During a performance of his one-man show The History of Weed in Berkeley, California, this weekend, David Bienenstock’s voice begins to tremble, and he jokes that he isn’t about to cry, then takes a sip of water. But attentive listeners who traveled with him through his comedic storytelling performance on 10,000 years of cannabis history might have noticed the moment he sincerely got a bit choked up near the end while describing the work of the Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana (WAMM).
RELATED: Bringing the farmers’ market to the weed
Bienenstock is an accomplished journalist and author. His podcast, Great Moments in Weed History, has hit over 1 million downloads. He’s the co-creator of Vice’s Bong Appétit and was a producer on the recent Hulu original documentary series 4×20 Quick Hits. He’s also a longtime cannabis activist who spent many years volunteering with WAMM to provide people in medical need with cannabis at no cost.
“So many people have been made either criminalized or at least stigmatized around this beautiful medicinal beneficial flower, plant, whatever you want to call it,” Bienenstock tells me before the show. “There’s a real connection with the audience. It’s not me telling knock-knock jokes up there, which is also fine. It’s a deep connection to people around something that we all share and care about.”
Bienenstock’s comedic production illuminates the history and culture of a much-maligned plant that’s been obscured and suppressed by the forces behind prohibition. From tales of Willie Nelson smoking weed on the roof of the White House to Maya Angelou writing “For the first time, life amused me” when recalling her early experiences with cannabis, Bienenstock guides the audience through a thoroughly entertaining hour interspersed with somber truths about the people who paid the price for directly confronting the world’s war on drugs.
“I implore you to continue to smoke weed and question authority,” Bienenstock said at The History of Weed event in Berkeley after showing a clip of himself debating Tucker Carlson about the safety of marijuana on Fox News in 2019.
Weed in Many Forms
Bienenstock workshopped The History of Weed a few times in Portland, Oregon, where he lives, before debuting it to a live audience with a performance in Manhattan on October 19, coinciding with Hall of Flowers New York. His November 7 show in Berkeley, sponsored by Budist and held at the Chapel of the Flowers, included three bar areas featuring different inputs for cannabis consumption, flowers, dabs, and infused beverages.
Longtime cannabis activist and Oaksterdam co-founder Jeff Jones said the display showed how far cannabis has come.
“We outpaced [the tobacco industry] with opportunities,” he said, stating that tobacco is limited in how it can be used, but that the distinct properties of the ways cannabis can be produced allow it to be used in many different forms.
RELATED: Consumption events go mainstream with CannaFest
Jones likened the dab bar to a whiskey bar and said newer cannabis enthusiasts would likely be more comfortable vaporizing cannabis flowers.
“Most people don’t feel that comfortable letting their hair down,” Jones said.
I sampled a Tropicanna Cherry grown by Terrapin Farm for the Jerry Garcia-inspired cannabis line, Garcia Hand Picked.
Making History in the Present
Bienenstock’s Berkeley event was held in the same week as the 30-year anniversary of California’s Proposition 215, which legalized the medical use of cannabis in the state, and the 10-year anniversary of Proposition 64, which legalized cannabis for adult use. It also coincided with the 30-year anniversary of one of the event sponsors, The Cannabis Buyers Club of Berkeley, one of the oldest cannabis dispensaries in the U.S.
Today, the history of cannabis that is being written is as active as ever. The Drug Enforcement Administration is issuing registrations to qualifying medical cannabis providers following the reclassification of state-legal medical marijuana into Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act, and a December 11 deadline that could recriminalize many hemp products is on the horizon.
RELATED: What if weed had vintages like wine? California is making it happen
“I think one of the great things we can take from cannabis history, and even recent cannabis history, is that we look at the forces that aligned around this prohibition— the government, the medical establishment, the criminal justice system, the media, the prison-industrial complex- these are some of the most powerful forces in society. And the story of how this grassroots, pun intended, cannabis movement went up against that and won these victories of legalization in terms of reducing vastly the arrests and the number of people put through the criminal justice system,” Bienenstock said.
“It is an inspiring tale that we need to understand and reflect on and be inspired by as we move into these next fights around the economics of cannabis, around the regulation of legalization.”
In that way, Bienenstock’s historical look back at the accomplishments of cannabis activists of the past is also a positive push forward.
“All of those lessons, and the lessons we learned from the plant about compassion, about inclusivity, about bringing people together across cultures, across racial divides, generational divides, geographical divides, that’s the same energy we need to bring to this new fight around what legalization is going to mean for growers, for consumers and for small business people versus top-down corporate cannabis,” he concluded.