Month: December 2019

NETA TripleOG Review

While sometimes more expensive, recreational cannabis has been some of the finest flowers I have experienced. The quality, aroma, and effects have always far surpassed anything I have obtained from the traditional market.

TripleOG is my first experience with recreational cannabis in Massachusetts. My experiences in NETA can be read in my previous post on the subject.

TripleOG is an Indica dominant strain. According to this website, it is a combination of the Master Yoda, Triangle Kush, and Contantine strains. Opening the package, the flower released a very pleasant citrus-y aroma that was not overpowering. However, we later noticed that even in the container it came in the room started to smell like cannabis so we took precautions to keep the package several layers away from air.

This was also the first time I noticed a humidity control packet being included in the container. It caught me off-guard for a moment thinking “wtf did they place in there?!?!”

The trichomes present on the flower were very pronounced. While the flower was expertly trimmed, remnants of the purple leaves can be seen.

Triple OG’s smoke imparts a pine flavor upon exhale. The smoke was not harsh and generally pleasant. The effects were onset very quickly and we experienced general “chill” throughout the night by playing video and card games. Jokes were told, food was consumed, and overall it is a very nice strain.

History of Cannabis

Prohibitionists try to force a narrative that cannabis use is relatively new in human society. They also try to point out that those that did use it were small in numbers and insignificant to the overall population; especially when it comes to medical value.

There is evidence from 2500 years ago that cannabis was smoked in a ceremonial fashion. Hemp was also mentioned in one of the oldest Chinese texts on agriculture, Xia Xiao Zheng. As for the medical properties, Emperor Shen Nung noted it and they were eventually collected in the Pen Ts’ao Ching.

Jumping forward a bit to India, Bhang is mentioned as a sacred preparation of cannabis for Shiva. This culture and religious use of cannabis continued for centuries in India. It was so pronounced, that when the British occupied India they sent several inquiries into how it affected the native population(the Imperialists were concerned with worker output).

Moving west to the Middle East, cannabis was influential in Muslim society. From the ritual use by the Sufis to the hashish influences of the 1,001 Arabian nights, evidence of cannabis can be seen throughout Muslim culture. On the medical side of things, one of the most influential medical texts written by Avicenna contains referenced to the medical properties of cannabis.

Jumping forward in time, the monk Rabelais mentions cannabis continually throughout his book Gargantua and Pantagruel, albeit under a code name. Cannabis also appears in several medical texts such as the The New England Dispensatory and The Edinburgh New Dispensary. Hashish became common in Europe and in the late 1800s several prominent writers were using it.

In more recent times, Cannabis was also included in the U.S. Pharmacopeia starting in 1851 until 1942.

Just from these few brief examples, I have shown the long use of cannabis in human societies. There are several others that I omitted, but the the general picture can be shown. Cannabis has been used for medical, spiritual, and recreational purposes for millennia. The only thing that changed that was the recent experiment of prohibition.

With the slow repealing of prohibition in several states and aided with modern science, humanity is once again being reunited with the plant and finding truth and evidence in the benefits.

Failure of NY Legalization 2019 Part 2

As mentioned in my previous post, things are started to look good for NY legalizing cannabis in 2019. The CRTA, as proposed in the budget, did have positive qualities. It included several employment and hiring protections, as cannabis was not to be considered an illicit substance inside NY state. However, the CRTA did not contain home growing provisions or any social justice ones.

The CRTA faced criticism from NORML and other groups due to these issues. With the budget vote deadline coming close, the CRTA was ultimately dropped from the budget. All did not seem to be lost, however, as the MRTA was still pending in the Senate.

However, Cuomo really didn’t seem to want to support it. After the budget talks failed, Cuomo was very absent in legalization talks and barely mentioned it in press briefings.

I personally sent many emails, made phone calls, and even mailed physical letters to my state representatives showing my support. Some answered while others didn’t, but I still did as much as I could to let my representatives know my position.

In the final weeks of the legislative session, support in the Senate waned even with the Democrat majority. The lack of support came from Long Island senators.

While Illinois was able to pass a legalization measure through, NY failed. In-fighting, politics, and arguing where the tax revenues were to go were listed as the reasons for the failure. Disappointment was abound, even though the Senate majority leader stated she will continue her support for the MRTA.

With the FY2020 session starting soon, I will most certainly be watching this measure. With any luck, backroom negotiations would have occurred in the off months and we might be able to get support. If not, we can only hope to vote out those in opposition next November.