OK get this. I was at Noon the other day and asked to borrow a pen so I could write which was the blueberry and which was the blueberry haze. When I buy, I normally write name, shop, date, price, and quantity on each baggie so I know what's old and what's good etc.

So I wrote "noon" on this bag and the guy flipped out! He grabbed the bags and scratched off the word "noon". He said it was a week old new law that says they can't allow branding on their bags. He also told me that they're officially killing their branded lighters due to this new law.

I talked to a manager at another shop. He told me that it was for real. They are no longer selling lighters with their logos on them either. They apparantly are also not allowed to have coasters with their addresses anymore. And I don't know what else they're about to lose, but my guess is if you want real souvenirs, go to the coffeeshops and buy all the smoking accessories with the logos on them that you can. Kinda makes me sad that I didn't get that Roor bong with the Amnesia logo screened on it..

I don't know how this affects places like Rookies or Baba or Abbraxas, who have a totally separate store nearby, and want to sell stuff with the STORE logo not the COFFEESHOP logo.

I am curious how this affects this board, and the future of this great city. Anyone with insight?

Interesting...I did notice that on my last mission back in May that coffeeshops had gotten a little more tight about giving lighters away.Several times in the past I have been offered free lighters with the coffeeshops logo on them this time all lighters were for sale.

in response to this and the other enquiry about barneys marketing products...

the new law came into effect from Saturday just passed and precludes the sale of any branded material from coffee shops which includes web addresses, postal addresses, the word 'coffee shop' or marijuana imagery i.e. leaf, plant etc. items include lighters, staff t-shirts, napkins etc. this only affects coffee shops where they sell these goods on the same premises as the product itself. shops like baba and the bulldog chain remain unaffected and are able to continue peddling their wares from the souvenir shop.

the other part which i am surprised nobody has mentioned yet is that the authorities have come down on shops selling space shakes. i believe the space shake may be no more. in addition space cakes are not allowed to be named such. they must now just be labelled cookies, chocolate cakes etc. no mention of the active ingredient. i think this was actually the case anyway but went largely ignored until the 'reminder' from the authorities.

but before anybody gets too down in the mouth about all this remember there are still 260 places in town to buy the finest marijuana known to humanity. just take your own lighter :-)

doog!

withnail