Seeing the Forest for the Trees
Murky visibility and writer blocks.
It’s been awhile.
To recap: after more than 3 years of gainful employment in the legal cannabis industry, I’m now back to freelancing as a middle-aged copywriter during a time of mass layoffs in government and tech. Timing and circumstances led me to spend a month overseas receiving training and getting certified to teach English as a foreign language.
Just blowing up my life again, nothing to see here.
But as a weed writer who has not written about weed in recent months, I’ve been doing a lot of reading, listening, and taking stock. My networking approach these days centers one-on-one conversations over “can’t-miss” industry events, parties, and conferences. And it’s suddenly dawned on me that my last few years spent largely in the marijuana cultivator circles kept me in a bubble inside an echo chamber (California's embattled cannabis industry) inside a rogue hot air balloon (legal weed in the US).
An example…
Cara Wietstock’s recent article for industry pub (and eternally great read) GreenState, “Weed Shoppers Reveal Why They Hate Dispensaries”, spotlights key findings on consumer behavior based on a survey of 1000 cannabis-buying Americans conducted by Sanctuary Wellness Institute. Cara’s headline caught my attention largely because I’ve met several adults through my work as a cannabis educator who, despite their interest in exploring the plant, do not feel comfortable visiting a dispensary. Finally, there was a piece speaking to this…and even I was surprised by what they found.
From the article (emphasis mine):
“The survey showed that the brand name is the last concern for many consumers. 77 percent prioritize strain names over brands and growers. 64 percent look for mental effects, 57 percent seek physical effects, and 45 percent prefer to shop by aroma and flavor.”
Most cannabis consumers buy strains they know and love, with timeless classic Blue Dream apparently leading the pack. Many of them understand enough about cannabis’ impact on their physiology to seek out options based on what they anticipate the physical and mental effects will be, while nearly half of them appear to be allowing terpenes to inform their choices (the nose knows!).
What does not seem to be factoring into their decision making: the grower who cultivated it, the OG who bred it, the person(s) who started the brand, or the story behind it. And this tracks when you consider that analysis from ERA Economics found “in-state illicit sales totaling nearly twice California’s legal sales”, which means despite the absence of branding, lab testing, child-safe (plastic) packaging, or a head cultivator/Founder/CEO making the podcast and conference panel rounds, illegal weed – which is also untaxed and therefore less expensive – continues to thrive.
During my time as a marketer fully immersed in the weed grower bubble, my focus revolved around the narrative of cultivation challenges in an era of plummeting wholesale prices and an industry comprising multiple different markets under the umbrella of federal prohibition. My Instagram algorithms promoted podcast clips of breeders sharing how they discovered certain cultivars, Reels of head cultivators and founders dutifully monitoring their “girls” in sprawling indoor facilities, and event recaps featuring bros hunched over tables rolling hashholes in slow-mo.
Growers are critical to this business; without them there wouldn’t be any cannabis to sell or manufacture into products. But where I, a passionate industry professional and self-proclaimed weed nerd, was submerged in the grower and brand accounts on Instagram as a way to stay on top of the discourse surrounding cultivation, cannabis consumers don’t generally seem to be about this life.
Patients who rely on the plant to manage chronic neuropathic pain and consumers who take a gummi before a concert aren’t spending hundreds of dollars to attend a conference panel on plant nutrient management. Just ask Gen Z, who prefer cannabis over alcohol to the tune of 71% and are arguably the first generation to experience the mainstreaming of legal weed: reportedly 31% of them believe cannabis has, “a ‘bud bro’ or ‘weed snob’ problem”.
At the end of the day, it seems like dispensary shoppers just want good quality cannabis that consistently produces the effects they’re looking for. Period. Hard stop. So does the effort and money put into promoting a breeder, a celebrity, an activist or even a cause behind weed brands pay off when the marketing feedback loop is mostly reaching people in the industry?
Asking for a friend. Anyhoooooo….
This second dose of inspo also came from GreenState – this time from Editor Rachelle Gordon who dropped this LinkedIn post a couple weeks ago:
Scan the responses and you’ll see that they touch everything from lab testing to weed stocks to how strain names don’t matter to customers to city bans on cannabis retail to rampant racism/sexism in the industry to questioning whether plant medicine should even be commercialized, and so much more. This post offers great insight into several of the existential crises bogging down legal cannabis – and resulting in high prices and limited availability for consumers and patients – while helping to clear out the haze from the bubble I’ve been in for awhile.
Even though this post is kinda my cannabis hot take, here’s another one: customers should be able to get face time with growers and their agricultural products at farmer’s markets. Treat weed like apples!!
The last thing I want to say is thank you to my subscribers for their patience. Many of you found me through Monica Cadena’s wonderful Substack The ADHD Chemist, and through psychedelic pub HyphaeLeaks where I’m honored to have some of my work published. Navigating big life changes shifted my focus on writing therapeutically – in other words, hella journaling – which is why my little Substack has had to take a bit of a back seat. But I am still here, and I thank you for hanging with me despite the radio silence.
High & Writey is evolving…into what, I don’t know, but the original goal was for me to write about weed from my perspective and in my own words. Not being currently employed in this sector means no more guard rails.
Could be interesting. Stay tuned!