“There’s kind of a shock wave going through our community right now, with the speakers that were invited, most of whom were out-of-state.”

By Joshua Haiar, South Dakota Searchlight

Representatives of South Dakota medical marijuana businesses said they were alarmed Wednesday after a state committee that oversees the industry spent much of an all-day meeting listening to invited speakers who warned about health risks and other dangers.

Emmett Reistroffer, of Genesis Farms in Sioux Falls, spoke during the public comment session at the end of the meeting.

“My phone has been blowing up with text messages,” he said. “There’s kind of a shock wave going through our community right now, with the speakers that were invited, most of whom were out-of-state.”

Reistroffer also said he fears the committee is involved in a coordinated effort to restrict or repeal the state’s medical marijuana program, which voters approved in 2020 and the state implemented in 2022. There are currently 16,477 patient cards issued in the state.

Reistroffer’s comments resulted in the chairwoman of the Medical Marijuana Oversight Committee, Rep. Josephine Garcia, R-Watertown, cutting him off.

“There has been no intention at all for any agenda this meeting, other than to follow what was not done when this program was first rolled out,” Garcia said. “That was my only intention here. If you’re insinuating that me, as the chair, have said something or orchestrated something, I have not done that. It is awareness for the public. This is a public safety issue.”

This story was first published by South Dakota Searchlight.

Photo courtesy of Brian Shamblen.

Entirely by chance, my father is buried just a few rows away from Levi Strauss, the man whose name is synonymous with denim and one of the most enduring clothing brands in American history.

For decades, whenever I went to the cemetery just outside San Francisco, I’d quickly pause to say hello to Mr. Strauss. And I always made it a point to tell him, “Thanks for the jeans.” It was kind of our thing.

Aside from a few stray words, I seldom speak out loud if I’m by myself, even when I’m hanging out with dead people. That’s why it surprised me when, one afternoon, my relationship with Mr. Strauss took an admittedly unusual turn.

Instead of a pause on my way in, I made a hard stop. I’d just been through a difficult stretch in my work as a product developer and was reeling. Seeing that I had the ear of a fellow inventor, I decided to open up to Mr. Strauss that day, and I could tell he was a good listener. It was the first real conversation we’d ever had, and it taught me more than I could have imagined. I never talk shop when I’m visiting my father—he was a podiatrist.

Taking a moment to read the room before discussing my business in polite company, I looked around the mausoleum to where Mr. Strauss now resides and found the information I was searching for etched in white marble: LEVI STRAUSS — BORN 1829 – DIED 1902.

Seeing that he wouldn’t have even known about the earthquake—let alone all of the political matters I was about to discuss—I realized there was a lot I should catch him up on first.

Hemp Before the Fall

I told Mr. Strauss that I worked in the cannabis industry—except that he would know it as hemp. It was a crop grown everywhere in the nation, commonly used to make durable fabrics, canvas, and rope. Hemp had been indispensable during the Gold Rush, especially in a maritime city like San Francisco, as its fibers could withstand saltwater without breaking down.

But in 1906, shortly after Mr. Strauss passed away, a new law required medicines to disclose their ingredients on labels, and hemp was suddenly listed alongside narcotics like opiates and cocaine. Over time, they were clumsily lumped into the same category and wrongly classified as poison. But it isn’t a poison. And to this day, not a single death has ever been reported from its use.

Even so, U.S. cannabis prohibition officially took root in 1937—a chapter of history rarely acknowledged, and one I knew would interest Mr. Strauss especially. I explained how hemp had been rebranded as “marihuana” in the 1930s, a slang word in Spanish intentionally chosen to make the plant sound foreign and threatening rather than a simple, one-syllable crop. Behind the scenes, however, that “threat” wasn’t cultural—it was personal.

The Earliest Days of the Drug War

Publisher William Randolph Hearst, whom Mr. Strauss surely would have known personally, had a substantial investment in the timber industry, which supplied wood pulp for his newspapers. But hemp-processing equipment was quickly advancing to make the crop a cheaper, stronger, and more sustainable alternative to wood, which put Hearst’s empire at risk.

With an agenda to eliminate the competition, Hearst’s newspapers ran sensational headlines designed to stoke fear and turn public opinion against the plant.

In a coordinated media campaign with the newly formed U.S. Bureau of Narcotics, hemp was portrayed as a dangerous drug tied to crime and immigration—deemed a direct threat to the nation.

In 1937, the Marihuana Tax Act made hemp illegal in the United States, setting a global precedent and essentially wiping out a crop that could have supplied countless innovations over the years—including compostable plastics, biofuel, and important medicines—all because one man wanted to safeguard his timber business. Imagine that.

Strangest of all, those federal restrictions remain unchanged in the United States, nearly a century later.

Today, cannabis continues to be listed alongside heroin as a Schedule I drug—the most dangerous category under federal law.

By contrast, cocaine and methamphetamines are Schedule II, as is fentanyl, which killed nearly 50,000 Americans last year. In other words, cocaine and fentanyl are legally considered less dangerous than cannabis, despite zero deaths. And that’s a blatant contradiction I can’t unsee.

But the narrative wasn’t new to me; it echoed the 1970s and ’80s, when I was growing up and cannabis was treated like a weapon in America’s culture wars. The White House taught everyone to “Just Say No,” while police officers came into 75% of the nation’s classrooms through the D.A.R.E. program to warn us that marijuana was the gateway to everything evil and that anyone who used it was destined to ruin their lives.

That made things confusing when I accidentally caught my mother smoking pot—and it broke my heart. I couldn’t speak a word to her for weeks.

At the same time, alcohol not only got a free pass but was celebrated at every turn. Looking back now, the most destructive and dangerous things I’ve witnessed didn’t come from cannabis but from people who drank too much alcohol. And I could no longer unsee that one, either.

Fifty States, a Thousand Contradictions

I told Mr. Strauss how, eventually, states and counties began creating their own laws. More than 40 states and territories have legalized medical cannabis, and nearly half allow recreational use, too. But it’s not as straightforward as it sounds.

California was the first state to legalize medical use in 1996 and added recreational use later, yet 53% of its jurisdictions still ban any type of cannabis business.

In New Orleans, cannabis is sold from what look like ice-cream trucks, because only mobile dispensaries are permitted there, but not brick-and-mortar ones.

And in our nation’s capital, Washington, D.C., the rules are especially odd: dispensaries abound, but buying and selling is still illegal, so it’s given away as a “free gift.” Buy a $50 lighter and choose your cannabis gift; spend $75 for the same lighter and get a top-shelf selection.

Despite the patchwork of laws, legal cannabis still felt revolutionary. For the first time, I knew in advance which effects I’d experience with each plant strain and began integrating it into my yoga and meditation practice to reset my nervous system from PTSD. It did wonders for me, and I’m truly grateful to have lawful access.

Prospectors and Pickaxes

I explained how those experiences—and even Mr. Strauss himself—had inspired me to bring my specialized skill set to the supply chain. “You see,” I said, “I studied the old Gold Rush to understand the new one and was reminded that the people who prospered most weren’t the miners, but the merchants who sold them pickaxes, shovels, and jeans. And after years of saying hello to you, the point finally landed—so that’s where I decided to focus my attention. I would let someone else deal with the weird regulations. I’m going after the supply chain where I can do business anywhere in the world without restrictions.”

It was then that I decided to ask Mr. Strauss for some business advice. How had he done it—and found his way during the first Gold Rush? And what would he do moving forward if he were standing in my very same boots?

But as I tried to imagine his response, it suddenly hit me: I had no idea what Levi Strauss even looked like. I’d been saying hi for twenty years, but I only knew Levi Strauss as a label, not as an actual human being. I apologized for my manners and promised him I would fix that.

I bought the only biography ever written about Levi Strauss, expertly crafted by historian Lynne Downey. Most of his records had been destroyed in the fires after the earthquake, so the book itself was a remarkable feat and an excellent read. But I was in for another surprise.

Levi Strauss was eighteen when he immigrated from Buttenheim, Bavaria, to New York to join his brothers in their dry-goods trade. In 1853, he was sent west to run the San Francisco division of the family business. And then my jaw dropped as I learned the rest.

The Stitch That Changed the World

Levi Strauss did not invent jeans. He was the man who knew how to mass-produce them. The real MVP and creator of riveted pants was somebody else entirely, and I’d never heard his name.

Jacob W. Davis, or J.W. as he liked to be called, was a tailor from Riga, Latvia, who immigrated to the United States in 1854 at the age of twenty-three. He traveled across the U.S. and Canada looking for work, filing patents along the way for a canal steamboat, an ironing board, and a button that fastened with a screw, but nothing took.

Eventually, he returned to tailoring and opened a shop in Reno. In 1871, a woman came in and asked him to make pants for her husband—but she had a special request: make them extra strong.

Until then, pockets often tore off when people carried tools, and nobody thought twice about it. But J.W. had been sewing horse blankets and had some rivets nearby, so he had the notion to use them as reinforcements. Pockets never fell off again.

The pants were a huge hit, but after a year, he couldn’t keep up with demand, and others began to copy the idea. He applied for a patent, but it was rejected, likely due to his poor English. He wrote a letter to Mr. Strauss, who may have been his fabric supplier, seeking financial backing. They became partners: Mr. Strauss scaled distribution while J.W. ran production. He also invented the orange stitch design that became their signature look. They each stayed at the company for the rest of their lives.

Both men were extraordinary in their own right. Strauss became thoughtfully engaged in politics, using his influence to push for the kind of civic reform that would help to build an early San Francisco. And J.W. helped me realize that I was Jacob Davis in the equation in need of a Levi Strauss. Because in cannabis, where policies can literally shift overnight, timing is often the only real difference between progress and prohibition.

While Mr. Strauss never married or had children, J.W.’s son and grandson went on to found the Ben Davis Clothing Company in 1935, a San Francisco workwear brand still in operation today.

Ghosts in the Fabric

Recently, as the summer fog rolled into San Francisco, I ordered some Ben Davis beanies to stay warm and needed to spend another $3 to hit free shipping. I spotted something called “suspender buttons” for $4 and bought them. When the package arrived, I poured out the contents of a small bag into my palm, and I could hardly believe my eyes.

I was holding buttons that fasten with a screw. J.W.’s failed invention had managed to time-travel more than 150 years and land in my lap, demonstrating firsthand how far an idea can go once it’s been put into the right pair of hands.

It’s a powerful insight that applies to the plant, too. This is the moment when the story of cannabis gets rewritten, and finally course-corrects after a very long and most regrettable misunderstanding. Pairing ideas with action today will steer the innovations that matter tomorrow, ensuring that cannabis finds its way back to its rightful place in history. Because healing isn’t just the goal—it’s the plant’s legacy.

As luck would have it, Jacob W. Davis resides at the same cemetery as my father and Mr. Strauss, so I visit JW now, too. I leave a stone on his grave, and I always make a point to tell him, “Thanks for the jeans.”

All images courtesy of the author, LL St. John with featured image by Banjo Schmarino.

This article is from an external, unpaid contributor. It does not represent High Times’ reporting and has not been edited for content or accuracy.

Michigan has “become, in a lot of ways, sort of a central location for illicit operations, because the penalties for illicit activity are so low here.”

By Ben Solis, Michigan Advance

Four marijuana-related bills were up for consideration before a House panel on Thursday, with one aiming to upend rules on the legal amount of regulated marijuana a person is allowed to possess, both in plant and concentrate form.

Members of the House Regulatory Reform Committee discussed but did not amend or advance House Bill House 5104, Bill 5105, House Bill 5106 and House Bill 5107.

Derek Sova, a policy and legislative assistant for the Cannabis Regulatory Agency, told the committee previously that Michigan’s legal marijuana industry faced several challenges, and that two of those big hurdles were large illicit grow operations and the agency’s inability to go after bad actors because their licenses had expired.

The series of bills before the committee would address those concerns.

House Bill 5105 and House Bill 5107 are sponsored by state Reps. Pauline Wendzel (R-Watervliet) and Mike Hoadley (R-Au Gres), respectively. The bills would in tandem create new penalties for cultivating, delivering and processing black market marijuana, but also change the amount of marijuana a person is legally allowed to possess in plant and concentrate form.

The bills are tie-barred together, meaning both would have to jointly clear the Legislature and be signed by the governor to become law.

Under Wendzel’s bill, a person would be guilty of a misdemeanor if they possess between 10 and 25 kilograms, or between 50 and 100 plants, or between one and 2.5 kilograms of marijuana concentrate. The penalty would change to up to one year in jail or a $20,000 fine, or both.

Keeping between 25 and 125 kilograms, or between 100 and 500 plants, or between 2.5 and 12.5 kilograms of marijuana concentrate would become a felony punishable by two years in prison or a $500,000 fine, or both.

It would also be a felony offense to:

• Keep between 125 and 250 kilograms, or between 500 and 1,000 plants, or between 12.5 and 25 kilograms. That could net a person four years in prison or a $2 million fine or both; and
• Keep 250 kilograms or more, or 1,000 plants or more, or 25 kilograms or more of marijuana concentrate. The punishment there would be up to 10 years in prison or a $10 million fine, or both.

Sponsored by state Rep. Kristian Grant (D-Grand Rapids), House Bill 5104 would allow the Cannabis Regulatory Agency to sanction a person even if they are no longer a licensee or if they are no longer operating a marijuana facility.

At present, the Medical Marihuana Facilities Licensing Act holds that the expiration of a state-issued license terminates the authority of the agency to impose sanctions. The bill from Grant would retain that position but would add that the authority to impose sanctions would continue if there was already a pending action against a former licensee or facility operator.

House Bill 5106, sponsored by state Rep. Jerry Neyer (R-Shepherd), would amend the state’s Regulation and Taxation of Marihuana Act to similarly address disciplinary action on recreational licenses. The bill would let the agency summarily suspend a license if the licensee’s conduct poses a risk to the health, safety or welfare of the public.

Much like House Bill 5104, Neyer’s legislation would also give the agency authority to take disciplinary action against a person who no longer holds a license or if their license has recently expired.

The risks that could lead to license suspension or discipline, as outlined in the bill, include possessing marijuana from a source that cannot be determined, keeping marijuana stashes obtained in violation of the act, obstructing an agency investigation, and failing to provide the agency with required records.

Neyer’s bill affects growers, processors, retailers, microbusinesses, safety compliance facilities and secure transporters.

State Rep. Emily Dievendorf (D-Lansing) said they were concerned about upticks in enforcement given that some industry folk were previously on the negative end of marijuana enforcement when it was illegal in Michigan. She questioned whether it was right to increase enforcement when the state was actively beginning to tax marijuana sales at a higher rate, which some have warned will ultimately push consumers to the black market.

Sova said that the point of the package was to support the licensed industry, as much as possible, especially those following the rules.

“That’s the purpose of giving us the greater enforcement authority over the bad actors in the licensed space who are cheating, who are undermining the folks who are trying to do it the right way,” Sova said. “This has been an issue, I believe, in communities where you’ve had a lot of these large illicit outdoor growers. You’re talking sometimes thousands or tens of thousands of plants that, the way the statutes are set up right now, there’s really no disincentive to continue doing that.”

Sova added that Michigan has “become, in a lot of ways, sort of a central location for illicit operations, because the penalties for illicit activity are so low here.”

State Rep. Joseph Aragona (R-Clinton Township), the committee’s chair, said he agreed with Dievendorf.

“The 24 percent tax was difficult,” he said. “We obviously did not want to do in the House, but this could definitely help those legal growers who are going to be paying it, because, if I’m mistaken, the black market won’t be paying that tax.”

Sova said that was certainly the intention of the pending legislation.

Hoadley also testified along with Iosco County Prosecutor Jim Bacarella and Branch County Prosecutor Zach Stempien, both of whom supported the legislation and expressed concern for those working in the industry. Some of that concern had to deal with the exploitation of migrant workers or foreign nationals, which were issues brought up by the prosecutors during testimony.

This story was first published by Michigan Advance.

Photo courtesy of Chris Wallis // Side Pocket Images.