Are you green when it comes to weed? The internet can help

Feb 19, 2020 at 1:00 am
If you want information about marijuana, seek and ye shall find.
If you want information about marijuana, seek and ye shall find. Shutterstock

Lots of people who haven't had much to do with marijuana want to find out about it these days. It helps if you know somebody with some experience to help you. However, nobody knows everything about every aspect of marijuana and this new industry that has sprung up around it. Here are several sources online that can help you.

The big question many people ask is "Where can I get the stuff?" There might not be a retail location or provisioning center near you. Even if there is a provisioning center nearby, you might not be a patient and so you seek to find some recreational stuff. You could use Weedmaps.com to locate locations nearby, view their selections, and even order for delivery. A worker at LIV in Ferndale tells me that the selections presented on their Weedmaps page are always up to date.

Weedmaps also provides info on doctor's offices, brands, and delivery services. There are also informational articles, such as "A beginner's guide to buying cannabis" and "Can you really get a second-hand high or contact high?" (The answer is yes, if you're mingling with pot smokers in an unventilated room.) Weedmaps is a good starting point for the curious and a fine tool to help find places to buy marijuana. As recently as December, Weedmaps was cautioned by the State of Michigan not to list unlicensed businesses.

Another site that helps folks find their way through the marijuana maze is Leafly.com. This site is known as the largest marijuana website in the world. The folks over there certainly have ambition. Leafly allows visitors to rate and review different strains, and to find dispensaries. Leafly has pages dedicated to news and information, as well as a strain explorer tool. A recent article was titled "8 ways to counteract a too-intense cannabis high." Terpenes, the oils that give each strain its identifiable odors and are found to have medicinal properties, are dealt with extensively and well on this site. Leafly also produces the annual Cannabis Jobs Report.

Project CBD (projectcbd.org) addresses the biggest, most curious aspect of marijuana to date. When Project CBD founder Martin Lee was traveling around hawking his book Smoke Signals: A Social History of Marijuana several years back, he told me that CBD was going to be the next fad herb. He said it was going to be put in all kinds of lotions, ointments, supplements, and more. He was right!

Shortly thereafter, he founded Project CBD and now travels the world talking about the stuff. Projectcbd.org is simply the place to go if you want information about CBD. Some of the headings on the site include A CBD User's Guide, Can CBD Help Your Symptoms, CBD & Cannabis Dosage Guide, CBD Myths & Misconceptions, and CBD & Booze.

There you'll find some of the most solid science around about the most popular molecule of marijuana. Lots of folks who went all in on CBD several years ago are reaping the rewards now. Lots of folks who would never touch THC are all over CBD.

The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) is a nonprofit whose goal is stated in its name. The folks there want to move public opinion to the point where marijuana can be legalized. It's been a long march since its founding in 1970, but with 11 states with recreational marijuana legalized and 33 states with medical marijuana, there's a track record of success. Norml.org keeps up with the latest legal and scientific news about marijuana. There are pages listing the status of marijuana laws in every state. NORML tracks the progress of legalization drives, maintains a marijuana research library, and produces an annual governor's scorecard.

The Michigan Marijuana Regulatory Agency is the place to go for anyone who wants to conduct marijuana business in Michigan. The MRA oversees licensing for all categories of marijuana commerce, which includes growing, processing, testing, transport, sales, delivery, single event planners, event facilities, microbusinesses, and whatever else they come up with. The MRA posts legal updates, rules, and meeting plans regarding medical and recreational marijuana here.

Marijuanamoment.net celebrates the fact that this is the moment in history when marijuana is coming out of the closet and into the light of day. This site claims to have all your marijuana news in one place — and they do have a lot. The site covers legal, political, culture, science, and business news. One recent headline on Marijuana Moment claimed "Sarah Silverman calls out Dave Chappelle for not sharing his marijuana."

"If the truth won't do, then something is wrong" reads the introductory statement to Granny Storm Crow's List. Grannystormcrowlist.wordpress.com is a deep, deep database of medical marijuana information that has been put out annually for the past several years. Granny missed 2019 because of health issues in her family, but she's back in 2020. The list contains thousands of links to scientific studies about medical marijuana. If you have a serious intent to study medical marijuana, this is the place to dig in. It's also the answer for folks who want to tell you that we don't know enough about marijuana.

Just like everywhere else, marijuana has exploded on the internet. You might even be able to argue that it was the internet that allowed cannabis enthusiasts to find each other and coordinate for legalization. Now that we're here, there's plenty to be found out about marijuana, and most of it helps to fight the pushback that comes whenever legalization occurs. If you want information about marijuana, seek and ye shall find.

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