EVERETT — Learn the lingo about flowers, edibles and topicals.
Get in the know about dabbing, vaping and how roach clips are oh-so Baby Boomer yesterday. These days, you can smoke dope out of a lightsaber.
What’s up with that?
It’s “In the Weeds, A Potcast” hosted by radio veterans Tavis Buchan and Maury Eskenazi.
The duo started the podcast as a way to tap into ad revenue from the burgeoning pot industry, which reportedly rakes in $90 million a year in retail trade in Snohomish County alone.
It’s a means for marijuana stores to advertise and broadcasters to make money. It’s also a way to enlighten those of us who are ganja green, without having to sheepishly ask our millennial kids the difference between Kush and Purple Haze.
“In the Weeds” is produced in Studio B in the headquarters of AM-FM radio stations KRKO and KXA on the top floor of downtown’s Key Bank Tower, high above the string of dispensaries dotting the city below.
“In the Weeds” podcast co-host Maury Eskenazi records an episode at the KRKO/KXA radio station offices in downtown Everett. (Ian Terry / The Herald)
Other than the stoner theme song “Smoked Two Joints” by Sublime that plays each episode, there’s nothing backroom, basement or backyard-shed about this potcast. Not a whiff of the wacky tobacky.
During a recent potcast, Buchan and Eskenazi, the two men in button-down shirts, sat across from two bearded guys in hoodies with bright green pot leaf logos.
For about 30 minutes, they chatted cannabis. The hot toys, retail trends, the art of smoking flower.
There have been 14 episodes since “In The Weeds” started five months ago. Guests have included growers, processors, connoisseurs, merchants and budtenders in the county. There are cannabis podcasts in other regions and nationally, such as www.cannabisradio.com and www.mjtodaypodcast.com. This one is hyper-local.
Each potcast covers an aspect of Washington’s reefer madness in an informally informative way.
“We try to find different angles that are relatable,” Buchan said. “We have some fun. It’s conversational, loose improv, questions off-the-cuff.”
Still, Buchan and Eskenazi might seem an unlikely pair for a potcast.
“In the Weeds” podcast co-host Tavis Buchan records an episode at the KRKO/KXA radio station offices in downtown Everett. (Ian Terry / The Herald)
“We both have experience with marijuana, but have not been adventurous,” Buchan said. “I’m just a regular guy who doesn’t really know about these different methods. I’m a purebred radio guy. I know what to do when it comes to putting a show together. It’s a good format to ask those questions.”
At the station, Buchan, 37, does traffic reports, banters and runs show boards. His voice is in a lot of ads. Eskenazi, 60, a deejay and account executive, does “Movies with Maury” and hosts “Health Matters.”
“Being the guy from the 1970s, I used to buy my pot from my rabbi’s son in the parking lot of Nordstrom’s in Bellevue Square,” Eskenazi said. “It totally blows me away the way cannabis turned out.”
For the podcast, he researched the marijuana scene on foot.
“I reached out to every cannabis shop on Evergreen Way, and there’s a lot of them. They all have different stories to tell and a different vibe, even though they are selling the same product,” Eskenazi said.
PRC marijuana retail manager Thomas Fallihee discusses the marijuana industry from a business perspective during a recording of an episode of the “In the Weeds” podcast at the KRKO/KXA radio station offices in downtown Everett. (Ian Terry / The Herald)
At $90 million, revenue from cannabis retail from some 90 stores in Snohomish County ranked fourth in the state, close behind Spokane County with King County first. Even with about one-third of revenues going for excise tax, that still leaves a bundle for advertising.
The potcast is not allowed on radio due to Federal Communications Commission rules.
“On air, we can’t promote or market the consumption or distribution of recreational marijuana, because it is not federally legal. By state it’s legal, but we’re under FCC laws,” Buchan said.
Added Eskenazi: “It can’t go on the broadcast airwaves but we can put it in a podcast.”
Listeners must click that they are at least 21 to get into the site. The podcast streams online at Everett Post, the media company’s digital portal, at www. everettpost.com/in-the-weeds.
A special potcast is planned next week to explain April 20 or 4/20 “Weed Day,” an international holiday to celebrate cannabis.
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The recent episode “Runnin’ the Pot Shop,” was with Joel Martin and Thomas Fallihee, the two laid-back dudes in hoodies.
At their shop, PRC Arlington, a gram of Cinderella’s Dream sativa buds is $10, a two-pack of rolled joints is $12 or you can score an edible for $3. For those wanting to skip inhalation or oral consumption, there are other ways. A suppository is $20. Tinctures, including bacon-flavored drops for dogs, go for about $40.
So yeah, there are lots of ways to spend money.
Like any retail business, there are slumps and surges. Discussion turns to the Arlington store’s first quarter sales uptick, oddly enough thanks to tax time.
The pot merchants said sales increase during tax season when people have more money to blow from refunds.
Uncle Sam is a boon to getting a buzz?
Put that in your lightsaber and smoke it.
Andrea Brown: 425-339-3443; abrown @heraldnet.com. Twitter: @reporterbrown.
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