Oliver Summers

Before cannabis became an industry, it was a movement built on compassion during the AIDS crisis. West Hollywood just hosted a conference and screening of Join the Club that revisits those roots. Did the industry stay true to the mission? Full recap by Dina Nagib of Grass Goddess Consulting and Chris Carroll of Hoodie Analytics. beardbrospharms.com/articles/love-…

the rise, fall & return of heady glass 🏕️ in the 1980s, @BobSnodgrass shaped the 1st color-changing pipes while following the grateful dead. torchwork became counterculture, glass as rebellion, art as function. his eugene crew carried that craft into american folklore. 🪞 by the 1990s, artists like jerome baker & @JasonLeeGlass1 turned borosilicate into sculpture. each piece had a sig, a story & a buyer. head shops treated glass like street-level fine art, functional, discreet & personal. ⚖️ 2003 shattered it—raids hit artists & distributors. bongs became felonies. @tommychong’s arrest signaled the crackdown, driving glassblowers underground. 🌊as u.s. makers regrouped, chinese factories flooded shelves w/ cheap pipes. quality dropped, margins collapsed & “handmade” lost weight. artistry gave way to survival. 💨2010, bho dabs reignited the flame—skillets→quartz, rigs replaced spoons. function ruled as hamm, quave & mothership refined recyclers, diffusion & airflow; dabs made glass perform. 📸ig drops replaced shows; artists built direct followings. fab eggs & toro macros sparked bidding wars. hashtags stood in for galleries. drops vanished in seconds. glass went global & algorithmic. 💰as legalization spread, high-end rigs became trophies. by the mid-2010s, @mothershipglass & quave work hit 5-figure tags. some rare collabs even broke 6 (like the fab egg & sagan “moon marble”). collectors treated function like investment, chasing provenance over price. 📉by late 2010s, copycats, imports & vape tech (@pax , @puffco) thinned demand. pens & e-rigs pulled casuals; shops pivoted to carts & pods. prices fell from mid-2010s highs. today’s ceiling hovers around $10–13k, while 6-fig grails are rare & rely on provenance. 🏺museums & galleries now back functional flamework; joint venture & residencies frame borosilicate as contemporary craft, where form meets function. 💸 cash flow squeeze: trappers & once affluent collectors now funnel dollars into permits, taxes & compliance. legalization exposed the brutal production margin—mids flooded in, wholesale collapsed. old-money glass spenders are now budgeting overhead, shrinking mid-tier demand while grails hang on. 🔁 smaller scene today, but w/ a sharper edge. imports & vapes thinned mid-tier; top stays steady via drops, provenance & private sales. the rise of hash rosin fuels legacy chase; new fans treat torchwork as heritage. the hype cooled but the heat stayed.    - @nuggnotes🪴