News On The Green: Unto The Gloss

\ Jan 10, 2019

3 min read

Unto the Gloss

As reported by The New York Times, a slew of glossy cannabis lifestyle mags are now competing with periodical stalwarts like genre-granddaddy High Times for the eyeballs (and resulting ad dollars) of a new crop of discerning cannabis consumers. Via coverage in the Gray Lady, journalist Max Berlinger namechecks a bevy of cannabis-themed publications, noting that “a new generation of users are more likely to read Goop than High Times, the stoner bible, and publishers see an exciting opportunity in a marketplace that could reach $23.4 billion in consumer spending and employ a half-million Americans by 2023.”

These 420-friendly magazines include Gossamer, Broccoli, Apothecanna, Eaze, Miss Grass, Dope Girls, Kitchen Toke and Estrohaze. While these lifestyle magazines share a common interest in and theme of cannabis use, Gossamer self-identifies as “a magazine for people who also smoke weed” while Broccoli’s more streamlined self-reference is currently “the international magazine for cannabis lovers.” Even in states that allow medical or recreational access, American cannabis marketing regulations are incredibly complex. Owing to anachronistic federal cannabis law and corresponding corporate policy, online and social media cannabis advertising remains a formidable challenge. A glossy new cannabis media corps aims to take full opportunistic advantage.

Prescribed Burn

Published in the latest Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, “Medical Cannabis Users’ Comparisons between Medical Cannabis and Mainstream Medicine” illuminates medical cannabis users’ intake and results as well as their attitude toward and perception of the mainstream healthcare system. Study leaders Daniel J. Kruger and Jessica S. Kruger—respectively of the University of Michigan and SUNY: Buffalo—distributed 450 brief hard-copy surveys to adult attendees of an annual cannabis reform event. Analysis of 392 usable responses revealed that medical cannabis users rated cannabis more favorably than pharmaceuticals in areas like addictiveness, availability, cost, effectiveness, side effects and safety.

Thirty-five percent of survey respondents reported that medical cannabis enabled them to completely get off a pharmaceutical drug—including opioid painkillers, non-narcotic analgesics, benzodiazepines and antidepressants—while 38 percent took less of at least one pharmaceutical drug thanks to cannabis. Interestingly, fewer than half of all respondents had discussed their medical cannabis use with a mainstream healthcare provider. As American attitudes toward and laws regulating cannabis continue to evolve, cannabis researchers and advocates are calling for an intensification of serious scientific study and the adoption of an evidence-based harm reduction approach.