Sensi Magazine - SoCal - November 2020

TRIPPY HEALING

The promise of psychedelics

CANNABIS CARTS

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SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA NOVEMBER 2020

OASIS IN OJAI Get away fora weekend

MINDFUL BAKING

Flour, sugar, and the flow

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SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA SENSI MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 2020

sensimediagroup @sensimagazine @sensimag

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FEATURES

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Trippy Healing Psychedelics are the new medical marijuana.

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Hacking the Feast

How the hippies hijacked Thanksgiving and had a feast that can’t be beat

Ladies, It’s Time to WIN

Women investors could change the landscape of tech and cannabis industries forever.

Cannabis Glows Up Curate your collection of cannabis accessories for the next big home design trend: cannabis carts.

ON THE COVER

What’s better for the soul than a weekend in Ojai? A weekend in Ojai in an Airstream.

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY JOSH CLARK

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C ont inued DEPARTMENTS

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17 EDITOR’S NOTE 18 THE BUZZ

News, tips, and tidbits to keep you in the loop BEYOND IRONIC Take a trip to the Last Bookstore.

THE SUPREME MODELS A book that explores the

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impact of Black women in fashion OUTDOOR OUTFIT STORE Don’t miss California’s biggest vintage fashion event.

PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT RAW’s Hands-Free Smoker DAZZLING DRINKS Craft lovely cocktails with the help of Beautiful Booze PRICEY POTTY A look at NASA’s $23 million space toilet

24 THE LIFE

Contributing to your health and happiness FLOUR, SUGAR, AND THE FLOW How the simple act of mindful baking can soothe the spirit HOROSCOPE What the stars hold for you

74 THE SCENE

Hot happenings and hip hangouts around town OH HI, OJAI A blissful weekend in Ojai was the perfect therapy for the COVID-19 blues.

CALENDAR Wonderful ways to fill your November

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92 THE END California has been through a lot this year. But it might not be over yet.

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CANNABIS INSURANCE & RISK MANAGEMENT

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R EG I O N A L A DV I S O RY B OA R D

FIND US ON SOCIAL MEDIA FAC E B O O K Like Sensi Media Group for the parties, topics, and happenings we’re obsessed with right now.

TWITTER Follow @sensimag to stay up-to-date on the latest news from Sensi cities.

I N S TAG R A M @sensimagazine is home to exclusive photos and content.

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EDITOR’S NOTE

Magazine published monthly

by Sensi Media Group LLC.

© 2020 Sensi Media Group. All rights reserved.

EXECUTIVE

Ron Kolb Founder, CEO ron@sensimag.com Stephanie Wilson Co-Founder, Editor in Chief stephanie@sensimag.com Mike Mansbridge President mike@sensimag.com Fran Heitkamp Chief Operating Officer fran@sensimag.com Lou Ferris VP of Global Revenue lou@sensimag.com Chris Foltz Director of Global Reach chris@sensimag.com Jade Kolb Director of Project Management jade.kolb@sensimag.com Kristan Toth Head of People kristan.toth@sensimag.com EDITORIAL

Doug Schnitzspahn Executive Editor doug.schnitzspahn@sensimag.com Dawn Garcia Managing Editor dawn.garcia@sensimag.com Leland Rucker Senior Editor leland.rucker@sensimag.com Robyn Griggs Lawrence Editor at Large robyn.lawrence@sensimag.com Eli Dupin, John Lehndorff, Rachel Svoboda, Mona Van Joseph Contributing Writers

DESIGN/PRODUCTION

Jamie Ezra Mark Creative Director jamie@emagency.com Rheya Tanner Art Director Wendy Mak, Josh Clark Designers Neil Willis Production Director neil.willis@sensimag.com PUBLISHING

Rob Ball Publisher rob.ball@sensimag.com Angelique Kiss Publisher angelique.kiss@sensimag.com

MEDIA PARTNERS

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

Hope, by its

very definition, is

a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen. And these days it’s the only way to get through a pandemic, systemic injustices, gender inequality, and political fury.

“The role of inequity in society is grossly underestimated. Inequity is not good for your health.” That’s what primatologist Frans de Waal said, and it’s true. This nation’s very foundation has been shaken. Every human being—regardless of race, religion, place of origin, sexual orientation, or gender—is supposed to be equally protected. And yet, we have bastardized that notion.

This month’s issue is one of hope: Hope that our nation will find its way to unity, hope that travel will resume, hope that cannabis markets will flourish, hope that marginalized communities will continue to rise, and hope that we refuse to go back to archaic times of racial and gender inequity.

Our responsibility to one another as an evolved species is to be kind; to embody diversity; and to embrace art, culture, and science—but this slippery descent back into ignorance is one I pray is put to an end on November 3. I choose to be grateful for the younger generations who see where those before them have failed, and for their commitment to righting all our wrongs.

They will bring amazing and extraordinary change—for good.

I am grateful for the capacity to love, to laugh, to engage, to make every effort to save our planet, to be the part of humanity who cares about her fellow human.

Be grateful you are alive, and may the days ahead be ones of hopeful optimism, absent of hate and fear. Happy November! I leave you with this verse from Emily Dickinson:

I am grateful for the capacity to love, to engage, to make every effort to save our planet and, to be the part of humanity who cares for her fellow human.

Hope is the thing with feathers— That perches in the soul— And sings the tune without the words— And never stops—at all— May we hope, may we dream, and may we conquer,

Dawn Garcia @dawngarcia N OV E M B E R 2020

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The Last Bookstore Recently, Alanis Morissette (a female rebel and kickass singer/songwriter) posted on her Instagram account about the new book bundle she ordered through an incredible shopping program at LA’s beloved Last Bookstore. Obviously, we had to check it out. When the actress-who-once-played-God suggests a way to support local bookstores, it’s time to double down (see Kevin Smith’s Dogma to know what we’re talking about.

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Also, just watch the movie). The artful LA bookstore has drawn tourists, writers, creatives, and Instagrammers from all over the world to behold the eclectic, and impressive array of books—the kind you hold in your hands and actually read (or use as a colorful decoration to make people think you read). In lieu of the pandemic and the many restrictions on social gatherings, The Last Bookstore has created a wonderful book program for

bibliophiles everywhere. You go online and you set a budget (anywhere from $20 on up), tell them what genres you like and they’ll surprise you with a box of books hand-selected just for you. In the store, peruse the clever book bundles and an endless sea of vinyl. Then head upstairs to the Spring Art Collective to see some of the most bizarre and wildest art galleries in LA. lastbookstorela.com / springarts.org

COURTESY LAST BOOKSTORE

It’s not ironic, it’s fantastic!

CONTRIBUTORS

Eli Dupin, Dawn Garcia

BY THE NUMBERS

15.7 MILLION

People arrested for marijuana offences in the last decade.

SOURCE: lastprisonproject.org

82.19 BILLION LOCAL SPOTLIGHT

Supreme Models PHOTO CREDITS (FROM TOP): TXEMA YESTE, NUMÉRO FRANCE / COURTESY PICKWICK VINTAGE

Iconic Black Women Who Revolutionized Fashion

Created by Beverly Hills’ very own celebrity stylist Marcellas Reynolds,the book Supreme Models: Iconic Black Women Who Revolutionized Fashion celebrates Black women who have revolutionized the fashion industry. Reynolds gives us an intimate look into the lives of 70 truly iconic women over the last 75 years through personal essays, interviews, and stunning photography. In the forward by Veronica Webb, she writes, “Magic happens all over the world, every day, with women using fashion and beauty to enhance their control over a situation …

Designers have taught me to use clothes as armor that not only flatters my silhouette but also helps me establish and defend my position in the world.” Supreme Models celebrates fashion and pop culture as a modality of change, innovation, progress, strength, and the prowess of Black women in fashion that broke the boundaries of beauty. $48.50 Hardcover, $17 Kindle / Amazon.com

RETRO FIT

Indulge your vintage buying needs outdoors.

Pickwick Vintage Show is the California vintage fashion event of the year. They’re back in 2020 and in order to maintain COVID-19 compliance, the fashion hotspot will take place outdoors on the Pickwick Lawn. For anyone who dreams of vintage threads from 1920’s boas, 1940’s bags, 1960’s dresses to 1970s jeans, Pickwick Vintage has everything you could imagine. The event features 65 California vendors whose specialty is in vintage wear, including jewelry, fashion, accessories, and textiles. $5-$20 / pickwickvintage.com

Projected medical cannabis market value by 2027 SOURCE: databridgemarketresearch.com/reports/global-medical-cannabis-market

995.5 MILLION Vegan confectionary market sales in 2020 SOURCE: grandviewresearch. com/industry-analysis/vegan-confectionery-market

6.73 PERCENT Projected growth rate of condom sales from 2020 to 2025 SOURCE: www.reportlinker. com/p05913932/Condom-Market-Research-Report-by-Product-by-Material-by-Gender-by-Distribution-Global-Forecast-to-Cumulative-Impact-of-COVID-19.html

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THE BUZZ

VOX POPULI

Question: Californians, what are you grateful for?

EMILY DEAN CLEMMER

GIOCONDA ST. GEORGE TERRY

LAWRENCE MOORE

Fitness Trainer Hollywood

Mixologist Los Angeles

Restaurant Publicist Hancock Park

___________________

___________________

___________________

Our beautiful weather, Our health is a big one and the fact that we live to take away from this in a state that (mostly) year. supports human rights!

Everything!.

PUFF HANDSFREE

RAW, the maker of the well-known rolling papers, has taken the smoke game to a new level. Thanks to this hands-free smoker, you can puff while doing…well, whatever you need two hands for.

We’re not saying this will change your life, but for those whose endless days at home involve gaming, streaming, cooking, or even toking while getting in your cardio, this accessory was made for you. rawthentic.com, rollingpaperdepot.com

PHOTO CREDITS (FROM TOP): COURTESY RAW ROLLING PAPERS / BEAUTIFUL BOOZE

Beautiful Booze Professional drinkers and world travelers Natalie Migliarini and James Stevenson have been crafting beautiful cocktails, telling stories, and awing us with their photography from around the globe for years. When the duo announced the release of their spectacular new, and aptly named book, Beautiful Booze? Happy drinkers rejoiced.

The golden hardcover will add to your library of cannabis and cocktail literature. Inviting you with one of the most comprehensive recipe books around, Migliarini and Stevenson lay out how to make your own bitters, syrups, and drinks at home. But what makes this book so incredibly unique is the guide to the best barware, what equipment to use, what items work best with what, and wonderful explanations as to how they named

their inventive and cheeky cocktails.

Mixing drinks with names such as We All Have A Vice Or Two, Monday Morning Mist, Yes, It Tastes As Good As It Looks, and My Kind of Dispensary, you will be able to act like a professional bartender in no time flat, and have the goods to back it up. After all, these two are known for operating the best booze Travel website in the industry. They know what they’re doing—and now so will you! $28 / available on beautifulbooze.com, amazon.com, bookshop.com

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E DO THE WORK

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THE BUZZ

BILITIES

BY STEPHANIE WILSON, EDITOR IN CHIEF

HOPE. In a world in turmoil, I have hope.

PHOTO COURTESY OF NASA

A “good time” for a deadly worldwide contagion doesn’t exist, but an election year is the best time as any—because it makes it so much more evident that our elected leaders impact our lives, that our votes have impact, that our choices matter.

By the time you read this, election day almost certainly has passed. We may still be waiting for the results, those results may be being contested, or the foundation of our democracy may be in peril if the occupant of the White House as of this writing is refusing to accept defeat and unwilling to leave.

Still, I have hope. In the face of difficulty, of uncertainty, I have the audacity of hope, to use Barack Obama’s phrase. As our former president once said, “In the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.”

“I’m not talking about blind optimism,” he said, “the kind of hope that just ignores the enormity of the tasks ahead or the road blocks that stand in our path. I’m not talking about the wishful idealism that allows us to just sit on the sidelines or shrink from a fight. I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting.”

REAL CHANGE, ENDURING CHANGE, HAPPENS ONE STEP AT A TIME.” —Ruth Bader Ginsberg, U.S. Supreme Court Justice/Badass

Primo Potty

NASA’s $23 million space toilet.

Imagine if you will, you’re an astronaut in deep space. You test the weightlessness of zero gravity, when suddenly the urge to use the restroom hits. You find yourself seated on what should be deemed the true Royal Throne, better known as NASA’s new Universal Waste Management System created by Collins Aerospace. This $23 million Porta-Potty (consisting of two toilets) will make astronauts a whole lot happier. Made of titanium, the new design is the first in 30 or so years and NASA spared no expense to give our national space heroes a smell-proof potty. Astronaut Jason Hutt Tweeted about how bad the bathroom smells in space: “If you want to recreate that used spacecraft smell, take a couple of dirty diapers, some microwave food wrappers, a used airsickness bag, and a few sweaty towels, put them in an old school metal trash can and let it bake in the summer for 10 days.” Sure, $23 million seems like a lot, but the zero gravity, g-force-like airflow suction with bacteria filter, thigh lap (to keep you seated while in the spacial vortex) and easy-to-clean bowl is worth it if you ask the men and women who have had the pleasure of sitting in the stink for longer than any of us could handle. Plus, it’s 65% smaller and 40% lighter than the current Russian-designed ISS toilet.

NASA / Nasa.gov

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PHOTO BY ANTON, ADOBE STOCK 24

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Flour, Sugar, and the Flow

My favorite life moments are when I completely lose track of me. I’m chopping toasted walnuts, simmering Jonathan apples with vanilla bean, and working butter, salt, and flour to a consistency only my fingertips can recognize.

Playing with the dough like a kid, I layer the filling over the bottom crust and mess with the upper, my open artist’s canvas. When the kitchen is perfumed and the finished product emerges from the oven tasting like a party and looking like a wrapped gift, a certain kind of bliss envelopes me. When I bake, my noisy brain shuts up for a little while.

According to Kathy Hawkins of Denver’s

Kathy Hawkins Counseling, I am engaged in one of the best wellness-enhancing rituals. In her counseling practice, Hawkins often recommends mindful meditation. “There are many kinds of mindful meditation besides sitting. Walking and doing art can be meditations and baking can be also,” she says. Hawkins knows food psychology firsthand, having owned and managed restaurants in addition to being a waitress and sommelier.

“Baking is a serious way to show people you love them, and there is a lot of reward for both the baker and the recipient,” Hawkins says. You can have your cake and heal with it, too.

How mindful baking heals the baker and spreads buttery bliss.

TEXT JOHN LEHNDORFF

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THE LIFE

This is Your Brain on Baking Research has shown that mindful meditation can be good for heart health, and reduces blood pressure and anxiety.

“Baking creates a flow state where you are enveloped in the moment.

You are not worrying about the past or the future. People who are healthier mentally and emotionally tend to live in the flow state more of the time,” Hawkins says.

Baking can also change brain chemistry. “When you create something tasty, the immediate payoff is a hit of the brain chemicals dopamine and serotonin which improves your mood,” Hawkins says.

Besides butterfat satisfaction, there is the

“Baking creates a flow state where you are enveloped in the moment.

You are not worrying about the past or the future.

People who are healthier mentally and emotionally tend to live in the flow state more of the time.”

—Kathy Hawkins, Counselor

lure of the sweet. “When you eat the baked goods, you get a dose of sugar, which lights up the same area of the brain as cocaine,” she says.

That may partially explain why we celebrate the major occasions of our lives with cakes, pies, and cookies, not salads and nachos. Big festive desserts are designed to be shared—no matter how many guests are on hand—at birthdays, quinceañeras, weddings, and funerals in almost every culture.

The Power of Positive Cooking According to local bakers and pastry chefs, the biggest payoff of baking is feeding the soul. “They say that you cook for yourself but you always

bake for others,” says Jennifer Bush, cofounder of Lucky’s Bakehouse and Creamery in Boulder.

After toiling in basements as a restaurant pastry chef, Bush designed her bakery with an open kitchen. “When people come in, I get to see those eyes light up as they taste something. With cakes, I’m a part of so many people’s lives—their joy, their grief. It never gets old,” Bush says.

It’s almost like a super power, says John Hinman, producer of artisan bread, bun, pastries, and pies at Denver’s Hinman’s Bakery. “When I’m working our booth at the farmers market and I see a sad kid walking by, I always have to give them a chocolate chip cookie. To see that grin makes me know I’ve N OV E M B E R 2020

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THE LIFE

Gluten-Free Chocolate Cake Makes one 9-inch cake ABOUT THE BAKER

Jen Bush, pastry chef and founder of Lucky’s Bakehouse and Creamery in Boulder, shares this gluten-free cake recipe.

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INGREDIENTS For the Cake

6 oz unsalted butter, room temperature ¼ cup granulated sugar 1 cup almond paste 4 eggs ½ cup high-quality unsweetened cocoa powder (I used Black Onyx cocoa powder) Slivered almonds, garnish

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For the Glaze

½ cup heavy cream 2 tbsp honey 1 tsp instant coffee 8 oz semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate INSTRUCTIONS For the Cake

• Cream the almond paste in a stand mixer until all the clumps are broken up.

• Stream in the sugar.

Continue mixing for one minute until sand-textured.

• Slowly add butter, then add eggs one by one until mixture is smooth.

• Sift cocoa to remove lumps and add to mixture. Mix until combined. Remember to scrape sides of bowl.

• Line a 9-inch cake pan with parchment paper or use nonstick spray. Scrape

mixture into pan and bake at 325º F for 20 to 25 minutes, until cake is firm to the touch. Let cool completely before inverting on a plate.

For the Glaze • Gently heat cream, coffee and honey. Pour over chocolate and whisk until combined.

• Pour over cake; decorate with slivered almonds.

THE LIFE

changed the course of their day,” he says.

It’s all about the power of memory. “A muffin or pie or cake can take you back to a happier place and time,” Hinman says.

Desserts—especially those involving chocolate—have a strong association with love. “It can be a real pick-me-up and make the world seem like a good place,” says Genny McGregor, “Cocoa Coordinator” of Piece, Love & Chocolate. The Boulder-based chocolatier offers artisan truffles, candies, pastries, and drinking chocolate.

Sometimes visitors to the shop become visibly, physically moved by tasting a particular confection. “This look comes over people’s faces. They close their eyes. It almost looks like they are…well, they look happy,” McGregor says with a smile.

Salted Caramel on the Right Side of the Brain Bakers are different from other culinary creatives. “There is a balance between science and creativity. I like all the numbers involved, the exact measuring and setting out the ingredients and tools for an amazing dish before you start,” says Jennifer Akina, a celebrated cake artist at Denver’s Azucar Bakery. Akina studied

chemistry and biology in college, a common background among bakers (not to mention brewers and distillers).

Akina is preparing to open Melted at The Source with restaurateur Bryan Drayton (of Acorn, Oak, and Corrida), featuring artisan cookies and Thai ice cream sandwiches on freshly baked French rolls. “I’m doing recipe testing now so I get to play with the millions of flavors in my head,” she says.

Part of what she calls her “therapy” is following defined steps of pouring, proofing yeast, sifting, stirring, and plating. “Working with my hands gets the stress out for me. I have to focus and forget about everything else,” Akina says.

Pastry creation is fundamentally tactile, not unlike massage therapy. “When I am training somebody, I have to show how to do techniques with my hands. I can’t tell them,” she says. “I am the worst with words.

But I can show someone I care without saying anything by baking something for them. They know what I’m feeling.”

Become a Mindful Baker Escaping into baking can help you learn to relax and gain confidence, and it’s a safe way to try

“Working with my hands gets the stress out for me.…I am the worst with words. But I can show someone I care without saying anything by baking something for them. They know what I’m feeling.”

—Jennifer Akina, Cake Artist

something new, according to Hawkins of Kathy Hawkins Counseling. “It also is such a thoughtful expression of affection because you took the time. You didn’t just pick something up at a store,” she says.

Many home cooks are intimidated by baking to the point of being “pastry-phobic” because they don’t bake often enough to feel good at it.

The answer is to begin a mindful baking practice and intentionally create treats for others on a regular basis. First, relax, breathe, and forget about being “gourmet” or making elaborate edible sculptures, Hawkins says. “I think back to my mother. Every weekend she would make Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls with icing from the can. It was her way of showing me that she loved me.”

Don’t bite off more than you can bake.

“Make sure you have a solid, simple recipe.

Start with granola or cookies, not apple pie.

See how happy it makes you feel and then get more complicated,” says Bush of Lucky’s Bakehouse and Creamery.

Try making a dessert you don’t particularly love because you know how happy it will make someone else. “You get outside yourself, think N OV E M B E R 2020

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Available through: GREENSTONE DISTRIBUTION

THE LIFE

PHOTO BY JORDANE MATHIEU, UNSPLASH

about what others need and enjoy the feeling of altruism.” Hawkins says.

If you are a perfectionist, baking could be a source of anxiety. Serious bakers will regale you with self-deprecating tales of burned crusts, sunken souffles, and banana bread baked with salt mistaken for sugar. “You can’t be afraid. It’s not life or death. It’s just cake. We say: ‘No blame, no shame.’

You learn and move on,” says McGregor of Piece, Love & Chocolate.

Consider embracing the Japanese concept of wabi sabi, seeing the beauty in imperfection.

Besides, you can always add more frosting. Encourage family and friends to join you by scheduling a holiday cookie exchange this season. Honor an elder by asking them to teach you how to make a comforting family favorite.

All You Knead is Love Bakers serve as pastry therapists for the rest of us, but those who create sweets need love, too.

Hinman and others in the Denver hospitality industry have formed an organization called Chow, which offers support services to deal with addiction, suicide, and mental illness among cooks, bakers, bartenders, and waiters. The idea

A B O U T T H E AU T H O R

John Lehndorff was the former executive director of the American Pie Council, chief judge at the National Pie Championships, and spokesperson for National Pie Day (Jan. 23). He enjoys making and receiving double-crusted wild blueberry pies.

is to promote work/life balance in kitchens where the prevailing culture has often been quite brutal.

Hinman says he rarely has leftover pies at his bakery, but on a recent Saturday found himself with a dozen or so. “I decided to bring them to

Azucar Bakery because I knew they were working really hard,” he says.

You would think that the last thing a baker wants to eat would be additional baked goods.

“When John [Hinman] brought us pies at the bakery, the whole staff

lit up. Who brings a baker a pie? It was so wonderful,” Akina says.

Ultimately, making the attempt and investing the thought and time is the sweetest part for folks when we show up at the front door with home-baked goodies.

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THE LIFE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mona Van Joseph has been an intuitive since 2002. She is an author, columnist, and host of Psychic View Radio. She created dicewisdom.com, which also has a smartphone app. mona.vegas

HOROSCOPE

NOVEMBER HOROSCOPE What do the stars hold for you?

TEXT MONA VAN JOSEPH

ed is telling you to indulge in MAR. 21–APR. 19 ARIES a pricey, high-quality thing You can’t control the world’s you want. You naturally seek Imagine you are surroundevents. However, you can ed by magic. Spirit has held value and have earned the control how you respond to right to that desire. things back from you in rethem. Encouraging people to cent months; that all changes share their stories of prob- JAN. 20–FEB. 18 now. Be delighted about what lem-solving will go a long will be presented. You’ve AQUARIUS way to ease your mind. earned these opportunities.

Loving partnerships and awareness of the people who NOV. 22–DEC. 21 truly care about you are the APR. 20–MAY 20 SAGITTARIUS focus of this month. Inspired TAURUS You’ve taken on burdens Reconnect with those who reenergy flows through you. that shouldn’t be yours. Be- When undecided, ask your- ally care about you. The peoing a team player is one self: “What’s the most loving ple around you are baffled thing; being taken advanby your mood and self-isothing I can do today?” tage of is quite another. lation. You’ve been resistant Speak up about what is fair; FEB. 19–MAR. 20 and assumptive—that’s what if you don’t, the situation is working against you.

PISCES will continue.

Work the political environment around you as though MAY 21–JUNE 20 DEC. 22–JAN. 19 all the energies are support- GEMINI CAPRICORN Plot twist! Delays by othing your goals and dreams.

You’ve been stingy with Ignore anything that would ers have actually done you yourself. The energy present- cause you emotional distress. a cosmic favor. Though you OCT. 23–NOV. 21

SCORPIO

SCORPIO, ENCOURAGING PEOPLE TO SHARE THEIR STORIES OF PROBLEMSOLVING WILL GO A LONG WAY TO EASE YOUR MIND.

may have had to regroup, in with the people you really the long run it will be better like. Eat your favorite tacos. for you to move forward and AUG. 23–SEPT. 22 create your own dream.

VIRGO

Keep telling spirit what you CANCER want. Keep karmic awareThere are so many people ness in your heart and act as around you who love and though all the puzzle pieccare about you. Stop waiting es are falling in the right for them to call you. Initiate places. Keep the faith. Love a gathering or two. Decide will find you and success is to host Thanksgiving this working though you. year—for all your people.

JUNE 21–JULY 22

SEPT. 23–OCT. 22 JULY 23–AUG. 22

LIBRA

You have no choice but to follow your heart now. Give yourself permission to do what you really want to do.

No procrastinating. Write that screenplay. Connect

Do what relaxes you and brings you a sense of harmony. Pragmatic and thoughtful wins the day. Discover what allows you to lose track of time and gives you a sense of awareness of the moment.

LEO

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TRIPPY HEALING Psychedelics are the new medical marijuana.

TEXT ROBYN GRIGGS LAWRENCE

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PREMIUM CANNABIS F O R T H E E X P L O R E R I N YO U

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WWW.EXPLOREZANNA.COM LICENSE: LCA19-0003299

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keep a photo of myself from the bad year, when I left the job I thought defined me and broke up with the man I’d planned to marry. I’m wearing a sleeveless dress no adult who weighs 93 pounds should be wearing, with my undernourished limbs and oversized head. I make myself look at it once in a while because I don’t want to forget.

My life once felt so bleak that I didn’t want to be here. I couldn’t kill myself because I love my children, but I thought about it all the time. I starved myself and told people my new retirement plan was to die young.

Around that time, private ayahuasca ceremonies were becoming a thing from Laurel Canyon to Park Slope, so I went to one in a multimillion-dollar house with a Jewish shaman who played New Age music on a boom box. I had read everything I could get my hands on about this ancient medicine made from sacred Amazonian plants—not all that much at the time, and a lot of it pretty terrifying—and I waited with more than a little trepidation for the big bang that would fix me.

When the mood wasn’t right and nothing happened, I was disappointed and then bored, listening to the guy next to me groan and sob and watching the guy across from me paint pictures in the air with his hands. I snuck into the garage to vape.

I took that experience as another sign of what a hopeless, crusty loser I had become. Not even drinking this legendary brew could bring back my appetite for food, for life. I figured this ayahuasca thing was just

more bullshit, a hallucinogenic Landmark Forum for entitled people who have exhausted their therapists’ patience.

I was wrong, of course, as Cosmic Sister founder Zoe Helene, a seasoned journeyer who drinks ayahuasca only in Peru (where it’s legal and revered) would prove.

Helene awarded me one of the first Cosmic Sister Plant Spirit grants so I could travel to the Nihue Rao healing center outside of Iquitos and experience traditional ayahuasca ceremonies with shamans where Mama Aya lives.

I spent four hellish nights in the rainforest, wrestling with anger and despair about my father dying before I was born—deep, pre-language demons I thought I’d dealt with in the Landmark Forum, with God knows how many therapists.

My journeys were desolate and brutal, total annihilation of the universe and terrifying solo rocket launches into empty orbits. I felt

my father’s heart attack, and his crushing angst about who would take care of me was the sword that finally cut through the dark energy I’d been born with. I forgave him for dying and myself for thinking he didn’t care enough to stick around and meet me. I told him he could let go, I would take care of myself now. Free for the first time in my life, I spent the last night juggling exclamation points, tossing them up to pop pink balloons that rained down sparkles of love on everyone around me.

The pink glow lasted. I went home and started rebuilding my skeletal self and reinventing my career—as a cannabis cookbook author and chef, no less. I met a nice guy who feeds me when I’m in work mode. I never considered suicide again.

Coffee, Tea, or Ayahuasca?

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“[ P S YC H E D E L I C S ] C A N C R E AT E EXPERIENCES O F WO N D E R A N D AW E A N D A CONNECTION TO A ‘D I V I N E R E A L M’ T H AT L E A D S TO SIGNIFICANT B E H AV I O R A L C H A N G E S .”

—Kenneth Tupper, British Columbia Centre on Substance Use

ical marijuana, offering a world of therapeutic possibilities for so many things that ail us, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), debilitating grief, opiate addiction, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)—and Americans are more interested in them than they’ve been since the 1960s. In a recent YouGov survey, 53 percent of Americans said they support medical research into psychedelic medicines, and 63 percent said they would be open to having medical treatment with psilocybin, ketamine, or MDMA if the substances were proven safe.

In December 2016, the Journal of Psychoparmacology dedicated its entire issue to psychedelics. Michael Pollen’s 2018 book about psychedelic therapy, How to Change Your Mind, which he said took him to “places I’ve never been—indeed, places I didn’t know existed,” was an immediate bestseller. In 2017, in the widely acclaimed book A Really Good Day, Ayelet Waldman wrote that microdosing, or taking about onetenth of a normal dose of LSD on a regular basis, helped her deal with severe mood swings. Silicon Valley executives microdose LSD for a gentle blast of focus and creativity.

Psilocybin from “magic mushrooms” is emerging as a treatment for smoking cessation, alcoholism, and cocaine dependence, and terminal-cancer anxiety, while MDMA, aka Ecstasy or Molly, is showing great promise for treating PTSD and autistic adults with social anxiety because it lets them safely reprocess traumatic experiences that normally leave them N OV E M B E R 2020

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KNOW YOUR PSYCHEDELICS AYA H UA S C A Made in the Amazon from the ayahuasca vine and the chacruna leaf containing the psychoactive substance DMT

COULD TREAT: Depression, suicidal thoughts

P E YOT E

Vision-inducing woolly cactus used by indigenous people containing mescaLSD line, a psychedelic Synthetic psychedelic phenethylamine made from lysergic EFFECTS: SevenEFFECTS: Helps jouracid in the fungus teenth-century ethneyers come to terms that grows on rye nobotanists reported with deep trauma EFFECTS: Producthat eating the plant’s COULD TREAT: PTSD, es visuals, intentop “causes those depression, eating sified sensory devouring it to be disorders, suicidal perception, synesable to foresee and to thoughts thesia, sense of deep predict things” interconnectedness COULD TREAT: Alcoholism and addiction IBOGAINE COULD TREAT: PTSD, A compound in the alcoholism, anxiety, bark and roots of depression P S I LO C Y B I N taberanthi, a small Entheogenic (meanAfrican bush tree ing “to generate god MDMA (AKA ECSTASY, MOLLY.)

within”) found in over Enactogen developed 75 mushroom species

by German scientists EFFECTS: Disturbs during WWI with normal nerve cell properties similar to interaction and seamphetamine and rotonin functioning, mescaline creating heightened sensory experiences, EFFECTS: Soaks the COULD TREAT: Alcohol- brain with serotonin, perceptual distortions, hallucinations, oxytocin, dopamine ism and addiction and synesthesia and prolactin to inCOULD TREAT: Depresvoke what psycholK E TA M I N E sion, end-of-life anxiogist Ralph Metzner A disassociative anes- described as “a natu- ety, trauma, addiction, thetic discovered in ral state of innocence, couples therapy 1961 and used during before guilt and unthe Vietnam War worthiness arose” EFFECTS: Induces COULD TREAT: Couples deep relaxation, out- therapy, PTSD of-body experiences

EFFECTS: As activist Dana Beal described, “your entire life and those spooky archetypes you see distantly in your dreams are projected on the back of your eyelids”

overwhelmed. MDMA, which emerged in the late 1970s as a tool for psychotherapists and made its way into the hands of ravers and yuppies, was “the drug that LSD was supposed to be, coming 20 years too late to change the world,” Newsweek wrote in 1985, the year the DEA made it a Schedule I substance. In 2017, the FDA gave MDMA breakthrough therapy status based on its effectiveness in PTSD studies, and it could be approved for legal therapeutic use by 2021.

As for ayahuasca, scores of medical journal articles are now exploring how journeying changes the very brain chemistry to beat back the anxiety and depression. Every weekend across North America, thousands of seekers gather for not-so-underground ceremonies like the one that didn’t work for me. For $11,000, San Francisco-area startup professionals can travel to the Amazon with Entrepreneurs Awakening for the real deal—but they don’t have to go to all that effort. In San Francisco, self-help guru Tim Ferriss told the New Yorker in 2016, drinking ayahuasca is “like having a cup of coffee.”

LSD, Past Lives, and Outer Space Psychedelics affect the brain by binding to the same receptors as the feel-good neurotransmitter serotonin and facilitating communication between disparate regions that normally don’t talk to each other. Kenneth Tupper, director of implementation and partnerships at the British Columbia Centre on Substance Use, told NBC News that under carefully controlled conditions, psycheN OV E M B E R 2020

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delics “can create experiences of wonder and awe and a connection to a ‘divine realm’ that leads to significant behavioral changes.”

At a recent international conference on the science of psychedelics in London, psychiatrist Ben Sessa explained that psychedelic therapy “offers an opportunity to dig down and get to the heart of the problems that drive long-term mental illness in a much more effective way than our current model, which is take daily medications to mask systems.”

At the Johns Hopkins University’s Psilocybin Research Project, studies found that people had a more “open” personality, greater appreciation for new experiences, and enhanced curiosity and imagination—effects that persisted for 14 months—after a single psilocybin session. And in 2018, a study published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology found that people feel more connected to nature and less supportive of authoritarian views after a psychedelic trip.

That anti-authority effect is, of course, the reason psychedelics— which encouraged an entire generation to drop out and make love when the government desperately needed them to join up and make war—are illegal. In the 1950s, LSD was sold under the name Delvsid and used in conjunction with psychotherapy to treat anxiety and obsessive neuroses. A good number of researchers and therapists were studying the effects of drugs like LSD, which Canadian psychiatrist Humphrey Osmond called “psychedelics” from the Greek word for “mind manifesting.” Hollywood stars including Esther Williams and Cary Grant were outspoken

about its effectiveness, Anais Nin wrote about experimenting with it, Alcoholics Anonymous founder Bill Wilson tried it as a means to sobriety, and the CIA slipped it to unsuspecting victims to see how they would respond.

“THESE INCREDIBLE COMPOUNDS… CAN BE USED TO HAVE INCREDIBLY POSITIVE RESULTS. AND WHAT DO WE DO? WE CRIMINALIZE THEM.”

A Threat to Police States Timothy Leary, the ex-Harvard professor who told people to “turn on, tune in, and drop out,” probably did more than anyone else to antagonize the government into making psychedelics illegal.

President Richard Nixon called Leary “the most dangerous man in America” for his proselytizing about LSD. Leary told Playboy in 1966 that it was “the most powerful aphrodisiac ever discovered by man,” kicking up those age-old fears about young people’s virtue and predicted it would “enable each person to realize that he is not a game-playing robot put on this planet to be given a social security number and to be spun on the assembly line of school, college, career, insurance, funeral, goodbye. … Instead of relying on canned, static, dead knowledge passed on from other symbol producers, he will be using his span of 80 or so years on this planet to live out every possibility of the human, prehuman, and even subhuman adventure.”

Or, as Hunter S. Thompson would explain in Playboy eight years later, “If acid helps people see through conditioned hallucinations, then acid’s a threat to such police states as now exist in America and in Russia.”

All too much for the US government. In 1968, a year after the —Amanda Fielding, founder of the Beckley Foundation Summer of Love, LSD possesN OV E M B E R 2020

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C11-0000499-LIC

sion was banned. Two years later, nearly every psychedelic known, including LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, peyote, and cannabis, was declared a Schedule I drug with no medical value. The message–drugs are bad–would be impossible to ignore for the next several decades.

That message is antiquated. As we wrestle with so many seemingly intractable issues—opioid abuse, mental illness, mass shoot-

ings and violence, PTSD, and skyrocketing suicide rates—we can no longer afford to ignore tools that psychiatrist Stanislav Grof wrote, in the foreword to Albert Hoffman’s 2005 book, LSD: My Problem Child, “make it possible to study undercurrents that govern our experiences and behaviors to a depth that is not by any other method and tool available in modern mainstream psychiatry.”

Perhaps Amanda Fielding, founder of the think tank Beckley Foundation, summed it up best in a recent Wired interview. “There are these incredible compounds that synergize amazingly well with the human body and can be used to have incredibly positive results,” Fielding said. “And what do we do?

We criminalize them. I mean, they are more carefully controlled than nuclear weapons. It is mad.”

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HACKING THE FEAST How the hippies hijacked Thanksgiving and had a feast that can’t be beat. TEXT JOHN LEHNDORFF

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ack before football and the Black Friday frenzy came to dominate the day, Thanksgiving was the stodgiest of the big American holidays. The national feast day was mostly a quiet family home meal with the same turkey, boxed stuffing, and green bean casserole. It was traditional, but not necessarily that much fun.

I come from Massachusetts where Thanksgiving was always a big deal. The Pilgrims and Wampanoag Indians got together for a three-day harvest feast in 1621 about 50 miles from where I grew up. More importantly, I was just down the turnpike from Stockbridge, the town where folk singer-songwriter Arlo Guthrie and a friend dumped trash over a cliff in 1965. That seminal moment sparked a folk song that would change Thanksgiving history.

“This song is called ‘Alice’s Restaurant’ and it’s about Alice and the restaurant, but Alice’s Restaurant is not the name of the restaurant” When Guthrie’s Alice’s Restaurant Massacree debuted in 1967, the song immediately became an underground hit. For young males like me approaching the age when we could be drafted into the military to fight in Vietnam, the song about questioning authority was a call to action as well as a cautionary tale. It was also about the communal nature of Thanksgiving.

“My friend and I went up to visit Alice at the restaurant” I grew up loving Thanksgiving with our large, overextended family of Austrian, Sicilian, and

Polish relatives who contributed ethnic side dishes. The bird was always filled with mashed potato and Italian sausage stuffing.

However, the title track of Guthrie’s Alice’s Restaurant album describes a holiday with friends that sounded much more like a party than the sometimes nerve-racking family feasts we knew at home. Because of the epic, 16-minute talking blues track by the son of folk icon Woody Guthrie—the singer-songwriter behind classics such as “This Land Is Your Land”—nondenominational Thanksgiving Day soon became the hippies’ unofficial national holiday.

“Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago” I was an American student at McGill University in Montreal in the early 1970s when our household decided to host the hippest Thanksgiving ever. We recorded a soundtrack on a reel-to-reel tape deck of our favorite songs—some early Springsteen like “Rosalita,” lots of country rock including Emmylou Harris’s “Bluebird Wine,” and, of course, “Alice’s Restaurant.” The tunes were supposed to fit the various stages of the festivities, including digestive tunes for the aftermath. Some of the memories are a tad foggy, but it was a great time.

“Had a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn’t be beat” We were antiestablishment, so we kept the parts of Thanksgiving we liked—the wine and the pies—and got rid of the parts we couldn’t stand, such as the need to dress up. Long before it caught on with N OV E M B E R 2020

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Long before it caught up with the mainstream, the counterculture hosted vegetarian Thanksgivings that welcomed dishes of all denominations. What mattered was gathering like-minded members of your tribe. mainstream, the counterculture hosted vegetarian Thanksgivings with a big-tent approach that welcomed side dishes of all denominations. What mattered was gathering like-minded members of your tribe.

Besides, Thanksgiving with friends was also the one holiday bash other than New Year’s Eve when we could enjoy highly illegal cannabis along with beer and wine.

“You may know somebody in a similar situation, or you may be in a similar situation” It is a fairy-tale feast complete with unreasonable expectations, because stuff always happens. No wonder folks end up making reservations at a restaurant instead of hosting an elaborate meal. I feel their pain.

“I walked in, sat down, I was hung down, brung down, hung up, and all kinds o’ mean nasty ugly things”

“And everything was fine, we were smoking cigarettes and all kinds of Turkeys have been overcooked things, until the sergeant came over” and undercooked when I’ve hostOver the years, I’ve hosted Thanksgiving or helped stage the feast dozens of times, but not without combating the prevailing paradigm. Magazine covers and TV shows show perfect birds, oh-so-easy side dishes, and 126 things you can do to decorate your home for the happy feast day. You must remain the relaxed and gracious hostess or host.

ed. I’ve burned dishes that only needed to be warmed. Once the fridge was packed, and I was tired on Thanksgiving night so I left the turkey carcass on the back porch on a near-freezing night. I awoke to a brutally attacked turkey scattered across the porch and back yard after an alley gang of obnoxious raccoons broke in. I mourned the lost meat and soup.

Another year, I knew that slicing the turkey in the aluminum pan was a really bad idea, but I went ahead anyway. I sliced through the pan, and the hot, fatty, delicious collected juices started pouring out on the cutting board, counter, and floor.

The thing is: we all get anxiety over hosting Thanksgiving. I’m getting nervous even as I write this, because this year everybody’s coming to eat at my house. I figure it’ll be worth it for the leftovers.

“Kid, have you rehabilitated yourself?”

In a 2017 feature on feast dishes for 50 states in the New York Times, cannabis got special attention. “It’s difficult to assess exactly how much legalization… may have changed the Thanksgiving menu. But it has indubitably increased the snacking that goes on afterward,” the esteemed publication noted.

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Have You Tried America’s Gummie * ?

wanabrands.com

*

BDSA Brand Share Report

We would remind the Times that cannabis and Turkey Day have been intersecting for many decades in many places. And If I’m going to bust my buns pulling off Thanksgiving, then I want enough goodies so I can relax and enjoy the meal in the days that follow.

cubes that I bag for later use in sauces, soups, and such. A month (or three) from now, I’ll dig into the freezer and smile when I find carefully packaged gravy, cranberry sauce, turkey, and side dishes for a comforting, easy dinner.

in the song, that they lived through in the late 1960s to the early ’70s.

It wasn’t all peace and love, either.

“If you want to end war and stuff you got to sing loud”

Is hosting a Thanksgiving feast really worth the hours of prep, the “You can get anything you want at cleaning, the shopping, the cookAlice’s Restaurant, excepting Alice” “Had another Thanksgiving dinner ing, and commotion of inviting that couldn’t be beat” Ironically, our antiestablishment others into your home for a dining I look forward to turkey breast counterculture ended up creating experience fraught with so many BLT’s, dark meat turkey in French rituals that are followed annually. possible disasters? dip sandwiches with gravy replac- Many radio stations have made it My answer is still yes. What I reing the au jus, and turkey tacos traditional to play the 16-minute member best about Thanksgiving in chocolate-chile mole sauce. I protest song on Thanksgiving Day, dinners is not food or faux pas, polove making waffles out of leftover sometimes several times. litical tiffs or football games. I am bread stuffing, and serving latkes If Grandpa and Grandma get a thankful for the funny, argumentamade from Italian sausage and po- silly gleam in their eye when they tive, and heartwarming moments tato stuffing topped with eggs. hear “Alice’s Restaurant” playing, shared among the folks who filled I turn that precious turkey into a they may have been hippies. There the circle around the table on evehearty broth that becomes frozen were challenging times, chronicled nings in November.

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Ladies, it’s Ti How women investors could change the tech and cannabis industries forever.

TEXT RACHEL SVOBODA AND DAWN GARCIA

I

n cannabis, women make up a third of the industry, and while it has historically been an inequitable space for women of color, diversity and inclusion are becoming a dynamic part of the industry.

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According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 33 US states have legalized cannabis for medical use, and 14 states (plus Washington, DC) have legalized cannabis for recreational use for people over 21 years old. It’s

a fact that women make up half of the population—for every 102 males, there are 100 females— which means our buying power should be as persuasive as our male counterparts. So why are we not using our influence as women

PHOTO BY PALIDACHAN, ADOBE STOCK

ime to WIN to move the needle on purchasing power in industries like tech and cannabis by becoming investors?

The Angel Capital Association reports that only 22 percent of angel investors in the US are women.

In Europe, those percentages are even lower, with women amounting to just 14 percent in the UK and 5 percent in France. In places

like Tel Aviv, the number of female investors can be counted on one hand. To further drive the point home, according to a 2019 survey by the American National Venture Capital Association, women account for just 11 to 20 percent of investment partners in American venture capital firms.

As we continue to veer toward

online activity, keeping our minds active is fundamental to our dayto-day productivity and overall sense of self. Part of that is not just focusing on the latest fitness apps, getting creative in the kitchen, or venturing down that entrepreneurial path; our sense of well-being relies significantly on a sense of financial health, too.

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PHOTO COURTESY ARCVIEW GROUP

Merrill Lynch conducted a study asking women why they invest. The first and most popular response was to “fund my retirement,” and a close second was “to become more financially independent.” Creating financial stability is key to alleviating stress (and it’s safe to say we all have buckets of stress these days). By laying the foundation for an independent and secure financial future, it allows women to thrive, which is good for two prominent (and continually growing) industries: cannabis and technology. But how can women stay informed and find trustworthy resources to guide them when making their initial investments?

One female-run company has realized the need for women to gain control of their own financial wealth, including investments: The Arcview Group. CEO Kim Kovacs says, “We believe everyone should have the opportunity to build wealth.” The Arcview Group is a vertically integrated investment and research firm that has been servicing the cannabis industry for the past 10 years. Forbes labeled the group the “top marijuana investment and research firm.”

This year, Arcview relaunched its Women’s Investment Network (WIN) as a dedicated Membership Tier with a redefined focus on supporting women investors in the cannabis industry. The mission is to empower women with facts, conversations, camaraderie, and deal flow so they can become successful investors in the cannabis industry.

Arcview WIN’s message is clear: “The Arcview Group is taking a stance for women in cannabis. We are championing the movement

Benefits of a WIN Membership For as little as $497 per year, you receive the following: • Invitation to • Access to Cannamonthly Arcview bis Investing: First Base, a four-part Access Elite webinar “After Parties” educational video series for first-time • Access to mentor investors—plus one matching program free online seminar • Opportunity to • Access to Tales be spotlighted on from the Top, a seArcview blog, Linkeries of video interdIn Lounge, and views with Arcview other social media WIN members in • One guest to each the industry Arcview Metro and • Two free virtual Signature Events tours per year (at guest rate)

to bring more women investors, companies, and products to the forefront of the industry. We are redefining the word ‘investor’ from its traditional meaning to include all those that are invested in the success of women in the cannabis industry. We have a strong voice and are thought leaders in

• Monthly WIN Webinars • Consideration as competitor or judge for WIN pitch competition • Invitation to join the WIN Slack channel • Use of WIN badge on professional sites and social media • 25% discounts to Arcview Metro and Signature Events

our communities. The Women’s Investor Network is our platform.”

According to S&P, “only 26 percent of American women invest in the financial markets, despite 41 percent saying now would be a good time to invest.” Investing was created by men, for men, meaning the “gender-neutral” N OV E M B E R 2020

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Come this weekend.

Come next weekend.

Stay the week.

Just move in already.

We got you. thesaguaro.com

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tools in place have been failing women for decades. However, S&P Global Women’s Investor Report reported that women’s control of the world’s investable wealth may reach $72 trillion by the end of 2020, adding to female influence as major investors in global financial markets—and, by extension, national economies.

We talked with Kovacs to get a clear understanding of how the Arcview WIN program is helping grow the number of women investors in the space.

PHOTO COURTESY ARCVIEW GROUP

What is your advice to first-time female investors?

Do this with a team versus trying to go it alone. First-hand experience, for example: I invested in a product that worked great on other cannabis plants to conserve water use, but it killed my plant in one day. If I had a few folks who knew more about the grow portion of the industry, it would have saved me $25K. Also, in joining the Collective Fund for example, you can be invested in a dozen or more companies so you can diversify your portfolio right away, investing alongside industry leaders.

How can women investing in cannabis impact the bigger picture of women leading the charge in financial fortitude?

Cannabis is a perfect industry for women to reshape with their investment dollars. Women were tag-alongs for tech, life science, pretty much everything else. But for cannabis and fem tech—and a few other frontier industries—we get to decide how they look and act. For example, Arcview is diversity- and inclusion-focused with

“I don’t see it as a leap so much as a great first step....Get to know everyone, get to know the industry, build your own thesis, and then take a leap.”

—Kim Kovacs, CEO of Arcview Group

our collective fund and signing a pledge to protect minority investment to effectuate social change.

What would you say to women who are considering taking the leap and joining WIN? I don’t see it as a leap so much as a great first step. Women are conservative and risk-averse; rarely do we leap. So I like the toe-in-thepool approach with WIN. Get to know everyone, get to know the industry, build your own thesis, and then take a leap.

Does WIN guide investments?

No. We are here to normalize the investment process and provide access and education. Once you are a WIN member, you will have direct access to companies, other investors, and the Collective Fund, which does guide on investments.

What is the goal for WIN in the next two years?

The goal for WIN is to build a community of one million women and men focused on advancing women in this space, providing capital, opportunities, and supporting products that have purpose for women.

This is our platform.

As the industry continues to change in cannabis investing, tech and otherwise, women are catching up financially and are increasingly taking advantage of the tools and communities to help them get started. The recent market declines may have created an entry opportunity just like that of the 2008–2009 financial crisis. The financial knowledge shared through WIN builds confidence and the freedom to pursue the financially independent future you want.

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CANNABIS GLOWS UP It’s time to curate your collection of accessories for the next big home design trend: cannabis carts. Because bar carts are so 2020, and we are so over 2020.

PHOTO COURTESY OF BESITOS

TEXT STEPHANIE WILSON

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CALLOUT TITLE Callout text lorem ipsum quam que dolor

PHOTO BY ALEX SILVA, SUMMERLAND

D

ancing bears, tie-dye tapestries, bongs made in shop class…the once universal visuals that accompanied the stoner cliché seemed set in stone. But the cannabis aesthetic has evolved, and we’re oh so glad for the glow up.

It starts with the lingo. Marijuana (the term) and its many aliases—pot, weed, the devil’s lettuce—is out; cannabis is in. And cannabis is having a moment, rising from barely legal to essential status in a few years flat—and doing so

without ad campaigns touting its many proven health benefits due to government-mandated advertising restrictions. Along with that uptick, cannabis accessories have become must-have items for trendsetters.

What’s more, we predict that a curated collection of said accessories stylishly displayed on former bar carts—now transformed into smoking-hot cannabis carts—will be the must-have home decor item of 2021, hashtag #highdesign.

Summerland Ceramic Bongs

Be a trendsetter and start curating your collection now. To help you get started, we’ve rounded up some info and suggestions of top pieces from aesthetically minded brands that caught our eye, captured our attention, and earned spots on our own cannabis carts.

Read on for suggestions about how to make your own enviable hub for getting high.

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PHOTOS BY ALEX SILVA, SUMMERLAND

GLOW-UP NO. 1: SUMMERLAND Consider a Summerland (welcometosummer.land) bong for your cannabis cart’s bubbly centerpiece. This is no hunk of plastic stored under a dorm bed and plastered with dancing bear stickers. The California company offers premium bongs and pipes made by hand in small batches using only natural materials.

Aesthetically minded cannabis enthusiast Liam Kaczmar started Summerland to bring sustainable, artisan-made pipes, bongs, home goods, and hemp apparel to fill a gap he found while in the market

for a bong that would meet his sophisticated style-conscious standards. Finding only the tacky stuff of stereotypical stoner nightmares, Kaczmar decided to create the bong he sought on his own. Thus, Summerland was born.

Each of the brand’s sleek, minimal, monotone bongs and pipes appeal to the sophisticated smoker who’s as concerned with the quality of the cannabis as with the device out of which it’s consumed.

The ultimate result: Each handmade sculptural piece is a oneof-a-kind conversation starter.

All ceramic items are made using lead-free, food-safe glaze and natural ceramic clay, one of the old-

est building materials known to man. Available in glossy white or earth-toned matte colors in three shapes and styles, these design objects are worthy of display—if not on a dedicated smoking cart then at least on a mantel or coffee table. They also make beautiful vessels for fresh flowers.

How to decide which Summerland device is right for your cannabis cart? That depends on your design sensibilities. If your decor leans toward the classic, opt for the Chongo ($250), the brand’s original all-ceramic bong. The official product description calls the timeless piece “as familiar as a well-worn poncho keeping you warm at the bonfire.” If your decor leans more maximalist than Marie Condo, you’ll want to set sail on the Land Yacht ($225). The largest piece in the Summerland family, the bong’s sleek lines and roomy double chamber hold a lot of smoke—and look great doing it.

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Summerland Ceramic Pipe

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DON’T FORGET THE GARNISH Summerland’s Fruit Fantasy Apple Pipe ($85) is a witty nod to the creative desperation that’s led far too many cannabis-consuming youth to take hits out of an apple when more standard inorganic devices weren’t available.

PHOTOS BY ALEX SILVA, SUMMERLAND

The glossy white ceramic pipe is a big step up from that organic DIY version. If you’re not cannabis-cart-conspicuous about your consumption habits, you can let this juicy lil’ fruit sit stealthily on your bookcase disguised as an art object until the moment is right to take a bite.

Summerland Fruit Fantasy Apple Pipe

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BEAUTIFUL BEGINNINGS The first pipe to be released under the Tetra brand, the Balance Pipe ($65) is also the first glass pipe to feature meticulous design. Devised

by New York product designer Jamie Wolfond, the pipe showcases a bowl pierced by a slender stem encompassing both the mouthpiece and its carb. It stands steadily on a flat surface and its lab-quality borosilicate glass does not conduct heat, making for a cooler, smoother smoke.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF TETRA

GLOW-UP NO. 2: TETRA During the mid-century period, design luminaries such as Dieter Rams, Marianne Brandt, and Enzo Mari created iconic smoking accessories for the home. Tetra (shop-tetra.com) seeks to revive that tradition of beautiful and useful objects in a contemporary way, celebrating the new rituals of smoking through the lens of great design. The dispensary, retailer, and accessories brand offers beautifully designed smoking objects for “aesthetically minded people” and curates smoking accessories for the art collector.

In Tetra’s world, smoking is an antidote to the harried, tech-obsessed pace of modern life. These aren’t thumb-drive-esque vape pens that you hit as you hustle from meeting to meeting; these are objets d’art that demand you sit down, relax, and be present for your session. “Breathe deeply, disconnect, and enjoy the pleasure of cannabis, company, and conversation with smoking accessories created by the world’s top designers and artists,” the marketing material suggests.

Take the Elbow Pipe ($70) designed by ceramicist Ninon Choplin of neenineen exclusively for Tetra. Paris-born, LA-based Choplin, who uses gender-neutral pronouns, is known for injecting a bit of whimsy into their designs. The Elbow is a chubby, tube-shaped pipe that lets you watch as smoke billows inside it each time you puff.

It’s on the large side but it fits perfectly into one hand, with a carb

and an upturned bowl on one side and a mouthpiece on the other.

Hand-cast in smooth porcelain, the discrete pebble-shaped Connector Pipe ($70) is a pleasure to hold in the palm. It’s designed by Miwak Junior, the side project of Chilean fine artist and master painter Sebastian Boher, who specializes in aquatic sculptures—fish homes, he calls them— as well as pipes.

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PHOTOS COURTESY OF SACKVILLE & CO.

GLOW-UP NO. 3: SACKVILLE & CO.

tional, giving “high art” a whole new meaning.

A new joint-rolling kit collaboBuild your smoking-hot bar by vis- ration between Wu-Tang Clan’s iting Sackville & Co.’s online shop GZA and Sackville pays homage to the “Liquid Swords” album on (sackville.co/shop/all). Drawing inits 25th anniversary while backing spiration from art, design, music, fashion, and contemporary culture, the effort to get cannabis prisSackville & Co. products use high- oners out of jail, with all profits end materials such as brushed gold going to The Last Prisoner Project (lastprisonerproject.org). finishes, marble, and ceramics to create chic-looking grinders, rolling papers, rolling trays, bonds, and other highly coveted accessories. Catering to design-forward consumers, Sackville has redefined the smoking experience for the modern female consumer, encouraging women to celebrate their relationship with cannabis—whether at a dinner party, concert, or alone in the bathtub—and to feel stylish and inspired while doing it.

Co-founders Hayley Dineen and Lana Van Brunt bonded over their shared frustration of being unable to find design-forward cannabis products to fit their personal lifestyle.

With years of experience in luxury product development, experiential marketing, and business development, the two cannabis-loving entrepreneurs felt it was time to not have to feel stigmas or hide evidence of their smoking habits. So they created a line of flaunt-worthy accessories suited to be display pieces rather than stashed in a drawer.

Sackville’s collection includes contemporary gold grinders, rolling papers, limited-edition rolling trays, bongs, and other chic smoking goods. The brand also introduced limited-run artist collaborations last holiday season—including teaming up with the women at Nice Paper to launch the perfect stash box—that are as beautiful as they are funcN OV E M B E R 2020

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Sackville’s Gilded Grinder and (sold-out) Sackville x Maya Ceramics bong

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PHOTOS COURTESY OF SACKVILLE & CO.

Sackville’s Bubble Bag

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PHOTOS COURTESY OF BESITOS

GLOW-UP NO. 4: BESITOS

before she transitioned into cannabis in 2017. Along with a masThe finishing touches of your sive amount of knowledge gleaned cart collection come from Besito from years of mainstream corpo(besito.la), a vape company with rate experience in brand manexclusive 4/20 clothing and acagement, Connors brings a bit of cessory launches dropping on the Cuban flair to the industry, and 4th of every month, all year long. the combination of branding and Some of the pieces are abso-fricculture is fueling Besito’s success.

Besito, which means “little kiss” ken-lutely perfect options to add the “low” of the high/low decor in Spanish, is decidedly upscale look you’re going for. Our faves: but definitely not elegantly boring.

Quite the opposite, in fact. In an an “I’m high, lol” chip clip and a interview with VoyageLA, Contote bag emblazoned with Besito’s signature tag line: “more fuck nors explains she was inspired to yeah, less oh fuck.” launch Besito as a reflection of LA We dig the vibe. On its own, culture: diverse, colorful, sexy, and Besito’s profanity-laced message fun. “We wanted to bring sophisticould come across as aggressive cated product design and a bright, but don’t let that fool you: This colorful, fun aesthetic that was brand is all about giving people missing from cannabis,” she says. giggly good times. You can tell Besito vapes are stylish (with an from just one look at the LA-based edge), a little bit funky, industrial, brand’s creative campaigns, which and sleek. The packaging is colorfeature gender-neutral models, ful and fun, the signature high soproducts, packaging, collaboracial and giggly. The all-in-one pens tions, creative campaigns, inclusive are just as much a fashionable messaging, mission, and advocacy. gender-neutral accessories as they Besito is the brainchild Maggie are high-end delivery systems for Connors, a Stanford MBA brandmood-enhancing cannabis blends ing pro who worked with the likes in yummy flavors. Not to mention of Apple, Starbucks, and Pepsico the brand donates 1 percent of its

proceeds to the Equity First Alliance, a nonprofit that’s working to repair the harm caused by the war on drugs. Basically, Besito is a whole mood itself—which is how Connors planned it from the start.

“Our brand ethos is who we are as a company,” Connors told Lonny. “Passionate about cannabis, diverse, inclusive, and fun.” From the products and the packaging to the brand advertising and social messaging, everything about the brand has an approachable, chill vibe. The Besito aesthetic exudes a laid-back attitude that connects with consumers, elevating the brand above the competition in a crowded marketplace.

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Well Hi, Ojai!

Two nights was almost as good as two weeks.

PHOTO BY DAWN GARCIA

TEXT DAWN GARCIA

Three things are impossible to flee from these days: COVID-19, Trump, and the election. Overly exhausted of these stress-inducing topics coupled with everything else happening in the world right now, I welcomed the chance to escape.

Thankfully California is steadily loosening its grip on in-state travel restrictions (until someone ruins it for the rest of us, of course), and some counties have happily started welcoming guests back, Ventura among them. Not eager to be in the company of large crowds, my partner and I decided to grab our 100-pound pooch, leave the kids at home, and discover the much ado of glamping in Airstreams.

With a desire to stay relatively close to home—just in case there was an emergency—our search led us to Ojai.

The tiny city amid the Topatopa Mountains is known for its hippy-like vibe, quaint restaurants, pubs, wineries, bars, boutique shops, hot springs, golf course, and

a climate that mirrors that of the Mediterranean. In fact, everything from olives and cactus varietals to wine grapes and citrus thrive there.

Entering into Ojai after the short drive AIRSTREAM DREAM In the 1920s, Wally from LA on the 101 to Byam envisioned a home Highway 33, the feeling that could travel anyof release takes over alwhere. After some trial and error, he created a most immediately. I say teardrop-shaped permaalmost because, let’s be nent shelter, and that honest, stress in general was that. As he and his seems highly improbable family moved from here to there, cautching the to eliminate; we’re just eyes of travelers, Byam working with whatever realized he was onto something. Fast-forward calm we can channel. a hundred years and I have researched and Airstreams are still all written about awe-inthe rage—and we pay spiring glamping sites good money to glamp in them. from the Central Coast to Mendocino, but when Caravan Outpost popped up in my Google search, I knew it was the place— so we booked two nights and three days. Per California’s COVID-19 restrictions, some things have changed in order for hotels to remain compliant. There is no early check-in, and utensils, cookware, and some of the usual amenities are not provided , so plan carefully and pack anything you may need N OV E M B E R 2020

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CustommDecorr••Diningg&&Drinkss••Entertainment ThemeddEventtHallss••OutdoorrEventtSpaces

82533RonsonnRoad,,SannDiego,,CAA92111 858861770902 encoreeventcenterrnet

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LEARN MORE

Caravan Outpost 317 Bryant Street, Ojai caravanoutpostojai.com

chairs and ottoman, and an umbrella with night lights strewn above. Our Airstream, the dog-friendly Yeti deluxe caravan No. 5, sported its own shower, separate bathroom and sink, queen bed, extra pull-out bed, convection oven, refrigerator with freezer, stove top, kitchen sink and lounge area. While we weren’t allowed to enjoy the fire pit or the indoor com-

munity living room, the creative landscape was nonetheless inviting.

Staying at the Outpost over the weekend was calming, blissful, entertaining, delicious, and downright necessary for our sanity. The staff were kind and the grounds drew us into its world far from reality.

The comforts of home and the call of the wild came together here like syncretic poetry.

PHOTOS BY DAWN GARCIA

if you decide to stay in a glamping site or a hotel.

Caravan Outpost is a beautiful oasis tucked just off of the highway in a private little mecca that is both bougie and stripped-down in all the right ways. Each of its nine Airstream caravans (and a glorious tiny house) has its own driveway and its own private garden with bistro set, hammock, modern deep-seat

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GUM SAAN

Land of the Golden Mountain Importing the ďŹ nest quality hand crafted products from the foothills of the Himalayas Free trade and hand crafted by local artisans Providing exclusive jewelry, singing bowls, statues and all your meditative essentials

www.gumsaan.com

2615 San Diego Ave. San Diego, CA 92110

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EXPLORING, EATING, SHOPPING Ojai is abundant in cuisine—Thai, vegan, California fusion, Italian, Americana, old-fashioned pancake stacks, you name it. And coffee houses.

Lots of coffee houses… and yoga studios. The city sees most of its action on Highway 33. Three days may not be enough to fully gauge how many good options there were, but we had some exceptional food worth praising. (It’s also important to note that most deliver to Caravan Outpost.)

Ojai Pub is a plantbased pub with an

impressive menu that rivals some of LA’s better-known vegan spots. They do serve fish n’ chips, Baja fish tacos, chicken and burgers for those who aren’t as willing to take the vegan leap, but the vegan menu items are phenomenal, as is the selection of cocktails, spirits, craft beers, and wine.

Toward the city center, you’ll find Topa Topa Brewery and its dining partner, Little Sama Ojai (the smaller sibling of the original Sama Sama Kitchen in Santa Barbara). Topa Topa is a craft brewing company

PET-FRIENDLY While our dog Zeek turnd out to be too big and wild to stay the full weekend (we drove him home after the first night), one day exploring with him was definitely adventure enough to show us that Ojai is a dog-friendly city.

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THE SCENE

Bar at Revel and several wine and beer tasting rooms throughout the city. When morning rolls around, head to Hip Vegan, Café Ojai Emporium, or Java Joe’s.

When shopping for authentic decor and clothing beckons, head to the Caravan Outpost Shoppe, Fig Curated Living, deKor, and In The Field Ojai, a the place where I could get lost and spend my rainyday funds. Regardless of what you’re looking for, you will find something to appeal to your refinement or inner Bohemian in Ojai.

PHOTO CREDITS (FROM LEFT): COURTESY OF CARAVAN OUTPOST / DAWN GARCIA

serving beers on tap, and Little Sama Ojai serves South Asian cuisine packing a flavorful punch that includes a signature curry coriander (you can even buy some to take home).

Azu is a restaurant with a beautiful Spanishinspired menu, both culinary and cocktail, as well as craft beers you can purchase in pints or growlers. The bacon-wrapped dates and California BLT are sublime, and should the need arise for vegan cuisine, try the vegan paella. You’ll find a Kambucha and Acai

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THE SCENE GIFTS

Get a Jump on Gifts Plan ahead this season and shop for these locally made brands now.

TEXT DAWN GARCIA

2020 has been one hell of a year, but with all of the time we’re spending at home—and shopping online (no judgment here!)—I thought it would be the ideal time to put together a gift guide of some of my favorite items local to California. Featuring choices from smaller boutique-style stores operated by individuals who have used this time to send a message, this is a precursor to our big Holiday Gift Guide next month.

Lace Me Up Slipping into this undergarment adds that je ne sais quoi to your sensuality.

In the quaint Hollywood studios hub of Toluca Lake is a perfectly priced boutique clothing store for women called Rose & Sage. Owned by young entrepreneur Soraya Ardakani, this thoughtfully curated shop of gorgeous affordable, yet high-end apparel and accessories sells fabulous quality well-made looks without the gut-wrenching prices. Ardakani is devoted to curating clothes for customers of all ages, never straying from making every item she carries accessible. My favorite Rose & Sage must-have is something I now own in almost every color: lace bralettes. They are comfortable without the miserable underwire and can fit cups up to size DD. Check out all of their holidays buys.

RoseAndSage.com / @roseandsage / $25

Taking Ownership Doing the right thing means making a declarative statement in your life.

Actor, writer, director, concert pianist and overall good human, J. Lee has launched his line of #DoBetterUniversity apparel. It’s a call to action to ask every human being to step up and do better. In an effort to do something good with our lives and be an integral part of ending systemic injustice, Lee’s line of sweatshirts, tees, and hats send a message of hope and introspection. The line includes tees, baseball tees, sweatshirts and hoodies. At the end of the day, it is our job to #DoBetter.

DoBetterUniversity.com / $28-$65 USD

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PREMIUM CANNABIS F O R T H E E X P L O R E R I N YO U

COME VISIT US AT

WWW.EXPLOREZANNA.COM LICENSE: LCA19-0003299

THE SCENE GIFTS

Masking Your Skin Take care of your largest body organ.

When we think of skin, we often imagine small pores and flawless beauty, but skin has a major function. Did you know the average adult carries 8 pounds (3.6 kilograms) and 22 square feet (2 square meters) of flesh on their bodies? It is the one organ that is exposed to the environment and it carries the tale of what’s going on inside, so taking care of our skin is essential. One of my favorite new masks is made in Aliso Viejo by Mantra Mask. The “Sparkle and Glow” set, part of the recently released Hemp CBD line of masks, includes coconut eye gels, a marine-hydration sheet mask, a pore-refining sheet mask, and a collagen sheet mask.

There may not be solid proof CBD skincare makes a major difference, but these quality ingredients mixed with hemp CBD certainly doesn’t hurt!

MantraMask.com / $34 USD per Sparkle and Glow set ($55 Value)

Puff the Magic Zen Dragon This spliff helps you keep calm and enjoying life.

While it’s not made in Southern California, TruFlora weed is made in California and its Feel Good spliffs are the ideal remedy to gathering your stress and releasing it into some much needed zen. Described as the spliff to raise your frequency, the Feel Good half-gram blend includes ginko biloba, gotu kola, damiana, mate, calamus, lobelia, and skullcap.

The result is a mellow high that keeps your happy levels balanced.

TruFlora.com / $12 for 2-pack, $38 for 7-pack

Layer Up This surf attire appeals to the coast lovers.

Shopping for a guy isn’t always the easiest—primarily because our version of what looks good doesn’t always align with his. So I started looking through the countless catalogues my guy orders from and realized the shirts he wears that I love most (because they’re so soft!) come from a San Francisco company named Marine Layer. Made specifically for California and beach-side living, the line features incredible shirts, sweaters, hoodies, pants, and jumpers for both him and her. Buttery soft, the cotton material is beautiful to the touch, holds up in the long run, and makes easy Cali living look effortless. The line of Re-Spun tees are made from recycled cotton, nylon, and poly. My favorite picks for him are the Wax Canvas Jacket ($165), Slim Straight Corduroy Pant ($125), Fleece Out Crew Sweatshirt ($88), Slim Straight 5-Pocket Twill Pant ($125), and the Absurdly Soft Tees ($45-$52).

MarineLayer.com / Favorites $88-$165 USD

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THE SCENE CALENDAR

LEFT: FRIGHT FARMS, A DRIVE THRU EXPERIENCE BELOW: CAKELAND LOS ANGELES, BEAUTY WARS

Cakeland Los Angeles, Beauty Wars

On the Calendar

Drive-thrus, books, adventures, oh my!

TEXT DAWN GARCIA

This month, we elect a president. Depending on how long it takes to tally the votes and one of the nominees to concede, it may take a while, so we’ve rounded up some fun and impactful things to do that get you out of the political rut and into pretending everything is totally normal-ish.

LOS ANGELES

Fright Farms, A Drive Thru Experience Oct. 21–Nov. 29 Silverlakes Sports Complex, Inland Empire

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4 p.m.–midnight / Tickets $65$75 per car / 13 years old+ frightfarms.com

Halloween may not have been as thrilling as it usually is, but in the Inland Empire, mystery

and fear-inducing fright awaits you long after Hallows Eve. Designed to be COVID-19 safe, this in-your-car experience invites you into the sleepy,

Nov. 1–Dec. 31 Chinatown Central Plaza, DTLA 2–6:30 p.m. / Appointment only / Tickets $12.50-$20 cakeland.la

November. There will be multiple events per day, all held via the Festival portal, so you can peruse your favorite books in your PJ’s.

Elf on the Shelf’s Magical Holiday Journey Nov. 12–January 3 Fairplex, Pomona 5–10 p.m. / Tickets $24.95$75 per person elfontheshelfjourney.com

ORANGE COUNTY

Jordan Mackampa Nov. 6 Constellation Room, Santa Ana 7 p.m. / Tickets $15 concerts.livenation.com

Virtual Festival of Books, Stories and Ideas 2020 Virtual Nov. 1–Nov. 13 / 10 a.m.–6 Cannabis p.m. / Free Industrial events.latimes.com/ Marketplace festivalofbooks/ Summit & Expo.

The 25th Annual LA Times’ famed book festival is now going online through mid-

Nov. 18–19 12 a.m.–11 p.m. / Tickets $12.50-$45 cannabisimp.com/virtual-expo/

PHOTO CREDITS (FROM TOP): COURTESY FRIGHT FARMS, COURTESY CAKELAND

spooky town of Hilldale where a young woman, Emma Parker, has gone missing.

Confront creepy things lurking in the shadows, help solve the Fright Farms mystery, and enjoy a dark drive because once you’re in there’s no turning back.

®

®

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THE SCENE CALENDAR

LEFT: OUR OCEAN’S EDGE BELOW: WINE WEDNESDAYS WITH THE WORLD OF FRIDA RIGHT: SOUNDBATH AND KOMBUCHA WORKSHOP

COAHCELLA VALLEY

Interested in learning about the business of cannabis and how to leverage yourself in the marketplace?

This two day online virtual summit will explore insurance, finance, branding, medical cannabis tech, and more.

The exhibition halls gives you access to exhibitor booths, seminar sessions, and attendees will have access to round table discussions and networking opportunities.

Our Ocean’s Edge Now–Jan.10 Laguna Art Museum 11 a.m.–5 p.m. / Museum Admission $7 inspiredartandwine.com

SAN DIEGO

Harvest Walk Saturdays through Nov. 14 Balboa Park 11 a.m.–6 p.m. / Free belmontpark.com

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Wine Wednesdays with The World of Frida Nov. 11 5 –7:30 p.m. / Tickets $15$20 / 21 and over The California Center for the Arts in Escondido artcenter.org/event/ museum-wine-wednesday/

Celebrate the truly magnificent world of Frida Kahlo through the eyes of over 150 contemporary artists while enjoying a glass of vino and a cheese plate. This traveling exhibition explores works in various mediums that are the interpretation of Kahlo’s art, life, passion, and vivacious Mexican culture.

Soundbath and Kombucha Workshop

area of the Rock Yard and listen to Tejano, Merengue, Cumbia, Norteño and Salsa, for a safe night of en fuego!

Nov. 6 Makerville Studio 10 a.m.–2 p.m. / Admission $55 per person Tickets eventbrite.com

Jo Koy: Just Kidding World Tour

Virtual Cannavest USA

Noches de Fuego: Flamengo Band

Tuesday, Nov. 17th-18th 9 a.m.to 7 p.m.

Tickets $149-$369 cannaone.com/ CannaVestUSA/

Nov. 18 Fantasy Springs Resort Casino 7 p.m. / Free fantasyspringsresort.com/ noches-de-fuego/

Dec. 12 8 p.m. / Advanced Tickets $45-$65 Aqua Caliente Resort Casino hotwatercasino.com/jim-jefferies

Recently featured on the acclaimed Netflix comedy special Comin’ in Hot, Koy has quickly become Get your Latin mu- one of the comedisic fix in the outdoor an’s you can’t miss.

FRIDA PHOTO COURTESY OF THE CALIFORNIA CENTER FOR THE ARTS

SEASCAPE: Jasmine Swope, El Matador State Beach, Point Dune State Marine Conservation Area, Los Angeles County

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A DV I S O RY B OA R D WA N A B R A N D S

Practically everyone knows about the joys of cannabis gummies. And their growing popularity is understandable when you consider just some of the reasons for their use. Cannabis gummies can be a healthier option. Because they’re consumed through the digestive system, they don’t adversely affect the lungs like smoking and vaping. Plus, many cannabis gummies are low-calorie, vegan, kosher, and even gluten-free.

Cannabis gummies are easy to consume. Because of their small size, they can be carried practically anywhere and used discreetly, something that can’t be said for smoking and vaping. And each gummie is dose-specific, making it easier for consumers to know precisely the amount of cannabis they’re using.

Cannabis gummies are enjoyable to consume. Of course, we have always insisted that, for something so important when it comes to enhancing our lives, it is only appropriate for cannabis gummies to be enjoyed as a ur industry has changed perception that consumption came in treat. That’s especially easy today with dramatically in the past really just one form—smoking. That old- all the new fruity flavors and gummie decade since cannabis school inhalation method remains solidly varieties—traditional or new fastwas first legalized in popular, but it’s far from the only one acting—coming on the market today. a handful of states. Today, adult-use enjoyed by consumers. These days, both If you have not tried cannabis gumcannabis is legal in 11 states, while recreational and medical cannabis users mies, now is the a perfect time: Wana medical cannabis programs exist in 33. have an array of consumption choices, Brands and Three Wells, an online And this doesn’t count the legality in ranging from smoking and vaping flower cannabis information platform for older U.S. territories or D.C. to using concentrates, topicals, or subAmericans, are uniting to present the While public opinion on cannabis has lingual oils. One of the most prominent first-ever National Cannabis Gummie evolved, so, too, have consumers and choices is cannabis-infused products.

Day on Nov. 19. You might even want to their preferences. And for the first time, Infused products are so popular today ask your local dispensary if it’s running legalization efforts have advanced as that a recent Forbes article, citing New special pricing for gummies that day. far as Congress, as evidenced by the Frontier Data, called the product segment The new holiday will finally put cannaMarijuana Opportunity, Reinvestment “explosive” and forecast legal retail sales bis gummies on the calendar and remind and Expungement (MORE) Act, which of THC-infused products to exceed $21.5 everyone about the multifaceted use the House already has approved, and billion between 2020 and 2025. cannabis can have in our lives today. with the proposed SAFE Banking Act, Of infused products, the most popular which would create legal pathways so is edibles, which come in a lot of that state-licensed marijuana businesses different forms, from baked goods to new The Sensi Advisory Board comprises select industry leaders in a variety of fields, from can engage in legal relationships with beverage products. But no edible form education to cultivation. They are invited to financial services, including banks. has the reputation or allure—or even the share specialized insight in this dedicated section.

In the beginning, it was a common versatility—of today’s cannabis gummies. For a full list of board members, see page 16.

Category: Edibles Author: Nancy Whiteman, CEO of Wana Brands

Something to Chew On

National Cannabis Gummie Day is in November.

O

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THE END

For the Love of Nature California has been through a lot. This year alone, more than 4 million acres have burned here. That’s “twice the amount of land…in any other year on record” according to a report by the Los Angeles Times’ Alex Wigglesorth and Joseph Serna. The sheer scope of it is staggering, as is the lack of proper 92

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resources available to fight the destruction.

All over the West Coast, October’s once-blue skies became something you’d expect to see on Mars.

However, hope reared its head when Orange County announced its 3,000-gallon capacity, night vison–certified helitanker is now available to firefighters throughout

Southern California. Manufacturer Coulson Aviation’s CEO Kevin Payne said in a news conference that it “provides added firefighting resources to fire agencies across Southern California right when we need them.”

While the fire conditions are shifting as the promise of precipitation beckons, with charred land

comes mudslides once that rain begins. In 2019, homes buried in mud left 45 dead, so Californians are bracing themselves for an uncertain winter.

Thankfully, we may have some reprieve, as the Farmers’ Almanac is predicting it will be cool and dry. Just when we thought we were clear of the drought…

PHOTO BY BRANDON MASCAREÑAS

Wildfires, mudslides, and (maybe) another drought. TEXT ELI DUPIN

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