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The After Math: FIRST!
Now that presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump has come right out and declared "America First", a popular slogan among white nationalists throughout the country, here's a look at some of the other precedent-setting events of the week. Microsoft announced that it's getting into the legal weed game. Regulators have been presented with a proposal for the first US-based human CRISPR experiment. And Broadway announced that it will take the unprecedented step of livestream a musical. Numbers, because how else will we know how unpopular the presidential candidates are?
The Internet of Things is coming to your hydroponic garden
It was only a matter of time. The Internet of Things has already come for our vaporizers; now it is back for our hydroponic grow ops. Behold the Gro.io, an all-inclusive hydro system that's nearly fully automated. The brains behind this system is the Gro.hub. This central computing tower runs an embedded Linux OS on a 1GHz ARM Cortex-A8 Processor and processes signals from ten separate remote sensors. These monitor things like water temperature, level, pH and flow.
Pod-based marijuana vaporizers are coming
As the wave of marijuana legalization lifts the country out of its longstanding fog of prohibition, one former Keurig executive and his 40-something marijuana enthusiast friend have found a way to ride it all the way to the bank: By creating a vaporizer with single-serving, disposable pot pods. Because, in the future, everything will come in a pod.
The best portable vaporizer for most people
By Mark Smirniotis This post was done in partnership with The Wirecutter, a buyer's guide to the best technology. Read the full article here. After looking at 30 top models and testing eight, we chose the Grenco Science G Pen Elite as our favorite vaporizer for under $200. This pint-sized vaporizer produces vapor that will convert any smoker and is easy to use, thanks to high-end features like a combination of convection and conduction heating in a ceramic chamber, precision temperature control, a clear display, and Micro-USB charging.
The Firefly 2 proves that every vaporizer should have its own app
The first Firefly vaporizer was revolutionary when it debuted in late 2013. Along with the original Pax, it helped take portable vapes mainstream with Apple-esque minimalist design and convection heating. But in the modern Internet of Things era, the OG Firefly now feels laughably out of date -- especially compared to the Pax 2. Thankfully, Firefly has just released a second-generation model that's smaller, lighter and more functional than its predecessor. It's even got an app!
Report: Facebook is deleting medical marijuana pages
NJ.com reports that Facebook has deleted the business pages of medical marijuana dispensaries -- three in New Jersey so far as well as a handful of others across the nation -- for violating the site's terms of service. In their place, the dispensaries found note reading "We remove any promotion or encouragement of drug use. Your page is currently not visible on Facebook. It looks like content on your page does not follow the Facebook Community Terms and Standards."
The EazeMD app lets you consult a weed doctor on your phone
San Francisco-based cannabis delivery service Eaze announced Monday that it is launching EazeMD, a mobile video conferencing service designed to directly connect medical marijuana patients and prescribing doctors. The app, available on both iOS and Android, works just like physically visiting a clinic. Users fill out the same standard forms required by the state of California, queue up to speak to the doctor, and then discuss their maladies and potential treatment options with a licensed physician. The service is active 11am to 7pm, 7 days a week.
The Leaf 'Plug 'n Plant' is an all-in-one hydroponic grow box
Growing weed is easy (it is a weed, after all), growing good weed is a lot harder. And growing top-shelf sticky-icky in the comfort of your own home has, until now, been an expensive and technical nightmare. But that's where the Plug 'n Plant system from Leaf comes in. This tableside grow box is completely self contained. It provides all the pumps, lights, fans and nutrients needed to raise a pair of cannabis plants and yield 4 to 5 ounces of high-test herb. What's more, it includes a host of environmental sensors and an HD camera that push data (and a timelapse view of your plants) to your smartphone for easy and continuous condition tracking. The system is even semi-autonomous, automatically dispensing additional nutrients as the plants absorb them from the growing medium.
Who needs weed when we've got THC-producing yeast?
Researchers from the Technical University of Dortmund in Germany have reportedly discovered a way to genetically engineer yeast to produce both THC and cannabidiol. THC is the primary psychoactive chemical in cannabis which cannabidiol (or CBD) is a potent anti-inflammatory compound. Synthetic THC is already sold under brand names like Cesamet. It's often used to treat nausea associated with HIV or cancer therapies. However getting yeast to produce just those chemicals, rather than having to strip them from the plants themselves, could greatly reduce the cost of their production compared to conventional chemical synthesis.
Russia bans all of Wikipedia over an article about hashish (updated)
Russia's government apparently thinks that by censoring the Internet, its citizens will forget that drugs exist. After briefly banning Reddit recently over a single thread about psychedelic mushrooms, Russia's Roscomnadzor agency (which is charged with policing the Internet for objectionable material) has officially nixed the entirety of Wikipedia.
NORML's 'My Canary' app knows if you're too stoned to drive
With cannabis legal in nearly half the US in some form or another, there are a lot more opportunities for people to drive while high. While a number of studies have suggested that driving stoned may not be as dangerous as driving drunk, you try explaining that to the officer who pulls you over. So after the last bong rip, but before you grab your car keys, give yourself a once-over with the My Canary app. It's been designed by NORML (the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) as a quick and personal means of roughly estimating your impairment. The $5 iOS app runs the user through a series of mental and physical tests designed to measure coordination, reasoning, reaction time and balance. Pass the test and you're probably ok for that Taco Bell run. Fail, and maybe you're going to want to call an Uber for that Taco Bell run. Because even if that "breathalyzer for weed" is bullshit, getting a DUI isn't. [Image Credit: Aaron Black - Getty]
PotBotics: better cannabis recommendations through science
Medical cannabis, recreational cannabis; it's getting hard to tell the two apart -- even in states where only the former is allowed. Just look at your local dispensary. If it's anything like my local weed shop, your cannabis choices are governed more by the brand name and relative THC content than they are the other active cannabinoids -- you know, the ones with the actual medical benefits. This is great for your average stoner recuperating from a backiatomy, but for patients who really do need these complementary cannabinoid effects, guessing whether Blue Dream or Vallejo Sour Diesel will best help alleviate the effects of their chemo simply won't do. That's why the Bay Area startup PotBotics is working to put some real science -- from a curation of existing scholarly articles and independent studies -- behind cannabis recommendations.
Canadian company is developing a 'breathalyzer for pot'
With cannabis now legal in some form or another in nearly half of the US, states and private companies alike are scrambling for a means of adapting DUI legislation to weed. To that end, Vancouver-based Cannabix Technologies Inc is developing what is expected to be the first "pot breathalyzer." It does exactly what it sounds like: providing law enforcement officials with an instant, handheld means of determining whether a driver is under the influence of cannabis. The device is currently in its prototyping stage and is undergoing in-house testing. However, it's unclear when the breathalyzer will actually get into the hands of cops or whether it will be accurate enough to be of use once that time comes.
Leafly: the web's ultimate cannabis resource
In July of 2014, New York State did what few thought possible at the time: Its legislature passed Assembly Bill 6357 (better known as the Compassionate Care Act of 2014), which effectively legalized medical cannabis; a bill Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed into law. Less than a week after he did so, Leafly, a cannabis information database, made headlines of its own by running an advertisement in The New York Times' -- the first of its kind in the venerable newspaper's 163-year history. Cannabis, both as an industry and as a subculture, is quickly coming out of the shadows and entering the mainstream. Nowhere is this more explicit than in the meteoric rise of Leafly. So to get some insight into the company's rapid growth and future plans, I recently spoke with co-founder Cy Scott and CEO Brendan Kennedy about where Leafly came from and what it's like to be an industry pioneer.
What Instagram did for brunch, MassRoots hopes to do for weed
Cannabis or "weed" is, in practical terms, going mainstream. It's no longer exclusively sold from basements and back alleys; in 23 states and Washington D.C., it's sold from licensed and bonded shops. The cannabis movement has done a lot of growing up over the past couple of years as its public acceptance has skyrocketed across the US. Cannabis itself has gone from a black market "gateway" drug that funded the atrocities of Mexican cartels to a potential super-medicine drawing the attention of Wall Street's most powerful investors and all seemingly overnight.
Sidecar is starting a weed delivery service in San Francisco
Your next Sidecar ride could be carrying more than passengers and parcels. The ride-sharing company announced that it is teaming with local cannabis service Meadow to bring same-day weed deliveries to medical marijuana patients in San Francisco. The new service will reportedly fulfill orders through the Apothecarium dispensary. Package deliveries already constitute about 10 percent of Sidecar's ride volume in San Francisco. However, carrying cannabis poses a number of unique challenges -- such as ensuring that the person taking delivery is the same person that placed the order.
The Pax 2 vaporizer makes its predecessor look half-baked
I immediately fell in love with the original Pax vaporizer when it debuted back in 2012. Its compact and lightweight construction belied a powerful three-stage conduction oven, while the sleek, push-button design made it far more intuitive and user-friendly than other portable vaporizers available at the time. Granted, the OG Pax wasn't perfect -- what with its habit of clogging every few sessions or so. Now, more than two years after the release of the first Pax, PAX Labs is back with a new iteration that's smaller, lighter and more powerful than its predecessor. Say hello to the Pax 2.
Apple decides marijuana app belongs in the App Store after all
MassRoots' social network for cannabis users contravened Apple's policy of banning apps that promote drug use, and had to go. Two weeks after that decision was made, an army of hemp-wearing advocates have managed to convince the iPhone maker to change its mind. The contentious issue, you see, was that it's now legal to enjoy jazz cigarettes for medicinal purposes in 23 states, making Apple one of those boring squares that just needed to stop being such a narc.
Weed like to show you this spliffy 420 Audio High-Fi Bluetooth speaker
What happens when cannabis meets high-tech? You get PR blasts for 4/20 with headlines like "420 Audio packs dank sound with new High-Fi Wireless Bluetooth Speaker." While we'd like to write this off as a hallucination from drinking some stale bong water, it's an actual product! The new product is billed as having a "weed-friendly" look along with "fun operating sounds." You know those beeps and boops you hear from most Bluetooth speakers? Those have been replaced with coughs when the speaker pairing begins, a giggle when the pairing is successful, a "bong rip" when you power up, and a voice saying "I'm hungry!" when you power down and head to the nearest pizza parlor for some munchies. Other verbiage from the press release tells us that it "sparks up anywhere you do to play music directly from your smartphone or tablet," and that the USB rechargeable lithium-ion battery will let it "blaze for 6 hours to outlast the most epic sessions." If you're in the Mile High City of Denver, Colorado this weekend, you can pick up a High-Fi for US$39.99 at 420 Audio's booth (#1304D) at the High Times Cannabis Cup. If you're too baked to remember to do that, just point your browser to www.420audio.com.
