Pot is Not for Everyone

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Pot is not for everyone and it is important as we move forward with regulation to hear both sides of the story. I recently sat down with Eleanor Rixby, an 85 year old Natick native. Eleanor agreed to talk to me after I ran into her at an event at the elderly care center she lives at. Eleanor does not like pot..

Can you recall where your feelings for pot started?

I think it ’53, yessiree fall of ’53 when I was first offered reefer. I was young and even at that age knew to stay away from the devil’s lettuce. But here came the local neighborhood hooligan with nothing but shenanigans on his mind! Those damn shenanigans! See, we were in war times back in ’53, and the coolest joe on the block was a soldier. We loved dressing and saluting just like ‘em. So here homes the hooligan with a gas mask and he offers me to try it on. He says do you want to see it smoke up? Little did I know that this smoke was marijuana smoke! I became so giggly, hungry, and incoherent that I didn’t even know who I was anymore. That’s when I joined the No Reefer Allowed Associated (N.R.A.A) and made it my mission to protect the world of those damn stoners.

Editor note: Eleanor may have made up the N.R.A.A as I have never heard of it.

Do you view marijuana as a gateway drug?

Gateway drug? Yeah, you can say that. Gateway straight to hell!

What do you think are the major problems with pot?

Well do they have a few hours? It stinks up the whole house! Leads to a deficit of intelligent youth as they are all frying their brain cells with the smoking of weed. Our society would be much better off if pot stayed illegal! I hate that it will soon be in my area and ready for all those little kids fresh off the school bus ready to get high.

Are you aware that you need to be of a certain age to purchase pot?

Does not matter. Those kids will find a way to get their hands on it. Legalization will only make it easier for them.

What would you suggest people do instead?

I don’t know, collecting stamps or checkerboard. Anything really, but pot is the worst. All my friends growing up were outside playing. Jumping rope, playing hop scotch. Now all kids do is smoke and play those silly video games and eat way too much.


Eleanor seemed generally upset that weed was coming to the area legally. She declined to speak with me further after I proposed that she try weed before staying steadfast in her views. I pulled out a joint, she gave me a look like I committed murder and got up and left. Although I don't agree with Eleanor, I think her viewpoint is shared with others in the community and their voice needs to be heard too.

Opinions and Oppositions: Week 2

Hi readers, I hope you’re enjoying your snow day (and you didn’t lose power so you can read this!)

This week on Opinions and Oppositions, I decided to join a few “Anti-Marijuana” groups or pages on Facebook and see what I discovered. I few rules before I begin:

1.    The Page/Group must have at least 100 members or followers.
2.    The Page/Group cannot be a parody account.
3.    The account has posted within the last 60 days.

Hypothesis: Finding a group will be easy, and the actual posts will be based on religious beliefs and not based off facts. Based off what I’ve learned from friends, members of the military may also be in the groups even though I believe it will be mostly parents involved in these groups and pages.


Results: Finding a group to join was difficult. Many of the pages I looked at were spam accounts, only had 2 or 3 members, or hadn’t posted in years. I discovered that searching on Facebook wasn’t enough, so I went searching for websites with Facebook accounts opposing marijuana.

The page I focused on is titled CALM or Citizens Against Legalizing Marijuana, based out of California. This group has over 1,000 followers and the last post was today. Many of the posts involved people being arrested on Marijuana related charges in states where it is legal to smoke or sell weed. What I found interesting is that per the pages “About Me” the purpose of the group is to prevent abuse, yet many of the posts seem to be very against Marijuana in general.

Overall, I was wrong about finding a page about “Anti-Marijuana”. Many pages with a good following were pages mostly of sarcastic memes and that’s something I didn’t think was going to happen. I had to put in a lot of work to find a practical page. I’m curious if this is a reflection on the internet or if more people think it should be legal than you’d think. What do you think?

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Living Near A Marijuana Business

Hello readers!  I’d just like to start by saying thank you for checking out our blog and if there is anything you’d like us to write about or look into, please let us know!  I’d like to share some information about a document issued by the Cannabis Control Commission (CCC) about two months ago, providing state/city politicians and officials information about upcoming details relating to the legalization of marijuana.  This document goes in depth into what marijuana businesses will be like in the state, relating to the actual businesses themselves, guidelines, restrictions, licensing/certification, etc.

 “The document provides the first in-depth breakdown of types of marijuana establishments. The document is intended to offer local officials details to help them make decisions about whether to enact an outright ban or simply limit the number and/or types of recreational marijuana businesses.”  This is a very interesting concept and requires us to look beyond the surface because this means even if you voted for legal marijuana use and sales, you still may not be able to buy or sell locally.  It is up to local officials whether or not they’d like to see marijuana establishments in their towns.  There are people who voted to legalize marijuana for their own personal views, yet they may not want it around them just from the stigma that drugs bring.  The assumptive view is that if there are drug establishments in a certain town, it may bring neighborhood property value down, could attract crime, attract people who do other drugs, or other negative effects that are associated with drug use.  This is definitely something to think about.

 I will cite the details of the document and provide a link to it in a further blog post.  For this post in particular I’d like to wage a few questions and gain some insight on reader’s views on marijuana establishments being located in their town/city.  Would you feel comfortable living near a marijuana establishment?  What are some reasons you may think people voted for legalization but don’t want it in their town?  Should there be a city/town wide vote instead of local officials making decisions for us?  This is a great time to get the conversation started.

Please think about these and let us know what you think!

Reference: Lakeman, David (17 Jan. 2018) CCC Releases Guidance Document For Local Officials on Marijuana Law .   Retrieved on 5 March 2018 : https://www.mma.org/ccc-releases-guidance-document-local-officials-marijuana-law

Local Grower Interview

Greetings Folks,

It is Monday night and I hope you all enjoyed your beautiful day. Are you perhaps thinking about  starting a new project or perhaps eager to begin a project that could end up being a company! Well, this post may be for you! Today I want to share with you an interview that was conducted with a home grower who happened to learn from it and gather a lot of valuable information through his trail and errors! 

Questions for interviewee:

Interviewer- Adonis Alcantara

Interviewee- Tom Whelan

Short bio about yourself and how you got into this field:

Greetings I’m an entrepreneurship student at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. I got into this industry after suffering a back injury and needing to be issued a medical marijuana card. Once I had entered this field I saw a low entry barrier and a large profit margin. Then I quickly began researching and assembling my own grow room legally, before eventually starting my own grow.

Are you in the medical field?

I currently in the works to get my license to grow more marijuana but currently I am only growing for plants in my grow tents at this time but in the future I plan on having a full scale operation.

Are you licensed?

I am not license yet but I would consider myself a start up who is researching potential opportunities to determine what direction to take my company in.

Are you only based in MA?

Yes, due to current laws and restrictions I am only seeking to grow my business in Massachusetts at this current time but things could change depending on local laws and regulation.

What’s the most challenging aspect about being a grower?

The most challenging aspect about being grower is that not only are you a business man trying to grow in the most profitable way but also having to become a gardening expert on analyzing possible diseases bugs and weather conditions which may decrease the quality of your products. If I could give anyone advice, I would say to find someone else that grows and have them hold your hand through the 1st harvest in order to get the gist of things to guarantee a smooth start.  

Which type of strains do you grow?

Currently I grow two strains, one of which is called “Barneys Blue Cheese” which is an indicator sativa hybrid and won the cannabis cup in 2011 and 2012. I also grow a strain called “Cookies Kush” which is a cross between girl scout cookies and OG Kush. All of my seeds come from a license seed bank and are certified.

Have you grown indoors or outdoors/ both? What have you noticed in terms of differences amongst the two if so?

On my first harvest I grew plants indoors and outdoors. I immediately noticed that indoors in a hydroponic set up there aren’t no dirt bugs and a much decreased risk of diseases in the plants indoors all grew at a steady rate as it is sunny every day in the tent and they get watered and fed at the same time every day and the bud came out very good. However, on my outdoor plants I noticed that the sun itself is much more powerful than the lights inside my growing habitat and the plant outdoors grew exponentially faster than the plants indoors. On the other hand, my outdoor plants all grew very fast but the bud was not nearly as potent as the indoor products. Also I was unaware that outdoor marijuana plants are not supposed to be rained on and that you must construct tents around them in the event it is going to rain. These are things I wish people told me before my first harvest.

How often do you need to tend to plants?

Indoor plants must be tended to every single day at least once a-day but tending to the plants doesn't necessarily mean you have to do anything, it’s more or less a check up because the light and the watering process or both should be automated so you're really just checking for diseases to make sure the process is going smoothly but outdoor plants just require water.

What makes for best quality when growing?

Making sure the plants aren't over fertilized or under fertilized is key when growing potent buds. On my first grow I had the PH level off in my water reservoir and was unaware for several weeks in a couple of my plants suffered due to the PH imbalance.

THANK YOU,

I want to personally thank Tom for his time and efforts. He is a great example of a person who jumped in on a project, without knowing much yet managed to learn from his mistakes! I hope this post served as valuable information and perhaps inspired you to try growing on your own.