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Marijuana tax funds Medford rental aid assistance

Medford City Council Thursday night approved setting aside $100,000 in marijuana tax dollars for rental and nutrition assistance to help families dealing with fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. “This money will go directly to nonprofits so they can continue doing what they do best,” said Kevin Stine, Medford council president. He said the marijuana tax dollars are coming out of the city’s Vision Fund. The city will disburse the money to local nonprofits such as ACCESS, Rogue Retreat and St. Vincent de Paul. “These organizations already provide rental assistance and nutrition programs,” Stine said. Rich Hansen with St. Vincent de

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March 23, 2020
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Breeze Botanicals approved for Ashland pot delivery

Oregon officials approved an application by Breeze Botanicals in Ashland to start making deliveries of cannabis products starting Friday. “We really need this because here we are in a crisis and a lot of people in Ashland who have been self quarantining and don’t want to leave their homes,” said Brie Malarkey, owner of Breeze Botanicals. Deliveries will be made from noon to 2 p.m., Monday through Saturday. Malarkey said she applied with the Oregon Liquor Control Commission to make home deliveries last October, and she got word Thursday morning that she’d been approved. Orders for any product in the

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March 23, 2020
medford-hemp-ban

City of Medford considers hemp grow ban

Growing hemp within the city limits of Medford might soon be banned, adding to the current ban on growing recreational cannabis. Medford City Council on Thursday night reviewed possible code changes that address the city’s concerns over hemp, the cousin of cannabis that doesn’t get you high. The council also looked at where hemp processing facilities might be located, most likely in areas zoned industrial or heavy commercial. “We don’t want another situation like what’s happening at Oak Grove Elementary,” said Kevin Stine, Medford City Council president. The city currently doesn’t have any hemp grows inside city limits, though there

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March 13, 2020

Elevating the edible

Baked goods sold a decade ago at dispensaries in Oregon were clichés of contraband cookies. Consumers couldn’t mistake the key ingredient overwhelming those medical marijuana edibles, often homemade and packaged in plastic baggies. Convinced that cannabis consumers hungered for something better, Laurie Wolf — a classically trained chef, cookbook author and longtime recipe developer — knew she could satisfy the collective appetite. Retailers’ cannabis edibles, she says, “completely sucked” before culinary experts like her stepped onto the scene. “There are dreadful cookies out there,” says Wolf. “I hate edibles that taste like weed.” With a dozen books to her credit,

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December 8, 2019

Looking back at 5 years of legalization

Oregon’s road to marijuana legalization five years ago was anything but straight. Early attempts to sell medical marijuana ran afoul of local laws, and retailers struggled to gain a foothold in Medford and other cities that took a dim view of legalization. But there were pioneers who helped blaze a path to what has become Southern Oregon’s biggest agricultural crop, and an industry that now plays a significant role in the local economy. Brie Malarkey was the first to open a “legal” medical marijuana store in Jackson County, Breeze Botanicals, on June 14, 2014, in Gold Hill, and then it

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December 8, 2019

‘Keeping it lean, keeping it humble’

When I arrived at Lane Creek Hemp Co. off Old Stage Road in Central Point, the first thing I ran into was managing partner Lara Richardson butchering a pig that was raised on the farm. Lara’s meat saw followed along with a woman providing instructions on YouTube. I immediately thought, “Wow; these folks are real do-it-yourselvers!” By the time I left the farm, however, I was dialed in to the fact that the operations at Lane Creek Hemp Co. are really a family, team and community effort. After leaving Lara to the pig, I spent the next hour touring the

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December 8, 2019

A haunted hemp harvest

Hemp’s ascendancy as Southern Oregon’s top crop came crashing down for some this season with at least four suicides, acres wiped out by mold and other catastrophes that turned fields of dreams into nightmares. “I think it’s a wakeup call, and that nothing is easy,” said Michael Monarch, a local pioneer in the industry who is owner and founder of Oregon Best Hemp LLC and co-owner of Epic Family Farms. Monarch said he’s familiar with one Applegate grower who committed suicide after mold destroyed his 20-acre crop. The grower baled up the wet hemp in plastic bags but didn’t compress

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November 24, 2019

In pursuit of big profits, hemp growers blaze a perilous new path in Northwest agriculture

SAUVIE ISLAND, Ore. — On a foggy November day, farm workers take clippers to a field of bushy green plants, snipping tops full of flower buds dotted with flecks of sticky resin. By the end of the day, the cuttings dry inside a southeast Portland warehouse, hanging from tall plastic trellises like aromatic curtains. This harvest from a 22-acre patch of land looks, feels and smells like marijuana. But this is hemp cultivated to produce CBD, increasingly popular in pills, tinctures, oils, rubs and foods. Though lacking an intoxicating punch, CBD also is in high demand as a smokable flower

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November 19, 2019

It won’t be easy seeing green from hemp harvest

Ajit Singh strode across his 16-acre hemp field toward a broken-down harvester. He’d been hoping all day that the mechanic now crouched beside the machine could get it back up and running. It was late October and Singh still had thousands of stinky green and purple cannabis plants across 425 acres to pick, dry and sell before winter. Like many hemp growers in Jackson County, he was harvesting slowly, facing a mold problem and unhappy with prices offered by potential buyers. “We want a better price,” said Singh, a soil scientist and former garden store owner — and, he said,

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November 11, 2019

Hemp Farmers Market kicks off grander plans for fast-changing industry

For Sean Holt, an Ashland gathering of Southern Oregon hemp growers was more than a farmers market, it was a sign of a new era. Standing at a table Saturday at the first Hemp Growers Market, Holt handed out sample gram-size smokeable nuggets of his Hempress II strain. The sight of police officers walking the beat in Ashland’s Historic Railroad District yielded something Holt called historic – nothing. “This is historic, the cops saw us, saw open buds and just walked away,” Holt said. “A bunch of strangers shared a moment.” Holt’s farm, Baron von Hemp of Ashland, was among

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November 10, 2019

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Summer 2020 TOC:

  • Cannabis Entrepreneurs: The women behind ‘Ladies of Paradise’
  • Terroir: Inside the science of tasty bud
  • Cannabis Cooking: Canna-balls styled after Alice’s ‘Brownies’
  • Retail: Home delivery gets a boost
  • Profile: River City Retail has a winning formula
  • Retail: Pandemic fuels pot-buying explosion
  • Religion: Cannabis for churchgoers
  • Growing: Hardy Seeds in Ashland shares why hemp loves company
  • COVID-19: Hemp farming – ‘It’s a lot safer than working at McDonalds’
  • Retail: Drive-thru bud at La Mota

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