4 Weed Products journalist Madison Margolin can’t live without it

Madison Margolin is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of DoubleBlind, the biannual print magazine and digital media outfit that is taking the psychedelics movement by storm. Before she started the magazine, she and co-founder Shelby Hartman were both prolific cannabis journalists. While many will be best acquainted with Margolin’s cannabis coverage in a variety of publications over the past five years, she has been reporting on the political, cultural, and spiritual implications of psychedelics since she was in college.

While still in journalism school at Columbia University, Margolin reported on the Orthodox Jewish community in New York and met a group of children from Orthodox backgrounds who experimented with psychedelics and “explored their relationship to religion and spirituality through these alternative drug experiences.” . Margolin told Weedmaps, “I got very curious and almost immediately started writing about the relationship between Judaism and psychedelics. It was like five years ago, before I even got my job with the Village Voice. ”

Margolin began covering New York’s introduction of the Cannabis Policy for the Voice in 2015. At the same time, she had spent several months working on a story about the burgeoning psychedelic scene of the Empire State in which she “looked at the research that made it NYU. “She also got to know the newly opened Alchemist Kitchen, a common room that offers lectures on psychedelics and space for selling goods and tinctures.

The Voice was sold in October 2015 when Margolin’s coverage of psychedelics was about to become a cover story. “You have a new editor who basically said, ‘Your drug coverage is a cliché. The village voice is about drugs, “and he killed my psychedelics story.” The same editor also killed her pillar of weed, making Margolin cover the cannabis beat for Rolling Stone, Playboy, High Times, Nylon, Bon appetit, Broccoli, LA Weekly, VICE, and a host of other major magazines and digital outlets.

For Margolin, the modern cannabis and psychedelic movements are linked through the psychoactive experience and how it can affect all other aspects of life – science, politics, culture, history, medicine, mental health, spirituality, etc. Whether cannabis or psychedelics or even heroin and opiates and whatever, it’s a way to talk about other things in society, ”said Margolin as she pondered all of the places and communities where cannabis has been reported to her in the past five years. A special day in Jerusalem was a poignant example for her, when all these ideas overlapped in a special way.

The day began with an interview with Raphael Mechoulam, the legendary Israeli scientist who pioneered the isolation of THC and the discovery of endocannabinoids. “I did this whole story in the cannabis scene in Israel-Palestine for Tablet, a Jewish magazine, so I spoke to Mechoulam, which was really special. Then I went to East Jerusalem with a translator, which is more of the Palestinian side of the city. It was interesting man-on-the-street coverage. I think it was interesting to be in this place where trauma is so ubiquitous on all sides of the equation. Cannabis is an obvious choice for treating trauma and getting those firsthand experiences with Israelis and Palestinians – and for speaking to the man who was so authoritative [in cannabis science and medicine] – was really powerful. “

The transition from full-time cannabis reporting to running her own psychedelics magazine began in 2018 when fellow reporter Shelby Hartman reached out to her about the project. “Shelby and I both went to Columbia School of Journalism and then we did similar things in the field. And Shelby got this idea while meditating to make a psychedelics magazine inspired by Broccoli, a really nice magazine that was about psychedelics but also combined high-end design with research-intensive reporting. ”

Margolin immediately signed on the idea. “We both had full-time jobs at the time. I’ve been to Civilized and [Shelby] was at Herb and we didn’t really know where it was going. We just thought, “That seems like a cool side project,” and then it evolved into what it is right now. “

Margolin and Hartman are now running a publication which, in their own words, “appeals to anyone who is curious about psychedelics. And we speak to everyone who longs for new perspectives on some of the most important issues of our time […] and the pain people around the world feel for spirituality or some other collective meaning. ”

It is of paramount importance for Margolin and DoubleBlind to shed light on the basis of the psychedelic and cannabis movements.

“People say, ‘Oh yeah, cannabis is like a big industry these days. ‘And it’s kind of disgusting because it’s built on the backs of people who have been jailed for decades, risking their freedoms and endangering their families. That’s something I hope when people read about it [industry] Stuff in Forbes, they realize it’s built on people who aren’t featured in Forbes. “

Margolin continued, “I just don’t think people see the tension between industry and the movement. The movement is something that is really at the grassroots level and we are dealing with organic matter and behind that is indigenous wisdom and decades of folk wisdom and street wisdom and that is culture. “

Here are four weed products Madison Margolin can’t live without.

Prismatic Plants Good afternoon and good night CBD tinctures

Prismatic Plants offers CBD tincture formulas for day and night, both of which are designed for adequate sedative effects. Margolin uses both.

“I have scoliosis and my back can be kinky and sometimes it can hurt. But it hasn’t been that way in a long time, and I don’t know if it’s because I’m using CBD, but I think that might have something to do with inflammation. I also use it for anxiety. Sometimes when I stumble I like to have CBD on hand, basically when I’m scared. “

Papa & Barkley 1: 3 THC Releaf Balm

Papa & Barkley’s THC-rich Releaf Balm is a whole plant ointment that Margolin used for pain relief. “I also had tendinitis,” a condition most writers are at least somewhat familiar with, “so I used that and rubbed it on my wrist.”

Dad Grass CBD Pre-Rolls

With CBD pre-rolls becoming an important part of the cannabis market, it is important to know where the quality lies. Margolin no longer smokes as much weed as it used to and prefers CBD-heavy joints. Dad Grass hemp pre-rolls “make a clean buzz with no fuss” and are tailored to “revive the occasional smoke”.

Moon made farms flower

Moon Made Farms is owned and operated by former producer, musician, promoter and documentary filmmaker Tina Gordon, who moved to Southern Humboldt County in 2007 to grow and stand up for cannabis.

“I’m trying to choose free-range, open-air farming.” Margolin said to Weedmaps, “Moon Made Farms is good. Tina actually tracks the lunar cycle to see how the moon affects the plants. “

Interview by Nic Juarez. Written by Andy Andersen. Photo courtesy of Zoe Wilder. Graphic by David Lozada / Weedmaps