David Downs

@davidrdowns

GreenState founder David Downs is an award-winning freelance journalist and best-selling author based in San Francisco, with appearances in WIRED, Rolling Stone, The Onion, New York Times, and Scientific American. He is a 2025 Mendo Cup Judge.

Explained

San Francisco’s secret garden — Inside Butterbrand

David Downs

Goldman and partner Michael Koehn enjoy a Volcano vaporizer --- a desktop unit that fills a bag with cannabis vapor. Vaporizers cut out the carcinogens associated with smoking cannabis. PHOTO: Michael Short for San Francisco Chronicle

Health

Seniors are surging into cannabis country

David Downs

Grenco’s G Pen Elite flower vape for marijuana pros is challenging the Pax 2 as the best vaporizer of the year.

Hardware

Best Bets: Grenco G Pen Elite vape review

David Downs

SOURCE: Simon Watson | Botanica | Getty Images

Health

Cannabis users’ sex lives are thriving, Stanford study finds

David Downs

News

Cannabis industry rallies for California wildfire relief

David Downs

The main building at Paras Vinyards burns in the Mount Veeder area of Napa in California on October 10, 2017. Firefighters battled wildfires in California's wine region on Tuesday as the death toll rose to 15 and thousands were left homeless in neighborhoods reduced to ashes. SOURCE: JOSH EDELSON/AFP/Getty Images

News

‘The whole thing was on fire’: One California cannabis farmer describes losing crop, saving house

David Downs

Flames surround a marijuana plant as a wildfire burns near Oroville, Calif., on Saturday, July 8, 2017. (AP Photo/Noah Berger) SOURCE: Noah Berger

News

California’s cannabis harvest season has turned disastrous

David Downs

Pot grower Steve Evans carries marijuana plants into a greenhouse at his Santa Rosa, Calif., home on Monday, May 22, 2017. SOURCE: Noah Berger

Explained

What is my local marijuana law in California?

David Downs