With incremental legalization and promising research, the speculative opportunities for plant-based medicine are ratcheting up. But will real help be delivered by, and to, the communities who deserve it most?

At least we can agree on drugs. If I had to sum up how I felt in the wake of the 2020 Election in one sentence — well, okay, it’d probably be something closer to, “The next two months are going to feel like 20 years” — that’d be it. If you’re a fierce advocate for plant legalization, 2020 was your year. (To be clear: 2020’s been no one’s year, but, we gotta find W’s where we can get ‘em.)

Prior to November 3, some 28 U.S. states had some affirmative cannabis measures in place. Marijuana could be used recreationally in 10 states, and medically in 18. After November 3, you can bump those figures to 15 and 36, respectively. Just six states — Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska, Alabama, Tennessee and South Carolina — remain fully-illegal for personal and medical consumption. …

In search of the definitive.

Confession: When I was a kid, I used to love lists. (Shout-out to LEVEL Editors and their commitment to Just Rankin Shit.) Think about it: The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 1,000 Places To See Before You Die. David Letterman’s Top Tens. I loved it. And if you could count ’em down, even better.

I had a Sports Illustrated Special Edition that dropped January 1, 1991, called “Baseball’s 20 Greatest Teams of All Time.” …

Get your ducks — and your offerings — in a row

I’m in one of those Zoom mastermind groups where hungry pups in gingham button-ups work 20-hour days and say the word “crush” a lot. That might strike you as out of character, because of how little I enjoy work, and how much joy I glean from roasting the Startup Industrial Complex. It’s not. We’ve gone over this before.

Besides, your man over here can’t exist apart from startup culture without first being a part of startup culture. Whole essays devoted to my favorite punching bags — LinkedIn, Influencers, Growth Hacking — are really just excuses to workshop jokes I have laying around, and can’t use when talking about mental illness, social collapse, or civilizational decline. …

In work, in love and in life.

I remember the first time I bought a car. I don’t mean like an $800 clunker — although, shoutout to my 1985 BMW 745i, that beautiful beast with heated seats, a moonroof and nonresponsive speedometer — I mean a real car. With a car payment. With that new car smell and a glimmering coat of paint. It was 2010, and I’d saved up enough pennies to plunk down on something that would make it through the next decade.

I knew exactly what car I set my eyes on: a fresh-off-the-line Hyundai Sonata. I visited half the dealerships in the Buffalo-Niagara metro area to compare prices. I’d get shown around by a bunch of empty suckers in suits, or bland blondes in blazers. They’d talk about their low-price guarantees and easy financing options. …

This Is Us

Accept what is. Become what will.

In February, 2020 — ordinary time — a dear friend and I decided we should co-host a podcast on self-development and finding love. [If that sounds dull, well… please pull around to the next window.] We met on Monday afternoons, weekly, to get things tidied up. We had fiery chemistry. If love was tough as leather, we were both awls.

From the outset, we agreed: If we were going to do it, we were going to get it right. Each chat, we spoke organically for between one to two hours. The red light was on. …

Just say it: What Trump and his acolytes are doing is an attempt to steal the government

In refusing to concede defeat, or to acknowledge the results of, an election he freely and fairly lost, Donald Trump isn’t just stiffing President-Elect Joe Biden on a courteous decency. He’s not even just subverting a democratic norm. He’s not even just crafting a funhouse-mirror reality, or working with an alternative set of facts. He’s doing all those things.

In a vacuum, it’s semi-comical: privileged narcissist who conned his way to Head of State in the most powerful nation on Earth, loses re-election — which, it should be noted, doesn’t happen often — to a man campaigning as his polar (if not necessarily visual) opposite. He whines, golfs, tweets like a petulant baby and throws a tantrum before ultimately riding off into the sunset. Just desserts. Karmic retribution. Delicious irony. …

America: November 7, 2020.

So, confession: As a shameless election junkie and statistical analysis addict, I knew Joseph Biden was going to win the election, refusing to waver or move off that rock — even as his hopes looked precariously imperiled deep into the overnight hours of Election Day into Wednesday.

I saw the map, anticipated the blue shift in states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. …

Tomorrow, the US heads to the polls for the 2020 Election. How will the vote play out? What happens after?

Well, we’ve made it. Four years after we chose a goddamned bull on a cocaine-bender to CEO the China Shop, we have another chance to … well … not choose him. So, will we?

I don’t think we will. There’s just no data to suggest the current White House occupant will keep his seat. He’s down 8-ish to 9-ish percent overall, and trailing in just about every swing state by a little bit less. It’s not looking good.

Depending on which statistical model you read, Joe Biden has somewhere between an 86% and 96% chance of winning the Presidency — if not late tomorrow night, then in the days or weeks after. …