION.) For hemp farmers and entrepreneurs in the Unit-

hemp foods and demand for CBD surged, more and more

ed States, it was a watershed moment. Already, 77,000

states established hemp programs, and production

acres of hemp are being cultivated under state protec-

soared in the United States.

tions (half of them in Colorado, which legalized hemp

For all that, the Farm Bill opened up a tangled and con-

in 2014), and 750 hemp-derived foods and supplements

fusing conversation when it put the US Agriculture De-

have flooded the $2 billion CBD market. Now, this na-

partment in charge of industrial hemp, which it defined

scent industry can operate under the full protection of

as cannabis with less than 0.3 percent THC; removed the

federal law, with access to critical infrastructure such

non-psychoactive cannabinoid CBD from inclusion in

as insurance, banking, and tax write-offs it had been de-

the Controlled Substances Act; and continued the Food

nied under prohibition.

and Drug Administration’s oversight of products con-

“It’s time to figure it out and see where this market will

taining cannabis and cannabis-derived compounds.

take us,” McConnell, a Republican who hopes hemp will

Hemp cultivation had been illegal largely because au-

replace tobacco as a revenue source in his home state of

thorities in the United States couldn’t tell it apart from

Kentucky, told CNBC. “I think it’s an important new devel-

psychoactive “marijuana.” Before the bill passed, all

opment in American agriculture. There’s plenty of hemp

cannabis plants—even those that could not get anybody

around; it’s just coming from other countries. Why in the

high—had effectively been outlawed by the 1937 Marijua-

world would we want a lot of it to not come from here?”

na Tax Act, which was rammed through the House Ways

In 1999, the United States began allowing imports of

and Means Committee before members understood

hemp products with less than 0.3 percent of the psycho-

what they were doing. Most had not been informed that

active cannabinoid THC, and in the 2010s it began al-

marijuana, the scary “new” drug they’d been fed so much

lowing limited domestic cultivation of industrial hemp,

propaganda about, was in fact hemp, which people all

which was used to make everything from food and body

over the world had used as food and fiber for centuries.

care products to insulation. As consumers embraced

“That knowledge,” Robert Deitch wrote in Hemp: Amersensimag.com FEBRUARY 2019 33

ican History Revisited, “would have killed the Marijuana Tax Act dead in its tracks.”

THE WORLD’S MOST MISUNDERSTOOD VEGETABLE “Surely no member of the vegetable kingdom has ever been more misunderstood than hemp,” David P. West wrote in a special report for the North American Industrial Hemp Council in 1998. “And nowhere have emotions run hotter than the debate over the distinction between industrial hemp and marijuana.”

Though they serve vastly different functions, don’t look alike, and are often referred to as “cousins,” industrial hemp and psychoactive “marijuana” are actually the same plant, Cannabis sativa, bred and cultivated in very different ways. For centuries, cannabis farmers have understood that when cannabis plants grow close together, they get less sunlight and produce longer fiber-producing stems and no psychoactive resin. To produce plants full of sticky flowers, farmers sow seeds farther apart to give each plant more sunlight and force them to secrete more resin to protect themselves from drying out.

When distinguishing between the two types of cannabis plants became important as stricter drug laws were enacted worldwide in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Canadian researcher Ernest Small somewhat randomly tossed out a formula—hemp has less than 0.3 percent THC—that, for no real reason other than his authority as a renowned ethnobotanist became the internationally accepted standard written into most legislation outlawing marijuana.

Small was merely continuing a taxonomical conversation that dates back to Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus, who in 1753 introduced Cannabis sativa, a resilient, prolific plant species he named after the Greek word kannabis, meaning “hemp,” and sativa, meaning “cultivated.” When Linnaeus recorded the plant, he documented one species with five variants, launching a debate that rages to this day.

Thirty years after Linnaeus recorded C. sativa, French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck introduced what he described as a second “very distinct” species, C. indica, based on plant samples from India. Unlike the tall, lanky

C. sativa (hemp) common in Europe, Lamarck described C. indica as smaller and more densely branched, with consistently alternating leaves and a woodier stem that made the plant unsuitable for making fiber. Lamarck believed there were two separate species of cannabis,

Chanvre cultive (“cultivated hemp”) and Chanvre des Indes (“Indian cannabis”), which he believed was valued more for its psychoactive effects than its fiber.

34 FEBRUARY 2019 Boston

A Nutritional Powerhouse Through the Ages Traditionally eaten as a staple food by people in the lower classes, nutritious hemp seeds carried Chinese peasants through times of famine and were the foundation for a gritty peanut butter-type preparation that carried Europeans through long winters. Every Russian and Polish household kept a store of hemp seeds and hemp seed oil in the pantry. Russians commonly bruised and roasted the seeds, mixed them with salt, and spread them onto slabs of crusty bread. When major famines under the Soviets made beef and pork nearly impossible to come by, people survived on hemp seed oil as a major source of edible protein. In Poland, stewed hemp seed porridge was subsistence food in monasteries, military barracks, and among poor people.

The soft, white kernels inside cannabis seeds’ hard shells produce high-protein oil high in essential fatty acids (EFAs), phosphorous, potassium, magnesium, sulfur, calcium, iron, zinc, carotene (a precursor to vitamin A), tocopherols (major antioxidants that include the vitamin E group), 30 thiamin (vitamin B1), riboflavin (vitamin B2), vitamin B6, chlorophyll, sulfur, phosphorus, phosphosolipids, and phytosterols.

Cannabis is the only current natural food source of gamma-linolenic acid (GLA), which affects vital metabolic roles ranging from control of inflammation and vascular tone to hormone balancing.

Cannabis seeds have extremely low THC content and taste creamy and nutty, without the bitterness of the plant material. They can be shelled and eaten like sunflower seeds or ground into a powder for snacking and cooking.

They’re high in roughage and easily digestible edestin protein, which is likely why they became a staple for healing digestive issues in Traditional Chinese Medicine and other healing modalities.

The seeds’ ideal 1:3 ratio of omega-3 and omega-6 EFAs provides more of these compounds—which are called “essential” because they must come from a source outside the body—than fish.

Cannabis seeds are high in linoleic acid and alpha-linolenic acid, which are difficult to come by in Western diets and act as raw materials for cell structure and as biosynthesis precursors for many of the body’s regulatory biochemicals.

“The principal effect of this plant consists of going to the head, disrupting the brain, where it produces a sort of drunkenness that makes one forget one’s sorrows, and produces a strong gaiety,” Lamarck wrote, making him the first to suggest a distinction between two separate cannabis species based on C. indica’s psychoactive effects.

In a Cannabinoids 2014 article, Jacob L. Erkelens and Arno Hazenkamp explained that Lamarck’s purpose in classifying C. indica as a separate species was to provide a more generally acceptable description of cannabis. “Unfortunately, the long-term effects of his publication would turn out to do the exact opposite,” they wrote, “and well over two hundred years later we are still left in confusion.”

ONE SPECIES OR TWO? In 1893, the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission conducted one of the most thoroughly investigated, comprehensive studies of cannabis use and culture ever, and commissioners spent considerable time and energy investigating the long-burning question of whether the narcotic-yielding plant (later known as “marijuana”) was identical to the non-narcotic fiber-yielding plant (later known as “hemp’). They surmised, quite presciently, that inquiring into the longstanding argument about wheth-

Build your customer base and reach more women through Ellementa.

• Monthly local events • Emails and online forums • Surveys and consumer insights

Get in touch: sales@ellementa.com | ellementa.com Get in touch sales@ellementa.com / 303.918.8404 /| 303.918.8404 ellementa.com sensimag.com FEBRUARY 2019 35

er C. indica and C. sativa were one species or two would

ernment has bestowed its blessings upon C. sativa and

be important in the future because of the possibility that

suggest that the plant is legal, regardless of how it grows

“the restriction of the production of the narcotic by lim-

and what it’s grown for? I’m pretty sure we could find a

iting the cultivation may affect a product and an indus-

few botanists who would stand behind that.

try which are above suspicion.”

The commission based its findings on studies by botanical researcher Dr. J.M. Watt, who concluded, “With

Cannabis indica differing in so marked a degree according to the climate, soil, and mode of cultivation, it was rightly concluded that its separation from the hemp plant of Europe could not be maintained.” Watt compared the hemp plant to potatoes, tobacco, and poppies, all of which “seem to have the power of growing with equal luxuriance under almost any climatic condition, changing or modifying some important function as if to adapt themselves to the altered circumstances.”

His opinions were replicated by Dr. D. Prain, who observed: “There are no botanical characters to separate the Indian plant from Cannabis sativa, and they do not differ as regard the structure of stem, leaves, flowers, or fruit. … Hemp, therefore, as a fibre-yielding plant in no way differs from hemp as a narcotic-producing one.”

Well, hello. Couldn’t we—shouldn’t we—take this debate to its next logical conclusion now that the US gov-

36 FEBRUARY 2019 Boston

It’s time to revive this debate.

ROBYN GRIGGS LAWRENCE’S new book, Pot in Pans: A History of Eating Cannabis, will be published by Rowman & Littlefield in May.

WHAT TO EXPECT AT SEED TO SALE SHOW 2019

USE CODE

SENSI15 SAVE 15%

REGISTER BY FEBRUARY 11 TO SAVE $100

Join the National Cannabis industry Association in Boston, MA this February 12-13, 2019 for our 3rd Annual Seed to Sale Show as we learn to navigate the latest emerging market in the global green rush.

Learn about the latest technologies and business solutions on the exhibit floor.

Discover the latest best practices from the biggest names in the industry.

Create meaningful connections with fellow cannabis entrepreneurs.

Learn alongside more than 3,000 cannabis executives.

REGISTER TODAY!

#SEEDTOSALESHOW WWW.SEEDTOSALESHOW.COM | 888.409.4418

sensimag.com FEBRUARY 2019 37

kljl https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fimg.theculturetrip.com%2F840x440%2Fsmart%2Ffilters%3Abackground_color(transparent)%2F%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2017%2F07%2Fflag_of_portugal-svg_-e1500563180485.png&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Ftheculturetrip.com%2Feurope%2Fportugal%2Farticles%2F8-cool-facts-about-the-portuguese-flag%2F&docid=3jv1Baf7Mdm8HM&tbnid=oEhvY7c4xPu96M%3A&vet=10ahUKEwiFi8G48qLdAhVJGt8KHYMgDzAQMwiaAigAMAA..i&w=840&h=440&client=safari&bih=1088&biw=1920&q=portuguese%20flag&ved=0ahUKEwiFi8G48qLdAhVJGt8KHYMgDzAQMwiaAigAMAA&iact=mrc&uact=8

PRO GARDEN SOLUTIONS

TRIM MACHINE SALES & RENTALS NEW ENGLAND’S FIRST AUTHORIZED CENTURION RENTER

NATIONAL BUDTENDER DISTRIBUTOR

CONTACT US FOR CONSULTATIONS 401-648-8668

PROGARDENSOLUTIONS.COM

@PROGARDENSOLUTIONS

38 FEBRUARY 2019 Boston

sensimag.com FEBRUARY 2019 39

Just Add

Water Like cake mixes and TV dinners, which revolutionized home cooking in the mid-20th century, water-soluble cannabinoids and terpenes are disrupting cannabis cuisine.

by R O BY N G R I G G S L AW R E N C E

40 FEBRUARY 2019 Boston

fat-soluble (adj)

CAPABLE OF DISSOLVING IN NONPOLAR SUBSTANCES SUCH AS ETHER, CHLOROFORM, AND OILS; FAT-SOLUBLE COMPOUNDS ARE OFTEN INSOLUBLE IN WATER

water-soluble (adj)

CAPABLE OF DISSOLVING IN WATER Well, this changes everything.

tough to homogenize throughout a recipe, so if you don’t

Cooking with cannabis was once relatively straightfor-

know what you’re doing, one bite could deliver a massive

ward, if not all that simple. To extract the plant’s fat-sol-

dose of cannabinoids while another has none at all.

uble terpenes and cannabinoids (THC and CBD, primar-

Anyone who cooks with cannabis has dreamt of a

ily), you had to slowly simmer the flowers and leaves in

workaround. We’ve all known that finding a way to dis-

something oleaginous (butter, oil, cream) or macerate

solve cannabinoids and terpenes homogenously into

them in a spirit (gin, vodka, everclear). Heat and alcohol

water and other liquids as simply as we stir in baking

gave the added benefit of converting non-psychoactive

soda or tamari would be a giant leap for cannabis chefs

THC-A into mind-altering THC, unlocking the cannabis

and eaters everywhere.

plant’s unique magic.

The demise of prohibition brings new miracles every

This technique has been the core of cannabis cookery

day. Water-soluble cannabinoids and terpenes are now a

for centuries, even though every cannabis chef knows it’s

thing, available in dispensaries and retail stores in legal

far from perfect. It doesn’t give people on raw and low-fat

states and countries. Hydrophilic THC and CBD is sold in

diets a lot of options, and lipids are one of the least efficient

various formulations of easily doseable powders and liq-

ways to deliver cannabinoids and terpenes to the blood,

uids that can be folded into any dish or beverage just as

which is about 80 percent water. When THC and CBD are

you would add water, salt, or stevia. Processed through

ingested and processed through the liver, they’re less

the intestines rather than the liver, these cannabinoids

bioavailable and take longer to come on, with potential-

deliver predictable effects in about 10 minutes.

ly more potent and unpredictable effects. Finally, fats are

We are getting what we wished for.

sensimag.com FEBRUARY 2019 41

No more time spent simmering oils, straining out messy plant matter, calculating dosage!

Freedom for the cannabis chef!

Revolutionizing Archaic Processes The ability to easily stir reliable doses of THC, CBD, and other cannabinoids and terpenes into any food or beverage shakes up the cannabis food scene as considerably as TV dinners and cake mixes revolutionized home cooking in the mid-20th century. No more time spent simmering oils, straining out messy plant matter, calculating dosage!

Freedom for the cannabis chef! A whole new world!

I’m excited about this—and selfishly, I can’t help but worry a little as a cannabis cookbook author. Will anyone ever need directions for foolproof coconut oil infusions or ask for my favorite Bubba Kush-infused bone broth recipe again?

Juan Ayala, chief technology officer for Seattle-based Tarukino, which sells water-soluble cannabis liquids and powders to the wholesale market and to consumers via drinks like Happy Apple and Utopia sparkling water, assures me they will. The former worldwide marketing director for Microsoft, whose new mission is to “revolutionize the archaic processes associated with the bio-delivery of cannabis to patients and consumers,” says people who love the cannabis plant–“the people who say even the terroir, the minerals from where and how the plant was grown, has meaningful impact”–will continue to make up a credible, if small, premium market.

Fake News Before Fake News In late summer 2016, just as the media was desperately seeking dog-days diversions from the impending election, a report about THC being found in wells in Hugo, Colorado–complete with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment encouraging residents not to drink, cook with, or bathe in the water–was almost too good to be true.

And of course, as anyone who understands even the basic chemistry of fat-soluble cannabinoids could tell you, it was. Tests found no THC in the water supply, because that would be impossible.

Christopher Hudalla, PhD, chief scientific officer of Massachusetts-based medical marijuana testing company ProVerdeLabs, told Self.com that even if massive amounts of THC did get into a well, the cannabinoids would stick to the muck on the sides rather than dispersing into the water because it isn’t water-soluble.

“You can make cannabinoids water-soluble, but it would be very, very expensive and very difficult,” said Hudalla, who went on to explain what a huge challenge this has been for the cannabis industry. “People in the industry have been working on this for years, and a few people have achieved water-soluble cannabinoids–but it requires very sophisticated technology.”

Warp speed, 2019. Cannabinoids dissolve in water, and Donald Trump is president. If we’ve learned anything over the past three years, it is this: you can’t make this stuff up.

42 FEBRUARY 2019 Boston

Tarukino (named after the Maori word for cannabis)

ty. The company is also targeting home cooks with its Pro

is reaching out to that market with strain-specific can-

20 and Pro-Mini water sold in bottles with dosing cups.

nabinoid and terpene formulations made using its Sorse

The biggest hurdle, Ayala says, is getting people to under-

emulsion technology. The Tarukino team is investing

stand how simple the product is to use.

heavily in water-soluble technology because it believes

“People are having a really hard time understanding it’s

that is the cannabis industry’s future. The company’s

just water,” he says. “You can make pancakes, soup, ramen,

scientists have worked for more than two years to break

guacamole…anything. The only dishes you can’t make are

cannabinoids and terpenes into ever-tinier particles for

ones in which you throw away the water, like spaghetti.”

maximum absorption while removing or improving their

Colorado-based Stillwater Brands ran into similar issues

bitter taste. “Our first version was kind of like the original

when it started marketing Ripple cold-water soluble powders

iPhone,” Ayala says. “It was good, it did some things, but

derived from distillate, says brand director Missy Bradley.

there’s no comparison to where the technology is today.”

The team had to explain again and again that Ripple was not

Reliable Dosing, No Hashy Taste

a sugar packet and that the powder was tasteless, odorless, calorie-free, and could be stirred into anything. Stillwater’s

Since Naturally Splendid USA claimed the first USPTO pat-

lead food scientist Keith Woelfel, who left Mars, Inc., to join the

ent for water-soluble cannabinoids, which are essential to its

startup in 2016, says his team has “spent considerable time

hemp-based Natera nutraceuticals, in 2014, several cannabis

and gone to great lengths to achieve consistency in dosing

companies have won or are seeking patents that tweak the

and clean, consistent flavor without green, hashy bitterness.”

process of emulsifying cannabinoids into nano-size particles

Los Angeles-based cannabis chef Chris Sayegh, who has

that dissolve into water and mix more easily into blood. In the

been cooking with water-soluble cannabinoid solutions

cannabis industry, water-soluble is the new black.

for several years, will soon sell bottles of water-soluble CBD

At Tarukino, Ayala says soccer moms—who can just as

solution through his company, The Herbal Chef. Sayegh

easily and discreetly sip a Utopia sparkling water as they

says the liquid is more stable, easier to dose, and “probably

would a LaCroix–represent the biggest growth opportuni-

the best way to homogenize because on a molecular level,

sensimag.com FEBRUARY 2019 43

nanoparticles work to create a nice, even net, if you will.”

All of this is why Jon Cooper, founder and CEO of Colorado-based Ebbu—which sells liquid cannabinoid formulations engineered to produce certain moods to the wholesale and consumer markets—predicts water-soluble technology will create “some fairly seismic shifts in the food and alcohol world in the next five years.” (Canopy Growth Corp., which acquired Ebbu late last year for $330 million, appears to agree.)

“[Our team has] gone to great lengths to achieve…clean, consistent flavor without green, hashy bitterness.”

—Keith Woelfel, Stillwater Brands

“Our most important message as we move forward as an says. “People will never trust products that don’t deliver consistent experiences. Big companies coming into this space will have no choice but to achieve that.”

ROBYN GRIGGS LAWRENCE is the author of the bestselling Cannabis Kitchen Cookbook and Pot in Pans: A History of Eating Cannabis, out in May.

Not So Hot Cooking with water-soluble cannabinoids and terpenes is relatively simple, but you still need to understand the plant’s science to get the most out of the liquids and powders.

Heat degrades cannabinoids and terpenes, so never put them in an oven hotter than 200˚F. It’s best to stir in the cannabinoids at the very end of cooking, just before serving, if possible.

44 FEBRUARY 2019 Boston

IMAGE VIA STILLWATER BRANDS (WWW.STILLWATERBRANDS.LIFE)

industry is trust, control, responsibility, and safety,” Cooper

CBD Coffee + Tea Enjoy a more comfortable, calm, and alert caffeine experience.

Whole Bean & Loose LEaf. Full-Spectrum hemp extract. natural Infusion.

Boulder, Co enjoy "sensi20feb" at checkout for 20% off

sensimag.com FEBRUARY 2019 45

46 FEBRUARY 2019 Boston

BOSTON GARDENER

Normalizing the Urban Grow in One of the Biggest Cities to Legalize WITH BOSTON ON THE VERGE OF OPENING ITS FIRST ADULT-USE STORES, FIRST-TIME GROWERS ARE GEARING UP AND GETTING SCHOOLED. Right in the heart of Boston, in Dudley Square, is your

Square. A second Hempest is across the bay in Boston.

normal, average indoor/outdoor gardening center—a can-

Hempest has one of the country’s largest selections of

nabis grow shop that looks like any other gardening shop—

hemp gear, and Napoli is a true hemp enthusiast. “If we

called Boston Gardener that has been watching sales dou-

started embracing hemp to its full potential, we could

ble since legalization of adult use in Massachusetts in 2016.

change the face of agriculture in this country,” he says. “We

The shop sells everything growers growing their own

are trying to promote a more plant technology-based

cannabis plants need–all sorts of hydroponic supplies and

economy, instead of a fossil fuel economy. And hemp is a

organic soils from some of the top brands. “What sells

way to basically change the world.”

best is soil, nutrients, sprays for spider mites, fertilizers,

As owner of two stores—one a retail store selling hemp

that sort of thing,” says Jon Napoli, founder and owner of

seeds and hemp-made products, the other a garden

Boston Gardener and a cannabis consultant who works

shop selling equipment to grow cannabis—Napoli has no-

as director of cultivation for the second medical cannabis

ticed a slight difference in public perception. “Hempest

dispensary in Massachusetts, Good Health Inc.

was framed in such a way that it looked like a clothing

“We also do a pretty good business with fans and hard-

store,” he says. “You really couldn’t be against a shirt made

ware, but that stuff is pretty competitive,” he adds. “So the

of hemp, and we just educated people who might have a

low-end items sell best.”

question about hemp. There is not a lot of pushback from

Many of Boston Gardener’s customers are first-time

the community.”

growers, as is generally the case when a state legalizes

With the garden shop, selling hydroponic gear and more

adult-use cannabis. “I think cannabis helps a lot of peo-

for growing cannabis, and with Napoli doing cannabis

ple get into gardening,” Napoli says, adding that growing

grow classes, it was a little different. “Some would frown on

what many think is just a weed takes more work than

it when I was teaching the grow classes,” he says. “But you

some are willing to do. “With indoor growing, you really

really get pushback if you try to open a dispensary.”

have to invest time and effort. You can’t plant it and just

Now with the state fully legalized for medical and

walk away. You have to care for your plants like they are

adult-use, Napoli says he will continue to be a consultant

your pets or your children. Because if you don’t catch a

for various vertical companies, and he has an application

problem early, it can really turn into a major problem.”

in for a cultivation manufacturing license. He is also look-

The most common question Napoli gets from custom-

ing to get different licenses for his Hempest stores so they

ers is about the cannabis plant’s genetics—what strain

can sell adult-use cannabis (retail licenses for adult-use

they should be growing. But that’s just part of the edu-

sales are still being worked out). “We’ll see how it goes.

cational insight he gives. “We see a lot of people coming

We are trying to get across the finish line in Boston and

in with pictures of their plants that are yellowed or brown

Cambridge and other communities to help get the retail

and want to know what is wrong.”

stores open here in Massachusetts.”

Napoli is also the president and founder of Hempest Inc., a retail hemp store that looks like any other apparel store, which he opened in 1995 in Cambridge on Harvard

For more information, visit:

BOSTON-GARDENER.COM sensimag.com FEBRUARY 2019 47

Sublinguals • Topicals • Edibles Various CBD products CBD Pet Supplements • and much more..

Find us online or at either of our convenient locations 45 Main Street Amesbury, MA 01913 (978) 834-5502

169 East Street Methuen, MA 01844 (978) 655-6082

TEAMHEMPIRE.COM • TEAMHEMPIRE@YAHOO.COM

48 FEBRUARY 2019 Boston

PHOTOGRAPHY BY MAIA JOLICOEUR

HARVEST CUP CANNABIS COMPETITION AND TRADE SHOW

What: 2018 Harvest Cup Where: DCU Center, Worcester MA When: December 15-16, 2018

For those well past the days of being merely “cannabis friendly” and instead exist deeply entrenched in the local green scene both as consumers as well as industry experts in their respective arenas, the Harvest Cup once again lived up to its name in December. With stiff competition in the best of extractions, CBD flower/tinctures/ edibles, local indoor/outdoor cannabis grows, topicals, as well as a host of ancillary services and products, 2018 closed out strong in The City of the Seven Hills.

sensimag.com FEBRUARY 2019 49

{HereWeGo }

by DA N M C C A R T H Y

MAINE DEWINGS The return of a 40-year icon in downtown Portland is nigh.

If you had three chances to name where—within a car or Amtrak ride of Boston proper—Indiana Jones, beers of the world, and iconic community taverns intersect within New England, could you? Anyone familiar with the rich history and public lore around Three Dollar Dewey’s in downtown Portland, Maine, which closed late last year, could.

Just ask Joe Christopher, a Maine native and owner of a string of bars, inns, and outdoor life experiences (Shipyard Brew Haus at Sugarloaf, Three Rivers Rafting). The 48-yearold Father of Fun, as he’s known to friends from his years rafting down rivers and jumping out of airplanes for a living, has taken on resurrecting the iconic Portland pub as soon as early March.

Helping the bar’s legend over time, always, has been the

was considered a gift from a goddess, never a male god. Most

specter of its founding owner, Alan Eames, or as he was

often, women began the brewing process by chewing grains

known to the beer community (and the New York Times),

and spitting them into a pot to form a fermentable mass.”

the “Indiana Jones of Beer”, so dubbed from his hyped

After buying Gleason’s packie in Templeton, Massachusetts

hauntings of Egyptian tombs in order to read hieroglyphics

in the mid-1970s, Eames later whipped up the idea for Three

about beer in ancient times and treks through the Amazon

Dollar Dewey’s Ale House in Portland as a place for “great

in search of mysterious black brews. He even looked ex-

beers from Maine and away,” according to Christopher, who

actly like Harrison Ford and carried a whip (okay, not really).

maintains it will continue as such under his tenure. It’s also

Eames has been credited for hawking Guinness stout to

2019 Portland, so expect the new “high-end pub grub” over-

the beer masses when the beer was pushing for American

haul to the menu to serve the vegan and vegetarian commu-

market share decades ago. “It is one of the great joys in this

nity as much as it will the ghost of “Dr. Jones,” as it were.

vale of tears,” he says. He was also the founding director of

“From the time its doors first opened, it was a special

the American Museum of Brewing History and Fine Arts in

place for everybody that was so much fun and created

Kentucky and a contributor to the Encyclopedia of Beer. He

many memories for so many locals,” says Christopher. “It’s

was woke before anyone else was. The New York Times wrote

the first bar in Maine to have had ‘pints’ for sale at a bar.

upon his death in 2007: “Mr. Eames’s favorite and perhaps

It’s impossible over these last 40 years not to think of the

most startling message was that beer is the most feminine

place when thinking of gathering with people downtown

of beverages. He said that in almost all ancient societies beer

in Portland. I want to keep that alive.”

50 FEBRUARY 2019 Boston

a n Can

Meet Sarah-Jaana (rhymes with marijuana...really), or as she’s known to many of her patients, the Canna Warrior.

Because when it comes to finding the right cannabis products for your needs, she is your steadfast champion. Sarah-Jaana is just one of the many Revolutionary Clinics patient advocates who are passionate about connecting their patients not just to the finest products, but also to the people, resources and knowledge they need to get the most out of their cannabis experience.

67 BRoadWay, SoMerville 110 FaWCett St, CaMbridge

617.213.6006 617.800.0813

revolutionaryCliniCS.org $200 diSCount for new patientS. Spend $200 get $400 — Call for detailS.