Cannabis industry veteran Steve DeAngelo recently wrote an opinion piece, entitled “Topple the Pyramids,” in which he addresses the shift from medical to adult-use sales in California, and how small, legacy cannabis businesses struggle in comparison to corporate cannabis ownership.
DeAngelo began his piece by looking back on the medical cannabis law in California prior to the shift toward adult-use sales. “Nobody got rich. Nobody made intergenerational wealth, but everybody was taken care of,” he said of the past. “The system worked in its basic purpose of providing high quality cannabis at affordable prices, and providing all of its participants with an adequate income and dignified lifestyle—so it grew, steadily gaining more and more in-state market share from the underground market.”
After adult-use cannabis went live on Jan. 1, 2018 in California, he found that only 10 of the 500 suppliers to DeAngelo’s cannabis business at the time, Harborside, had received state licenses. Shortly afterward, prices at Harborside increased, which sent consumers “right into the arms of all the growers who had not been licensed.” He explained that this change has affected California’s cannabis industry long term, citing sales attributed to tourists or people who have enough money not to care about the price tag.
He also spoke about the people who helped build up the cannabis industry, who have been cast out by corporate companies. “Almost everywhere I go, I find that my counterculture cannabis tribe, the people who love this plant the most, and sacrificed the most to make her legal, have been mostly purged from legal companies, and many of them have entirely lost their livelihoods,” he said, adding that this mentality has spread from California to Massachusetts and Illinois.
According to DeAngelo, only 20% of product from licensed producers has been sold in Canada since 2018, and the other 80% was either too low of quality to be sold, and was either destroyed or stored in a warehouse.
DeAngelo imagines an alternate approach to regulating cannabis, in the forms of limited square foot canopy, awarding licenses without taxation, growing high-quality, small batch cannabis instead of mass produced flower, or allowing an “Etsy for weed” to solve problems related to the current scale of cannabis sales. He explains his suggestions as a way to cultivate organic growth of the industry.
He ended his statement by pitching hope for the future. “We don’t have to accept the status quo. We can move away from the boom and bust cycle that has been so destructive for so many companies and so many markets, and restore the excitement and optimism that we saw in the early days of legal cannabis. The brightest of futures is still possible if we have the courage to think outside the Pyramid.”
The same sentiments about supporting small scale growers can also be found in the recently filed bill proposal from Rep. Jared Huffman and Rep. Earl Blumenauer. “As policies change, we cannot leave our smallest family-farmers behind. With my bill, these small businesses can have the chance to compete and succeed in a fully legalized cannabis market,” Huffman wrote on Twitter on Sept. 14. Called the “Small and Homestead Independent Producers Act,” his bill would help smaller cannabis cultivators compete with corporations by shipping their products over state lines.
Only a few weeks ago, the National Craft Cannabis Coalition was founded to help protect small growers in California, Oregon, Washington, Vermont, Maine, and Massachusetts.
Earlier this year in April, Assembly Bill 2691 was introduced to allow cannabis farmers markets (although the conversation ended in late May). High quality cannabis products are being featured in similar events such as the Mendocino Craft Farmers Auction, which was held in May.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) announced the results of a widespread drug operation spanning May to September, resulting in over 10 million fentanyl pills and what they say is 36 million lethal doses of the drug. DEA agents blame the mass production of the majority of these pills on two particular cartels, the Sinaloa Cartel and Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).
However, it’s highly likely lives were saved in the process during this particular operation. The DEA released the statistics in a September 30 press release.
As part of the One Pill Can Kill initiative—a public Awareness Campaign to educate the public of the dangers of counterfeit pills such as fentanyl—the DEA and its law enforcement partners seized massive quantities of opioid drugs.
How extensive is the opioid epidemic? The DEA seized over 10.2 million fentanyl pills and about 980 pounds of fentanyl powder during the period of May 23 through September 8.
Often, fentanyl is pressed into blue, round pills that appear to be pharmaceutical in nature, so people think they’re safe. Often, they’re not. In addition, they’ve been showing up in different colors, dubbed “rainbow fentanyl” by the media and the DEA itself. Even people with a tolerance to oxycodone or hydrocodone might not stand a chance with fentanyl or its analogs like carfentanil.
According to the DEA’s math, the amount of fentanyl seized is equivalent to over 36 million lethal doses of the drug removed from the supply. DEA agents also seized 338 weapons including rifles, shotguns, pistols, and hand grenades.
“Fentanyl is responsible for killing thousands of people in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia (DMV). We are working diligently with our federal, state, and local partners to mitigate this public health crisis,” said Jarod Forget, DEA Washington Division’s Special Agent in Charge. “Our team is actively seizing significant amounts of deadly fentanyl and working hard on impactful operations and community events to halt the distribution of these deadly drugs into our communities. Mexican cartels are pushing deadly fake pills, often laced with fentanyl, into our neighborhoods to exploit the opioid crisis. We will relentlessly pursue criminals who are bringing such deadly drugs and continue to work to keep you and your families safe. Many people who die from fentanyl poisoning unknowingly consumed it mixed into fake pills or other drugs. Our message to the public is that you never can be certain what is in them and that just ‘One Pill Can Kill’.”
"There is no room for experimentation with fentanyl. One pill can truly kill you. That actually could be the last choice you make is the choice to try it." said @DEADallasDiv Chief Eduardo A. Chávez #OnePillCanKillhttps://t.co/gUWv1Q8jjE
Nearly 400 cases were investigated, and 51 cases are linked to overdose poisonings. DEA agents linked 35 of the cases directly to one or both of the primary Mexican cartels responsible for the majority of fentanyl in the United States, which is the Sinaloa Cartel and CJNG.
Here’s how things have changed, however: According to the DEA, 129 investigations are linked to social media platforms like Snapchat, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and TikTok. Anyone in the cannabis industry has seen plugs openly selling all sorts of drugs.
The last time statistics like this were provided was the One Pill Can Kill Phase II results, which were announced by DEA Administrator Anne Milgram last December.
The DEA says that fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat facing this nation. “In 2021, a record number of Americans—107,622—died from a drug poisoning or overdose,” the DEA release reads. “Sixty-six percent of those deaths can be attributed to synthetic opioids such as fentanyl.”
The fentanyl problem is highlighted by specific events, including a recent incident in suburban Los Angeles that involved pills laced with fentanyl that were disguised as something else. The Pasadena Police Department seized 328,000 fentanyl pills in a single operation on September 24, bringing their total seized to approximately 708,500 pills. Then just minutes away in Whittier, police seized eight pounds of pills laced with fentanyl.
Recreational marijuana sales officially launched in Vermont over the weekend, with stores in three communities opening their doors to customers on Saturday.
The three retailers to open this weekend were FLORA Cannabis in Middlebury, Mountain Girl Cannabis in Rutland and CeresMED in Burlington, according to the Associated Press, which noted that a “fourth business has been licensed to sell recreational pot but isn’t ready to do so yet.”
The Burlington Free Press reported on the grand opening at Ceres in Burlington, where the newspaper said that “a line of a couple hundred people stretching from the storefront around the corner and down an alley” had gathered for the occasion.
You would be forgiven if you assumed that recreational pot sales were already underway in the Green Mountain State, which legalized personal possession and cultivation of marijuana for adults back in 2018. The state legalized medical cannabis in 2004; according to the Free Press, Ceres “has been in business for about a decade catering to medical-marijuana customers, and that established infrastructure helped the company get going smoothly.”
But the 2018 law, which was signed by Republican Gov. Phil Scott, did not establish a regulatory framework for an adult-use cannabis market, making Vermont an outlier in the legalization movement.
“Ten of the eleven states that have legalized adult-use marijuana possession have also wisely regulated the retail cannabis market; until today, Vermont had been the sole exception,” NORML State Policies Coordinator Carly Wolf said at the time.
With Saturday’s openings in Middlebury, Rutland and Burlington, Vermont now becomes the 15th state with legal adult-use cannabis sales.
In signing the bill back in 2020, Scott said that the bill had been “a top priority for the majority in the Legislature for four years, but their work is not complete.”
“They must ensure equity in this new policy and prevent their priority from becoming a public health problem for current and future generations,” Scott said in his signing statement. “For these reasons, I am allowing this bill to become law without my signature.”
According to the Associated Press, the state’s Cannabis Control Board “prioritized review and waived licensing fees for social equity applicants,” such as “[applicants who are] Black or Hispanic, or from communities that historically have been disproportionately affected by cannabis being outlawed or who have been or had a family member who has been incarcerated for a cannabis-related offense.”
Other states that have established a regulated marijuana market have enacted similar social equity measures. In New York, where legal sales could launch by the end of this year, the first round of recreational dispensary licenses will go to individuals who have previously been convicted of a pot-related offense.
The Associated Press reports that “more than 30 social equity applicants, mostly growers, have been approved.”
When he signed the bill that established Vermont’s new cannabis market, Scott noted that it “requires cities and towns to authorize these businesses before retail establishments may open,” and “ensures local zoning applies to cannabis cultivation and production.”
He also said that the law “dedicates 30% of the excise tax, up to $10 million per year, to education and prevention efforts,” and that “the sales and use tax on cannabis would fund a grant program to expand afterschool and summer learning programs.”
Scott said at the time that the state’s ensuing budget “includes language I proposed to move toward a universal afterschool network, which is based on a successful model from Iceland and is focused on preventing drug use and improving academic and social outcomes.”
With a tagline like “murder your thirst,” branding bombarded with skull-laden designs and flavor names like Mango Chainsaw and Berry It Alive, it’s clear that Liquid Death stands apart from its many canned water peers.
Nearly four years since its foundation, the eye-catching beverage is now carried in 16,000 locations across the U.S., including retailers like Whole Foods, Sprouts, 7-Eleven, and Target, as well as bars, tattoo parlors, cafes, and liquor stores. As the most followed water brand on TikTok, the second-most followed water on Instagram and one of the fastest-growing non-alcoholic beverage brands of all time, Liquid Death is reigning supreme.
Co-Founder and CEO Mike Cessario unsurprisingly grew up entrenched in alternative culture, playing in bands and skateboarding, and he noticed most products that catered to that audience were energy drinks, sodas or junk food. Years later, Cessario worked in advertising and began pitching bolder ad ideas, including one campaign for the organic industry that went viral.
“And that was the moment I realized wellness doesn’t have to be dull or boring,” he said. “I took the skills I learned while in the industry to bring the same entertainment-first branding to healthy beverages like water.”
Courtesy of Liquid Death
While one motive was to make health and wellness cooler and more accessible, Cessario wanted to make sure the brand was impactful. Each 16.9-ounce Liquid Death tallboy has text reading “#DeathToPlastic” and “We donate 10% of profits from every can sold to help kill plastic pollution.”
Liquid Death is packaged in aluminum because, unlike plastic, it is infinitely recyclable. The brand also partnered up with non-profits, like 5Gyres, PangeaSeed Foundation and The Thirst Project, that fight plastic pollution and provide safe drinking water to communities around the world where drinking water isn’t immediately available.
After launching in 2019, Cessario admitted that some mainstream media outlets couldn’t wrap their head around the brand or didn’t believe it was just water. But that was the entire point, he said—to disrupt the multibillion-dollar water category full of single-use plastic bottles.
“So some people got the joke and some didn’t, but that made people love us even more,” he said. “The brand grew exponentially as people saw what we were doing. We continued aligning with communities that believed in us, and that’s how we got to where we are today.”
Mike Cessario / Courtesy of Liquid Death
Liquid Death was also intentional to obtain their water from a natural source, the Austrian Alps, as Cessario said the initial market research found that most bottled water products were just highly processed municipal tap water.
The brand introduced a sparkling water option in 2020, and later on, Liquid Death Flavors joined the army (the two aforementioned flavors, along with Severed Lime). Cessario said the team wanted to create a product that landed between the “endless, bland, zero-cal, zero-sugar, zero-carb sparkling water” and unhealthy sodas packed with sugar.
“Liquid Death Flavors became their own category,” Cessario said. “They are naturally sweetened with a hint of agave and made with interesting twists—Severed Lime and Mango Chainsaw both contain hints of orange, and Berry It Alive is a mix of passionfruit and black cherry. Overall, our mission is to launch products that, in the end, help our fanbase make healthier choices.”
On Liquid Death’s website, they admit, “We’re just a funny water company who hates corporate marketing as much as you do.” Just above that statement is the Thirst Murderer, a cartoon character with eyes where his nipples should be; one hand gripping a Liquid Death, the other gripping his severed head; spikes jutting from his shoulders; and a giant, veiny can of Liquid Death fused into his neck where his head should be.
“We try to not take ourselves too seriously,” Cessario said. “All of our branding uses cheeky humor. Whether it’s asking people to literally sell their souls in order to join the Liquid Death Country Club or murdering thirst, our brand is meant to make you laugh and feel good about choosing to be healthier.”
Part of the Liquid Death fanbase, Cessario said, is made up of the people who got left out of target audiences for other health and wellness brands, which often target one type of person.
Over time, the brand became a favorite within the sober and straight-edge communities, too. The Old English text, melting skull on the side of the can, full-bodied flavor, and tallboy size all work to create an ideal non-alcoholic drinking experience, though Cessario said targeting those communities was never a primary goal.
“We are thrilled that the sober communities continue to connect so much with our brand,” Cessario said. “Even if someone isn’t sober, more and more people are starting to look for drink alternatives they can enjoy at a bar without getting asked why they aren’t drinking. We’ve gotten such great feedback but the overall message is that Liquid Death allows people to skip the alcohol and blend right in.”
That said, a Liquid Death fan truly doesn’t look any one way, but they generally have a sense of humor, Cessario said. He added that more than 200 people have tattooed their logo on themselves and more than 200,000 “have legally sold their souls to us in an eternally binding contract to join the Liquid Death Country Club.”
“We’ve also gotten messages from parents who think it’s funny that their kids’ teachers call them for bringing a can to school, but also thanking us that we finally have their kids excited to drink more water instead of soda or energy drinks,” he said.
Courtesy of Liquid Death
And the inevitable domination persists, as Liquid Death continues sinking its teeth further into the culture at large.
Steve-O recently teamed up as a brand ambassador to tattoo his throat with Liquid Death Mountain Water instead of tattoo ink, with all of the pain and none of the permanence.
In December 2021, the company made headlines after partnering with Wiz Khalifa as a promoter of their new “Mountain Bong Water” collaboration. It was inspired by a video Wiz filmed himself, pouring Liquid Death into his bong. He said at the time he only smokes the best weed, “so it would only make sense to pair it with the best bong water from Liquid Death.”
On a since-deleted page, the product description read:
“What makes Liquid Death Mountain Bong Water different from our original Mountain Water? Absolutely nothing. We literally just added the word ‘bong’ to this page. You get the same great mountain water from the Alps with the same natural electrolytes in the same infinitely recyclable aluminum cans. But Wiz Khalifa likes putting it in his bong so we thought you might too. However, our lawyers say we should make clear that you should never buy a bong, think about a bong, write the word bong, say the word bong, or even draw a bong. In fact, close out of this page right now.”
Cessario said the wider cultural embrace of Liquid Death goes back to the company’s roots, and that while it’s a beverage, it’s also an entertainment brand.
“Every single campaign or collab that we do, we do it to bring awareness to health and sustainability but in a way that is funny, easy to digest, and enjoyable. We always try to diversify the talent we partner up with because we want anyone to look to Liquid Death and see themselves. In the future, we just hope to continue bringing you even bigger and better entertainment.”
Courtesy of Liquid Death
Long-time beverage brands like Jones Soda Company and Pabst Blue Ribbon have since entered the cannabis game, with THC-infused beverages projected to grow in the U.S. from $915.06 million in 2021 to $19,063.58 million USD in 2028.
It leaves the question: Could consumers soon see a cannabis-infused Liquid Death offering?
“One thing we do know is that water and cannabis go together very well,” Cessario said. “You need to hydrate. And even sparking water is a better mix with your high than alcohol most times. But no, we don’t have any plans to do anything with a cannabis-based product any time in the future.”
However, fans need not worry. Cessario said Liquid Death still has a lot of projects in the works, along with some familiar faces throughout the music, comedy, and sports scenes.
Examining the brand’s continued mainstream presence and staggering progress, it’s hard to believe that Liquid Death hasn’t been a part of our culture for longer. Cessario reflected on the brand’s growth, looking at the road ahead with a final nugget of charming, on-brand snark.
“Right now, we’re focused on world domination and making all beverages Liquid Death one day,” he said, before adding. “Our goal for Liquid Death is to continue creating a positive brand that you can easily resonate with.”
On a London television program some years ago, Rex Harrison was asked if he had been quoted correctly in a press interview as saying that he used to smoke pot back in the ’30s. He hesitated before he answered, then smiled and said diplomatically, “Let’s just say that it was smoked in the ’30s.”
It sure was. At that time I was an editor of the Condé Nast magazine Vanity Fair. I used to buy marijuana cigarettes, then called reefers or weed, from a hunchback Harlem hustler nicknamed Money. They cost $1.50 a joint and were a lot more potent than the tatty, adulterated stuff you often get today. Part of my job on the magazine was to go to all the theater opening nights and to the fashionable nightclubs and parties. I used to get to the office around 8:30 in the morning, and frequently I didn’t leave until just in time to dash home, shower and get into evening clothes. I kept a supply of reefers in my apartment and would usually have a smoke before going out to face the rigors of the night. It got rid of any fatigue and rallied my stamina for the dancing and the revelry, which often lasted until dawn.
Although the stuff was legal then (it wasn’t outlawed until 1937), I doubt if I ever saw it smoked in public places, as one does today in discotheques, in parks, at pop concerts and similar gatherings. After it became illegal, I would often get a whiff of that sweet, unmistakable smell in the powder rooms of smart nightclubs and restaurants; Tallulah Bankhead and I once shared a joint in the ladies’ room of the Waldorf during some society ball. Tallulah smoked everything, took everything, did everything. She never made any secret of her habits. Marijuana, hashish, cocaine and opium were as much in vogue then as they are now—as I guess they always have been—with musicians, artists, poets, theater and film people, as well as with many members of what was called “café society.” It was from personal knowledge that Cole Porter wrote, not necessarily truthfully, “I get no kick from cocaine,” a line barred from radio stations of the time except when changed to “I get no kick from champagne.”
I had my first pot experience in 1933 at a party in Havana. I saw this cigarette being passed from person to person, and although I didn’t understand the ritual, I took my turn when it came my way, tentatively imitating the heavy inhaling and slurping. I asked what it was supposed to do to me. The university professor who was my escort said that when he smoked it, it made him feel so powerful that he would be able to tear the faucets out of the bathroom, should the notion seize him. I refrained from commenting that most Cuban bathroom fixtures were so shaky they fell off if you touched them.
Of course, all the cigarette did was give me the giggles, which is the same reaction I get today, 46 years later. I don’t mean that I’m a dyed-in-the-wool pothead, but I have been smoking, off and on, throughout the years, and I am living proof that it is not harmful and does not automatically lead to heroin, a life of crime, and an inevitable grovel in the gutter. The reason I don’t keep it at home or carry it around with me is because it’s illegal, which is the only proven danger about it. I am by nature law-abiding and can be cowed by signs like DONT SPIT ON THE FLOOR, DÉFENSE DE FUMER, and KEEP OFF THE GRASS. Well, to be frank, it’s not so much that I’m lawabiding as that I’m a coward. I’m afraid of the police, and I certainly don’t want any of those damn trained dogs charging into my apartment and sniffing around.
Although I myself have stuck to pot, possibly on the assumption that what was good enough for the Phoenicians and the Scythians 3,000 years ago is good enough for me—but more likely because of my timidity—many of my acquaintances in the ’30s and ’40s were more adventurous. Cecil Beaton, whom I knew when he, too, was working for Condé Nast, has written in his diaries that he smoked opium with Jean Cocteau, and so, apparently, did everyone else in that international coven of literary and artistic highfliers, including Coco Chanel, whom Cocteau liked to call “a little black swan.” I used to come in on the aftermath of these sessions. Vogue editors in Paris would say to me, “My dear, you should have been at Bebe Berard’s last night. We all smoked opium and it was too divine!”
I seem to have breezed through those days meeting people before or after. I knew the brilliant writer Emily “Mickey” Hahn before she went to China in 1935, where she started smoking opium and loved it, although she now adds that she was cured of addiction through hypnotism and then switched to cigars. I met Aldous Huxley at a luncheon meeting in the Vanity Fair office. No mushrooms on the menu. It was several years later that he discovered the fascination of the mindbending fungi. However, I did know a beautiful red-haired fashion model who spent a month in Mexico and Guatemala trying them out. In Mexico alone, she told me, there were 250 different kinds of organic hallucinogenic mushrooms, but she was vague about the number she had sampled. She later married a titled foreigner of ambiguous background and thenceforth called herself Princess. Back home again, she made quite a splash, getting impressionable local society spaced out in such assorted cities as Detroit, Akron and New York, in each of which she was received with that sickening sycophancy (try to say that when you’re stoned!) Americans display when confronted with any title, even a spurious one.
During the same period, I also knew a young English photographer who was visiting New York and who was taken up by the so-called Smart Bohemian Set of the time. He told me he went to a party with Libby Holman, who said she was bored with reefers and coke and wanted something new. The hostess had some peyote. “I was frightfully keen to try it,” the photographer said, “because I’d heard and read about it. But it was so tough. It was like trying to chew a rubber shoe sole. We finally solved the problem by cutting it into little pieces and stirring them into Jello. After it was in the fridge for several hours it was okay to eat.”
I didn’t meet Errol Flynn until the early ’50s, when I went to Mexico to do a profile of him for Esquire. Along with Ava Gardner, Tyrone Power and Mel Ferrer, he was filming The Sun Also Rises. The company was in Merida, but all journalists were persona non grata. I learned later that the reason was because Errol was charging his head with everything he could get, and every time the company doctor got him partially detoxified he would take off and start flying again. Finally, they got him comparatively under control and the company moved to Mexico City. Errol was staying at my hotel. The film’s press agent took me to his room to meet him. The press agent knocked on the door and gave his name. He was obviously taken aback to hear Errol shout cheerily, “Come on in. I’m taking a piss and the old dong is longer than ever!”
When Flynn opened the door and saw me, he didn’t lift an eyebrow. He bowed and gallantly kissed my hand, too much a natural aristocrat to be abashed—or maybe too stoned. He offered us a choice of tequila, vodka, marijuana or cocaine, ignoring the panicky expression on the face of the press agent, who looked as if he was undergoing an incipient attack of apoplexy. I said I’d have some tequila, while the press agent murmured weakly, “Errol’s a great kidder.” Flynn looked at him benignly. Our visit that day was short, but I saw Flynn alone several times, and although we did share a couple of smokes, I refused the other goodies he offered.
He must have had a remarkably strong constitution. Girls, dope, liquor—usually at the same time. I was talking about him in London with Trevor Howard, who was telling me about the filming of Roots of Heaven in French Equatorial Africa, now Chad. “It was one of my happiest pictures,” Trevor said. “Flynn and I sent a cable to Fortnum & Mason, ordering huge amounts of caviar and smoked salmon sent out to us. We had some jolly times. We all slept in tents, and there was a native girl who used to go into certain tents at night. She’d give a signal by mewing like a cat. So Errol and I used to creep up near Darryl Zanuck’s tent and go meow-meow, and he’d come out looking all around. We almost choked laughing … Errol managed to get all the morphine from the nearest hospital. Cleaned them out. I don’t know how he did it. Had the company doctor requisition it or something, I suppose. Wonderful chap, Errol. Only person I ever knew who took dope and drank like a fish. The two don’t usually go together. A very splendid man.”
No, they don’t usually go together. This is probably why I’ve only smoked pot. I started to drink during Prohibition, and I had no desire for other forms of stimulation. Most people I knew who took cocaine in the ’30s were not heavy drinkers. I never knew anyone who could have been called an addict, or anyone who experienced adverse reactions. Doctors today are beginning to admit that it is not as dangerous as they once thought, and that it does have legitimate medical uses. My friends took it for the same reasons I drank or smoked pot: to get high, overcome fatigue, relieve depression, make people and conversation more interesting, feel euphoric. Also, in some cases it was used to enhance sex by applying it to the tip of the penis, a custom known in Latin America as “la vida real” (“the royal life”), although in Cuba it was claimed they could get the same effect with Baum Bengue.
Like everything else, it was a great deal cheaper then than now. It was also much purer. We called it snow. Where now the verb is “to snort,” it was then “to sniff.” There were few of today’s fancy frills. No silver spoons or gold straws, just ordinary straws, the kind soda fountains give you. No rolled-up $100 bills, either, although a few big-spender types used $10 bills. They were considered showoffs.
I met Peter Lorre shortly after he came to this country. He was Hungarian, born in the Carpathian Mountains region that later became part of Czechoslovakia. He had been making films in Germany, of which the most famous was M, based on the true story of a psychopathic murderer in Dusseldorf. It had a great success both in Europe and here, and his performance is still regarded as one of the great ones in the history of the cinema. I had him come to the Condé Nast studio to be photographed for Vanity Fair.
Afterward, we went out for a drink, so that I could get material for the caption I was going to write. I ordered a Scotch and soda. He said he would have coffee. “You don’t want a drink?” I asked. He looked at me with those mournful, staring eyes. “I am a dope,” he said. His English was far from perfect, so I thought he meant the equivalent of “I am a dumbbell,” or some similar slang of that period. It turned out that what he meant was that he took dope. I reassured him that this was okay and that some of my best friends were dopes.
About ten years ago, when I was living in London, I had lunch with Caresse Crosby, and afterward we spent the rest of the afternoon smoking pot in her hotel room. I was 60 and she was in her mid 70s. She had come up from Rome, where she lived in a castle and was known as the Princess something-orother—some Italian name I’ve forgotten—and spent all her time and energy soliciting funds for an ambitious plan for One World Citizenship.
I suppose most people today never heard of Harry and Caresse Crosby. If I mention the name Crosby, they think I mean Bing. They know about Scott and Zelda, and about Hemingway, but they don’t know about Caresse and Harry, who were the ’20s’most far-out couple, more than a match for any of today’s Beautiful People. They would have thought Studio 54 a bore and Plato’s Retreat too plebian.
Caresse, whose original name was Mary Phelps Jacob, was a descendent of the Plymouth Colony’s Governor Bradford, who came over on the Mayflower. Born in New York, she lived in a mansion on Fifth Avenue at 59th Street, now the site of the Plaza Hotel. Her father apparently had no profession but was supported in high style by his father. The latter’s house was where Rockefeller Center is now. Caresse, then known as Polly, was brought up in luxury, sent to the best private finishing schools, presented at court in London, the only American debutante to curtsy to King George V and Queen Mary. She wore a white brocade satin gown with a train eight yards long, and three white ostrich plumes in her dark hair.
She knew everybody in the upper echelons of society and was expected to follow the rules and keep her place in the Social Register. So she married Dick Peabody of the Boston Back Bay Peabodys, a product of Groton and Harvard. All bills were paid by their grandparents (both sets of them), and they lived with her father-in-law, penniless themselves, like her parents, but living expensively, a subsidized golden couple. When her children were born, her husband’s godfather, J.P. Morgan, the banker, chipped in to pay the bills.
Her life might have gone on this way, had she not met Harry Crosby in 1919, J.P. Morgan’s nephew. “It was love at first sight,” she often said. She divorced Peabody and married Crosby. He was 21. She was 27. J.P. Morgan, “Uncle Jack,” gave Harry a job in the Paris branch of his bank; the bride and groom sublet Princess Bibesco’s flat on the Fauburg St. Honore; and the dizzy merry-go-round began. Harry always wore a black gardenia in his buttonhole (he had them made especially for him at a place on the rue de la Paix), and Caresse bought her clothes at couture houses and her diamond necklace at Cartier’s. Her children by Peabody were sent to Swiss boarding schools. She was accompanied everywhere by her pet black whippet, Narcisse Noir. The dog wore a gold necklace and his toenails were lacquered gold. The Crosbys entertained constantly—princes, dukes, duchesses, counts and other titled guests mingling with sculptors, painters and writers. Harry quit work at the bank because, he said, life was too short to work. And Uncle Jack footed the bills.
Life was a gala of champagne, cocaine, marijuana, hashish and opium smoked in pipes with porcelain bowls and jade handles. Caresse and Harry took a flat of their own in the rue de Lille, where they sometimes entertained in bed, with small tables set up for guests, or in the bathroom, which had an open fireplace, a white bearskin rug and a sunken marble tub. The tub could hold four—and frequently did.
Their idea of a great party was the Arts Ball. Reminiscing as we sat in her London hotel room, Caresse described one such event: “I think it was in 1927. I went as an Inca princess. I wore a long blue wig and was stripped to the waist. I sat in the mouth of a huge papier mache dragon. First, we marched up the Champs Elysees. The girls were nude to the waist, the men completely nude. I rode on a baby elephant, and people crowded around me to kiss my painted knees. Harry wore a collar of dead pigeons and carried a bag of live snakes. When we entered the ballroom, I was carried in my dragon’s mouth by ten handsome nude young men. I won first prize. My breasts helped me win, I’m sure . . . When I went home I found Harry in the bathtub with three pretty girls. We slept seven in our bed that night.”
When not indulging in high jinks that make the ’70s seem tame, the Crosbys were both writing poetry. It was at that time that she adopted the name Caresse. In 1927 they started the Black Sun Press in order to publish their own poems. (She was charmingly vague about any financial sources.) Later, they branched out, printing a collection of Proust’s letters, poems by their close friend Hart Crane, stories by D.H. Lawrence and Kay Boyle, part of Joyce’s work in progress. Their own literary talents were limited, to put it politely, but their exuberant personalities and bizarre ways made them the most sought-after couple in Paris. Everyone visited them, from Schiaparelli, the designer, to Aldous Huxley, Andre Gide, Max Ernst, Giacometti. Even Eva Braun dropped in for a drink, brought by some Viennese acquaintance, and signed the Crosby guest book.
In 1928 they took a fateful trip to Egypt, fateful because Harry became enraptured of Ra, the sun god. He had a sun tattooed between his shoulder blades, and from then on he became increasingly weird until, on a New York visit in 1929, he committed suicide, believing that he was going to meet the sun.
Caresse was made of tougher fiber. She married a couple more times, and wherever she was—New York, Paris, London—she was a center of attention, the fascinating lode star of the wilder international set. Even when I last saw her, she was energetically campaigning for her World Citizen idea, a spunky old lady, loaded with charm and vitality. “I’ve had a great life,” she said to me. “I don’t see why people make such a fuss about dope. It never did me any harm. I used to hate pot because it made me choke, but I got over that. Everyone we knew in Paris smoked it and sniffed cocaine, so Harry and I did, too. But when you sniff cocaine it gets into your clothes, down your neck, under your nails. Opium was more fun, I used to think. It’s no more habit-forming than tobacco. Well, of course, tobacco is habit-forming, isn’t it? It’s much more harmful. It kills you.’’
I didn’t know her in the ’20s, when she was riding high and fast. Perhaps it’s just as well I didn’t. She was too far out for me, although I enjoyed hearing her talk about the old days.
My heyday was in the ’30s. Pot smoking was not as widespread as it is today, which only proves the stupidity of outlawing it. Of course, if you lie around and smoke pot all day, you don’t get anything else done. But if you lie around and drink coffee all day, you don’t get much done, either. There are always people who do things to excess, whether dope, alcohol or gluttony. These are people who would have a problem anyway. I expect that marijuana will eventually be legalized. Some six years ago the Young Women’s Christian Association, during a three-day convention in Michigan, passed a resolution calling for legalization. With such support from an irreproachably wholesome organization, whose official policy has never been to foster depravity, I think it’s about time to put a legal end to the myth that blowing grass makes you a dope fiend.
Gutes Guterman is the co-founder and head honcho of The Drunken Canal, the hyperlocal newspaper that became a full-on media sensation during the pandemic. Rarely, does an upstart print rag become so influential that the New York Times covers it. In fact, name any “institutional” publication, and chances are you can find a feature or take about the scrappy pub / living document of downtown New York.
Besides The Drunken Canal’s unstoppable marketing savvy, people talk about the newspaper so much because… it’s fun! Reading it is akin to vicariously living the life of the people who put it together, and damn do the editors have a good time. Plus, hater’s gonna hate on young people taking big swings. But you know the saying, “If you had it like them, you’d do it like them.”
Gutes is truly a woman-about-town, a tastemaker extraordinaire with a social life that feeds directly into her publication. She also created the best group chat in the USA bar none—shout-out to “Average Danny Cole Enjoy”!
Gutes is a warm soul, who generously made some time to talk with Cash Only about her pot preferences. Here, she weighs in on weed being too strong these days, her very chic grinder, and the merits of reading Wiz Khalifa’s Twitter when you’re really stoned. Enjoy!
What’s your current favorite weed strain and how do you like to consume it?
Gutes: Honestly, I think weed is too strong these days. Gone are the days of a quality dime bag from your local BMX riding crush. Why are we smoking something called “Gorilla Glue” or “Lung Gripper”? Might as well just call it “Mind Molester”! Just give me a joint. Bongs cause acne if you don’t clean them enough.
Do you have a favorite weed product? I really like this grinder from Sackville because it blends in with my other knickknacks and isn’t embarrassing. But otherwise, some rolling papers are really all I need.
What activity do you like to do after you’ve gotten stoned? If I’m in California, I love to hike after a joint. I would do that basically every single day while there. If I’m in New York, I’ll shop online, put things in my Amazon cart, or cuddle my cat. Being stoned around an animal is sooooooo awesome.
Can you recommend something to watch while smoking? Lately I’ve been watching Top Chef after getting stoned. If there are new episodes out, then The Dropout or WeCrashed. I like to think about the dawn and demise of Silicon Valley while I float on my couch.
Can you recommend something to listen to when you’re baked? I have no idea but I’m on a real Bruno Mars/Silk Sonic kick these days, so I guess that.
Any reading recommendations for stoned people? Things to read after getting baked: Wiz Khalifa’s Twitter account, The Daily Mail, my emails, your emails. Things not to read after getting baked: The New York Times, your own Twitter profile.
Take a good look around, and you’ll be hard-pressed to escape those pretty bastards out there relishing in the buzz that has, over the past two decades or so, made getting tattooed socially acceptable for upstanding law-abiding members of society. Everyone from fat-cat, corporate executives to police officers—you know, the so-called pillars of the community—are now white-knuckling it through augmentations of the flesh in an attempt to show their peers that they are edgy, gosh darn it, and should be, at least in some regard, revered as one of the cool kids.
Long gone are the days when inked appendages were badges of badass almost exclusively carved into the bodies of bikers, sleazy musicians, and ex-cons. Somewhere along the way, pop culture got porked by punk rock and gave birth to a red-eyed love child that looks a heck of a lot like you!
Within America’s bizarre movement to express itself, however, where everyone and their momma is inked-up and sleeved out, there exists an absolute legion of hell-raisers, outlaws, and die-hard stoners forever scarred with various pot-related pigmentations that none of these well-dressed specimens of modern fashion would ever be caught dead with—not in a million years.
In the ’70s, the marijuana tattoo, most commonly represented with a shoddy-looking cannabis leaf that appeared as though it resulted in a gnarly staph infection, was perhaps the official symbol of rebellion. People with the cannabis coat of arms were dead-set against the principles of popular opinion. None of them bought into any of that “religion will save humanity” crap, and they damn sure weren’t about to go to work for the man. They didn’t subscribe to all of the BS being forced down their throats by the frightened servants of authority. Nope, they lived life by their own set of rules, going against the grain of ongoing cultural brainwashing, both parental and political, while giving the proverbial middle finger to, well, anyone who fucking deserved it.
“From the very first time I smoked weed, I understood why the government was trying to turn the population against it,” Steve, a 65-year-old from Springfield, Illinois, tells High Times.
“Marijuana helped me see through all the lies I was told in school and in the church, which made it clear to me from my early teens that the people of this country would need to fight for it.”
Branded with the image of a small, barely legible cannabis leaf on his left forearm, Steve, who remains a loyal advocate for the cannabis cause, is unapologetic about permanently pledging his allegiance to pot. Even if, by his own admission, his ink looks like total dog shit.
“I was like 16, and this dude who had just gotten out of prison was giving people tats in the kitchen at this party,” Steve recalls. “He told us that’s how he made a living in the pen, so we thought he’d do a good job. He didn’t. Mine’s all faded now, and people always say I need to get it covered up. Give me a break. It was done with a paperclip and an ink pen. What do you expect? To me, it symbolizes how far this plant has come.”
Cannabis Ink Goes Mainstream
To the supposed do-gooders of society—the ones putting on their best face regardless of how miserable their life by the rules has become—a pot leaf tattoo was considered the unsavory mark of the longhaired, hippie loser. Anyone spotted with one was considered a heathen. The tattooed stoner culture perplexed working-class Americans. After all, how was it so hard to stop listening to the Grateful Dead long enough to get a freaking job?
The cannabis tattoo has since become less taboo as judgmental society has moved on to slay modern monsters. Cannabis-related ink has risen from the ashes of a subculture and taken on, to some degree, mainstream appeal. Scott Campbell, famed tattoo artist and owner of the legendary Saved Tattoo in Brooklyn, New York, says that people today are just as likely to get etched with the icky in the sanitary conditions of a professional studio than in prison.
“Obviously, with us being in the middle of marijuana legalization, having a pot leaf has less outlaw biker connotations than it did in the ’80s,” says Campbell, who, throughout his career, has inked a number of celebrities from Heath Ledger to Penélope Cruz.
Campbell admits there’s been a radical shift in the type of person he sees literally wearing this passion for pot on their sleeve.
“There is still a bit of illicit excitement when I see people with pot leaf tattoos. It’s not so much, ‘That guy kills people,’ but more like, ‘That’s the guy in the PTA meeting I want to sit next to,’” he says.
Illustration by Pedro Correa
Ink as Advocacy
In many ways, this brand of body modification remains a toking testament of the rowdy. Yessiree, there are still plenty of people out there getting homespun stoner ink as a tribute to a lifestyle that the average citizen may not be privy to. In some cases, the tireless work of cannabis advocacy in areas of the United States where weed remains a no-no is where these initiations of the green go down. Benjamin from Bryan, Ohio, tells us that his one and only cannabis tattoo, a pot leaf on his right shoulder, followed an event to decriminalize marijuana possession.
“I was standing on a table downtown with a guitar in my hands singing Legalize It over and over again when this mother came to sign up and said she loves what I’m doing for the cause,” Benjamin tells us.
The woman’s son, a local tattoo artist, eventually showed up to extend his support and offered Benjamin some free ink as a token of his appreciation. Of course, he kindly accepted the gent’s proposition because, duh.
“I closed up and went over to his house and walked away tatted up,” he says.
Ink in the Industry
Out west, where advocacy and capitalism have collided, cannabis tats are, at times, calling cards of the industry. Kelly, a 53-year-old grower from Salem, Oregon, has one that she says was conjured up one night in the spirit of the age-old motto: sex sells. She decided to get inked in an elevated state of mind as she plotted a move to Eugene, Oregon, to get into the cultivation sect. In business, location is everything, and weed is no exception. So, as a going-away present, Kelly pulled up her shirt and had her dedication to the doob marked on her boobs, of all places.
“I had [my artist] tattoo weed leaves on my breasts because, in Eugene, it is legal for females to go outside and be free to be topless,” Kelly tells us, adding that she thought it was a sure thing from a marketing standpoint. “Any advertising is good if it’s nipples and weed!”
Hidden Homages
While wanting to be branded with an homage to the herb, many refuse to give it reverence with a simple pot leaf. For advocates like Gayle from Greenville, South Carolina, the more traditional designs are too generic. Rather than the leaf or even the molecular structure of tetrahydrocannabinol, arguably the next most popular breed of weed art, she opted for one that portrays the beauty of the cannabis plant under a microscope.
It’s a clandestine nod to the nug. To untrained eyes, the tattoo doesn’t appear to have anything to do with cannabis. It’s just a bunch of red, blue, and teal orbs affixed to some slime green squiggly ribbons emerging from torn flesh. There’s no way it could ever be used by law enforcement to establish reasonable suspicion.
“One day, it just hit me that cannabis, from a scientific view, was the tattoo I was supposed to get,” Gayle told us. “It’s different from the average pot tattoo.”
A Badge of Honor
There are times, though, when the tattoos of our past become indiscretions of youth. They are often cruel reminders that we’re getting older and, of no fault of our own, have outgrown the things we once adored and thought were cool. The names of lost love, symbols of political alignments in which we no longer believe, and perhaps even a silly cartoon character. Inked nostalgia is a bitch. It tells everyone we know that there is indeed a body buried out there somewhere. But we’ve lived and learned and, the devil willing, we’ll live some more.
The ink of yesteryear, however, will survive the floods. Perhaps that is why the tattoo removal industry will reach nearly $800 million by 2027. Nobody wants living proof that they were ever that foolish. The stoner with the marijuana tattoo, however, isn’t one steeped in regret. That badge, regardless of its quality or style, remains, presumably from here on out, the highest living honor.
“I can honestly say I have never covered up a pot leaf tattoo,” Campbell says. “Anyone who was brazen enough to get it tattooed before the current cannabis-friendly climate is probably enjoying being able to wear it without having their bag searched every time they go through customs.”
