Know Your Herbs

How a nonprofit helps veterans with cannabis and video games

At Stack Up, a nonprofit serving U.S. veterans across the country and the world, playing games is part of the firm’s mission. Founded in 2015 by Stephen “Shanghai Six” Machuga, a former Army Infantry/Military Intelligence Officer and Airborne Ranger, he served in Iraq with the 2nd Infantry Division for 13 months. What helped him get through that “seemingly endless” time was video games. 

After leaving the service in 2006, Machuga worked in Washington DC as a government counterterrorism analyst and also did charity on the weekends. That charity work is where he found his calling: creating an organization that helps US and Allied military members get through deployments to combat zones and recover from traumatic physical and emotional injuries with the power of video games. 

Since its founding in 2015, Director of Communications Brian Snyder,  the self-confessed “only civilian in the bunch,” says that the organization has served approximately 33,000 former and current veterans with meaningful services such as the Stack Up Overwatch Program (StOP) which provides 24/7 peer-to-peer mental health support; the Supply Crate program which sends video gaming consoles to deployed veterans; Air Assaults, which are all-expense paid trips for veterans to attend gaming conventions; and the Stacks, comprised of local volunteers who use gaming and other activities to make meaningful connections to the veterans in their communities. 

An all-expense paid trip to gaming conventions seemed too good to be true to Lance “Opti_kun” Gillenwater, a former medical laboratory technician for the US Air Force. After a fellow veteran recommended Stack Up, Gillenwater reached out but was skeptical when he was informed he was to be picked up for an Air Assault trip. “I was very skeptical, but I wanted to be around video games,” Gillenwater told Weedmaps News via email. It turned out not to be too good to be true, but just what he needed. “I was so nervous and scared when I went to PAX EAST at the beginning of the year, but they were amazingly warm, understanding, and patient.” The trip, where Gillenwater met some of his idols in the gaming community, changed his life. He even became an employee as influencer coordinator. “I honestly haven’t felt more useful and appreciated since my deployment.” 

It’s in the Air Assaults program that Stack Up and Weedmaps make an important connection. “We had a trip in 2017 to Seattle, and I had taken some veterans to a gaming convention called Pax Prime,” said Snyder. “When we go to these events, it’s outside of [the veterans] comfort zones to be surrounded by so many people. The vets are worried about traveling with [cannabis], then worried if they would be able to use cannabis to take care of themselves while they’re away from home.” 

On that Seattle trip, Snyder received a phone call from his veterans coordinator who said that one of the veterans on the trip needed to quickly find a dispensary. He suggested that the coordinator use the Weedmaps dispensary finder. “We use Weedmaps to say, ‘do you need a strain, do you need a cartridge, do you need CBD?’ And we go to Weedmaps wherever we are to find it.”

“Weedmaps is very useful when travelling,” Gillenwater wrote. “Especially for work when you need to get your cannabis outside of your usually prescribed route.” 

A 2014 study found that nearly 1 in 4 active duty military personnel showed signs of a mental health condition. Some mental health challenges that veterans often face are PTSD, depression, and traumatic brain injury. Snyder said that Stack Up works often with veterans who have faced these same challenges, some of whom have replaced opioids with cannabis, and others who consume cannabis as a way to manage mental health and anxiety. 

“When I first got to the Air Assault trip, [Brian] was very open and asked if anyone needed to make a THC run,” Gillenwater said. “That was so generous and just blew my mind when I was there. Up to that point, I had not worked or been a part of something that was accepting of my new lifestyle.” 

Snyder thinks that cannabis and video gaming make for an intuitive pairing, “weed and video games make for a good evening. You say, ‘let’s go back to the airbnb, smoke a joint, and play some games!’”

On a more serious note, he believes that gaming makes a perfect match for veterans because of the presence and attention that video games demand, as well as the escapism they provide. “I’ll never forget, I heard someone say, ‘when you have those quiet times, when you’re by yourself, they’re not quiet times for me,” he recounted. “That’s when my brain starts thinking about all those things that happened over there. But I’m playing the game. Engaged with fantasy, and I don’t have time for that other stuff. A game doesn’t move unless you do something. It requires that visceral connection from you to not think about this other stuff for a while.”

Gillenwater says he’s been using cannabis to help his PTSD for years. “I use both video games as therapy and cannabis as medication, which I am legally prescribed through Florida,” Gillenwater wrote. “Cannabis alleviates these feelings and places me on a different thought pattern so I can enjoy what I am doing instead of being PTSD about it.”  

Stack Up is hosting a virtual gala on November 14 to raise funds for their ongoing work. You can follow along live by connecting with the nonprofit and the veteran gaming community on their Twitch channel. 

Featured image courtesy of Stack Up. 

To learn more about how Stack Up supports veterans, visit its website at www.stackup.org

The post How a nonprofit helps veterans with cannabis and video games appeared first on Weedmaps News.

Source: wm

Weedmaps' guide to saving money on weed

Weed is expensive. There’s no way around it. 

And if you’re going to be a frequent consumer, it’s best to find budget-friendly ways to do so, or else you’ll be looking at your bank statements each month thinking, “Wow, I really could have paid my car note twice this month with the amount of money I spent on weed,” which will just lead to a bunch of self judgements and conversations about getting your life together (while using weed as the scapegoat for your bad habits and routines). Nobody needs that. 

Instead, it’s much better for your mental health to simply find better ways to spend your time and money in relation to your cannabis consumption.

What’s the average price of weed?

The price of cannabis varies by market, as each state and country has its own costs based on supply and demand. Take an in-depth look at the price of an eighth where you live

For the most part, an eighth jar of some good, quality weed will hit your pockets between $35—$45. For a one time purchase, that’s not too bad; but when you continuously purchase weed throughout the week or month, that cost can skyrocket. It’s a fact that we all try to ignore, but when you add up the hundreds of dollars you’ve spent on cannabis in a month, and it totals your student loan payments for multiple months, it’s hard to not think that your priorities are completely out of order. 

Ways to save money on buying weed

There are plenty of ways to reduce your monthly spend on weed. Here are a few of the most tried-and-true.

Dispensary deals

Most dispensaries run weekly deals on each consumption method. For example, they’ll do bulk buy discounts on ounces of flower on Monday, then discounts on edibles on Tuesday. Across the industry, Shatterday is a popular Saturday discount day for concentrates. Regardless of your preferred consumption, I promise there’s a nearby store giving discounts on it. These are the best times to shop, because your dollar can go a lot farther, and the purchases will feel guilt-free.

saving money on weedGina Coleman/Weedmaps

Buy in bulk

When shopping dispensary deals, buy in bulk. It’ll slash your prices more, and in the end, you’re going to smoke that weed regardless. Whether you buy one quarter today, or one gram pre-rolls and joints each day, you’re still buying that seven grams, fam. Buy in bulk, get greater discounts, and your wallet will thank you.

Grow your own weed

I’m literally moving from Washington to Oregon for this. Growing your own weed is the best way to save money. It’s like eating out every night versus cooking your own meals: you get to choose strains specifically, not just based on whatever the store has in stock; you know what materials were used to produce the plant, and in the long run, you’ll save hundreds, potentially thousands, of dollars on weed.

Ways to conserve and stretch your weed

Reducing the number of trips to the store will greatly reduce your spend on weed. Here are a few ways to make your weed stretch.

Change your consumption methods

Rolling weed uses so much weed. Even the skimpiest joint or pinner ass blunt will require half a gram at least. Add that up throughout the day’s sessions and it’s easy to smoke an eighth a day. Going by the numbers above, that’s at the very least $30 per day — adding up to over $900 a month. 

Switching to a more economical way of smoking, like using smaller pipes and bowls, will do wonders for making your weed stretch. Additionally, if you consider potency, it may be better to dab over smoking flower since a single pinpoint-sized portion of oil can get you stoned for hours at a time.

One-hitters and chillums 

One-hitters and chillums are two of the most underrated cannabis consumption methods out there. One-hitters are little steamrollers that you can fill with a small amount of cannabis and get dumb stoned. Chillums are essentially big one-hitters. They have bigger bowls that you can cherry to stay lit, and truly, just one bowl will get you way high. 

Between the two devices, you can save a lot of weed and money because they essentially only require crumbs. It’s why every stoner that sees someone pull out a dugout responds, “Ahhh, great idea.”

Use that kief

Kief is the gift that keeps on giving. It’s like recycling weed: You take some fresh buds, grind them up, smoke that flower, and in the process you collect fallen trichomes at the bottom of your grinder that can be smoked later on. In addition to smoking kief bowls, you can also add the kief to your bowls or joints to increase potency. This will create a longer-lasting experience and reduce the frequency of your sessions throughout the day. 

The higher you get, the less you need to smoke; the less weed you smoke, the less money you’ll spend on it.

Eat your edibles 

Edibles are pretty cheap. A single-dose cookie or gummy only hits for a quick Lincoln, and in bulk, you can usually buy 10 servings of any edible for around $20 to $25. If you want to skip the purchase altogether, making your own edibles by whipping up some cannabutter and applying it to virtually any food is another cost-efficient method of reducing your dispensary trips.

weed ediblesGina Coleman/Weedmaps

Limit your consumption and tolerance breaks

My daily schedule includes smoking in the morning, at lunch, after lunch, after work, before dinner, after dinner, and right before bed — and I smoke blunts and joints every time. Because of this, I smoke about an ounce a week. If that sounds like you, then it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know spacing out these sessions would greatly conserve the weed in our jars. 

Smoking as a reward, and not just as a habit, is the best way of doing this. Instead of hitting that wake ‘n bake, get up and lock into whatever tasks you have for the day, then light up afterwards. It’ll make your high feel way better because your mind will be clear and the session will be guiltless. If this sounds impossible, then it may be time for a tolerance break altogether. Not only will a break improve your relationship with weed, but it will also cause you to smoke a lot less for your desired experiences.

Featured image by Gina Coleman/Weedmaps

The post Weedmaps' guide to saving money on weed appeared first on Weedmaps News.

Source: wm

5 weed products daytime disco band Poolside can't live without

Hailing from sunny Los Angeles, Jeffrey Paradise leads daytime disco band Poolside with an inviting California vibe. The band’s mesmeric sound was inspired by — you guessed it — relaxing poolside. 

“When Poolside started back in 2010 it was just my friend Filip and I making music in a pool house with no big plans,” said Paradise to Weedmaps News. “We were going to lots of backyard and pool parties back then, and as unbelievable as it sounds, the music of choice at all of these lowkey parties was dubstep, which didn’t make any sense to us. Why would people want to listen to such aggressive music in a mellow setting? So we set out to make music that felt like an appropriate soundtrack to a slow-paced daytime hang — and thus ‘Daytime Disco’ was born.”

Paradise’s early musical influences come from a variety of artists, but one standout is Neil Young. Listen to Poolside’s rendition of “Harvest Moon” and you’ll be hooked by the dreamy mix of the beloved classic. Paradise shared, “Neil Young is one of my all-time favorites and a massive inspiration in pretty much every way. His record On The Beach is my favorite album ever. ‘Harvest Moon’ is obviously a great song with a great chord progression, and I thought it would be fun to cover a classic song in our own style, so we just decided to go for it. We uploaded it to SoundCloud without thinking too much about it – our manager at the time even told us not to because he thought it sounded like a demo – and then our lives changed forever.”

Whether you have “Harvest Moon” playing on repeat, or you’re downloading the new album Low Season, Poolside’s enigmatic tunes are the perfect pairing to a stoney session — especially when “I Feel High” starts humming through the speakers. “Only one thing is better than chilling out listening to groovy music, and that’s chilling out listening to groovy music while smoking a great joint. I’ve always heard that people like to listen to Poolside when they smoke.”

Poolside’s favorite weed

A consumer since the 90s, Paradise has come into his own in the cannabis industry, most recently pairing up with Space Coyote — a brand dedicated to inclusion, quality, and art in the weed space. The collaboration bore 5-pack joints of Sour Cookies Hash with MAC flower from Sticky Fields all wrapped up in an environmentally-friendly, reusable and collectible tin. “The most exciting aspect of this collaboration to me is the collectible tin that the joints are packaged in. We worked with Libby [Cooper, designer and CEO of Space Coyote] on the design, and it really feels like a piece of Poolside ephemera that any fan would be happy to have.”

Below, check out the five products Poolside can’t live without.

Space Coyote x Poolside Hybrid Hash Joints

Space Coyote x Poolside Hybrid Hash JointsSpace Coyote

These joints are limited edition in California, so get your hands on them now before they disappear. Once lit, they “pair perfectly with a lowkey backyard pool hang and mellow music, and the tin is a must-have for any Cannabis-friendly Poolhead.” 


Cannabiotix (CBX)

A sativa lover at heart, Paradise can’t get enough of Cannabiotix’s buzzy strains, “[I’m] really liking their sativas …  A nice, complex sativa or sativa-leaning hybrid can be nice to facilitate all kinds of inspiration leaps and big fun.” 


CaliKush Farms

CaliKush offers award-winning strains, “they have a really great Tangie that I haven’t seen in a while. I also especially loved their White Sumo from a couple of years ago.” 


Jungle Boys

If you’ve ever visited an LA dispensary, chances are you’ve heard of the celebrated LA brand, Jungle Boys. “Los Angeles goin’ off.”  


Ember Valley 

Ember Valley offers a long list of strains cultivated by legacy growers. Take a hit of Northern Fire or Peanut Butter Breath for a memorable high. 


Featured graphic by David Lozada/Weedmaps

The post 5 weed products daytime disco band Poolside can't live without appeared first on Weedmaps News.

Source: wm