A version of this story first appeared in Gear Patrol Magazine. Subscribe today.
Cannabis has been around since, some say, 2000 BCE. It’s documented in texts from Ancient China, Africa, and Eastern Europe, and a part of spiritual life in Jamaica and on the Indian subcontinent, where the plant’s indigenous to. Stateside, the number of citizens open about their cannabis consumption is increasing.
Only five states haven’t yet passed laws to legalize cannabis for medicinal or recreational use. The early adopters, Colorado and Washington, only did so in 2012. Relatively speaking, we’re still in the wee beginnings of what will be a $91.5 billion dollar industry by 2028, according to Grand View Research, Inc.
Brands that grow and pack, distribute, sell, advertise, deliver, educate about and advocate for criminal justice reform around cannabis are forging the legal landscape. But despite the rapid growth, these companies remain punk in spirit, creating merch for a new generation of consumers. Is it high fashion? Depends who you ask.
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Old Pal
Henry Phillips
Old Pal sells pre-ground “shareable” cannabis packaged with rolling papers and filters. The brand’s clothing, sold as Old Pal Provisions, peddles positivity and unity, and proceeds are regularly donated to organizations like Our Academy.
Top-shelf weed fashioned into slim, cigarette-like sticks, that’s Pure Beauty’s shtick. (Oh, and a 100mg cocktail.) But T-shirts, bucket hats, beach towels and art prints — many of which feature their little side-eye logo or artistic shots of weed — fill out the L.A. label’s online store.
Pre-rolled joints in two sizes — Bullet (0.3g) and Party (1.0g) — make up Sundae School’s smokeables catalog. Filled with premium flower, they’re an obvious extension of Sundae School’s fashion-forward smokewear line of the same name.
Doc's Family Farms is, as the name suggests, a 10-acre, family-owned cannabis farm in Northern California. With a model-turned-farmer at the helm, the family’s apparel line has seen similar success. It spans tie-dyed pants and bucket hats, straightforward logo tees and crewneck sweatshirts.
BlackbirdGo serves as an intermediary between dispensaries and cannabis consumers. TLDR: they deliver you your weed. But they also make a clothing line called Be Good People. Which, as you might guess, advocates for the end of cannabis prohibition and donates proceeds to The Last Prisoner Project.
