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Schenecta-BLAZE Needs a Real Canna Lounge

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By OG Strain for Plugs Pages Magazine

There’s a strange disease spreading through the 518 this spring.

No, not pollen allergies.
Not seasonal depression.
Not even that mysterious condition where your dealer suddenly “fell asleep” right after you sent the money.

I’m talking about Lame-itis.

And Schenectady might officially be patient zero.

Now don’t get me wrong — there’s still some solid people holding it down for the cannabis community. The Growers Gathering by Damn Sam was a good time. Crisxotics always got motion. The Canna Mafia got events popping almost every weekend. There’s raffles, prizes, smoke sessions, music, networking, and enough weed floating around to make Willie Nelson forget where he parked his horse.

But here’s the problem nobody wants to say out loud:

Half the people showing up aren’t there to vibe.
They’re there to vend.

Everybody got a table. Everybody got a QR code. Everybody got business cards. Everybody selling something. Which is cool — that’s part of the culture too. Hustling is respected.

But where are the people just showing up to support?

Because lately it feels like if you ain’t selling eighths, T-shirts, mushrooms, exotic soda, glass pieces, moon rocks, moon dust, moon shoes, or moon-flavored oxygen… people act like there’s no reason to leave the house.

And honestly? That sucks.

Memorial Day really drove it home for me.

I literally invited people over to review weed with me. That was the entire mission. No cover charge. No catch. No pyramid scheme. No “opportunity.” Just come smoke free weed and talk about strains.

You didn’t even need to bring weed.
You barely needed to bring pants.

Just lungs.

That was it.

And somehow…
nothing.

A couple people tried to come through and had stuff happen last minute, so respect to them at least. But overall? It felt impossible just to get people together to smoke free weed.

FREE.

WEED.

Do you understand how insane that sentence sounds in 2026?

At this point, if you can’t get people to come smoke free weed, either the economy is broken or everybody secretly became Amish.

That’s when it hit me:

Schenectady doesn’t just need more events.

Schenectady needs a real cannabis lounge.

Not a smoke shop with LED lights and one folding chair in the corner.
Not some place pretending to be “420 friendly” because they sell incense and a Bob Marley flag.

I mean a REAL canna lounge.

A place built specifically for the cannabis community to gather, chill, smoke, laugh, network, trade buds, review strains, freestyle, play games, watch movies, and exist together without everybody trying to sell each other something every five seconds.

Picture this:

You walk in and instantly get hit with that warm cloud of loud. The lighting is dim with black lights glowing purple and green. Old-school stoner rock mixes with underground hip hop in the background. There’s lava lamps bubbling in corners like tiny psychedelic volcanoes.

Couches everywhere.

Not cheap waiting-room couches either. I’m talking dangerously comfortable couches. The kind you sit in and immediately forget your social security number.

Coffee tables covered in glass art. Ashtrays on every table. Giant dab rigs bubbling like chemistry experiments. Hookahs. Gravity bongs. Rolling trays the size of cafeteria lunch trays.

One room got old-school video games.
Another room got movies playing on projector walls.
Another room is just bean bags and vibes.

Maybe there’s a “Flavor Chamber” where people sample different terpene profiles like wine tasting for stoners.

“Ah yes… this one has notes of citrus, diesel, bad decisions, and unpaid parking tickets.”

Maybe local growers host taste-test nights.

Maybe local artists perform live.

Maybe there’s comedy nights where half the comedians forget their jokes halfway through and everybody laughs harder because of it.

Maybe there’s membership cards.

Maybe there’s lockers for your glass pieces.

Maybe there’s a giant terpene menu on the wall like a restaurant.

“Tonight’s specials include:
Garlic Funk, Banana Melt, and a strain called Divorce Papers that’ll have you reorganizing your entire life at 2 AM.”

And most importantly:

NO ALCOHOL.

None.

This ain’t a bar fight environment.
This ain’t people screaming over tequila shots and punching vending machines.

This is a cannabis sanctuary.

A chill zone.

A place people actually WANT to be.

Because the truth is, the cannabis community in the 518 has something special already. The people are here. The growers are here. The talent is here. The passion is here.

What’s missing is a home base.

A place where community matters more than transactions.

A place where people can build real friendships instead of just exchanging Instagram handles and disappearing into the smoke like a side quest NPC.

And whoever creates this first in Schenectady?

They’re going to print money.

Because people are starving for connection right now. Everybody’s isolated. Everybody’s trapped online. Everybody’s liking posts instead of living life.

The first person who creates a real, comfortable, creative, safe cannabis lounge in Schenectady is going to accidentally build the hottest spot in the entire 518.

And honestly?

I’ll probably be there so often they’re gonna start charging me rent.

If you build it, we will blaze it!

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If You Hate Everybody Here, Why Are You Here?

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The cannabis community is supposed to be many things.

It can be competitive. It can be loud. It can be opinionated. People are going to disagree about strains, brands, growers, products, events and just about everything else under the sun.

But at its best, a community is still a community.

That means there has to be some level of mutual respect.

And lately, there is something I have been thinking about—not because I want to start drama, and certainly not because I want to write a hit piece about anyone. In fact, the entire reason I am writing this without using a name is because I do not believe in publicly humiliating people for the sake of entertainment.

This is about a pattern.

There is a person in our cannabis community who, from what I and many others have witnessed, seems to have a negative comment for almost everybody.

Post about somebody? There is a negative comment.

Mention somebody’s accomplishment? There is a criticism.

Share something positive about a person in the industry? Somehow, here comes another insult, another complaint, another unnecessary shot.

And after watching this happen repeatedly, I have to ask a question:

That is not sarcasm. I honestly want to understand it.

Smoking cannabis alone does not automatically make us a community. Community requires people. Relationships. Shared experiences. Support. Respect. Even disagreement can be healthy—but there is a difference between having an opinion and making hostility your entire personality.

You do not have to like everyone. Nobody does.

You do not have to agree with everyone. Thank God, because if we all agreed on everything, we’d have no comments section and half of Facebook would immediately go out of business.

But if every conversation turns into an opportunity to insult somebody, attack somebody, embarrass somebody or remind the world how much you dislike somebody, eventually people have to ask what is really going on.

And before anyone misunderstands me, this article is not written from a place of hatred.

Actually, it is quite the opposite.

That is one of the reasons I try not to judge people too quickly.

But understanding someone and excusing everything they do are not the same thing.

You can have compassion for someone while still setting boundaries.

You can feel sorry for someone’s struggles while also saying, “You do not get to use your pain as permission to mistreat everyone around you.”

That is where I think we sometimes get confused.

Kindness does not mean becoming somebody’s punching bag.

Acceptance does not mean accepting abuse.

Compassion does not mean pretending harmful behavior is harmless.

I believe strongly in free speech. That is one reason I have chosen not to block people simply because they disagree with me or say something I do not like. I do not want to surround myself with people who only tell me what I want to hear.

Criticism is part of life.

But there is a huge difference between constructive criticism and constantly tearing down the people around you.

One helps people grow.

The other just spreads misery.

So if you are reading this and thinking, “I wonder if OG Strain is talking about me?”—well, I am not going to name anyone.

But here is what I will say:

Not because you should be ashamed.

Because you can change.

Try being nice.

Seriously. Just try it.

Try congratulating somebody when they succeed.

Try scrolling past something instead of attacking the person who posted it.

Try disagreeing without making it personal.

Try giving someone the same grace you probably hope people will give you when you are having a bad day.

You might be surprised by what happens.

Because the energy we put into the world has a way of coming back around. Call it karma, the law of attraction, cause and effect, or just common sense—if you constantly put negativity into every room you enter, eventually people are going to expect negativity whenever you arrive.

And then you may begin to wonder why everyone is negative toward you.

Sometimes, we have to look honestly at what we are putting out there.

If you put out kindness, kindness is more likely to find you.

If you put out respect, people are more likely to respect you.

And at that point, you cannot blame everyone else forever.

The truth is, life is too short to wake up every day angry at people who may not even know you are angry at them.

It is too short to spend your time searching for another person to criticize.

It is too short to be miserable for sport.

And it is definitely too short to become known in a community primarily as the person everybody expects to start a fight in the comments.

That is not a legacy.

That is exhausting.

We can disagree.

We can debate.

We can have different opinions.

We can even occasionally get on each other’s nerves—because let’s be honest, if you’re in this industry long enough, somebody is eventually going to annoy the hell out of you.

But we should still remember that there are human beings behind the usernames.

And if someone is genuinely struggling, I hope they seek support and allow trusted people to help them. Statements about not wanting to be alive should always be taken seriously, not used as a weapon in an argument or dismissed as “just drama.”

There is no shame in needing help.

There is no shame in changing.

Second chances matter.

Growth matters.

But growth begins when we are willing to look in the mirror.

So this is not a hit piece.

This is an invitation.

Just try being kind.

Try it for a day.

Then another.

And see what happens.

Because if you truly cannot find anything you like about anyone in a community, if every person is an enemy and every success deserves an insult, then maybe the problem is not the entire community.

Maybe it is time to look inward.

Do not turn this into another opportunity for gossip.

Do not attack that person.

Do not send them hateful messages.

That would completely miss the point.

The answer to negativity is not more negativity.

At the end of the day, we are all putting something into this community.

The question is:

What are you putting into it?

Because eventually, whether we realize it or not, people remember how we made them feel.

So if you are going to be part of a community, be part of it.

Support someone.

Encourage someone.

Disagree without destroying someone.

And when you are tempted to leave another cruel, unnecessary comment, maybe stop for just one second and ask yourself:

“What am I really putting out into the world?”

Then choose something better.

I promise you—kindness is a lot easier to carry than hate.

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STONER MAMA NICOLE Breaking Stigma, One Laugh at a Time

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How a Newfoundland mom, cannabis creator, and advocate is turning her own story into a movement built on humor, honesty, and acceptance

There are plenty of cannabis creators on the internet.

There are plenty of moms on the internet.

There are plenty of Canadians on the internet.

Nicole is a Canadian cannabis creator and mom from Newfoundland, a recovering addict, an advocate, and the personality behind a growing community built around something deceptively simple: people should be allowed to talk honestly about cannabis without being treated like a walking Cheech & Chong audition.

Her mission isn’t simply to post about weed.

It’s to change the conversation surrounding it.

MORE THAN THE PLANT

Nicole describes herself as a cannabis advocate and content creator who uses humor, education, and personal experience to challenge the way people think about cannabis.

And that distinction matters.

For decades, cannabis consumers have been shoved into a handful of tired stereotypes. The lazy stoner. The irresponsible parent. The burnout. The guy in the basement surrounded by empty pizza boxes wondering where his lighter went.

Nicole wants people to see something different.

The person behind the plant.

That last part is especially important to her.

Because apparently being a mother doesn’t automatically cancel your ability to know what a cannabis plant is.

Who knew?

Nicole’s message is that cannabis consumers can be parents, professionals, people in recovery, caregivers, entrepreneurs, friends, neighbors, and members of their communities.

In other words: they’re human beings.

FROM FUN CONTENT TO A PURPOSE

Nicole didn’t originally set out to build a movement.

She started creating cannabis content because she wanted to connect with other consumers and share her own experiences. What began as something fun quickly became something much bigger.

She discovered that her voice could help people.

Her content could normalize cannabis.

Her experiences could open conversations.

And her humor could make people stop scrolling long enough to actually listen.

That combination became the foundation of Stoner Mama Nicole.

Make somebody laugh—and make them think.

That might be one of the most effective ways to communicate online.

Give somebody a lecture and they’ll scroll.

Make them laugh first, and suddenly they’re paying attention.

BREAKING THE MOM STEREOTYPE

One of Nicole’s biggest goals is breaking the stigma surrounding cannabis, particularly when it comes to mothers and people in recovery.

She wants people to understand that recovery doesn’t look exactly the same for everyone.

Neither does cannabis.

Nicole isn’t pretending that cannabis is the answer to every problem.

She’s advocating for honest conversations—conversations without automatic judgment, outdated stereotypes, or the assumption that anyone who consumes cannabis must fit into a particular box.

And maybe that’s where her content becomes most powerful.

She’s not asking people to agree with her.

She’s asking people to think.

A CANADIAN PERSPECTIVE

Being based in Canada gives Nicole a unique perspective on the cannabis conversation.

Canada’s legal cannabis framework created an environment where cannabis could be discussed more openly, but legalization didn’t magically make the stigma disappear.

Old stereotypes don’t pack their bags and move out just because Parliament changes the rules.

Misinformation still exists.

Judgment still exists.

Nicole believes the answer isn’t more judgment.

It’s education and open conversation.

That’s exactly where she wants Stoner Mama Nicole to make a difference.

WELCOME TO THE GREEN QUEEN BOUTIQUE

Nicole isn’t stopping with content.

She’s also building The Green Queen Boutique, a cannabis-inspired small business where she creates merchandise and products for the cannabis community.

The Green Queen Boutique gives Nicole an opportunity to turn her creativity into something tangible while building another piece of the brand she’s creating.

And that brand isn’t just a logo.

It’s a community.

COMMUNITY OVER NUMBERS

Ask Nicole what she’s most proud of, and you might expect the answer to involve followers, views, viral posts, or some other social-media number that causes creators to stare at their phones like they’re waiting for the lottery results.

But that’s not what matters most to her.

Nicole says building Stoner Mama Nicole into a real community and brand is what she’s most proud of.

That’s a pretty important distinction.

Because followers are statistics.

People are people.

And Nicole wants the people behind those statistics to know they aren’t alone.

She especially values connecting with other moms and showing them that they don’t have to feel isolated simply because they consume cannabis.

THE MOVEMENT IS BIGGER THAN NICOLE

The word community comes up repeatedly when Nicole talks about what she’s building.

And that’s not accidental.

For her, cannabis represents connection and acceptance.

That’s what separates an influencer from an advocate.

An influencer can tell you what they’re doing.

An advocate gives you a reason to care.

Nicole wants to become a recognized cannabis creator and advocate who helps change the way people view cannabis—especially when the conversation involves moms and people in recovery.

That’s not a small goal.

But then again, she isn’t building a small brand.

WHAT COMES NEXT?

If Nicole has anything to say about it, Stoner Mama Nicole is only getting started.

She envisions a much bigger brand with collaborations, cannabis events, brand partnerships, merchandise, and continued growth for The Green Queen Boutique.

But despite those ambitions, there’s one thing she doesn’t want to lose along the way:

Authenticity.

That’s important because the internet has a funny way of turning genuine people into marketing machines.

One minute you’re posting something because it makes you laugh.

Nicole’s goal is to grow without losing the person who started it all.

Stoner Mama Nicole.

The mom.

The creator.

The advocate.

The woman in recovery.

The Canadian.

The person behind the plant.

THE PERSON BEHIND THE PLANT

At its heart, Stoner Mama Nicole isn’t really about cannabis.

It’s about people.

It’s about giving cannabis consumers permission to be seen as more than a stereotype.

It’s about moms knowing they’re not alone.

It’s about education replacing misinformation.

It’s about humor opening doors that arguments never could.

And it’s about one Newfoundland mom using her own experiences to say something remarkably powerful:

You don’t have to fit the stereotype.

You can be a mother.

You can be in recovery.

You can be an entrepreneur.

You can be an advocate.

You can love cannabis.

And you can still be completely, unapologetically yourself.

That’s the world Stoner Mama Nicole is trying to build.

And judging by what she’s already created, she isn’t just talking about the future.

She’s already growing it.

STONEY MAMA NICOLE

Cannabis Creator • Advocate • Mom • Entrepreneur

Follow the journey of Stoner Mama Nicole and discover the community she’s building around cannabis, connection, education, humor, and breaking the stigma.

The Green Queen Boutique represents the entrepreneurial side of that movement—bringing Nicole’s cannabis-inspired creativity directly to the community she loves.

Because at the end of the day, the plant is only part of the story.

The people are the story.

Link: https://www.facebook.com/share/1Fgu244FWi/?mibextid=wwXIfr

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REEDS AMONST THE WEED

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It is a scientific fact that listening to music is enhanced in many ways when the listener has indulged in weed. THC nudges parts of the brain designed to absorb sound, including music to become stimulated on a higher level.


THC influences the brain’s ability to let listeners think about the music differently, they hear more within each note, they feel more from the experience of music. Music becomes something like a magic carpet ride. Weed allows the listeners to literally become one within the melody, they are physically stimulated. In addition, the senses are heightened offering a person who is lit to see the color of the music, the story hidden within the music and create a unique movie that only they can see.


What could be more magical than a concert where the reeds play amongst the weed? On Saturday, August 15th a lucky few will get to inhabit music in a way they perhaps have never imagined.


Clarinet trio, Take Three will play a free concert at Lazy Day Farm, a top-notch cannabis cultivator in Durham, N.Y. The members of this professional group have played everywhere from the well-known concert halls to the Grand Canyon.



Each member’s instrument, from the base clarinet, played by Steve Miller to Suzanne Coletta’s, and Steve Silverstein’s, clarinets transform the program into a sensual, funny, soothing, plifting trip. The trio has been able to create harmonies so expertly woven together that the audience, seated in the walnut grove, become en-wrapped in a group experience that wipes away the real world.


Imagine relaxing on your blanket or chair, ganja smoke swirling around you as your mind absorbs the special notes that only multiple clarinets can produce. Music by Mozart becomes a transporter to another time and place. A piece by Debussy becomes an animated painting in your head.


The scene behind the trio is the lush greenness of the cannabis field, where the plants appear to be swaying to the melodies. The enchanted walnut grove presents a safeplace here the mind can wander into the outer space of the brain.


When weed is blended with live music the woes and troubles of the world drift away on the gentle breeze, the hive mind of the audience takes over resulting in an unforgettable unreal feeling of peace.

https://Lazydayfarmer.com

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