I was no more than 50 yards inside the Las Vegas Convention Center when I was handed something called a marga-weeda… a THC-infused margarita drink poured from what looked like a psychedelic Slurpee machine. The man serving it from behind the booth warned me that I should start with a small sip. However, being that my cannabis consumption has been much higher since my Dry January run officially ended, I scoffed at this suggestion and quickly downed what was close to 20 milligrams of THC in just a couple gulps.

Liquid THC was a new thing for me. I had never tried it before and I didn’t expect it to affect me in the slightest. Ten minutes later, however, I found myself in the adult section of the convention center floor fondling a life-size sex doll while being told by the booth owner to please, “Back away from Brianna.”

Welcome to your average Las Vegas Cannabis Exposition.

If you are wondering how I found myself in a Vegas cannabis expo at 49 years old on a Wednesday, it all began with a Monday morning email from Hiii Media explaining that they were sending me to Las Vegas for a writing assignment. The mission was to cover the new liquid energy THC drops that the band Sublime had just launched called “Drink Two Joints.” (A play on their lyric “smoke two joints.”) I was instructed to have fun, take notes, intertwine myself with the people and the products at the convention, and to keep it pretty sober until the end of the night when I was free to do whatever the hell I wanted.

It took me ten minutes before I turned into a blubbering mess wondering if this convention floor had any Narcan on hand. I had already failed my assignment.

I’ve been to more expos in the Las Vegas Convention Center than most people. I spent 15 years as an on-camera TV host covering everything from E3 to the Adult Video News Awards and every comic book and alcohol convention mixed in between. Today there are conventions for everything. From pipefitting to rodeos, magic shows and even the International Gay Bowling Convention. (Side note, I once wrote a country song inspired by bowling called I was a Seven, She Was a Ten… So She Split.)

During my time covering events at the LVCC, I have had porn stars vomit on me on red carpets, I’ve partied with A-list actors at gentlemen clubs that disguise their ATM receipts as being from a “Vacuum Shop” so as to not alert any snoops, and I’ve been forced to drink more than my share of bullshit craft beers with names like “Unicorn Swinging a Hatchet IPA.”

All of my life’s most embarrassing moments have happened in Vegas. After all, it’s the town everybody swears they will never return to once they leave… But there I was, smack dab (pun intended) in the middle of the biggest cannabis buyers and sellers exposition in the world… way too high to focus on my assignment.

My day had begun at 6:30 a.m. on a rainy Los Angeles morning when I was awoken by the virulent honking of Hiii magazine publisher Pam’s rented pick-up truck outside my door. I was actually excited, as a person often is when they anticipate GOING to Vegas. The drive alone is often half the story, as documented in plenty of books and films over the years. It is always full of possibility and wonder and every subject and story you can share is gleefully discussed along I-15. I was also fairly hungover, a fact I did not tell Pam or Rob, the editor who was riding on top of a stack of Hiii magazines in the backseat. I spent the previous night drinking $3.50 Coors Lights at the tropical-themed Islands Restaurant in Glendale—which is possibly the saddest bar in southern California. Watching grown men suck down unlimited baskets of fries in a surf-themed ramshackle setting can make any man rethink his life choices. And even though the Beachside Sliders seemed like a good idea the night before, they were not currently sitting well—especially facing a four-hour drive to Sin City.

After a few hits of some leftover Poet pre-roll, my co-conspirators and I began swapping fun stories about our past Vegas experiences, discussing the mysterious earthquakes that had been rattling around Area 51 and entertaining the idea that if we had a good enough day, we would finish the night at Frankie’s Tiki Bar, a funky spot owned by actor Nicolas Cage… But first, we needed to throw a tarp over the magazines in the truck bed to protect them from the rain. A Google search revealed a Walmart/McDonald’s hybrid store (enter through the McDonald’s) somewhere just outside of the Duarte corridor.

Being stoned in a Walmart is never a good idea. Especially when you start thinking that it might be a smart move to purchase things like a bicycle pump because you “really wanna start riding again.” Luckily, Pam forced me to put away the ridiculous items I had been gathering. So I settled on some knock-off brand beef jerky called “Great Value.”

“I can’t believe you’re eating that,” she said as I started munching on a chewy strand just outside of the store.

“Hey man,” I said. “Jack Links was, like—three dollars more.”

These are the decisions you make when you are higher than 1980s basketball shorts in a Walmart just outside of Monrovia.

After arriving at the Las Vegas Convention Center we took off the tarp and started unloading the 1,500 or so magazines we had brought to give to the industry. A little physical exercise never hurt anybody, so I was more than happy to stash mags on every park bench in the smoking section.

The rule inside the convention was that there was NO SMOKING whatsoever. SO, we banked on the attendees taking “toke breaks” and unloaded every single issue around the smoking sections strategically placed outside.

After ten minutes of talking to a bunch of dudes hustling vape tips, papers, and rolling trays while offering us unlimited hoodies that stole the GALLERY DEPT. brand font with their weed brand on it, I realized that I had ten minutes to get to the Sublime booth for a quick conversation with the folks behind the iconic band’s liquid THC drop. If I missed my window, I’d have to wait until 3:00.

Some advice here for fans of the late lead singer of Sublime, Bradley Nowell, just in case you ever meet folks in the Sublime camp: Do NOT go up to them with bloodshot eyes singing Mucho gusto, me llamo Bradley… I’m hornier than Ron Jeremy…!

As cool as these dudes were, they could tell that I was a man on a mission and that—even though I may have seen Sublime at a frat party in college when I was 18—I did not have free permission to quote their famous lyrics to their brand ambassadors. Especially when Ron Jeremy is mentioned. After asking way too many people if I could cop some of their sick merch because I was a Hiii magazine writer, I was advised to go “drink some water and come back when I was more coherent.”

I nodded in agreement and realized that other than that Walmart Great Value Beef Jerky, I had still not consumed anything that morning. After googling available food in the area, I found a large Jewish Deli down the street called “Bagelmania”—where I hoped a $17.95 ‘everything bagel with lox, onion and chive cheese’ would help bring my head back to clarity.

After eating an entire pickle, two bags of chips and most of my bagel (I ended up passing on the lox since, well, we were in the desert), I felt myself coming back to life. I was ready to head back inside and face this convention with a clear mind. This time, I avoided the marga-weedas and made my way past the thousands of items being pushed in this insane billion-dollar weed community. Having a press badge makes you a bonafide target for hustlers.

I was offered vapes, papers, trays, pipes and glass, cones, celebrity endorsed one-hitters, underwear, pens, sunglasses, clothing, mushroom chocolates, and even a fucking KITE. Which, of course, I had nowhere to fly. The guy handed it to me and said something esoteric like “Have you ever been higher than a…?”

I told him to fuck off. As the dealers and brand guys sent hot young “Booth Babes” to try and seduce me for a 15-word writeup in the next Hiii magazine article, I began to realize that I was basically in the middle of the Comic Con of legal drugs. “Booth Babes” at San Diego Comic Con were once associated with attractive models hired to dress as female Power Rangers or sexy “Slave Princess Leia’s” in leather diapers… Back in my days on the TV program Attack of the Show, these gals were the nerd fantasies… the fantasy gal that could quote Star Wars as quickly as she could beat you in World of Warcraft. These girls were the attainable ones, they hoped. The ones a basement-dwelling Comic Con geek had been dreaming of, praying that she had her own opinion on if Greedo or Han shot first.

In the cannabis world, these girls were a little different. Rather than quoting Marvel films, they were trying to convince you that their client’s booth had the best strains in town while showing you their latest neck tattoos and side-hustling their OnlyFans. Once these ladies draw you into their booth vortex, you’re a mark… and you’re handed everything you’ve never needed and if you’re lucky, you cop a few pre-rolls.

At that one particular booth, I ended up with a keychain, some THC-infused chewing gum and a small jar of flower called ‘Dank Sinatra.’

I needed to walk around. With two whole floors to explore, I had a lot of ground to cover and a lot of stuff to check out. As I strolled the convention, I noticed that The Grateful Dead and Mike Tyson are far and away leading the charge of most licensed Intellectual Property in the weed game. You can’t go twenty feet without seeing a Dead-logo, a Dead t-shirt or a Mike Tyson edible. My favorite was the “Mike Bites Ear Gummie” (Yes, he has an edible that resembles Evander Holyfield’s ear after Tyson bit it off in their famous 1997 matchup.)

I even found something called MIKE-A-DELICS—which was some sort of Tyson 2.0 legal hallucinogen product. After wasting about $100 and an entire Friday night watching that terrible Jake Paul-Mike Tyson boxing match back in November of 2024, I had to ask one of the Tyson brand guys a question:

“Where’s the Mike Tyson Pull Your Punches indica?” “Get the fuck out of here, bro,” he said.

I did.

Cheech and Chong licensed products are always hanging around these expos as well—as are the Cypress Hill products and any other rapper or musician with a weed pedigree and a customized strain. (Think Juicy J, Wiz Khalifa and, of course, Willie Nelson.)

Basically if you have ever recorded a song or made a movie about weed you can exist in the cannabis space and probably make a decent amount of money doing so. I’m still waiting for the Musical Youth “Pass the Dutchie” sativa to drop in Summer 2025... If that reference doesn’t land with you, maybe I’m too old to be writing for a weed magazine.

I also noticed a dramatic change in the modern day “stoner” look. In general, that stereotype of the hippie Haight-Ashbury Grateful Dead parking lot “wook” has all but disappeared. Modern cannabis is all about hip-hop culture. Sneakers and hoodies have taken center stage. Grown men in sweatpants with face tattoos far outweigh the tie-dyed 60s ideology of what a “stoner” used to look like. I guess change is expected, especially with semi-legalization and the industry growing as much as it has… but this was night and day from the first Cannabis Cup I went to in 2007. I remember meeting a 60-year-old guy wearing one of those Baja ponchos and asking him where he got it.

“Oh, you mean my drug rug?” He said.

There were definitely no ‘drug rugs’ at this convention. Then again, maybe the old guys were all simply retired and hanging out over at the Sphere, dropping $900 dollars on Eagles tickets.

I kept wandering. And laughing. And meeting happy people. Every other booth flashed 10 to 15 jars of flower samples that slightly resembled the bulk bin at the Lazy Acres grocery store down the street from my house. I was overwhelmed and my swag bag was ripe with every single pre-roll, vape, and edible you could imagine. After three hours, I was actually kind of… bored.

Before I went back to the adult section to re-claim my new girlfriend Brianna, I stumbled across IGNIS Vapes, a Chinese company that had what will certainly be the future of vaping worldwide… I was shown an Apple Watch with a built in vape. It could tell you how many steps you had taken that day, what time your lunch was with your business partner, and, oh yeah… how many hits you had left in the chamber before you had to replace the cartridge. The IGNIS booth became my new obsession. THIS was a game changer. I have seen some baby monitor-looking vapes everywhere recently, but this was the most elaborate and exciting product on the floor. I even posted a video of me smoking it on my Instagram, hoping for a massive response and hundreds of new followers. Instead I got one message… from my 14-year-old daughter.

DAD, you know your kids follow your account, right?

In her defense, it was 1:30 p.m. on a Wednesday.

Although there were strict rules at the convention forbidding consumption of THC on the floor, who knew if the booths were following them. It didn’t take me long to get my mouth around a pre-roll from the American Weed Company—a SoCal brand run by a very handsome looking couple who looked more like surf shop owners than dispensary kings. Their kindness and hospitality had me thinking that I was—well… ready to finally face the Sublime guys.

But guess what happens on cannabis convention floors? You get distracted. By everything. THC-infused sparkling water. THC-infused red wine. There was even something in the adult section called “UPASS Fetish Urine” that was a synthetic pee-alternative that was being marketed for folks who enjoy the sensation of urinating on a sexual partner… but don’t want to use their actual urine.

WHAT?!

Days were blending into nights, bagels were blending into edible ears and I was fried. I finally spoke to the Sublime guys, took two drops of their sativa product and even scored the ever-elusive hoodie that everybody on the convention floor seemed to covet.

At that point, I was ready to drink a beer or two. Luckily the cannabis brand STIIIZY sponsored a convention floor beer tent and a $9.50 Modelo never tasted so good at four in the afternoon. The beer tent made way more sense after nearly five hours of cannabis consumption. I met unique individuals like Cannabis Chris aka Chris Litty in the City—the host of a weed podcast called Pot Ones. Hailing from San Francisco, Chris revealed to me that he was actually having trouble “dealing with real life at the moment” because he was suffering from a “VR Hangover.” (Yes, a symptom of overdosing on too much virtual reality usage.)

“Can I please use that in my article?” I asked him.

It was around that time that I realized the no cannabis allowed on the floor law was slowly dissipating. The air was laced with vape smoke from the sexy booth girls who had had enough sobriety and needed to get high to celebrate their day.

I began dictating ideas into my phone as I nursed my Modelo. Multiple people began walking by me—and I guess I looked somewhat insane. I heard one of them comment:

“I may be high but I’m not talking-to-myself-at-a-table-during-a-weed-convention high.”

Fuck that. Sometimes, you have to embrace the scenery.

“Zach, we’re leaving,” I heard a voice say as I was pounding words into my iPhone with ideas for this article. It was Pam, as comforting as ever. She had convinced me to not buy that dumb bicycle pump earlier… and now she was telling me that our convention day was over. I was thrilled.

We passed the outdoor smoking section, where we noticed that maybe half of the magazines had been claimed already, and walked back to our Las Vegas Marriott a few blocks away. I was hungry. All we could find was an Italian place next to the hotel called Piero’s. When I asked a local about it he said that it was legit mainly because “They had shot scenes of the film Casino inside.”

“Oh, so is it a movie set? Or a legitimate restaurant?” I responded.

It’s the best secret in Vegas… just don’t overfill on the bread before you eat,” he advised.

After two puffs of a pre-roll in the hotel courtyard, Pam, Rob, and I were headed towards Piero’s.

And we ate bread. A lot of bread. Like, way too much fucking bread.

When my linguine with clams hit the table at this dark and brilliant Vegas hideaway, I wasn’t even hungry anymore… just happy.

I sipped a decent house chianti and felt like I had done Vegas the right way for once. We had stayed away from the tables and the glitz and the clubs and the strip. We had kept it convention-friendly. Bagelmania, Piero’s, and weed.

But then Rob reminded me, we had one more stop to make: Nicolas Cage’s tiki bar.

Being that my last tiki-themed bar was, well, at the Islands Restaurant in Glendale, I was less than enthusiastic. But I knew that the adventure would be worth it… for something.

Frankie’s Tiki Room on Charleston Boulevard sleeps in the shadows of a gas station and a rundown Wendy’s fast food restaurant. According to their website, the interior was built by a guy named Bamboo Ben … who is apparently known as the world‘s “foremost tiki bar designer.” The fact that a guy named Bamboo Ben even exists is enough to make any man happy and I decided to commit myself to drinking as many rum drinks with fruit and umbrellas as possible in the next 45 minutes. I sauntered up to the bar in the low slung room surrounded by what looked like a set from the original Survivor TV series and caught the bartender’s eye.

“I need the most popular tiki drink of all the tiki drinks,” I said to the female bartender who looked as if she had dealt with guys like me for at least 15 years.

“So typical,” she responded.

A guy next to me recommended a drink called the Tangerine Speedo.

“Why do they call it that?” I asked him.

“Because after you drink it you wish you were wearing a tangerine Speedo.”

I told him I’d pass. But I did come up with a fun game: Tiki Drink? Or Cannabis Strain? Here… Let’s play a round:

Nakalele Knockout. TIKI DRINK

Tonga Reefer. TIKI DRINK

Tiki Breeze. CANNABIS STRAIN.

Fuck it. I got a beer. Which inspired another eye-roll from my bartender. I had to redeem myself in her eyes… somehow.

“So… how long has Nicolas Cage owned this joint?” I presented.

“Oh God, don’t believe everything you hear,” she said.

I did some more iPhone research. Someone on Reddit mentioned that Cage did not actually own the bar, but he definitely owned one of the rare tiki statues in the room and often came in for late night shots. (The owner was actually a Las Vegas writer/bar owner named P. Moss.)

What I did find out to be true was that the original carvings were done by the revered “Godfather of all Tiki Carvers…” A guy who went by the name Leroy Schmaltz.

“Wait—LEROY SCHMALTZ? That’s his real name?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry–a guy named Leroy Schmaltz is either a breakdancing rabbi or the owner of Bagelmania.”

“Hey, dude,” a patron sitting at the video bar slots exclaimed. “Do your homework and look him up.” I made a note to do just that.

After finally imbibing on a tiki drink called a Wild Watusi, which is a 160 proof rum and lime cascade of disaster waiting to happen, I found myself heading to the ATM to pull $100 out for the video slots on the bar. I asked the bartender again what the best game to play was.

“Are you looking for the slowest way to lose your money?”

I laughed and threw $40 in the slot machine and tried my luck.

After going down in six quick hands of blackjack, I was done. I nodded to Pam and Rob who were drinking beers and sat back to light a Lowell Farms pre-roll that had been given to me at the convention.

I was quickly snuffed out.

“You can’t smoke that shit in here,” the bartender said. “We only allow cigarettes.”

After exhaling my one puff and extinguishing the joint, I laughed… Especially at the irony of how we had found the one bar in Vegas that still held on to the glory years. Back when Sinatra would choke down two packs a day while draining Jack and Cokes and squiring the world’s most beautiful showgirls. But to their credit, weed was only to be smoked outside… with that gorgeous view of the Wendy’s.

I said fuck it, went to the gas station and bought a $17.00 pack of American Spirit Cigarettes. My God it felt so good to smoke a cigarette indoors again. It felt like 1996.

We left Frankie’s at 1:45 in the morning. This was probably the earliest I had gone to bed in Las Vegas in many years and I was grateful to stumble back to the Marriott, where in true upstart weed magazine fashion, we would all be sharing a room.

The next morning, the Wild Watusi hangover was enough for me to demand another trip to Bagelmania. This time I stuck to just some scrambled eggs and five or six cups of coffee. That didn’t do much of a trick, so on the drive home I casually mentioned the small town of Goodsprings, Nevada, the home of a place called the Pioneer Saloon… A bar that still exists in this long lost desert mining town of Goodsprings where Clark Gable famously spent three nights smoking and drinking while awaiting the news of his lady Carole Lombard’s fate after she had crashed in an airplane in the nearby mountains.

A couple of drinks, a hit of some Pink Jesus, and some wild stories later and I almost convinced Pam and Rob to turn back around and hit Las Vegas for one more night. But alas, we are a cannabis culture magazine. Our job in Vegas was done.

Instead, we sped past the abandoned Terrible’s Casino and made our way towards Los Angeles where we all decided that we were stupid for not stopping for more coffee and snacks along the way. Luckily, I felt around in my pocket and came across a secret treat for all of us to enjoy during that long, slow drag back to LA.

“Does anyone want some of this Walmart Great Value Beef Jerky?” I asked.

As we all happily passed around the bag, I realized that nobody was judging me for buying it this time.

“This is delicious,” Pam said. “But next time, spring the extra three bucks for Jack Links.”

I laughed as we rolled down into the City of Angels, promising ourselves that we’d never return to Las Vegas again.

Zach Selwyn is an actor, writer, and musician. Selwyn has written for TV and published a collection of short stories, Talent Will Get You Nowhere. His novel, Austin Translation, is a comedic murder mystery and the first of the Stoner Chronicles Trilogy. His band Zachariah & the Lobos Riders has released six albums.