Visit Hollyweed is an online community newspaper at visithollyweed.com. The mission of Visit Hollyweed is to build a weed-specific news and information resource that is free and open to the California cannabis community and all Californians who are interested in the topic of cannabis.
We are driven by a mission to correct misinformation from past decades in California that described the weed community as made up of people who were criminals, drug addicts, social outsiders, and people to be feared or locked up.
We celebrate all of those who were either marginalized or who proudly identified with those outsiders across those decades.
We acknowledge with pride the contributions of weed cultivators and distributors throughout the period of prohibition, who made California weed the worldwide phenomenon and culture that it is today. We decry that those individuals suffered from the War on Drugs.
We now know that much of the negative perception of cannabis comes from past political pressures that were motivated by racial and ethnic bias. We wish to look at both the present but also the past to recover some of the stories, history, culture, and lost knowledge of the communities who participated in the weed community in California.
Visit Hollyweed is on a mission to create a news and information platform for the community to use and participate in.
Our news and information coverage focuses exclusively on California cannabis, which we insist is “the best weed in the world.”
Visit Hollyweed editors keep abreast of issues related to politics, policy, regulations, and legal reform in the state of California and report updates to the weed community.
We seek out sources in the community and engage with them to produce culturally-relevant and inclusive content that emphasizes the contributions of the many who suffered during prohibition.
Visit Hollyweed‘s mission to provide a free and open news and information resource for the California weed community is based on our belief that information access is a social justice issue and is crucial to the just performance of democracy in the state of California. We feel that state officials have much more to do to correct and atone for misinformation around cannabis, and we are taking the lead in making that happen.
Coverage priorities:
- Factually accurate, ethical, mission-driven coverage of the California weed community
- Time-based information (news, new releases, upcoming events, updates, etc.)
- The people who make up the California weed community past and present
- People and businesses in or from communities disproportionately impacted by the War on Drugs, 1970-2015
- The history of weed prohibition and its enduring impact
- Recreational marijuana businesses in California
- The history of California weed from 1970 to the present
- Laws and statutes regulating the sale and distribution of weed in California
- Local, regional weed communities throughout the entire state of California
- Contemporary culture and entertainment directly related to California weed
- Weed strains that are available in California
- Health and wellness in relation to California weed
- Consumer information about products, product forms, definitions, company profiles, etc., to empower Californians to make informed decisions
Website priorities:
- To promote the state of California as the historical and contemporary capital of weed in the world
- To act as an information resource for the California weed community
- A place for Californians to document and discuss California weed
- A place for Californians to document and discuss the California weed industry
- To promote California weed tourism
- To promote California weed education
- To promote access to the California weed industry through education and information access
- To encourage consumer research: to give accurate, unbiased information about the storefronts, brands, products, and strains that are sold on the regulated (legal) market in California
- To compile publicly available data about the regulated weed market in California, including the people and corporations who profit from our market
- To act as an information and educational resources for applicants and businesses classified as Social Equity candidates according to California state and local laws
- To target outreach efforts to communities disproportionately impacted by the war on drugs
- To collaborate with legislators, public servants, librarians, academic researchers, and community leaders to compile data on the impact of marijuana prohibition and the war on drugs; to present and make that data freely available to the public of California
- To offer educational and training resources to anyone in California who wants to take part in the weed business
- To preserve and document the various local, grassroots networks of weed growers and sellers who were active prior to the legalization of weed in 2018
- To create a shared community space where people openly share factual, accurate information about their work and their own life
- To track updates on state and local legislation and promote self-education about weed laws in California
- To offer a free, open directory of business resources and services that are part of the regulated weed market
- To document and promote the culture of weed in California including music, art, and events in each local region
- To provide all information for free and in as many formats as needed to be broadly accessible to the entire California community
Sponsorship Policy
Visit Hollyweed is a community-funded online information resource for the California weed community.
Visit Hollyweed truly appreciates the support of the community, and strives to be a good steward of community funding by investing in information access, education, and job training related to California cannabis.
In accordance with our mission and values, Visit Hollyweed uses funds contributed by sponsors to create a community hub of news and information based on the principle that community newspapers are an important part of the social infrastructure of California. We conduct targeted outreach to diverse sectors of the California cannabis community to be inclusive of a broad range of perspectives and backgrounds. As part of our mission, we seek to use sound journalistic standards and practices to answer the pressing information needs of the California cannabis community.
As part of our mission to empower Californians through information resources and education, Visit Hollyweed uses sponsor funds to collect, edit, analyze, organize, and present publicly available information about cannabis in California.
In particular, Visit Hollyweed publishes free resources to serve the information needs of individuals and entities that qualify as Social Equity candidates throughout the state of California.
Visit Hollyweed uses funds to conduct outreach and training to California Public Librarians who work in neighborhoods that were impacted by the War on Drugs.
None of our news or information coverage of any entity is influenced by their status as a site sponsor. Site sponsors are not guaranteed anything by the site in exchange for their sponsorship, nor should sponsors expect to influence any editorial decisions.
