Photos: B-Real and Cheech Marin bring a Dr. Greenthumb’s on the market
On September 16th, two legends of West Coast weed, B-Real and Cheech Marin, joined forces for the grand opening of the newest Dr. The Cypress Hill rapper’s Greenthumb’s pharmacy in Los Angeles. It was a quintessential L.A. affair: Chevy lowriders parked out front, fans meeting Cheech — who was selling his new THC-infused Micheladas in cans — and appearances from local brands like True Classic OG.
With a huge mural and platinum albums in the entryway, the new store pays homage to Cypress Hill. It’s only fitting; B-Real’s pharmacy chain is, of course, named after the group’s legendary 1998 song.
There are more than 40 brands at the dispensary on Wilshire Boulevard in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles. At the opening, the brand Dr. Greenthumb introduces their latest product offering – a 5-pack of hash-infused pre-rolls that are 80% cannabis and 20% hash, containing a total of 3 grams. They retail for $35.
Leafly asked B-Real about his current favorite strains and he gave us a handful: RS-11; Ripped off Runtz; Super Chief from Redline Reserve Genetics; and its Insane brand’s upcoming Lithium.
Read below for more photos and details.
Cypress Hill spent the summer performing special sets to mark the 30th anniversary of his classic album Black Sunday. The group released an expanded edition of the album in July. They recently performed with the London Symphony Orchestra, an idea they got from an episode of The Simpsons. B-Real said they also plan to release more music next year.
In the meantime, the rapper, known for his sassy, nasal vocals, plans to continue expanding his weed empire.
According to Kim Barker, the chain’s marketing director, Dr. Greenthumb’s will open additional stores in and around the Los Angeles area by spring next year, including in Van Nuys and Oxnard.
“We didn’t want to just open anywhere and everywhere,” B-Real said. “We wanted to make sure we had a strong presence in those places.”
The company plans to open stores outside the state for the first time in 2024 with two new stores in Michigan after launching the Insane cannabis line there.
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The grand opening marks another victory for B-Real – a former child soldier in a gang who suffered a bullet to the lung at the age of 17. He said that all it took was a trip to the music studio to open his mind to another world: a world in which he would later become a cultural icon and leader.
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“It’s crazy growing up here. And a lot of us don’t think we have opportunities,” he said of his childhood in LA. “It took a while for my mind to open.”
He said he hopes children today will use technology to find alternative paths – a path to a better life.
“During my time in the gang culture, I was very open to anything other than soldiering,” he said. “[Today]”If maybe they’re not good at sports or music, there are other things that can get them – to get them out of that shit,” he said.
Cypress Hill’s breakthrough SNL performance turns 30
October 2nd marks the 30th anniversary of Cypress Hill’s only appearance on Saturday Night Live. They defied the show’s instructions and the law to put one on national television in 1993, before medical legalization.
“We’re a hip-hop group, but we had a very punk rock metal mentality because that’s what we grew up with,” B-Real said at Dr. Greenthumb.
“So when we got to SNL we were like, ‘We’re going to light up these joints and we’re going to represent and we don’t give a fuck,'” he said. “That was the mentality: ‘We’ll just fucking do it.’ Whatever the impact, we don’t care.’”
“Our mentality in everything we did was, ‘We don’t give a fuck if they like it or not,'” he said.
It was an agitprop act straight from the Yippies’ playbook. One of Cypress Hill’s mentors, weed activist Jack Herer, took the same approach.
“Jack was our mentor. He taught us what we knew,” B-Real said. “So we spread that information and planted the seeds, so to speak.”
Thirty years later, the seeds of Dr. Greenthumbs continues to harvest fruit.
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