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Call it what you like.
Why do we call it 420?
And ask us anything you want.
Is weed really gonna give me the munchies?
Can I really get a contact high?
Everything you wanted to know about weed.
Is my weed safe to smoke?
Why is vaping dangerous?
- And then some. - How do I grow it?
- Will pot improve my sex life? - So many questions.
How many joints can one dude smoke?
Maybe you think you know.
Maybe you have no idea.
- But don't be paranoid. - 'Cause we've got the answers.
Sometimes it seems like the whole world
is going to pot.
So why not kick back...
...as we take you through the high and low of it.
You meet up with your friends and they're getting stoned.
One is taking hits from a bong.
The others passing around a joint.
You say, "No, thanks."
But they've been lighting up for a while,
and smoke fills the air
in the room where you're all hanging out.
Is it possible that the smog might be giving you
a bit of the fog?
Could you be experiencing a...
That would almost certainly be...
It is only in the most extreme circumstances,
like packing tightly into a small, unventilated space
with numerous people actively smoking lots of weed
over an extended period,
that you could maybe inhale enough second-hand smoke
to actually catch a buzz.
Even if you do,
it's highly unlikely that you absorbed enough pot
to fail that drug test at work on Monday morning.
The weight on a scale,
the calendar date,
or the time of day.
Which inspired one of the modern era's
best known numerical references?
420's origin story
can be traced back to San Rafael, California
in the 1970s
and a group of high school friends--
a posse of stoners who called themselves...
Every day after school,
the Waldos met up to get stoned
at exactly 4:20 p.m.,
and thus a code name was born.
420 was no longer just a number,
no longer just a stroke of a clock.
420 was now shorthand for weed,
at least amongst five friends growing up and smoking up
just across the bridge from San Francisco.
So how did the Waldos' secret slang go global?
It turns out that at least one of the Waldos
comingled with members of the Grateful Dead
at the band's rehearsal space in San Rafael.
It's assumed the Dead and some of their fans
picked up the term there
before carrying it back to the Haight
where it spread amongst the hippies
who, in turn, took it on the road with them
as they followed the band all over the map
in the '70s and '80s.
Eventually, "High Times" magazine
became hip to the term and amplified it.
Now a part of the universal lexicon,
420 has even inspired an unofficial holiday,
and we're guessing you know what day that is.
***
It's an age-old question that many feel was settled
when Bob Dylan introduced the Beatles to marijuana
in 1964.
Paul McCartney has been quoted as saying the inspiration
behind the band's seminal "Sgt. Pepper" album
can be summed up in one word--pot.
So, does cannabis make people more creative?
Talk to any musician, any artist,
even the average person, they'll say it does.
The first time I used cannabis was in college
performing a lot of classical and jazz music.
And particularly with jazz, the use of cannabis
was a way for me to get outside of my own head
and really sort of explore new ideas
that I didn't even realize were in there.
Memphis-born singer, songwriter Jozzy
is responsible for turning Billy Ray Cyrus all hip hop
on the smash hit remix to Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road."
* Hat down, cross town, livin' like a rock star *
* Spent a lot of money on my brand-new guitar *
Jozzy, who cowrote the track, credits her creative prowess
on the record-setting chart-topper
to the power of pot.
* Ridin' down Rodeo in my Maserati sports car *
The thing about Billy Ray and the thing about his wife
is that they're avid weed smokers.
That's one thing I loved about Billy
is he just was relaxed and he let me just do me.
"You're not gonna go country on 'Old Time Road.'
It's already country. You gonna be a rapper."
* Got no stress I've been through all that *
* I'm like a Marlboro Man So I kick on back *
That's all we did-- give him cool rap bars.
He got in the booth, took some puffs,
and we made a banger.
When I write songs, I do not know what I'm gonna write about
until I get in the booth,
and I really think that stems from weed.
I love to freestyle.
Everything just comes out, thin air, from God. Smoke some.
It will tap into another dimension.
It kinda wakes up your third eye a little bit.
Cannabis creates non-linear thinking
and feelings of sort
of a non-ordinary state of consciousness
and kind of allows you
to get out of your routinized thought patterns
into something that is more free flowing.
So there is what anecdotally people describe
which is that yes, weed makes you creative.
But if you look at the official studies,
there's more complexity and nuance to this question.
You might take risks that you wouldn't otherwise take--
a creative risk.
Like, you might try something that you hadn't tried before
because of decreased inhibition,
and you might produce something that's really good,
or you might produce something that's really wack.
It's harder to demonstrate a causation
between cannabis and creativity
certainly with our current lab measures.
But as with McCartney and Dylan,
Snoop, Dre, and Wiz before her,
Jozzy doesn't need a study to tell her what she believes.
She already knows.
I feel like weed, it relaxes you
to kind of get to your higher self.
And the best music is made when I really don't think
and I just let it flow from the heart.
Like, let this go and let this go.
***
The bong.
A sacred icon of stoner culture.
A supremely efficient way of getting far too stoned.
Often made from glass,
a bong is essentially a pipe
that funnels smoke through a water chamber,
the liquid acting as a filter
softening the harshness of the smoke.
[coughs] Ah, tastes so good.
Scott Deppe is perhaps the most revered bong maker in the world.
Although bong-like smoking devices
date all the way back to ancient Russia, Ethiopia, and China,
the origin of the modern era of high-end bongs begins
just like the term 420-- with the Grateful Dead.
From the 1970s through the '90s,
Deadheads would set up shop outside venues
as they followed the band from city to city, show to show.
An homage to one of the Dead's most classic songs,
these makeshift marketplaces were known as Shakedown Street.
Deadhead life was a counter-culture caravan
of music, art, and often grass.
One of those along for the ride was Bob Snodgrass
who is credited with transforming pipes
into works of art.
He's the godfather of the glass pipe industry.
For decades, Bob's one-of-a kind technicolor designs
mesmerized the hippies on Shakedown Street,
one of whom just happened to be Scott Deppe.
My brother came back to camp with this pipe
that he had gotten from Snodgrass.
It was the coolest thing in the world to me.
Start to finish,
one bong can take Scott and his team of 40
anywhere from one to six months to complete.
Less than 20 years ago,
Scott's profession was generally conducted in secret.
As recently as 2003,
in a series of raids dubbed Operation Pipe Dreams,
the DEA launched a nationwide takedown
on bong manufacturers.
There's another illegal industry
that is integrally linked to the drug trade.
It's the drug paraphernalia business.
That was then. This is now.
Today, artists like Scott
no longer operate in the shadows.
Where weed is now legal,
so, too, are the mechanisms for smoking it.
I knew it was gonna happen someday.
And business is booming.
Hell, if you've got 100K to spend,
this bong could be yours.
[snorts]
***
Hi, and welcome to another edition of "Drunk or Stoned."
Thanks for joining. Let's get this party started.
Our first question tonight
is you're acting a bit clumsy right now,
feeling more sloppy than spacey.
Are you drunk or are you stoned?
Drunk.
- [bell dings] - Drunk is right.
The alcohol you've downed
is messing with the part of your brain
that controls balance and movement--the cerebellum--
in a way that weed just doesn't.
All right. Next up.
If you're not careful and practicing moderation,
the substance you're ingesting right now
could kill you before morning.
Are you getting drunk or are you getting stoned?
Stoned.
- [buzzer] - Wrong.
The answer is drunk.
Every day, six people die from alcohol poisoning
while there has never-- that's right, never--
been a documented case
of anyone dying from an overdose of weed.
So, you're not dead, but you do feel like shit.
The room is spinning. You've got a headache,
and you're feeling slightly nauseous.
Were you drunk last night or were you stoned?
Drunk.
- [bell dings] - Drunk is right.
And you're hungover.
Your buddy, on the other hand, just texted you
to say that he had amazing sex last night.
Was he drunk like you,
or did he choose to get stoned instead?
Uh, given that I can't even remember last night,
I'm gonna say he was stoned.
[bell dings]
You are correct.
While alcohol numbs the body,
weed, as long as you don't overdo it,
enhances your sensations.
More sensation means more pleasure,
and more pleasure means better sex.
Oh, and by the way, you get a bonus point
for answering our next question before we even asked it.
If you can't remember last night,
you're experiencing a blackout,
and that means you were drunk last night, not stoned.
But remember, or maybe not,
weed can have an impact on your short-term memory.
So we'll check back in a little while
to see if you remembered that you just won
this installment of "Drunk or Stoned."
[ applause ]
***
The cannabis plant comes in all shapes and sizes,
but it's what's inside that counts.
Each cannabis plant might contain any combination
of more than 100 chemical compounds,
most of them concentrated in the buds of the plant.
Of those compounds, you've probably heard of two--
THC and CBD.
But what sets these two compounds apart?
THC will get you high.
CBD will not.
THC speeds up your heart rate.
CBD slows it down.
Both compounds have medicinal value
with research suggesting pain relief is best achieved
when the two are taken together.
There's just one little problem...
At least not everywhere.
Still banned in most states
where even medical marijuana remains illegal.
***
Every day, up to three times a day,
here at Washington State University,
16 rats are placed
inside specifically designed cannabis vapor chambers.
I think we can learn a lot
about what cannabis is doing to the brain
by understanding how it affects
the development of the rodent brain.
It's organized in a very similar fashion.
Inside these plexiglass boxes are two holes
just big enough for a rat to poke its nose.
In the first hole, nothing.
Just an open, empty space.
But if the rat sticks its nose into the other hole,
it breaks a beam of infrared light,
triggering a reaction.
Weed vapors released into the chamber,
and a smoke session begins.
Rats are quick to learn how the hotbox works.
Some don't seem to like the vapor
and stopped triggering it.
Others thoroughly enjoy the experience,
returning to the cannabis hole again and again and again.
For five years, Dr. Ryan McLaughlin
has been conducting studies on rats,
aimed at understanding the effects of cannabis
on human intelligence.
Does weed make us dumber?
Yeah, that's an interesting question.
What would I say is that weed certainly changes your brain.
It changes how synapses are wired.
In one study, Dr. McLaughlin
found that adolescent rats, teenage rats
consuming more cannabis in their youth
had greater difficulty learning new skills later in life,
struggling with brain teasers
like mazes and other strategy games.
The behavioral impairments that we're seeing are very subtle,
but they're, nonetheless, apparent
when we start to actually challenge them
with a little bit more cognitively demanding tasks.
These findings are consistent with other research,
showing that people who smoke a lot of cannabis
during their teenage years
may risk losing several I.Q. points
compared to those who don't.
And if you're under the age of 25,
there's a chance that too much weed
will have long-term effects on your short-term memory.
A drug like cannabis is not necessarily all good or all bad.
There are particular layers to this
that we need to really understand
at a very fine-grain level.
Do you feel like your friends are laughing at you?
Convinced someone is watching your every move?
Wondering why Fido is giving you the side eye?
If you answered yes to any or all the above questions,
you might be stoned.
You might be experiencing anxiety.
You might be paranoid.
What the hell is going on, man?
More likely than not, the THC you ingested
in that weed you just consumed
is overstimulating your amygdala.
Sounds kind of hot, right?
That part of your brain that processes emotions
is way too excited--
your neural pathways firing on all cylinders.
We can't tell you exactly why this is happening.
Scientists aren't sure.
Next time you might wanna smoke a strain that's less potent
or simply smoke less of the one you've got.
Lower dosage and lower potency
should both diminish your chances of freaking out.
In the meantime, do your best to chill,
relax and ride the high.
Back in the late '90s,
Ricky Williams was a star running back
at the University of Texas,
a Longhorn on his way to earning
college football's highest honor.
But at the age of 20,
Ricky was also just another student
dealing with the typical pressures of young adulthood.
Fast-forward to my senior year in college,
and I was in the running for the Heisman Trophy
but at the same time going through a really bad breakup.
And my roommate was a smoker.
He suggested that I try smoking to help me,
and after smoking, I actually got a decent night's sleep.
And so it was my first experience
of what we would now call medicinal effects of cannabis.
But at the time, I just registered
that it helped me feel better.
The cannabis continued to make Ricky feel better
as he graduated from college into the big leagues.
As I went through the NFL and started to experience
both physical stress--injuries-- and mental stress,
just being a professional football player,
I found that cannabis helped.
You know, it helped me let go of the day
and wake up the next morning ready to go at it again.
When I talk to former pro athletes
or current pro athletes who are using the plant,
I think the most important benefit
of cannabis and exercise is just healing the body.
It's wonderful for pain management.
Recent studies have shown
that cannabis works particularly well
for many of the physical problems
facing football players...
...even with repairing the brain after a concussion.
So it made sense that Ricky wanted to light up,
but he was also playing with fire.
When I got traded to Miami,
I came to work one day, and a guy was right there
and said, "You're up for a piss test."
About a week later, I got a letter telling me
that I failed the drug test
and I was entering the NFL's drug program
which meant that I'd be tested nine times a month
and I'd have to talk with a counselor
for an hour each week.
By the early 2000s when Ricky tested positive,
the NFL had the strictest drug-testing policies
of any professional sport.
While most leagues recognized that weed shouldn't incur
as harsh a penalty as coke or amphetamines,
cannabis users were always at a disadvantage
when it comes to peeing in a cup.
Pot stays in your system up to a month
unlike most other drugs
which would disappear from your body
after a few days.
I just started to feel like a criminal and an addict,
and I didn't agree that I had a problem.
It didn't feel real or accurate.
Somehow it leaked
that I was in the NFL drug program.
That blow to my image was a lot, and it got to the point
where I was thinking there's so many other things
that I'd rather be doing with my life right now.
And so Ricky made the extraordinary decision
to walk away from the sport
that had defined him
from the time he was a child.
The story that's told
by the media is that I retired
because I wanted to smoke pot.
That's partially true.
But the moment I retired,
I felt this huge weight come off my shoulders,
and I felt free.
I felt this spirituality rise up in me.
The only thing I could think of to help explain it was seasons.
You know, spring turns into summer,
and summer turns into fall, and fall turns into winter,
and it doesn't seem like nature really complains about it.
It's just this natural shift.
So I made sense of it, thinking that maybe
the season of football has come to an end
and it was time for another season to start.
And that new season has kept Ricky a busy man.
I founded a wellness and herbal company.
Founding an astrological dating app.
I'm in two master's programs.
There have been a lot of improvements in the past decade
as it relates to how professional sports
are treating the use of cannabis for its athletes.
The sensible evolution for the NFL
would be to do the same thing as Major League Baseball is doing
which is just to abolish cannabis testing altogether.
Perhaps Ricky was a man ahead of his time.
In the summer of 2020,
UT, Ricky's alma mater,
renamed its football field after him.
I think that was the first moment
where I felt exonerated.
You know, the fact that I could have a history
of being a druggie
and giving up all the money and all the controversy
but still people were interested in putting a statue of me
up at the university and honoring me was huge.
It goes to show sometimes doing what you know is right
is more important than following the rules.
Like many other products and activities,
vaping carries a risk and can be dangerous,
largely because many of the vape pens
now flooding the market are illegal and unregulated,
and it's nearly impossible to determine which ones they are.
Illicit pen manufacturers aren't playing by any rules,
and some take shortcuts,
employing dangerous methods
and materials,
like using lighter fluid
to extract cannabis oil from the plant.
To increase profits,
they might dilute that cannabis oil
with chemicals not recommended for human inhalation.
And then there's the pen itself, often made from cheap hardware.
When using these lower-quality pens,
you may end up inhaling tiny flecks of heavy metals
into your lungs.
***
The heat of the pen
can also turn otherwise harmless chemicals into poison.
When, for example, myclobutanil,
a chemical common is illicit weed oil,
reaches 396 degrees Fahrenheit,
it turns into hydrogen cyanide.
Most pens reach 500 degrees or more.
And did we mention cyanide?
Nearly 90% of the serious lung injuries
believed to be caused by vaping
have been attributed to these illegal, unregulated pens.
It should be noted, however,
that even the legal pens have been around
for only about 10 years,
and little reliable data exists.
So whether you're vaping nicotine or marijuana,
be wary of the long-term health consequences
which remain largely unknown.
Hmm. "How will weed affect my sperm?"
A recent Harvard study
found that cannabis was actually associated
with increased sperm count.
But--You knew where was a "but," right?
Research has also shown that people who smoke weed
have more trouble getting their partners pregnant.
So more sperm, but maybe they have no sense of direction
and count quite find the egg they're looking for?
Most fertility doctors will tell both members of a couple
to lay off the weed if they're trying to conceive.
***
Here in the American heartland lies one state
where marijuana remains totally illegal.
In Wisconsin,
getting caught with even a single bud of weed
could land you in jail for more than three years.
In 2018,
authorities in Wisconsin made more than 17,000 arrests
for possession of marijuana.
As is the case around the country,
many Wisconsinites are using cannabis
not recreationally,
but for medicinal purposes.
Only here, they're still breaking the law by doing so.
My life is so overwhelming that...
I just feel like I can't slow down. I can't stop.
This is Patrick Delooze.
Patrick served in the U.S. Army for over a decade,
doing two tours of duty in Iraq
in 2006 and 2008.
Like hundreds of thousands of soldiers
now back from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,
Patrick suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder.
Returning soldiers are often haunted
by memories of death and destruction...
triggered by seemingly innocuous events
like a sudden loud noise.
- [explosions] - [man shouts]
Came back from Iraq, and--
and it was a wild ride,
a long, really hard struggle,
financially, emotionally,
physically.
Patrick now leads the Wisconsin chapter
of a group called Weed for Warriors.
I put a nug in a little pipe that I had,
and I felt a lot better. I felt more relaxed.
Weed for Warriors
helps veterans around the country access cannabis
for the purposes of treating the lingering effects of injuries,
both physical and psychological.
I mean, it's rough,
but, you know,
this slows--
Like, it gives me peace. It lets me sleep.
The dreams were so gripping. Scary as...
You got that whole damp spot in the bed,
wondering what the hell, who poured water on you.
- Yes. - That shit's crazy.
A recent study out of Israel showed
that because cannabis suppresses one's ability to dream,
it helps PTSD patients keep nightmares at bay
and allows them to sleep more peacefully through the night.
I leave a loaded pipe right next to my bed,
and I'll roll over at 2:00 in the morning.
That's the hard part. It's just maintaining a supply.
And it's extremely difficult to come by.
It's so much easier to get a pack of smokes
- than it is to get some weed. - Yeah.
We have to almost force to go through some high school kids
or something sometimes, you know. It's ridiculous.
Or deal with the drug dealer around the corner.
I wish I lived in California
or Colorado or Washington right now.
In places where legal cannabis is available,
studies have shown a significant decrease
in opioid-related deaths
which may suggest
that many of those suffering from chronic pain
are replacing their pills with pot.
They should just be legal nationwide,
- recreationally, and done. - Yeah.
Let the people decide.
***
Call it a crazy quilt,
the patchwork of state laws
that determine whether weed is legal and to what extent,
wherever it is that you live.
Though weed is still prohibited in 15 states
against the law in any form and under any condition...
As of 2021,
35 states now allow the use of medical marijuana.
And of those 35,
16 now also allow the recreational use of weed.
Oh. And don't forget about Washington, D.C.
They've joined the recreational party as well.
So, wondering about the legal status of weed where you are?
Here's the roll call.
[classical music playing]
[music continues ]
[music ends]
In the eyes of the U.S. federal government,
heroin and weed are considered equally dangerous drugs,
both designated Schedule 1 drugs.
Schedule 1 drug is defined as a drug
that has a very high potential for abuse
but no medical use whatsoever.
Defining cannabis that way
defies much of what we now know about weed,
though that knowledge is largely the result
of research coming from beyond America's borders.
Israel, the Netherlands, the U.K., and Canada
are leading the way in cannabis research.
It was actually in Israel,
and it was about half a century ago
that they first isolated and discovered THC.
It was in the UK
that the only FDA-approved drug derived from cannabis
was developed.
Epidiolex is now used worldwide
to treat patients suffering from seizures.
U.S. research on cannabis lags far behind,
complicated by weed's continued Schedule 1 classification
which discourages scientists from studying it.
America's Public Enemy Number 1 is drug abuse.
The weed-fueled counter-culture revolution of the 1960s
prompted the government to accept
that at least some research on this increasingly popular drug
might be necessary.
And so the School of Pharmacy
at the University of Mississippi, Ole Miss,
was granted a contract to provide standardized cannabis
to researchers around the country.
More than 50 years later,
it remains the only source of federally legal weed
anywhere in the U.S.
Most of the research using weed grown here
is conducted on animals
like Dr. McLaughlin's rats up in Washington.
Human studies are rare.
There are, however, a select few individuals
who do receive pot directly from the Mississippi farm.
In this house
in this suburban neighborhood in Fort Lauderdale, Florida
lives a 67-year-old stockbroker
who also happens to smoke a lot of weed.
Like, a lot.
- You all ready? - Yeah. We got you.
I'm gonna light up to do it.
Like clockwork, every month for the past 38 years,
Irvin Rosenfeld has been receiving shipments
of marijuana free of charge
in courtesy of the U.S. government.
I will smoke a joint one after another
as long as I can until I decide to go to bed.
Neatly packed into metal tins,
each delivery postmarked "Mississippi"
contains 300 joints
which raises the question...
Well, as of the year 2020,
Irvin has received and smoked
more than 136,000 government-issued J's.
This is how I've been getting my medicine for over 38 years.
I believe it's kept me alive, and it's kept the tumors,
over 200 of them in my body, from growing.
When Irvin was just 10 years old,
doctors found bone tumors ravaging his entire body.
Irvin was told the condition was incurable
and the tumors would only multiply as he got older.
The pain was at times excruciating.
By the time Irvin was a teenager,
he'd endured numerous surgeries
and was hostage to an endless regimen of painkillers.
But then Irvin went to college.
It was the '70s,
and he tried marijuana for the first time.
Irvin quickly realized
that cannabis relieved the pain in his bones
more so than any medicine he'd ever taken
or any procedure he'd ever done.
I said, "Gee. I haven't taken a pill in five to six hours."
And just then the person to my left handed me the joint,
and I looked at it and said,
"This is the only thing I've done differently."
Around the same time that Irvin was having
his own revelations about weed,
researchers at UCLA were discovering
that cannabis could also help treat patients with glaucoma,
an eye condition that can lead to blindness.
In 1978, Robert Randall, a patient associated with UCLA,
sued the federal government
for the right to legally use cannabis as medicine.
This led to the establishment of the...
Which is a long way of saying
the government started providing Randall
with specially delivered pre-rolled joints.
Bob Randall, the first American
ever to gain legal access to marijuana
because of his glaucoma condition.
He became the first person in the United States
to receive medical cannabis from the federal government.
Within a few years, Irvin and a few other patients
joined Randall in that experimental government program.
And they just delivered eight ounces of marijuana
to my doctor that day. [laughs]
Marijuana--pot, grass, whatever you wanna call it--
is probably the most dangerous drug in the United States,
and we haven't begun to find out all of the ill effects...
In the 1980s, as Reagan stepped up the war on drugs,
the government kept its weed program on the downlow,
never enrolling more than a few dozen people.
[woman chanting, indistinct]
But by the early '90s,
the program was attracting more attention
when a surge of applicants,
many of them suffering from AIDS,
sought medicinal relief.
Conservative backlash ensued,
and the government only hardened its stance on weed.
No medical study has indicated
marijuana is significantly effective
in controlling nausea and vomiting.
We were ostracized.
We would argue for medical marijuana,
and people were against us, but we knew we were right.
Many in the medical community believed Irvin was right,
but the government did not,
ultimately closing the program to new applicants in 1991.
Pain's got a little better.
Though nobody new would be allowed to join,
those already in the program
would continue to receive government-supplied weed.
Only two members of that program survived,
and Irvin is one of them.
Despite establishing the program for the purposes of research,
the government has never published any scientific data
on the outcome of Irvin's weed use
or that of any other patient.
But an independent study published in 2002
found that several decades of smoking government pot
had quite positive effects, with all patients doing well
and taking fewer pharmaceuticals than before.
When I die, if I can help someone else live longer,
because of learning more about my disorder through me,
then it makes me feel good.
I mean, that's been the whole point
of teaching people about medical marijuana.
If you said seniors,
65 and overs,
give yourself a tie-dye star.
That's right. The same generation responsible
for popularizing weed in the '60s,
is now flocking to dispensaries in their 60s and 70s
and sometimes older.
Most boomers are consuming medical marijuana,
eager to relieve the aches and pains of aging
or looking for a better night's sleep.
At least that's what they tell the grandkids.
As of 2019,
travelers are free to enter LAX
carrying up to 28 1/2 grams of weed.
But...
Once you reach TSA,
you may be SOL.
The TSA is a federal agency,
and weed remains illegal at the federal level
regardless of what state law might be in the city
where you're boarding.
So while they're not necessarily looking to bust you
for that dime bag in your carry-on,
they just might if they find it.
If they don't, it's worth considering
what might happen when you reach your destination.
Just because weed is legal
in the place from which you're taking off,
doesn't mean it will be where you land.
Besides, the plane itself is also under federal jurisdiction.
So you best not tamper with that smoke detector
in the lavatory,
and you best be careful if you're hiding that hash.
***
As recently as 2016,
a study of cannabis sold at medical dispensaries
in California
found harmful pathogens in every single sample
that was tested.
Cannabis kind of straddles a lot of different product categories,
so regulating cannabis was difficult.
Two years later,
California enacted some of the nation's strictest controls.
Now...
Cannabis in California is actually regulated
to a level that's more stringent
than most of the consumer products
that we're gonna come across.
So when you purchase cannabis
in a licensed retail dispensary in California,
you're getting one of the cleanest consumer products
you can get.
And that's because of testing protocols
that have been implemented in state-license labs
all across California.
Like this one here in Santa Cruz.
First we're testing for potency or dosage,
and that's testing for the cannabinoids
that can have intoxicating effects.
Then we also test for potential contaminants.
Things like pesticides, heavy metals, residual solvents.
Among other tests used to sniff out some of those contaminants,
the lab performs a technique called...
...which sounds pretty complicated because it is.
Let's just say that this process
entices the bad stuff to reveal itself
by emitting a fluorescent glow.
We also look for microbiological pathogens
like E.coli, salmonella, things that make you food sick,
as well as pathogens like aspergillus
that can be especially dangerous when inhaled
especially for compromised patients.
Controlling the THC levels
determines the dosage of a cannabis product.
It's similar to the way we know the amount of alcohol
contained in any given shot of vodka.
So those are the standard tests that are performed
on every batch of cannabis sold in California.
But those tests aren't happening everywhere.
Even in some states that have legalized,
dirty weed is still for sale.
Because of its continued illegal status at the federal level,
national safety standards are unlikely any time soon.
So regulating weed remains a free-for-all,
whether it's the stuff you smoke or the stuff you eat.
***
Still haunted by that pot brownie incident
back in high school?
We get it.
Without those fancy testing machines at labs
like the one in Santa Cruz,
it would be impossible to predict
just how big that batch your friend baked was gonna get you.
Today, though, as the demand for non-smoke weed grows,
the art of controlling the high you get from edibles
is actually an increasingly exact science.
That science starts here,
step one in converting the cannabis plant
into stoner delicacies.
These are custom-built cannabinoid extraction machines.
Cannabis plants are dropped in the top
before super critical carbon dioxide is deployed
with enough pressure to crush a human skull.
Over a 10-hour course,
the CO2 strips away most of the unnecessary plant material
and leaves behind a thick, foamy yellow goo.
Inside the extracts are fats, waxes, and THC,
the stuff that actually gets you high.
The yellow goo is run through another machine.
This one called a....
The rotovap's gentle spinning motion
acts like a vacuum,
further stripping away excess water, wax, and fat.
What's finally left behind is an oil
made up almost entirely now of nothing but cannabinoids.
And yet, a swig of this oil
wouldn't actually get you stoned,
at least not yet.
To activate the THC in the cannabinoids,
you need to add heat.
And once you do,
the result is an ultra-potent oil.
Now, if you drink a cup of this,
it will in fact get you very, very high.
Luckily, once in this form,
potency can be carefully controlled,
allowing processors to determine precisely and consistently
the exact strength of each of their products.
But consume with caution.
The effects may vary widely from person to person
even if you're chowing down on the same dosage.
FEMALE SINGERS: * Bye-bye, blues *
* Don't cry Don't sigh *
* The sun is shining No more pining *
***
* Ohh *
* Bye-bye Bye-bye, blues *
So, who's got the munchies?
Munchies? Did someone say munchies?
[crunching]
Nachos. Pop-Tarts.
A double chili cheeseburger with bacon.
How about a pepperoni pizza
with Spicy Ranch to wash it down?
Long a clichÃ© of stoner culture, the munchies are actually...
Like an actual scientific thing.
Blame it on the THC which flips a switch in your brain,
triggering the release of a hormone
that tells your body it's starving
even when it's not.
While that might do little more
than inspire a midnight snack or two for you,
THC is providing real medical benefit
to those who are sick, restoring the will to eat
in patients undergoing chemotherapy,
suffering from AIDS or other conditions
that cause loss of appetite.
THC is helping them find strength
at a time when they need all the strength they can get.
Worth over $40 billion,
weed is the second most valuable crop in the country,
topped only by corn.
And as its legitimacy grows,
thousands are now eager to join
one of America's fastest growing industries.
- Good morning, Oaksterdam. - Good morning!
Ah, wonderful to have you this morning.
In Oakland, California sits Oaksterdam University,
America's first cannabis college,
attracting students from around the world
with a wide-ranging cannabis curriculum,
offering classes on everything
from cultivation to business administration.
I didn't really pay attention in school.
I didn't really care about grades.
But when it to cannabis,
I was always just researching and constantly learning more.
When I was studying in university,
every time the class would get boring,
I would take out my cellphone and check weed business.
I was like, "Why am I not starting this?
There has to be something."
I searched it up, and I ended up here.
Oaksterdam was founded in 2007
and counted 20 students among its first class,
long before recreational weed was legal.
But now that it is, the school has transformed
into a thriving, job-training center
where enrollment continues to grow.
I'm almost done. I'm in week 12.
I've been learning a lot,
and I hope to own a cultivation facility.
My future goal for the industry
is to cultivate specific strains for patients.
Education advocacy.
I want to own a dispensary.
Packaging and transportation company.
Knowledge is power for sure, but so is money,
and you're gonna need that, too,
if you plan on starting your own weed business.
That requires obtaining a special license
usually from either the city or the state.
But only so many licenses are issued,
and along with huge fees and complicated restrictions,
competition for the few that are drives up the costs.
On average in California,
there are reports on the retail level
of people purchasing dispensary licenses
for about $2 million to $10 million,
but it fluctuates.
If you do manage to clear that financial hurdle,
your criminal record better be clean.
Most cities and states bar those with drug-related offenses
from entering the industry.
And as a result, some have been
disproportionately denied opportunities.
If you have a felony,
you're much more likely to be Black or Brown
because of racial disparities.
It became very clear how unfair that is
and how that excludes communities of color.
We wanna make sure
that we're not excluding people based on felonies.
Here in Oakland,
they've established a social equity program.
Those with cannabis-related criminal records
pre-dating legalization
or those that grew up in overpoliced communities
during that same time
are move toward the front of the license line.
It's essentially reparations for the war on drugs.
Having an element of restorative justice
where we put back into the communities
that were so abused,
it's simple justice.
It will make a big difference.
And people of color, particularly young Black men,
see they are no longer going to be marginalized,
that they're going to have a little piece of this action.
I think it will have a very profound effect.
[siren blaring]
Believe it or not,
despite being legal in 35 states,
more people in the United States
are still arrested for marijuana violations
than for any other reason.
More than 650,000 people busted every year,
but very few will actually land in prison.
And if they do, chances are their stay won't be long.
These days,
the multi-decade sentences of the war on drugs
are mostly a thing of the past.
But being arrested for weed
can still totally mess up your life.
Posting bail.
Hiring a lawyer.
Court fees.
A single joint could end up costing you
tens of thousands of dollars.
Race continues to be a factor
as the disparities
in the enforcement of drug laws persist.
While studies consistently show
that are races use and sell cannabis in equal measure,
Black and Brown people are still disproportionally arrested
for weed-related crimes
and are more likely to draw longer sentences if convicted.
So the consequences of getting busted for pot
can still be costly and far-reaching.
Want that student loan?
That job?
Even your right to vote?
All of those things you might want tomorrow
could be affected by the rest that happens today.
Just ask Johnny Burress.
2010. I'm 25 years old.
I come home to Michigan.
We have a little get-together.
There was no more than 10 people.
I fall asleep, and I wake up to loud knocks at the door.
[pounding]
Which were the Grand Rapids Police Department.
They found marijuana. It wasn't even on my person.
But it was my house,
so I was the one that took the fall,
and I went to jail for it.
Johnny spent just three days behind bars,
but a decade on has been unable to put that arrest behind him.
Still haunts me on my record to this day.
Everything that I do that I have to put my name on
or I have to get a background check,
this pops up.
2017, I applied for seven or eight different places to live,
and all of 'em said the same thing.
They told me that I have this on my record.
They turned me down.
Eventually, Johnny managed to land a job
coaching high school football
and working with special needs students.
When I got the job, I was handed some papers as well.
And the papers stated to me that there's a zero-tolerance
for me to have any police activity
just because of my record.
It was kind of scary because I'm a Black man,
and if I get pulled over, I lose my job.
And I'm like, "I'm a major factor in these kids' life."
I'm one of two Black staff in the school.
I was hoping that everything on my record
was gonna get expunged, but that was not the case,
and it's stopping me from being able to live a productive life.
Out of the 16 states
that have legalized even recreational use of weed,
Michigan and Alaska are the only two
that have failed to clear the way
for residents to expunge their pot-related records.
I was stopped in my tracks
just because of this case that happened in 2010.
It's 2020.
They will definitely take everything you worked for
and make you feel like a criminal.
[record crackling]
[jazz playing]
Nestled along the Southern California coastline
is the picture-perfect city of Santa Barbara,
home to one of the most hospitable climates
in the United States for growing weed,
home to about a third
of California's legal marijuana farmland,
harvesting product for the state's $3 billion legal market.
Oh, yeah.
This is industrial cannabis agriculture--
greenhouses cultivating half a million square feet of weed.
This is just so awesome.
It's like--It looks like it's dipped in sugar.
Graham Farrar learned how to grow weed back in college,
nurturing six plants at a time in his closet.
It's such a cool plant. It's just so much you can do with it.
Today, Graham is president of Glass House Farms,
the company that owns this sprawling operation.
The trichome is basically
the fruit and body of the cannabis plant.
In those trichomes are THC and CBD.
Industrial-scale cannabis farms like this one
require an enormous amount of light.
Here in Santa Barbara, sunshine is free.
When legalization happened in California,
Graham teamed up with Kyle Kazan
whose previous line of work made him an interesting
but not unusual choice in partner.
Before I got into all this,
some years ago I was a police officer,
and so I was actively engaged in the drug war
which is take people to jail for growing, using, selling.
In other words,
Kyle used to arrest people for crimes
like those Graham was guilty of committing back in college.
These kinds of partnerships are actually pretty common
in big weed.
Guys like Graham who broke the law and never got caught
partnering with former enforcers like Kyle.
The greenhouse is doing its thing
24 hours a day, seven days a week.
When those lights come on after the sun sets,
to keep the plants growing,
these blackout curtains automatically close
so that for our neighbors
we're not a second moon out there lighting up the sky.
The humidity goes up, it raises the temperature.
It burps the vents to let the humidity out
and then close 'em back down to keep it warm.
And all these things are always happening in concert,
and it's pretty cool.
I'm a geek, so I like this kind of stuff.
When the cannabis Graham grows is ready for harvest,
the plants are cut,
then hung upside down to dry for two weeks
at room temperature.
It really allows all those chlorophylls
and everything to turn into carbohydrates and sugars
and give it a nice, sweet taste.
In average, we're processing about 45 pounds of flour,
and our good days, we're doing about 60,
which is really, really good.
Many of those buds are then packaged in bulk
and distributed to dispensaries around the state.
In 2019, Glass House Farms produced 15,000 pounds of weed.
By the end of 2020, they expect that number to top 50,000.
So what if I wanted to grow my own weed?
How would I do it?
***
Okay. Get comfortable
'cause growing weed is not as easy as growing basil.
But if it's legal in your state to do so,
here's the rather detailed blow by blow.
We recommend starting with a clone.
A clone is a small seedling cut from another cannabis plant.
You can find one at a weed nursery or dispensary
in most legal states.
Keep your potted clone somewhere relatively humid,
away from direct sunlight,
at a temperature of 75 to 85 degrees Fahrenheit.
Spray the soil once or twice a day to keep it moist
but not soaked.
When your plant starts to sprout fan leaves,
your plant is entering the...
It is now ready to be transferred to a larger pot.
This phase can last anywhere from three to 11 weeks.
Be sure your plant gets plenty of light...
When you start to see buds and start to smell an aroma,
you have reached the...
For the next two or three months,
you want to expose the plant to 12 hours of light
and 12 hours of darkness every day.
You'll know it's time to harvest when the fan leaves turn yellow
and at least half the plant's hairy pistils
have turned from white to red.
Cutting at the stem.
Remove each branch from the plant.
Snip off the larger fan leaves.
Then hang the branches upside down
in a dark, cool room.
After five to 10 days
when the thinner stems are dry enough to snap,
trim away the excess leaves and stems.
Collect the buds and place them in a jar.
Fill each glass jar about 75% with buds.
For the first week,
open and close the jars for a few minutes each day--
a process called burping.
After the first seven days,
you only need to burp the jars once or twice a week.
After a month or so,
the cannabis should be ready to smoke,
though some strains are like fine wine
that get better with age.
Give those two or three, sometimes even six months
to reach maximum potency.
Hopefully, the smoke is worth the wait.
***
She calls herself a rap priestess
and a medicine woman.
Let me ask you this. Can I burn a little sage?
Okay, you got to bless the space.
Lizzy Jeff has been described by others
as a cannabis creative.
What I like to do is break down the herb with my fingers.
There is something very special
about feeling the medicine in between your fingers.
Lizzy is the visionary
behind L.A.'s cannabis and CBD-themed Zen & Kush events
where the faithful, mostly women,
gather to socialize, celebrate, and partake in the plant.
What I like to do
is add a little bit of organic rose petal.
Roses in ancient Egyptian beliefs
are said to be the flower of the goddess.
So rose and cannabis do make a really powerful union.
Weed isn't necessarily for everyone.
It may not be for you,
but if it is, you might learn a thing or two
and perhaps even derive some pleasure
from following Lizzy's very personal
and spiritual approach to preparation.
I got my papers,
and they're very thin, organic paper.
Once you break down the herb,
you just pack it on in the paper.
I get it real tight.
You wanna kind of roll it over.
Kind of like you're wrapping a burrito.
Then you get to the part,
especially if it's your personal J--
You just give it a nice lick.
Just take your time.
Practice.
Practice makes perfect.
And then you pinch the bottom.
And then you got a cute, little skinny.
[laughs] And that's the thing about it.
It doesn't have to be perfect.
This is for you for your personal ritual.
It's not about how it looks.
Our relationship with cannabis
can be as powerful and spiritual as we want it to be,
allowing the medicine to elevate your consciousness
in a way where you feel empowered.
You feel ignited.
You feel inspired to contribute to these evolutionary times.
So thank you for being here.
You being here tuned into this frequency
is a confirmation that you have officially stepped
into the next chapter of your greatness.
Blessings.
***
* Hittin' that weed in the mornin' *
* Hittin' that weed *
* In the evenin' *
* Hittin' that weed at midnight *
* Hittin' that weed at all night *
* Hittin' that weed on a Monday *
* Hittin' that weed on a Tuesday *
* Hittin' that weed on a Wednesday *
* What comes after Wednesday? *
* Na-na, na-na, na-na Na-na, na-na, na-na *
* Na-na, na-na, na-na, na-na Na-na, na-na *