Getting stoned in a glass house: Talking cannabis naming and branding with Glass House Farms’ Graham Farrar.
In May, singer-songwriter Jenny Lewis rolled out her own cannabis product named Rabbit Hole, a song title from her new album On the Line. Thinking this was an interesting concept and a pretty great name to boot, we went down a rabbit hole of our own searching for more information about the weed and how it came to be. We turned up Graham Farrar, CEO of Santa Barbara’s Glass House Farms.
We had the pleasure of speaking with Farrar about cannabis branding and naming, as well as how Glass House Farms helped Jenny Lewis create a product that vibed with her own personal brand of cosmic country music. Here’s what he had to say.
AHM: How did you get into cannabis?
Farrar: I’m a long-time cannabis enthusiast. I always thought prohibition was the wrong way to go about dealing with a powerful and awesome plant like cannabis. Regulation is a lot better than prohibition when controlling a substance because you have the ability to make sure it’s safe and clean.
I’ve been growing in closets and backyards for 25 years but I’m a tech guy by training. I was with the original group of folks over at Sonos and before that I was at Software.com which we took public. Then I started Elite Garden Wholesale which supplies fertilizer, nutrients, and growing equipment for cannabis. It’s basically a pick and shovel business for weed. I always knew that cannabis would move away from people’s garages and closets, towards a more serious agricultural focus. Through Elite Wholesale I was introduced to cannabis cultivation which is a frontier crop within agriculture. People have been growing it for 6,000 years but they haven’t been growing it efficiently and consistently at scale. My goal was to grow cannabis at scale so I started Glass House Farms. We have two farms with about 150,000 sq. ft. and we have about 350,000 sq. ft. coming. It is all greenhouse grown for quality and precision — we have a true love for the plant.
AHM: Who do you think is doing good branding in the cannabis space?
Farrar: Old Pal and Island are great. They are there for the new consumer. Roam Vape Escapes is also doing a wonderful job. Again, they are opting for that new consumer. For instance, Roam feels like it could be on the shelf at Sephora or Nordstrom. Really my reference point when you ask that question is who can I picture in my mind?
AHM: What do you think about naming in the cannabis space?
Farrar: Well, Glass House Farms is the best of course. We tweaked the phrase “Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones” to “It’s ok to get stoned in a glass house.” It also speaks to how we grow: quality cannabis grown in a true glass house, the traditional name for a greenhouse. We are using the natural full-spectrum sunlight but inside a highly climate-controlled environment. The idea is we are taking the best of both worlds. Also, the word “glass” has a connotation of being clean and “house” has a nice feeling of being welcomed and part of a family.
In terms of the industry, I think the super-stoned, weed-is-my-life feel is going to fade out. You don’t need to commit yourself to cannabis like you did when it was illegal. You can make it part of your life — not your identity. That will be an important transformation with naming. You can see it already.
AHM: What about strain naming and product naming. How do strain names come about?
Farrar: Part of me loves cannabis naming, part of me hates it. I think everyone should agree that you can’t use an existing strain name just because. Sometimes people make up strain names — sometimes because they don’t know what it is, sometimes because they created something new — but everyone should agree that you can’t use an existing name without cause. You can’t call something OG Kush just because. There’s already an OG Kush which has certain characteristics and associations. You will just confuse the market.
I think the interesting part of cannabis naming is when you come up with something clever. We have a strain that combines the seeds of Hell’s Fire and Purple Johnson, and we call it The Devil’s Johnson. It makes people laugh. When someone asks why it is called that you can point to the parent strains.
AHM: Do you think it’s more important to refer back to the parent strain than to come up with an interesting, evocative name?
Farrar: That’s a good question. There is an underlying issue with cannabis naming which is weed is far from being homozygous. There is so much genotype variation that if you had a hundred seeds of OG Kush, those hundred plants will have quite a variety of characteristics. The idea that you’re truly communicating concrete information is a little bit of a stretch.
Even indica and sativa are more characteristics than actual labels. There are real traits however: indica will typically have wider leaves with a bit more rounded serration than sativa. It goes back to the landraces. But a lot of the distinctions between the two names are what people have labeled how it makes you feel when high. But is there a scientific measurement you can point to for those things? It’s unlikely.
AHM: We have seen a lot of that in cannabis — naming for the feeling you get when stoned. How do you feel about that?
Farrar: If we don’t even think that indica and sativa are true strain descriptors, then it’s pretty hard to make the case that a name will transmit solid information or a certain feeling. If you call something Purple Haze there’s maybe a 20% chance there is some Haze parent strain in there. What you’re really saying is that this strain has a sativa-like feel that is a bit hazy — that’s the information you are actually getting across with the name.
AHM: Tell us about Jenny Lewis’ collaboration with Glass House Farms.
Farrar: Jenny is a cannabis enthusiast and fan. Her dad actually worked with Jack Herer so that is built into her music. Rabbit Hole is a song from her new album On the Line and we wanted to connect the feeling that she had as an artist with the feeling of the cannabis. We gave her a bunch of strains and flavors that we grow and let her choose the feeling she was trying to convey sonically. She had an emotion and she created a sound for that feeling — we wanted to provide a product that fit the feeling of the music.
AHM: Do you think the name is confusing to an audience?
Farrar: I think she is talking to a lot of canna-curious people. She is not talking to an audience of weed nerds. Artists like her can introduce a wide audience to the world of cannabis without knowing about strain names or terpenes. She can say, “This is what I like, this is my vibe. If you like my music, you might dig this weed too.” She is giving some direction to an audience who might not use cannabis. Snoop Dogg isn’t educating his fans about weed. They already know about it. But Jenny, on the other hand, has an audience who might be trying weed for the first time or who haven’t smoked in 10 years.
AHM: Since a large portion of this audience is new to cannabis, how do you think that will affect strain naming?
Farrar: What I hope happens is we find a way to blend heritage, respect for the plant, and cannabis history into something that is digestible for people who aren’t going to spend a lot of time putting it into context. I think it is cool to say this strain has certain characteristics but it is not cool to ignore the fact that it is named after a person or comes from a specific place— these plants have a whole story to tell. You should at least mention it, whether in the description or in the name.
