Bud bird

Are the clubs gonna have any weed this week? I am kinda worried.

—Larry Lowstash

I hope you stocked up last week when the clubs were holding giant clearance sales. The new rules went into effect July 1, so clubs had to get rid of all of their untested and unpackaged cannabis. The problem is, there aren’t enough licensed, tested and properly packaged products to go around just yet. The packaging rules are convoluted, hard to find and more than a little ridiculous. In fact, you can’t even find a clear and concise rundown of the regulations anywhere. Producers are having to visit like nine different websites just to get an idea of what the new packaging should look like. And don’t get me started on how much plastic and mylar—one of the most unrecyclable substances on the planet—are needed to comply with the new rules. All of the cannabis has to be tested, in some cases up to three different times. (Don’t ask.) So, of course all of the testing labs are overwhelmed, creating a huge backlog and keeping cannabis off of the shelves. It didn’t have to be this way. The BCC could have extended the deadline for the changeover and given the clubs and testing labs some more time to catch up. I know the BCC is trying their best, but they just can’t seem to get it together. We already had a pretty good system in place before Proposition 64 passed. It should have been fairly simple to create regulations that aren’t byzantine and burdensome. I know it hasn’t even been a year and that things should smooth out, but the BCC has given me no reason to be optimistic. And they wonder why the grey market is thriving while the “legit” cannabis revenue is falling short of expectations.

Hey Ngaio, my fiancé and I just started watching Cooking On High and we both love it! She’s crazy into cooking shows and I smoke daily, so it’s perfect. Random question: If you were to stuff a turkey or chicken with actual buds, would the fats and the oils in the bird bring out the THC and basically make it so you don’t have to use weed oil or butter?

—Pothead Pat

Great question, and thanks for watching! If you don’t know what show Pat is talking about, you can find it on Netflix. I am the cannabis expert, and the show is all about cooking, cannabis and competition. Please watch. Each episode is like 15 minutes long. This concludes the self promotional section of this column. Back to your question: I think you would still need to butter up the birds. Just stuff a bird full of buds and you end up with chicken marinated weed, not weed marinated chicken. Best bet is to make a weed and herb butter, then slather it all over the chicken (under the skin also) to achieve maximum effect. Thanks!