I have been back in New England for a little over a year now. I haven't been writing reviews because frankly I have been smoking either bargain weed or home grown outdoor weed. Times are hard. I haven't had a full time job in a couple of years.

I came back to Massachusetts in part to try and work in the cannabis industry, but after about 6 montyhs of trying it's become clear that business owners are barely keeping their head above water in Mass and they certainly don't have money for digital consultants. I will say - this state has some real problems with cannabis right now. There are a few places that grow decent weed, but there's a lot of weird corporate energy and evident corruption, and frankly the regs seem very much put together to discourage small businesses and minorities from entering which I'm sure is like the diametric opposite of their stated goal. I wish it wasn't just common practice to create barriers to entry for competitors at this point. It seems sleazy. I mean it is sleazy.

The best weed scene in the northesst, and probably on the east coast, is definitely in Maine. Every time I go up there I am blown away by the quality, the buying experience, the staff knowledge - seriously I would never have thought it but buying weed in Biddeford, Maine is a significantly better experience than anywhere in Northern California - maybe even in Colorado. And the grass is competivie as fuck against either of those.

People are saying Maine is the "wild west" because they actually allow their growers some autonomy, and added the role of caregiver - which has a lot of nice leeway inside it for people to run side hustles and labors of love on small batch, super high quality bud. Also - in Biddeford and other towns like it - they have both the indoor space - like acres of warehouse - and a growing young professional market with money to spend and a taste for weed over booze. It doesn't feel like the wild wwest at all to me - it feels like civilization. And the bud tenders know and care about the bud and have met the growers in many instances. It is much closer to what I think we all pictured in a copasetic rec scene.

At some point I should do a breakdown of all the legal states I have visited. It would be interesting to go back through all the weirdnesses. When I first bought weed in California, the dispensary was getting raided by the feds regularly, so there were like serious security guards and lockdown procedures. As a for instance. Shit was cray.

I'm trying something new here and writing freeform. I have an audience of zero so now seemed like a good time to take a risk and get myself out there ). Not posting stuff to social media is a great way to stay below the radar more people should.

Just because I haven't had weed I could or wanted to write about doesn't mean I haven't been thinking about the industry as a whole and continuing to educate myself about stuff. In fact I have started growing a single plant in a little space bucket to see howw that goes. So far I have managed to not kill the clone I bought 10 days ago. I will certainly have pictures and notes if we make it to flowering. Fingers crossed.