Moonrocks, Celebrities, and Big Business

Lately, moonrocks have been taking over the cannabis industry. Patients are actively asking their local dispensary if they have them in stock, or where they can find them. If you haven’t heard of them before, moonrocks are made by using a nug of a certain marijuana strain, most likely Girl Scout Cookies (but depending on the dispensary, or who’s making it, this could be a different strain), swirling hash oil on the nug, and then covering it in kief. If you’re interested in trying and making your own at home, here’s a recipe on Slyng that you can follow. This is basically the cannabis equivalent to a turducken.

I’m sure you’re interested in the backstory of moonrocks, and who decided to come up with this amazing product. Well, moonrocks are claimed to be invented by American rapper and former executive vice president of Death Row Records, Kurupt, in collaboration with Dr. Zodiak.

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Working together, the duo created and branded “Kurupt’s Moonrock” using an original recipe.

This recipe, allows for each individual moonrock to carry a whopping 64% THC, 0.15% CBD, and 0.02% CBN. This is remarkably high, for example a regular nug averages around 18.5% THC. As of right now, the brand can only be purchased by and through California dispensary’s and California delivery services.

After visiting Kurupt’s Moonrock’s website, you are bombarded with pictures of celebrities using the product and collaborations with other artists on varying moonrock’s. This brings up an important question – where does the cannabis industry stand, as legalization of marijuana continues, in terms of celebrity endorsement and big business? The website flaunts collaboration with Snoop Dogg, Ghostface Killah (of Wu-Tang Clan fame), Migos, and The Game.

As more celebrities move into the realm of the cannabis industry, comes big money. With big money comes the downfall of mom & pop businesses that have been doing this for the last few decades. It is important to note that although, it doesn’t seem harmful at first, as legalization becomes more widespread across more states, there will be a limitation placed upon businesses that do not generate a significant amount of revenue to keep up, and in turn will cause them to go out of business. If you don’t believe that celebrities are moving into the sector at a severely fast rate, Snoop Dogg recently “branded his own line of bud called Leafs by Snoop, created a marijuana news website, and launched a $25 million venture capital fund for pot investing called Casa Verde,” stated The Cannabist in an article detailing celebrity marijuana brands.

Kurupt’s Moonrock’s are just an example of a brand that is operated by a celebrity. The list is continuing to expand and rapidly. Here are just a few celebrity-owned or collaborative businesses in the industry.

• Wiz Khalifa – Khalifa Kush and Taylor’d Extracts
• Snoop Dogg – Leafs by Snoop
• Montel Williams – Abatin Wellness Center
• Die Antwoord – Zef Zol
• The Game –  G Lemonade and G Stiks
• Ghostface Killah and Killah Prist – Wu Goo and Yellow Dynamite
• Melissa Etheridge – Know Label Private Reserve
• Marley Family – Marley Natural and JuJu Royal
• Tommy Chong – Chong’s Choice
• Willie Nelson – Willie’s Reserve
• Whoopi Goldberg – Whoopi and Maya

Overall, there are varying things that will be effecting the way the cannabis industry operates and who gets to participate in it. Will the rise of big corporate money into the cannabis industry be the downfall of home grown businesses? Or is industry attention from celebrities a good thing?

By Lynh Tran from Slyng