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featured prominently in gourmet dinners and in
cooking seminars. Cannabis-themed weddings
are also becoming popular, where “budtenders”
are on hand to give advice about strains, bou-
quets are sprinkled with cannabis, and teepees
give guests an area to indulge. Upscale cook-
books are also cropping up from traditional
publishers, authored by cannabis stars like
Karin Lazarus, the owner of Sweet Mary Jane,
a popular spot in Boulder, Colorado for baked
medical marijuana-laced edibles. Lazarus was
called the “Martha Stewart of weed baking” by
New York magazine.
Marijuana-fueled yoga classes are another
sign of the cannabis-rising culture times. The
Colorado Symphony Orchestra is even in on
the trend, holding a “Classically Cannabis” fun-
draiser, where “well-heeled attendees sipped
drinks, shook hands and smoked pot from
joints, vaporizers and glass pipes while a brass
quintet played Debussy, Bach, Wagner and
Puccini,” according to The Huffington Post.
I n other consumer media, Wired outlined le-
gal marijuana’s $40 billion future and Forbes
called legal cannabis last year’s “best startup
opportunity.”
Of course, not all the news has been a green
light for grass. At press time, the Drug En-
forcement Administration (DEA) issued three
major decisions on marijuana and industrial
hemp, with the most significant running coun-
ter to most state action—DEA rejected a peti-
tion to reschedule marijuana, thereby affirming
its continued status as an illicit Schedule I con-
trolled substance.
“DEA’s refusal to remove marijuana from
Schedule I is, quite frankly, mind-boggling,”
stated Marijuana Policy Project spokesperson
Mason Tvert. “It is intellectually dishonest
and completely indefensible. Not everyone
agrees marijuana should be legal, but few will
deny that it is less harmful than alcohol and
many prescription drugs. It is less toxic, less
addictive and less damaging to the body…
marijuana should be completely removed from
the CSA drug schedules and regulated simi-
larly to alcohol.”
The Marijuana Policy Project cited that a
variety of prominent national and state orga-
nizations have formally recognized the medical
benefits of marijuana, including the National
Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine,
the American Public Health Association, the
American College of Physicians, the American
Nurses Association, the American Academy of
HIV Medicine, the Leukemia and Lymphoma
Society, the Epilepsy Foundation, the British
Medical Association, the California Medical
Association and the Texas Medical Association.
The Marijuana Policy Project also cited a
White House-commissioned report released
in 1999 by the National Academy Sciences In-
stitute of Medicine: “[A]lthough [some] mari-
juana users develop dependence, they appear to
be less likely to do so than users of other drugs
(including alcohol and nicotine), and marijuana
dependence appears to be less severe than de-
pendence on other drugs.”
The Tobacco Road Turns
So where do tobacco stores fit in with the mari-
juana movement? Can they merge into it suc-
cessfully and tastefully?
Many already have—with a sideways ap-
proach into the glass and accessories business.
Those who are in it say they recognize the con-
sumer need and retail profit potential, but want
to maintain a certain level of sophistication so
as not to offend existing tobacco customers who
are nonusers of marijuana.
“Some people hesitate and worry what their
customers will think about it, but there is prob-
ably not a more conservative family business
around than ours,” says Mary Szarmach, vice
president of trade marketing and government
relations for Smoker Friendly, which moved
into the glass accessories business beginning
with a side chain, then developed a program
that its authorized dealers could incorporate
into their stores: Glass Werx. “It’s a nice layout
but it’s not so in-your-face as to irritate some-
one and make you look like a head shop,” she
reasons. The sets can range from 2- to 8-foot
counters, fully planogrammed with glass and
accessories through a licensed program and 0
WHY APRIL 20 IS
THE UNOFFICIAL
MARIJUANA
HOLIDAY
APRIL 20 IS THE “POT
HOLIDAY” in Colorado, unof-
ficially speaking. Cannabis
users in the Centennial State
and elsewhere equate that
date in April to “420,” another
slang term for marijuana
that is said to originate back
in 1971 at San Rafael High
School in Northern California,
where a group of pot-smoking
students who called them-
selves the Waldos came up
with the term as a shorthand
for the time of day that the
group would meet at the
campus statue of Louis Pas-
teur to smoke pot. “Intent on
developing their own discreet
language, they made 420
code for a time to get high,
and its use spread among
members of an entire genera-
tion,” according to an entry in
.
“If we are
breaking the law
federally, what
might that do to
our liquor licenses
and tobacco
licenses?”
58
TOBACCO BUSINESS INTERNATIONAL
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2016