Stoners have long had the reputation for ingenuity. We’ve honed the ability to turn almost any object into a smoking device (see the iconic apple-as-pipe, here in ceramic form), and are well-versed in using common items, like straightened-out bobby pins to clear the bowl in said pipe or a mortar and pestle to break up sticky icky, before grinders became widely available. Rolling joints in Bible pages — although not recommended — became a trope because it became so common. Smoking was illicit, and solutions were homemade. For a long time, marijuana enthusiasts weren’t a desirable market, and we got by.
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when cannabis and the people who smoke it became so mainstream. Maybe it was when Colorado and Washington legalized weed in 2016 or maybe it happened even earlier in 2008, when the queen of commercial clean Martha Stewart publicly befriended Snoop Dogg, a rapper and weed business bro considered reefer royalty. By 2018, you could cop artisanal hemp kombucha from your city’s bougiest bodega as well as tincture for CBD (a non-psychoactive cannabinoid found naturally in the plant, credited with aiding everything from body pains to insomnia) from the local 7-11.
Marketers and anyone else looking to cash in on the green rush saw the writing on the wall and by spring 2021, there isn’t an everyday product or service you can think of that doesn’t have a stoner-specific iteration available for purchase — like $58 Herbivore Emerald CBD + Adaptogens Deep Moisture Glow Oil, rolling papers that shake out to ~$7/pop (quite the gamble if you’re not the most prolific roller), a sativa seed hydrating face mask going for $24 each, a spacy-yet-posh $2,000 24-karat gold ashtray, or a $450 Edie Parker Table Top Lighter with its weighty emerald marble base and sterling silver functionalities. You can spend as much or as little as you want on cannabis-related and -tangential products.
As the stoner umbrella continues to cast shade over the entire United States, there has been a proliferation of products aimed specifically at weed-doers. It’s unclear, however, if they’re all really filling pothead needs — do we have to have, say, at-home luxury apparel especially made for us?
For some products and services, of course, the answer is yes. Stoners have a need for specific cannabis and cannabis-related products/services. For example, Eaze, a cannabis product delivery service — UberEats for weed. Not only do they bring strains right to your door, they use confirmation and promo codes never exceeding six characters and typically easy-to-remember words or phrases. (The stereotype has some truth: Regular pot-doers have impacted short-term memories.) Obviously, this service wouldn’t be of use to someone who doesn’t partake, but for the average stoner, it could be essential.