Last Sunday, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker did something beautiful, disgusting and quintessentially Chicago. He poured Malört. More than 1,000 people gathered at Recess in the West Loop to simultaneously swallow a shot of Chicago’s notoriously bitter hometown spirit, setting a world record in the process. The governor himself
On Oct. 8, Grown In is bringing Illinois cannabis stakeholders, rivals, regulators, investors, advocates, public officials and assorted freaks into the same Chicago rooms. The objective is not consensus. It is progress. When Dusty Baker arrived in Chicago to manage the Cubs in late 2002, he looked at nearly a
A federal government simultaneously studying cannabis addiction, recognizing marijuana as medicine and trying to save your five-milligram THC seltzer walks into The New York Times. Somehow only one of those stories sounds scary. Let us begin with a sentence that would have sounded insane at almost any point during
Or: The Lotus Eaters, Lotus Notes and Our Long, Strange Odyssey Home If somebody tells you they have figured out AI + cannabis, hold onto your wallet. Not because artificial intelligence is bullshit. Not because cannabis technology is bullshit. Not even because a considerable amount of what is currently marketed under
Four Chicago-connected cannabis CEOs see federal dominoes falling. Investors have heard this song before. Consumers barely know the band is playing. Ben Kovler gave investors his version of Jack Straw this week: “We built the company to stand on its own without waiting for federal reform.… The first domino
Grown In, revisited—and an invitation to help us work through the November 12 cannabis collision on October 8. “Walk in the sunshine.” Bob Weir and John Perry Barlow released the song on Ace in 1972. Its larger point is that consequential movements are built from countless small motions—some
Señorita at Lollapalooza is further proof that consumers like drinking their weed—even if lawmakers cannot decide whether to keep it legal Señorita, the hemp-derived THC beverage brand owned by the Kovler family’s RYTHM, has landed a very Chicago contract: Official THC Beverage Partner of Lollapalooza. For the
From eMileHigh to Grown In, the plant-medicine argument finally finds the room Twenty-five years ago, I smoked pot on University Hill and published a Colorado tech ezine while working around the edges of a young Jared Polis’ world. Today, from the same corner, cannabis, hemp, psychedelics, pharma, state
J.B. Pritzker is Chicago’s accidental Bud Boss. Who inherits the baton?
The Founders were not pure. Neither is the cannabis industry. That may be exactly why a plural room — contradictions, egos, incentives and all — is necessary now. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were not saints. This is important to remember before the 250th birthday party gets too polite. They
Frank Costanza was right. Not just about the pole. Not just about the tinsel. Not just about the sacred obligation to tell your family exactly how they have disappointed you over the past year. He was right about the structure. Every functioning family under a big enough tent eventually needs
There is a line in Chicago civic life, cannabis life, media life, and maybe actual life where certainty becomes suspect. David Mamet knew this. Jim Belushi knows this. Anyone who has spent five minutes in Illinois cannabis knows this. The facts are present. The people are recognizable. The room is