The Year’s Best Vices Stories

Because the Covid-19 pandemic took maintain, folks looked to their vices to assist deal with the stress. Regardless of lockdowns, states throughout the US deemed cannabis dispensaries “essential businesses,” a condom shortage sparked worry, and online alcohol sales surged. 

On the similar time, sure components of the playing business acquired crushed by quarantines and the cancellation of all main sporting occasions. The town of Las Vegas nose-dived into a recession, and the biggest casinos on the Strip noticed enterprise halt for greater than two months. 

Politics partly crammed the sports activities playing void. The U.S. presidential election impressed an unprecedented amount of action whereas voters handed hashish legalization measures in five additional states on Election Day. 

Ten months into a worldwide pandemic, one factor is for certain: It’s been a banner 12 months for companies making remedies for what ails you. Right here’s a choice of a number of the greatest and most-read vices tales of 2020.

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Excessive Nervousness

You’re Buying Weed Wrong (And So Is Everyone Else)

By Chris Roberts

Relating to hashish, most individuals have been buying all of it mistaken. The costliest flower has the very best focus of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the best-known psychoactive compound within the marijuana plant. However a analysis examine conducted by the University of Colorado and published in JAMA Psychiatry discovered that hashish with greater THC content material doesn’t get customers greater than hashish with decrease ranges of THC. And apparently many individuals really feel misplaced on the dispensary: Chris Roberts’ story was the most-read Vices article of 2020.

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Not Solely The Lonely

Sex Doll Sales Surge In Quarantine, But It’s Not Just About Loneliness

By Franki Cookney

With a lot isolation from quarantines, gross sales of intercourse dolls blew up—and never simply from singles. Intercourse Doll Genie, a U.S.-based firm that makes hyper-realistic companion dolls, noticed a 33% improve in orders positioned by {couples} through the peak of the pandemic. “The standard stereotype of loners selecting intercourse dolls as a final resort is completely inaccurate,” cofounder Janet Stevenson instructed Franki Cookney. “What we’re seeing now could be doll use goes mainstream, with women and men each captivated with bringing a doll into their bed room.”

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His Chemical Romance

New York Psychotherapist Charley Wininger Says MDMA Is The ‘Glue’ Of His Marriage

By Amanda Siebert

Each relationship may use a double dose of happiness and empathy. Amanda Siebert caught up with psychotherapist and writer Charley Wininger, who not too long ago revealed Listening to Ecstasy: The Transformative Energy of MDMA. Wininger credit MDMA—which is at the moment unlawful however is being studied in medical trials as a remedy for PTSD—because the little helper in his marriage. “We found MDMA may function a form of emotional superglue for relationships,” he says.

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The New NORML

Rick Steves Talks Campaigning For Cannabis, Getting High In The Dark And The Future Of Travel

By Katie Shapiro

The well-known journey guidebook writer Rick Steves has been working for years to finish the U.S. prohibition of marijuana. Katie Shapiro talked with Steves about his work with the Nationwide Group for the Reform of Marijuana Legal guidelines (NORML) and the way hashish will help you “journey” from the consolation of your own home throughout lockdown.

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Drugs Man 

More Potent Than CBD Or THC: Dr. Raphael Mechoulam Explains His Latest Discovery

By Javier Hesse

Raphael Mechoulam, the “father of hashish analysis,” mentioned his newest discovery with Javier Hesse: a cannabinoid molecule stronger than THC known as cannabidiolic acid methyl ester. Mechoulam believes his discovery could possibly be become a pharmaceutical drug.

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Heavy Respiration

Meet The Artist Selling $950 Covid-19 Masks Made From Her Panties

By Susannah Breslin

In Could, Susannah Breslin interviewed Brooklyn-based artist Hannah Bates, who was promoting worn panties that she had redesigned as face masks. Her $950 “artwork” was greater than a stunt—it additionally had a severe message.

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Goals Weaver

TikTok Star Nathan Apodaca Loves Cannabis, Wants To White Label A Strain

By Jackie Bryant

In September, a potato manufacturing unit employee’s automotive broke down, and he took his skateboard to work. With a bottle of Ocean Spray cranberry juice in a single hand and his telephone within the different, Nathan Apodaca uploaded a video of himself lip syncing to Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 ballad “Goals” on TikTok, and it went viral. Jackie Bryant caught up with Apodaca and talked about his plans to promote authorized marijuana.

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Rolling With Vegas Dave

Meet Vegas Dave, A Sports Gambling Hustler Who Just Sold The Most Expensive Baseball Card In History For $3.9 Million

By Will Yakowicz

Dave Oancea, identified by followers and haters alike as “Vegas Dave,” made sports activities memorabilia historical past in August when he offered a one-of-a-kind signed Mike Trout rookie card for $3.9 million throughout an internet public sale. But there’s way more to Oancea’s story. Along with being a profitable card collector, he’s additionally a relentless huckster who sells nugatory sports activities betting recommendation to unsuspecting bettors. In different phrases, suckers.

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