The Prism is new hand-held pipe from BRNT Designs. Its design has subtle accents and features, with every aspect carefully crafted to optimize performance. This pipe walks the line of being a visual standout, while blending into the home.

Simon Grigenas, the CEO & Co-Founder of BRNT, said the initial inspiration for The Prism came doing research in light fixtures you would see in museums and art exhibitions.

“I was watching a documentary on interior design, and there was a ceiling light that caught my eye, it terms of shape, and how it housed the light bulb,” said Grigenas. “It was deconstructed, had a steel wire frame, and had geometric shapes made out of steel bars. We wanted to create a shape that is complimentary to the hexagon, but still has a sleek, geometric aesthetic. Something that doesn’t look like a pipe at first glance.”

After Grigenas had the initial inspiration, he reached out to co-Founder/Production Designer, Andrew Feltham for a hand with getting his design off the screen and into a tangible item. The duo went through multiple mockups before settling on the final product.

“There were a few iterations, mostly on the bottom.” said Feltham. “The bottom has an elongated hex, but played around with a pentagon and a couple more geometrical shapes before we finally decided on one.”

When asked about the final product, Feltham said it’s fairly similar to the initial sketch. “We really wanted to make a multi faceted pipe that you could stand on multiple surfaces.”

In mid-June 2019, in collaboration with Toronto-based photographer Tobias Wang, BRNT Designs began unveiling the finished product on various social media platforms. To the naked eye they may appear to be simple silhouettes of the pipe, but like everything BRNT does, there is a story behind the concept. The launch of the Prism happens to coincide with Pride Month across the globe, and inclusion is something at the forefront of the campaign.

Wang had been experimenting with silhouette photos with friends for a few months. Starting with simple photos of him and some friends having coffee. Next came silhouettes of hands. When he was approached with an opportunity to help launch the Prism, Wang knew exactly where he wanted to take it.

“The original idea was to use the pipe in a silhouette format. I thought it’d be great to spell out ‘LGBTQ’ in sign language, while balancing the pipe on the hands.” said Wang. The first image posted shows two Prisms side-by-side, in the shape of a heart. “It’s really about encouraging positivity and inclusivity.”

From the beginning, Grigenas thought it was a perfect match. He added the campaign is able to not only stand out, but really resonate with a broad demographic.

“At the end of the day, it might look very simple, and it might perform the same function, but we always ensure that there is a layer or a story behind how the design or the concept was thought of initially. All the way down to angles and how it feels in your hand. What we sought out to do with the accessory side of things was about destigmatization and breaking the mold behind what a traditional cannabis accessory was seen as.”

The Prism is available here.

It may come as a surprise to some of the readers of the blog, but we are fans of cannabis here. Shocking, we know. And while we will go out of our way to talk about the benefits of this magnificent plant, we should always be mindful about our consumption habits.

If you are a regular cannabis consumer (or are becoming one), eventually you or someone you know will “Green Out.” In the simplest of terms, Greening Out is when you have consumed too much cannabis too fast, and the effects go from wonderful to unpleasant.

“You look a little pale…”

What are the signs of Greening Out? If you suddenly feel nauseous, dizzy, overly anxious, and/or sweaty, you are probably Greening Out. These effects can hit you all at once, one at a time, and to varying intensities. Really, everyone’s Greening Out experience is unique to them.

All of these effects are internal ones, so how can you know when a friend is Greening Out? Ironically, not by seeing if they turn green (although, as noted, nausea is one of the effects of too much cannabis consumption). The earliest signifier usually is their complexion, though: people who are Greening Out tend to become really pale, and start sweating a lot.

So what should you do when you or a friend are Greening Out? Here are some quick tips:

Find a buddy. Have someone a bit more sober stay with you and watch you in case something goes off the rails.

Go to your safe space. This doesn’t have to be a particular spot, but just find a quiet place where you can sit down and ride the effects out. It also helps to keep a bucket nearby (for the pre-mentioned nausea).

Stay calm. As far as we know, nobody has ever died from cannabis overconsumption. So as awful as you feel, and as anxious as you’ll get, just remember that you will make it through and you will be fine.

Cannabis Overconsumption

Cannabis is a drug that causes psychoactive effects when it interacts with your body, which means that it’s possible to overconsume cannabis to the point where you get negative effects. In the simplest terms, this is what happened when you Green Out.

As we’ve mentioned before, cannabis is made up of dozens of chemical compounds called cannabinoids, which connect to cannabinoid sensors around your body. When you get high, you are actively triggering these sensors, when your body would naturally trigger them on its own.

It turns out that pressing those buttons in your brain once in a while is ok and feels good, but pressing that button too much is not good. Your body will start to “panic,” making you feel nauseous (your body’s attempt to get rid of whatever is causing it to act in an abnormal way), dizzy, and anxious.

But stay calm. As we’ve mentioned before, there have been no documented deaths from Greening Out. There have been deaths when people start panicking and put themselves in dangerous situations after overconsuming cannabis, but as long as you remember to stay calm and stay put, you will be fine.

How can I avoid Greening Out?

There’s that old saying: Everything in Moderation. It’s a good one to follow when consuming cannabis, especially as a novice smoker. Knowing your limit and staying within it is an important way to stay safe while getting high. And just like alcohol, the potency matters – don’t think that two puffs of a strain with 10% THC is the same as two puffs of a strain that’s 18% THC.

There are other factors, too. There hasn’t been a huge amount of research into cannabis overconsumption, but there are studies that suggest that consuming alcohol along with cannabis is a fast-track to Greening Out. Alcohol may allow THC to bond with the cannabinoid receptors much faster, which would result in a much more potent high, and a greater chance of Greening Out. So don’t mix your substances!

Further Reading

Here’s a Vice interview with Dr. Freddy Vista that deals with the medical effects and dangers of overdoing your cannabis experience which is both an enjoyable and informative read.

And here’s a great document from Drug and Alcohol Research and Training, Australiaregarding what to do if one of your friends is Greening Out.

If you’ve spent any amount of time on social media, you can probably draw up a list of all the things Millennials have supposedly “ruined”: chain restaurants, handshakes, serious relationships, and the real estate market, to name a few.

A new addition to the list, maybe? The global alcohol industry. And cannabis might be a contributing factor.

Fortune.com recently published an article titled Cannabis May Pose a ‘Long-Term Risk’ to the Alcohol Industry. The article notes that global alcohol sales fell 0.8% worldwide last year, and while that doesn’t sound like that much, it’s actually enough alcohol to fill 160 million bathtubs.

Meanwhile, North American investment into cannabis hit an all-time high in 2018.

A Drop in the Bathtub

We know it’s not totally fair to compare markets of different sizes with each other, especially if we’re trying to draw correlations, but humour us for a moment. According to a new study by BDS Analytics and the ISWR (a top “beverage  alcohol” analytics company), consumers-at-large – and Millennials specifically – are spending more money on cannabis and alcohol.

“Our research shows that up to 40% of adults 21 and over consume cannabis in states where it’s legal,” said Jessica Lukas, vice-president at BDS Analytics.

(Fortune)

Simply put, more and more people are experimenting with cannabis, especially as stigmas surrounding the drug start to dissipate and the medical effects of cannabis become more apparent.

Investors poured $10 billion into cannabis in North America in 2018, twice what was invested in the last three years combined … and the combined North American market is expected to reach more than $16 billion in 2019.

(The Associated Press)

And this is a change that isn’t going away. Instead, as the market across Canada and the United States continues to grow, more and more money should be expected to be pumped into the cannabis industry. While this doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s less money going into alcohol, eventually consumers will run out of money.

Changing Habits

The alcohol industry isn’t one of the things that Millennials should take the rap for killing. Instead, Millennials might actually offer the alcohol industry a glimmer of hope moving forward, due to their different consumption habits.

A growing number of consumers, especially Millennials, are showing a preferences to consume both booze and buds, versus older generations which tend to stick with just one.

(Fortune)

Older generations have tended to not mix purchasing cannabis with purchasing alcohol – choosing to almost exclusively consume one or the other – a trend that alcohol giants have taken advantage of. As different alcohol brands have popped up and grown, brands have concentrated on building incredible brand loyalty to promise consistent sales.

This building of brand loyalty isn’t unique to the alcohol industry, but most industries aren’t usually besieged by a quickly blossoming competing industry, either. However, the only real danger to overall alcohol sales comes from producers not anticipating and adapting to the changes in the market, especially if the trend of Millennials appreciating and consuming both holds true for later generations as well.

So what can we take away from all these numbers, trends, and studies? Well, we know that alcohol sales are shrinking. We also know that money is being poured into cannabis. The two might be related, and they might now. Really, we don’t know how the two will interact and impact each other in the next decade. But one thing is certain: both are here to stay.