You can keep Amazon on its toes: visit its California liquor "stores"

This is Amazon's "liquor store" in Sunnyvale: a table with a button

I didn't set out to investigate Amazon for noncompliance with California law. I just thought it would be fun to visit one of the brick-and-mortar liquor stores that California law requires it to have.

But on my visit, I discovered Amazon was openly flouting that law.

Then I visited two other stores and discovered Amazon's practices had changed overnight, and it is doing the absolute bare minimum to follow the law.

I can't be an Amazon watchdog all over the state. This is where you come in.

Do you want to check to see if Amazon is following the law? It's easy!

Thank the Pink Boost Goddess: a cannabis strain that doesn't give the munchies

The munchies are never pretty. Apparently it takes a Goddess to whisk them away.

To prove it, I devised a diabolical experiment for a friend and myself. More on that below.

One of the first medical uses for cannabis was to increase appetite for cancer patients, but it also works that way for healthy people. I don't (usually) regret having an extra piece of chicken at dinner, but snacking before bedtime makes me ashamed of myself. But it feels like I can't help it.

A Holy Grail in the cannabis world is a flower that does not give you the munchies. Supposedly the cannabinoid THCV has this effect, but it hadn't worked for me in the past. A strain called Durban Poison, noted for its high level of THCV, made me crave sugar even more: this is bad.

Thus I was skeptical when Flow Kana reached out to me to try a limited-edition strain called Pink Boost Goddess which the company claims minimizes the munchies.