1. The Lowdown on the Lingo
(Tommy Chong, in 2018, Los Angeles, CA)
"If people are doubting how far you can go, go so far that you can’t hear them anymore."
When Bob was a kid, his favorite aunt shared this kernel of wisdom with him, “Don’t ever let someone think they’re better than you because they use a vocabulary you’re unfamiliar with. People will try to hold that over. The truth of the matter is if someone really knows how a CD-Rom works, they should be able to explain it in plain language so that anyone can understand. Do you get what I’m saying, Bob?”
Bob nodded, though he was lying, and he didn’t actually get what she was saying until many years later.
The weed lexicon has evolved greatly since the Cannabis Industry Insiders first started smoking weed. When Bob was in high school, there were only three types of weed, or at least that most consumers knew of. There was ‘schwag’, which is Mexican brick weed, ‘midis’ which were medium in price and quality, and mostly came from British Columbia, and ‘kind bud’, which was basically just a blanket term for any weed that didn’t suck. There was no mention of strains. Bob and his friends smoked out of a pipe or a bong and in times of desperation even an apple or a potato. You could tell a newbie as someone who didn’t hold their finger over the carb when they hit the pipe.
In case you’re wondering, smoking weed out of a potato is even worse and more stupid than it sounds.
Nowadays you can walk into a shop in Hollywood and can find amazing pot on a clearance rack with more product information than you bargained for about a Sativa-dominant hybrid with 8% CBD whose genetics are a combination of Blue Dream and Matanuska Mist that for some reason is named Charlie Sheen.
Believe it or not, If you don’t know everything there is to know about cannabis you might actually be in a better position than someone who thinks they know everything!
So many people, even those that had early success get stuck in the mud of their own way or ‘old way’ of doing things, and can’t seem to find their way clear of themselves with new thinking and innovation. You need to constantly challenge yourself to keep growing, getting better, and staying one jump ahead of the pack.
Apologies in advance, but I’m about to get SUPER GEEKY for a second with yet another extraneous physics reference. One of the essential concepts of the microscopic and quantum forces of nature is the idea that energy in its most basic state is an expression of a non-localized non-material ‘particle’ that in reality doesn’t actually have an independent reality (that’s a topic for a whole other book), and doesn’t ever occupy a fixed location in time or space, except in a ‘relative’ way, when the energy exists in a temporal state of matter, and gains a ‘relative’ state of mass from its momentum. This only seems to be possible though, while the energy projected as polarized ‘particles’ of matter maintain a constant state of motion.
All energy and therefore all matter in our universe at a fundamental level exists in a state of constant motion or spin.
It’s my philosophy given the lengthy dissertation above on the underpinnings of modern science, that this principle translates to life and business as well. If you’re not moving too then you’ve accelerated your degression towards entropy or system disruption and disorder (death), pursuant to the 2nd law of Thermodynamics. That’s a fundamental rule that governs how matter operates, and, as you know, we’re big on knowing the regulations here.
This could basically be summed up as the following edict for any business but one especially fitting for cannabis- “Grow or Die!”
The market is changing and changing fast. Legalization has opened the floodgates of cannabis to a much larger spectrum of consumers than ever before. Most new users don’t know the vocabulary. They’ve either only been exposed to cannabis a few times or not at all since the sixties. The products and options in today’s dispensary are nothing like they were at Woodstock. The game has changed dramatically since even just ten years ago. If this is all new, you can add value to the picture by seeing it through a fresh pair of eyes. Importantly, you can see it through the eyes of potential consumers that are cut from the same demographic cloth as you and still learning about this new world as well.
Need an interpreter for your interpreter in the cannabis industry?
The Gurus @ Pipe Dreams are here to lend you a hand. Reach out and tell us more.
Key Chapter Takeaways
The Do’s and Don’ts of the Dope Industry
- Do– Take the time to learn the industry terminology
- Do– Check out the glossary of terms at the end of this book for reference
- Do– Put in the energy to get up to speed
- Don’t– Be intimidated by insider’s or their jargon
- Don’t– Let vocabular stand in your way
- Don’t– Make excuses, for not getting started today!