April Pride (00:00): This podcast discusses cannabis and is intended for audiences 21 and over.
April Pride (00:09): Hey, welcome to the High Guide. I’m your host, April Pride. This is the final episode of my new podcast on this feed, How to Do the Pot’s feed. You can find the High Guide wherever you listen to podcasts, can follow to learn and laugh thanks to cannabis and other plant medicine. This episode isn’t what I promised. Instead of walking you through strains with names inspired by desserts, I decided to share the audio for my weekly call pass event. To date, I’ve hosted this event on Fridays at 1:00 PM, and join me this Friday to discuss cannabis and ADHD. After you’ve listened to today’s episode, I hope you will find and follow me on Clubhouse and I record all of the events, rooms, sessions, whatever you want to call them, to share later, like the content in today’s episode, which was recorded on April 23rd as a followup to this year’s 4/20, April 20th, 2021.
April Pride (01:05): In this recording, you’ll hear so many high guides who join me as moderators each week on clubhouse to talk about all things cannabis as only women who work in weed can. Think of my clubhouse events as my live radio show, who knows where it will go and here’s where this one starts.
April Pride (01:25): Thanks for showing up on Friday. I’m April pride. I’ve asked these experts in cannabis, all women, to join us today because it’s post 4/20 and I’m so curious what everyone did. I worked at a dispensary one year, but I feel removed from the lead up to the cannabis Christmas day. So the women who are here on the panel, or I guess who are moderating have definitely plant touching businesses for the most part or have devices that should be touching the plant. So I know that their 4/20 looked a lot different than mine, and I can’t wait to hear what they did. I was with Liv. Liv works for PAX, the vape pen and vaporizer. Liv, do you want to tell everyone what we did for 4/20?
Liv Nagler (02:12): I would love to. In the evening, we had an awesome jewelry making class. We were all kinds of stoned and having fun and Grace Gal was her name, right, April? Grace Gal does these awesome workshops where you actually carve your own ring out of wax and then she takes them to her shop and makes it into an actual metal ring. But yeah, that was really fun.
April Pride (02:41): I like having an activity around it to really make 4/20 special. It was great. My friend’s name is Kat McCadden and her company is Grace Gal and she has these workshops that were once in real life, but she’s turned virtual during the pandemic to great success and so you’ll have moms and sisters that are spread all around the country or bridesmaids or whatever the case may be and they design their own ring and then they mail them to her and she cast them in precious metals and she can add stones. I like your take on it, Liv. Thanks for sharing and Kimberly did join us. So Kimberly, I was just explaining that you founded this club, Plant and Prosper, and I wanted you to give an opportunity to explain to our audience what you’re all about.
Kimberly Dillon (03:26): Yeah. Hi everyone. I’m Kimberly Dillon and I created the Plant and Prosper club because I wanted to have sophisticated and fun and engaging and intelligent conversations about this plant. I have found that sometimes some of the other spaces in clubhouse have been a little broey or a little contentious. And so I wanted a peaceful place where we can expand our minds and connect and really celebrate plants. If you are interested in doing any co programming or collaborating or co-modding, please let me know. I just want this space for all of us and thank you, April. I’m complete.
April Pride (04:03): Would you like to share what you did for 4/20?
Kimberly Dillon (04:05): Someone off the internet that I didn’t really know, but I had seen from afar invited me, it’s culinary and cannabis, invited me to a grown and sexy pole dancing, Puff and Pole, which truthfully is not my vibe. I was like, Ugh, I’m going to be pole dancing with women I don’t know. That’s like not really energetically what I’m trying to do, but obviously with great weed, anything is possible and everything becomes fun. So I lost my inhibitions and it turns out that I’m actually very good at pole dancing. So that’s good to know. So that was my 4/20.
April Pride (04:38): That’s amazing. There was an article this morning that was talking about exotic dancing and how it’s come into mainstream and I guess there’s a new documentary on Onyx, which is a really famous exotic dancers club in Houston. So you’re on trend if nothing else. And Kimberly, won’t tell you this, but she was an Olympic figure skater, ice skater, right? Is that? Ice skater? So she probably is much more coordinated than most people and I’m sure could find her way around a pole. That is definitely a 4/20 to remember. Kudos. If anyone can-
Kimberly Dillon (05:22): Thanks for exposing me.
April Pride (05:22): Somebody needs to, your past life. Is there anyone that can top pole dancing and, June, I know that you started 4/20 early, last Saturday in San Francisco and that you’ve launched a new new on your own. So I want to give you some time to tell us what you’re up to and how the first event went and tell us more about what you’re going to be doing in the near future.
April Pride (05:47): While she worked with women-founded bay area delivery service Sava, June Johnson and I shared more than one IG live session during the pandemic. Now she’s creating in-person consumption events in San Francisco.
June Johnson (06:00): Well, thank you, April. I don’t know if what I did tops pole dancing, but my friend, Leah Seary and I started a cannabis event company in an effort to start new conversations on cannabis and really change and remove the stigma around, through doing events and fashion, sustainability, food and so forth. We kicked off 4th of July on the 17th with a cannabis scavenger hunt throughout San Francisco, where we got to work with brands and dispensaries and tie in really poignant historical facts that have happened in this great city towards the cannabis movement.
April Pride (06:39): Awesome. I’m glad to hear that it was a success and that we all now have permission to start 4/20 the weekend before 4/20.
June Johnson (06:48): Definitely.
April Pride (06:48): Cool. Was anyone else here working up to 4/20 and then got to enjoy 4/20? Anyone else or was everyone was working on 4/20? Devika, were you hosting people on 4/20 and making their 4/20 great?
April Pride (07:06): Devika Maskey is founder of TSO Sonoma, which offers flower and hosts cannabis pairing dinners very soon, once again.
Devika Maskey (07:16): No, it wasn’t that [inaudible 00:07:17]. Definitely working when you’re in the industry is just like making sure all the promos are set beforehand. All the dispensary’s have inventory, lots of logistics like that, but we were able to open a few great accounts leading up to 4/20, so had a great day overall, but next year, we’ll be able to do parties again. Glad that it was great for you, June. That looked great from what I saw on social media. So congratulations on your new venture.
June Johnson (07:50): Thank you so much. I appreciate that. I hope we can work together soon too.
Devika Maskey (07:56): Yeah. I’d love that.
April Pride (07:58): Yeah. Two experiential marketers in cannabis, I’m sure great things to come from that. One plus one equals three, more than. So this started, this idea to talk about what we did for 4/20 actually started with a back and forth between Patty Roe and I, and so I want to ask her to share what she did with 4/20, since she inspired this conversation to begin with.
Patty Roe (08:23): Thank you. We sold tickets to this 4/20 week and bake and I was absolutely shocked that these women showed up at 7:00 AM on 4/20 for a wake and bake hour with your friends is another story and a really nice morning together.
April Pride (08:48): Anyone else? Let me just see. No one else sells weed. Adelio, do you sell weed? I don’t know [inaudible 00:08:54] Adelio.
Adelio Carrillo (08:57): No, no weed. I’m on the software side.
April Pride (09:00): Do you smoke it? What did you do for 4/20?
Adelio Carrillo (09:03): Of course. Yeah. We actually just calculated. We had over 147 events that were on our platform for 4/20 leading up from last week all the way to 4/20. So we were busy just making sure all of the event hosts were good to go and there was no customer support. So we were quite busy, but it was good, good numbers to celebrate, especially after COVID last year really affecting our business.
April Pride (09:30): So what’s the platform?
Adelio Carrillo (09:33): So EventHi is a online ticketing platform catering to the cannabis culture, very similar to Eventbrite, but we provide a safe hosting platform for event hosts to sell tickets and sponsorships for their cannabis related events.
Devika Maskey (09:45): Hi is a great platform for anyone that’s not familiar with it because some of the other ticketing platforms can be a little bit sketchy with cannabis events, not giving you your payments after the event. So EventHi is a safe place for cannabis event hosts. Wanted to support Adelio on that.
April Pride (10:05): Thanks, Devika, for sharing that. The issue is that they don’t pay you after people have purchased their tickets. They just say you have an illegal business or whatever they want to say.
Adelio Carrillo (10:17): Yeah. They’ll either refund. Now, they’re just refunding all your tickets. Some of them even lock you out of getting access to your data. They used to freeze the accounts. I don’t know if they still do that.
April Pride (10:31): I can’t wait to be able to share some of these things that we learned here with a greater audience. So thanks for sharing all of your best practices. I really appreciate it and I want to know what Esther did because you have all of your new, beautiful glassware.
Esther Ramirez (10:46): We were pleasantly surprised. We got some relatively large press pushes over the holiday. We were put in a Gizmodo article, which kind of started the sale and went crazy and by 4/20 we knew it was the end of the sale. We had kind of like prepped everything and the whole team just spent the day relaxing and smoking and watching the sale do well. It felt like a party honestly.
April Pride (11:18): There’s nothing wrong with that.
Esther Ramirez (11:22): It was great. I mean, I took a big walk. We’ve recently doubled our teams. So, before January I was the only woman at Session. It was me and my three co-founders, which are all men. So it was nice. We had like a girls smoke session and kind of all got to like bond and chat because we haven’t.
April Pride (11:46): Yeah, Esther, I like the idea of there is this big push to 4/20 and I worked until three o’clock that day. So that when I started my fun, I could just be totally present. So there is something to be said for making time and carving out and having a hard stop on 4/20 that you can just relax and like you said, watch all of your hard work pay off for instance. Is there anyone else that uses 4/20 as a team building opportunity with people that you work so hard with all the time? Poplar, I’m wondering if you do? Beryl, are you there? I think Beryl left us.
Beryl Solomon (12:29): I am here. I am multitasking. There is T-ball practice in my backyard because it is just past 4:20 east coast time. So I did write an article about why I think everyone should celebrate 4/20 and I shared kind of a personal story that maybe I’ll share on here. It’s less about what I did, but I think you’ll approve my going off topic.
Beryl Solomon (13:01): So I lost my brother just about 10 years ago in a tragic accident. Here today, gone tomorrow. One of those real life changing events. That is part of what kicked off my cannabis journey because I was ultimately diagnosed with PTSD, put on anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medication, which is ultimately what I was looking to get off of when I embraced cannabis. So for me, 4/20 was just kind of like another opportunity to force myself to stop, look around, be appreciative and just like take a minute.
April Pride (13:33): Thank you for sharing. I guess you shared the personal story, wrote it and shared it with a wider audience, but also thank you for sharing it with us because how people find cannabis, they’re as diverse as there are people that smoke it. Everyone’s path to this plant is so different and wanting to embrace better wellness practices, including finding alternatives to pharmaceuticals that may not be working for you is certainly part of that. I want to get back to 4/20. I didn’t ask anyone what strain they consumed. When you were saying like, I don’t know what I’m going to smoke. It’s like, oh yeah. What did everyone smoke? My friend brought over at 3:00 PM Saints pre-rolls Jesus was the cultivar and it was a great way to start for 20. So what did you all smoke? Can chime in, anyone, and you can raise your hand from the audience too, if you all want to share what you did for 4/20 including the strain that you chose.
Adelio Carrillo (14:33): I was actually lucky to get one of our grower farmers actually came to visit us. We just moved to another, we’re from California, but he brought his strains and we were able, it’s commonly known strain, but it’s one of my favorites and it was sour diesel. So simple, but I missed his cann- Like it’s not good here in Arizona and so I was lucky to get a good gift from him for 4/20.
April Pride (15:02): Yes. Homegrown too. 4/20 has to be more special, right?
Adelio Carrillo (15:09): Exactly.
April Pride (15:11): Esther, what were you loading in your bowls? Esther is one of the co-founders of session goods, so it’s a glass company and they have the most incredible glass pieces, bowls and bongs and I now am the proud owner of both. Yes. So yeah. What were you loading?
Esther Ramirez (15:33): I have a pure beauty hybrid. I think it’s the Bermuda triangle, but it was delicious and then I tried the Saunder pop rocks for the first time, which were very delightful and kind of felt like a nice 4/20 to do something playful but they were also very, very delicious. I love edibles as much as I smoke out of bonds preferably, but I still love an edible and I feel like there’ve been really some interesting ones hitting the market recently.
April Pride (16:13): Nice. Yeah. Edibles were definitely a part of my day. I don’t know if, Liv, if you had some that night, but I just want to take a quick moment and say hey to the people that have showed up in the audience and remind you that we’re here to talk about 4/20. So the women that we’ve got up here are sharing their stories from the day, last Tuesday, and they’re all different, right? All of us work in cannabis and if there’s anyone from the audience that wants to share what they did for 4/20 or a strain that maybe you had for the first time on 4/20, please raise your hand.
Patty Roe (16:45): I wanted to say, Esther, I just looked at your pieces. I will be the proud owner soon. [crosstalk 00:16:55]
Bianca (16:58): I guess I can go. I haven’t been yet.
April Pride (17:01): Hey Bianca. Yes. Please. We’d love to hear from you
Bianca (17:06): April, this week, I don’t know how I feel about this week. It’s getting harder and harder because I have my birthday on the 16th, we have 4/20 on the 20th and we have earth day on the 22nd and my husband is huge into sustainability. We have a solar powered mobile soundstage called solar beads that we built for burning man but we also use for events and we also use it to play music to our plants all summer in the field and I play way too many roles on businesses as a, not only mother, but also a cannabis and motherhood social media influencer and that takes up a good portion of time.
April Pride (17:56): That is a job in and of itself, and I do want to stop you because, Bianca is High Society Mama, and she has the most amazing feed because she’s fucking hysterical and she is totally thrilled to share how funny she is with you. There’s nothing holding you back and I see you and I’m like, I cannot wait to see what you do next because you always have a smile on your face and you put one on my face and I know it’s hard. Having your own business is like no joke and just taking care of the social media itself, we hire people to do that as their only job. So to do it yourself and to create all the content, it’s being well received though. I mean, I saw a lot of flashing microphones up here, like it’s working and it’s really, really fun.
Bianca (18:43): I really, really do love doing them. I love doing the reels. They just light up my life. But at the same time, I’m ready to make some changes because I can’t also be everything in my business as well as do that. We started on earth day at 4:30 AM for a sunrise dance party and it basically destroyed us. My husband’s still been sleeping all day.
April Pride (19:21): So you had 4/20 and then you and Pink Sesh, you should get together and start your wake and bake with the dance party that needs to happen. I can’t wait to come. So get together and do that please.
Bianca (19:37): I would be all about that.
Patty Roe (19:38): [crosstalk 00:19:38] happening. Morning person.
April Pride (19:42): Definitely happening but after Bianca gets some rest.
Patty Roe (19:44): Some [crosstalk 00:19:45] sleep.
Bianca (19:46): Please can we like wait until May.
April Pride (19:52): Any other strains that you’d like to share or edibles. I had some caramels, homemade, not by me, delicious and the Jesus strain and something that I think Liv gave me. Yes. You rolled a joint. What was that string?
Liv Nagler (20:13): I went with sour diesel was my= main flour strain but, April, that one we had was pineapple chunk and then I had some dabs later that evening, it was lemon pedals and then I had a vape. I’ve got one in every category. It is 4/20 after all.
April Pride (20:38): I haven’t thought about it like that. I’m going to do that next year. There’s like boxes to check. Dab needs to be on there. Edibles. Did anyone have edibles? Hey, Rose. Thank you for joining us.
Rose (20:51): Hello. You were speaking about edibles. So if anybody has the chance to try out the little strong drink LSD from pure beauty, I highly, highly, highly recommend it. Put it in a sparkling drink and it becomes even more potent because the little bubbles kind of take the weed and make it into more of a sublingual.
Liv Nagler (21:17): That’s made with live resin too, right?
Rose (21:18): Mm-hmm (affirmative)
April Pride (21:20): How does the live resin change the experience or?
Liv Nagler (21:27): It’s usually from product that’s been fresh frozen and so it preserves all the turpines and freshness of all those flavors and so nothing’s been extracted. It’s completely full spectrum and has all the great entourage effect components with cannabinoids and terpenes in it.
April Pride (21:46): So it’s full spectrum. What did you do, Rose? You had LSD. Do you remember what happened after that?
Rose (21:55): Well, I actually work for Esther now. So I ran our flowers for flower campaign, which was kind of just a love affair for weed. So I took each one of our colors that we have for session and paired it with a strain that I’ve had a really beautiful high with and then also paired that with a poem to give people like the opportunity to recreate that entire high, if they wanted to.
April Pride (22:26): So what are the three strains that you paired with the three colors?
Rose (22:29): So we did one from pure beauty, astra farms, lit house, wonder bread, servinskys.
April Pride (22:39): Thank you to all of you for sharing what you’re up to. June big, big, big luck for collective high as you’re just getting launched and really appreciate.
June Johnson (22:51): Thank you so much.
April Pride (22:52): Yeah, it’s going to be great. I can’t wait to attend a session soon, soon and Devika, same. I am looking forward to the new strain launching. Beryl, get those kids out of your house before you have a drink. Who knows what could happen? Bianca, go have a drink and Bright High, that’s where we’re going to all be getting our tickets. Liv, I have more caramels. It’s all good. And Esther, now you have seven strains. Did you try all of them? Tell me, did you?
Esther Ramirez (23:23): I have tried all but one.
April Pride (23:25): Okay. Well that’s your homework. Yay. Have a good weekend everyone. We’ll see you guys next week. Thanks to our high guides in this and every episode of the high guide. What topics would you like to hear us free form? Remember this Friday, May 21st is cannabis and ADHD. And then next Friday, May 28th, we’re talking sober with Cosmo rider, Ashley Overman, who is the latest journalist to take an interest in this area of gray when it comes to saying yes, but please hold the alcohol. I take a plant-based approach to managing the good and bad that life brings.
