Why Your Voice Matters: Opinions and Oppositions Week 5

Hello readers, I hope everyone is having a great week! Today I want to talk about you having a voice in change.


Every time there’s an election we here “Go out and vote”, “Be sure to vote!”, “Vote, Vote, Vote.” or something along those lines.  Many of us think that our vote doesn’t count because 1 vote doesn’t matter in the long run. However, this isn’t true. Voting on laws regarding Marijuana is great examples of why you should.

In 2016, 9 states had questions to vote on in regards to Marijuana. Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Maine, Massachusetts, Montana, Nevada, and North Dakota. The only state where the question didn’t pass was in Arizona. The results were very close.

Arizona 2016 (via ballotpedia.org)

Result	Votes	Percentage
No	1,300,344	51.32%
Yes	1,233,323	48.68%

The results were 67,021 vote difference. That may not seem like much but it’s only a couple of percentage points apart. The question was so close to passing!

Now let’s look at our own state of Massachusetts and how close the vote was when it passed in 2016.

Massachusetts 2016 (via ballotpedia.org)

Result	Votes	Percentage
No	1,769,328	53.66%
Yes	1,528,219	46.34%

The results were 241,109 vote difference. The votes were very close and every vote matters! Hopefully, this shows how your voice matters. Get out and speak your mind, talk to friends, family, and get them to vote. Their voice and your voice matters.

Be sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest to stay up to date with Regulated Weed Culture and keep an eye out for more polls! Also be sure to keep an eye out for our Spotify playlist coming soon!

Cannabis Cultivator

Greetings all! Thank you for the continued support.

Last week I wrote about the press release by the Cannabis Control Commission (CCC) released a few weeks ago informing the public on the different types of marijuana establishments that we will see in our state communities and the regulations they will abide by.  It is important to make note that ALL of these establishments are considered part of the marijuana industry, and must follow the same laws, despite being different kinds of businesses.

“All marijuana establishments are subject to strict, comprehensive state regulations and inspections by Commission agents. All marijuana establishments are required to enter into host community agreements with the municipality in which they are located (there is more detail on host community agreements below). Only marijuana retailers are subject to the local marijuana tax created under the 2017 Act. One business may hold three licenses in each category, with certain exceptions.”

For this post, I would like to expand on the laws and guidelines on being a Cultivator.

A cultivator is licensed to cultivate, process, and package marijuana and transfer marijuana products to marijuana establishments.  There are different tiers of being a Cultivator, which is what decides how much land (calculated in square feet) they are allowed to grow plants on.  A cultivator is allowed to choose what tier they would like to be in, and must follow the license fees and regulation according to that tier.  The different tiers related to their square feet are:

Tier 1: up to 5,000 square feet Tier 2: 5,001 to 10,000 sq. ft.

Tier 3: 10,001 to 20,000 sq. ft. Tier 4: 20,001 to 30,000 sq. ft.

Tier 5: 30,001 to 40,000 sq. ft. Tier 6: 40,001 to 50,000 sq. ft.

Tier 7: 50,001 to 60,000 sq. ft. Tier 8: 60,001 to 70,000 sq. ft.

 Tier 9: 70,001 to 80,000 sq. ft. Tier 10: 80,001 to 90,000 sq. ft.

 Tier 11: 90,001 to 100,000 sq. ft.

Licensing will be very strict for cultivators, they have to apply through the CCC for license renewal or to expand their land to a different tier.  The CCC will review all cultivators and watch over how much of their tier they actually produce.

Despite the CCC being able to oversee the marijuana industry in the state, it is up to the state’s towns on regulating each entity such as cultivators.  The law allows towns to pass laws and ordinances governing cultivators (and every other establishment).  For example, a cultivator may be allowed to grow up to 100,000 sq. ft. after being approved by the commission as Tier 11, a municipality (town) reserves the right to pass an ordinance that could restrict a cultivator to only use up to 50,000 sq. ft.

Since the state as a whole passed a law on the legalization of marijuana growth, does a town restriction such as this example sound fair?

Music and Weed

Greetings all, April is right around the corner and we are soon to be welcomed by the lovely weather of Spring! But don't get fooled, nice weather or not if you enjoy smoking just about any weather is nice weather for a joint! Tonight's discussion is an interesting one because we urge you to think about how you feel while smoking and listening to music versus to how you feel when music is absent. Does music enhance your smoking experience or does it disturb it? 

Check out below what research says:

According to Tom Barnes author of the article "Here's Why Music Sounds So Much Better When You're High, According to Science" he includes quotes and statements from various psychologists and professors who have done intense research on this topic. He includes "music combined with marijuana tends to produce feelings of euphoria and connectedness to the music and the musicians. THC — the active ingredient — is known to stimulate the brain's natural pleasure centers, while also disrupting short-term memory. The disruption of short-term memory thrusts listeners into the moment of the music as it unfolds; unable to explicitly keep in mind what has just been played, or to think ahead to what might be played, people stoned on pot tend to hear music from note to note. Subconsciously all of the usual processes of expectation formation are still occurring, but consciously, the music creates what many people describe as a time-standing-still phenomenon. They live for each note, completely in the moment."

We are curious to know your input on this, do you agree/disagree or perhaps have your own story involving weed and music. This is something that is talked about a lot amongst friends and stoners. Do you have a particular song that you enjoy listening to, if so comment and let us know. We're in the process of creating a playlist for those who enjoy tunes related to marijuana.