Episode 10: Medical Marijuana’s Vanishing Act
There’s an unexpected side effect to Colorado’s billion-dollar recreational weed industry: medical marijuana counters are slowly shrinking. Why does that matter?
Episode 9: Legal Weed As Reparations?
The war on drugs is still alive and well, and the people most often caught in the crossfire are black and brown. Now that weed is legal in many states, most of the people making money off weed are white. We look at how legalization might benefit communities of color and repair harm caused by the war on drugs.
Episode 8: CBD: The Hype and the Reality
CBD is everywhere these days, but a decade ago it was largely unknown. Martin Lee, one of the founders of the California nonprofit Project CBD, helps us unpack how the CBD craze got started, what makes CBD promising and whether the hype is justified.
Episode 7: Weed Is Gay
Meet Buck Angel, trans porn star and recent cannabis entrepreneur. His story helps explain why marijuana legalization has special meaning to the LGBTQ community.
Episode 6: Neal & Paola: A Love Story
Two star-crossed lovers from different countries hit a major roadblock in their plans to spend their lives together after a brief encounter with weed becomes an issue.
Episode 5: Puff, Puff, Pray
What does it mean to have a spiritual experience with marijuana? We visit a cannabis church and talk with a psychedelic therapist, and explore how more Americans are seeking enlightenment in surprising new places.
Episode 4: Shrinking Pot’s Carbon Footprint
Cannabis cultivation tends to be a wasteful industry with a fairly large carbon footprint. On this episode, we talk about one man’s quest to make weed sustainable.
Episode 3: Neal Pollack’s Addiction
Texas-based satirist Neal Pollack — who’s written plenty of pot jokes over the years — reveals how he became addicted to marijuana, and what he’d tell people who don’t believe that’s possible.
Episode 2: Weed’s Legal Hangover
Two people — a white woman and a black man — reflect on their own arrests for marijuana charges when they were 19, and walk us through how those convictions continue to affect their careers and lives today. Through interwoven stories, we put their experiences in the larger context of the growing movement to clear low-level marijuana convictions.
Episode 1: Why Was Weed Illegal Anyway?
Marijuana’s history in the U.S. is complicated. Colorado Public Radio reporter Ann Marie Awad explains how cannabis became illegal — and how we got from there to the kickstart of the modern legalization movement. If nothing else, listen just to hear the phrase “jazz cigarettes.”