The Cannabis Connection

Santa Cruz! California has provided funding to document the history of legacy cannabis genetics in select regions of the State. We are honored to have Santa Cruz represented, and now we would love to connect and hear the history hidden due to prohibition. No doubt Prop 64 and Cannabis policy is flawed. Still, this project is one opportunity to document our Santa Cruz Cannabis Community history and...

Today on The Cannabis Connection, we welcome Joseph Haggard. What do the California State Fair, a state testing resolution and Woody Harrelson have in common? On the show, we explore all this and some special manifestations for 2025. Joseph Haggard is a farmer at Emerald Spirit Botanicals and co-founder of the Farm Cut Co-operative. He was born and raised in Mendocino County where his family has g...

Greg Rose has a long history of fostering software Developer Communities at various large corporations in Silicon Valley. He is currently a Digital Marketing Manager for the New Paradigm Institute, a public policy and law non-profit based in Santa Cruz. The New Paradigm Institute (NPI) is focused on UFO disclosure and transparency. NPI is an initiative of the Romero Institute, which has a 50-year...

Today on The Cannabis Connection Show, we welcome Jason Ortiz of the Last Prisoner Project. Jason Ortiz is the Director of Strategic Initiatives for the Last Prisoner Project. Jason was arrested for simple cannabis possession at the age of 16 in Norwich, CT, and that experience inspired him to become a cannabis justice advocate. After graduating from the University of Connecticut in Storrs with a...

This week on The Cannabis Connection Show, we welcome local comedy Sherpa DNA! Over the last 18 years, DNA has presented 2000 comedy shows in Santa Cruz and 11 festivals. Over 80% of these shows were free because he believes in building community through laughter. He recently signed to Punch Line Records and will be recording it at The Kuumbwa in March. DNA was Timothy Leary's chauffeur, a 5x...

Today on The Cannabis Connection Show we welcome our good friend Jason Matthys of Equilibrium Genetics to discuss helping small farmers, cannabis policy, areas to improve for legacy operators, failing corporate cannabis, oral history’s of cannabis, Hawaiian cannabis culture and more.  Founded in 2012 by Jason Matthys, Equilibrium Genetics is based in Mendocino County, California. All seeds availab...

Today on The Cannabis Connection we welcome Will Moxham of Woodhouse Blending & Brewing. Woodhouse Blending & Brewing is an evolving project created to bring Santa Cruz more small batch craft beer, and showcase amazing talent and creativity. We want to be a major moving part within our community, and to be a place for everyone to come together and experience all that our beautiful city has...

The Bohemian Chemist was started by Jim Roberts and Brian Adkinson, partners in business and in life. Jim is a second generation cannabis cultivator, operating his family property Sugar Hill Farm and founder of The Bohemian Chemist, a micro-business showcasing sun-grown flower from Mendocino’s Anderson Valley. At the farm, Jim has been focusing in on minor cannabinoids and broad cannabinoid profil...

Matthew is one of the original farmers of the Lemon Tree Organics. Matthew and his brothers farmed Lemon Tree before the name and brand were created, initially called Lemon Diesel. As Prop 215 evolved into Prop 64, Matthew navigated the switch, jumped through the hoops, and successfully ran a fully licensed farm in the Santa Cruz Mountains called Rasta Cruz Farm. He recently crossed the Lemon Tree...

Daniel Morford comes from a legacy of cannabis breeders and is a third generation ganja farmer with 19 years of experience. Founder of Pride of the Lion Seeds and co-founder with his father of Heartrock Mountain Farm. This family has been saving and breeding seeds for decades in the mountains of Mendocino County.  Daniel has published a book of poetry Love Grows and continues to write, farm, raise...

Today on the show, we welcome Jacob Beau. This show is for all those wondering how to reach a larger audience and rise from the shadowbans. Born and raised in Santa Cruz, Jacob Beau spent 3 years working on Facebook’s paid ads team, gaining deep insights into how the ad algorithm works. He’s using that knowledge to run highly effective ad campaigns on Meta, particularly in highly regulated markets...

Bleezy and Old E, two brothers from Mendocino, not only cultivate culture in their original music but were awarded 2024 Emerald Cup Best In Show for their Sun Grown Flower "Headies" at the 20th Annual Emerald Cup. Personal Use Flower 1st Place and 3rd Place for Personal Solventless Concentrate. Their work graced the cover of High Times August 2024 issue, and their farm is in full glory t...

Today on the show, we welcome Daniel Sheehan and Michael Smith to discuss a special gathering happening September 21 and new developments with UFO disclosure. Daniel Sheehan is an acclaimed civil rights attorney at the forefront of the unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) disclosure and transparency advocacy movement.   In 2023, Danny founded the New Paradigm Institute (NPI) as an initiative of...

Today on the show we welcome Genine Coleman! We discuss documenting the Legacy of California Cannabis. Proposition 64, the California cannabis legalization ballot initiative passed in 2016, created cannabis-specific taxes. A portion of these cannabis tax revenues are used to fund cannabis research initiatives through California’s public universities. On April 25th, 2023 the California Department o...

Today on The Cannabis Connection Show we welcome Grant Palmer ⁠@phenothepuppy⁠ CEO of Canna Cruz Dispensaries. ⁠@thecannacruzcollective⁠ started back in 2008 with locations in Santa Cruz, Watsonville and Salinas. Canna Cruz Salinas ⁠@cannacruzsalinas⁠ won 1st place Best Dispensary Central California for the 20th Anniversary Emerald Cup ⁠@theemeraldcup⁠ last weekend. We will explore his ongoing wor...

Today on The Cannabis Connection, we welcome Joel Perez! Joel is the Lead Extractor at Creme De Canna Extracts. He has worked in the industry for over 15 years.  Back in 2013, Joel was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, with stage 4 Lymphoma. After multiple biopsies and surgery, Joel underwent a bone marrow transplant. After a relapse, despite years of extreme chemotherapy treatments, Joel had heard o...

Sleepy John Sandidge and Luigi Oppido host Christopher Carr live in the Santa Cruz Voice talk studio. We discuss the local music community, the industry, old smuggling and cultivation stories, Sleepy John's run-in with the law, and the potential for growing our Canna-Community as a legitimate and intrinsic part of Santa Cruz in the future.

Today on The Cannabis Connection Show we welcome Andy Lopez-The Invisible Gardener who shared “Don’t panic it’s organic” with the world. The Invisible Gardener grew up in New York, Puerto Rico, Cuba and Miami Florida, where he learned to use organics from his mother, who naturally grew her fruits and vegetables. In 1972, he founded The Invisible Gardener, Inc. to impact the world’s environmental p...

Christopher Carr interviewed by Rosemary Chalmers live on Santa Cruz Voice covering major themes from Lookout Santa Cruz's recent article "Cannabis industry's sad state prompts changes across Santa Cruz County" by Christopher Neely. We explore local themes of the need for responsive policy in the county, a prevailing negative social stigma in the City of Santa Cruz and how Wats...

Welcome Manny Alvarez to the show! We explore regenerative farming, wellness and Manny's experience journeying into the Amazon to heal through ayahuasca ceremony.  Manny Alvarez is the highly dedicated and passionate co-founder of Bird Valley Organics, a regenerative farm renowned for its award-winning healing whole plant Full Spectrum Oil (FSO). Manny is committed to educating people about t...

Today on The Cannabis Connection show we welcome Cody and Elise of SierraKind.  SierraKind is a high-quality, ethically crafted mixed-light cannabis farm with a low carbon footprint born out of the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, with a perfect growing climate in a fittingly named town, Grass Valley. We use as many natural and organic products as possible, maximizing the sun for sus...

Tom Jenkins author of "The Next Run A UC Berkeley Student's Rise To Major 60s Pot Smuggler". Tom starts by smuggling pot hidden in cars, graduates to planes, resorts to waking sacks through the Rio Grande, and ultimately finds himself heading the Colombian end of an operation with a twin-engine cargo plane dropping bales to waiting speedboats off the coast of Florida. At the same ti...

Today on The Cannabis Connection Show we welcome Alex Halperin! Alex Halperin’s work on the weed beat has appeared in Fast Company, Slate, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, California Sunday (R.I.P.) and the Guardian, where he wrote the High Time column, an adult’s guide to legalization. He’s written the newsletter WeedWeek since July 2015. Its 11,000+ subscribers include many influentia...

Dr. Riley Kirk is a cannabis research scientist and a cannabis educator. She obtained her Ph. D. in pharmaceutical sciences, specializing in natural product chemistry where she studied the traditional and contemporary uses of hundreds of medicinal plants. She has worked as an immunology scientist in the biotech industry, currently is an assistant associate professor at the University of Rhode Isla...

Earth Rhythm Santa Cruz-based cultivators. Established in 2018, we are focused on quality, small-batch, Soil-Grown loved-up Cannabis, working with the best genetics and community to provide the best cannabis to the people. Fuego Family Farms Santa Cruz cannabis cultivators in living soils with the finest genetics. A small collaborative of Santa Cruz cannabis farmers who have grown, bred, loved, an...