Pot Trading Cards Celebrate High Achievements

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Barry Bonds and A-Rod aren’t the only heavy hitters who’ve got a trading card following. A Berkeley medical pot dispensary has released an attractive set of cards that allows stoners to compare high-scoring ganja varietals such as Afghani Goo and Grand Daddy Purple.

The trading cards idea “was really just like an evolution of the labeling system,” says David Bowers, a manager at the Patient’s Care Collective, a 10-year-old pot store on Telegraph Avenue. Introduced in March, the cards feature glossy photos of killer buds along with details about their defining traits and medical uses. A 10-pack sells for $7.

Of course, unlike standard medical marijuana cards, the trading-card versions don’t give their holders the legal right to purchase pot. But anyone in the market for a nickel bag of funk might consult them to learn about the increasingly sophisticated effects and flavors of California’s designer weed. Grand Daddy Purple has a “rich fruity and sweet scent like grape pixie sticks” and is “very relaxing and good for sleeping.” While the laid-back crowd might best avoid OG Kush, an “extremely pungent and skunky” plant that has psychoactive effects that “can be almost too strong for some patients.”

Many of the cards read like a cross between a wine label and a bottle of Asprin, reflecting marijuana’s double-edged allure as a medicine and agent of hedonism. (California voters will get a chance to legalize recreational marijuana in November). The Jack Herer variety, named after a leading pot activist,  is “peppery and spicy, with a touch of tropical fruit.” It’s also “clear, focused, energetic and motivating . . . A good strain for when you have to medicate during the work day.”

Critics consider marijuana cards to be the reefer version of tobacco company R.J. Reynold’s Joe Camel. “Using slick, full-color cards to glamorize marijuana is an overtly cynical attempt to promote marijuana use to children while turning a profit for yourself,” former California Attorney General Dan Lungren wrote along with 21 other state AGs in a 1998 letter to the now-defunct, San Francisco-based In-Line Trading Cards and Magazines, which had produced a set of “Hemp Cards” that were sold in retail stores. Bowers says that the Patient Care Collective only sells its cards at the dispensary and marijuana trade shows.

 

 

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate