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In this educational episode of the Legacies Podcast, hosts Tom Ritchie and Wesley Bowles discuss the OCS Buzzkill Campaign, reviewing its fake popup store activation on Queen Street designed to warn consumers of illicit packaging and contaminants. They critique multi-store e-commerce user interfaces, contrasting the limitations of duchy menus with the streamlined layout of Breadstack. The hosts welcome Michael Barenboym, a professional medical device engineer with over 100 patents and the founder of Weedgets. Michael shares his transition into cannabis hardware design to engineer safer devices for his family. He analyzes smoke cooling physics, detailing how the maze-like chambers of his pipes cool smoke down to 100-110°F, blocks ash or resin from entering the throat, and compares the lung impacts of vaporizers and smoking. Additionally, Eugenio Garcia of Cannabis Now discusses his experience building the USA’s leading cannabis publication.
Tom Ritchie Says: Hey, what’s going on, everyone? Check out what’s coming up this week on Legacies.
Tom Ritchie Says: Check this device out—it fits right in your jacket pocket. If I’m splurging on hardware, give me the Rolls-Royce!
Eugenio Garcia Says: I don’t know what the future of recreational cannabis is besides smoking joints, but industrial hemp is going to fundamentally change the world—it is one of the most powerful plants on the planet.
Tom Ritchie Says: Welcome to Legacies, everyone! I’m your host, Tom Ritchie, joined by Wesley Bowles. Wes, how are you doing this morning?
Wesley Bowles Says: Good morning! Doing great.
Tom Ritchie Says: Let’s remind everyone that Legacies is powered by Breadstack. Retailers, it is definitely time to upgrade your e-commerce stack.
Tom Ritchie Says: Last week we put out a call for 1:1 THC:CBD recommendations. I browsed numerous dispensary menus powered by Dutchie, and the filtering experience across multiple retail locations is frustrating. You have to click into four or five separate pages just to see if a SKU is in stock.
Wesley Bowles Says: On a Breadstack-powered site, you can view a single product listing and check real-time inventory across every store location instantly. It is night and day for conversion rates and customer convenience.
Tom Ritchie Says: What is happening with Hurricane Milton bearing down on Florida? Thoughts and prayers to everyone in its path.
Wesley Bowles Says: Between massive hurricanes in the south and hundreds of thousands of acres burning from wildfires in Wyoming, extreme weather has been relentless across North America.
Tom Ritchie Says: Speaking of positive industry momentum, we attended the CANEXEC Summit in Toronto this week. Huge shoutout to Darwin Fletcher for hosting an exceptional executive event.
Tom Ritchie Says: Wes, what was your favorite panel?
Wesley Bowles Says: The future of medical cannabis panel with Dr. Jacqueline Shan, the founder of Cold-FX and PBG BioPharma. With over 20 years of clinical trial experience, she emphasized the urgent need for long-term collaboration between government, academic institutions, and licensed producers to fund clinical trials.
Tom Ritchie Says: Most speculative green-rush capital has left the space. Anyone funding clinical efficacy trials today must play the long game. Standardizing clinical studies for extracts and ingestible oils is feasible, but measuring dried whole-flower efficacy with hundreds of cannabinoids, terpenes, and flavonoids remains a massive undertaking.
Tom Ritchie Says: We received a phenomenal retail care package this week from Aspire Infusions, and their brand presentation is next-level.
Tom Ritchie Says: Inside the box they included metal coasters, detailed wholesale sell-sheets with cost-per-milligram breakdowns for budtenders, a dosage shot glass for their Spark Moonshot beverage enhancers, and their Halo Sour Cherry fast-acting orbs powered by RapidSense nano-emulsion technology. That level of marketing execution sets a benchmark for the industry.
Tom Ritchie Says: The Ontario Cannabis Store (OCS) has officially launched its new public awareness initiative: the Buzzkill campaign.
Tom Ritchie Says: It includes an educational pop-up activation opening October 17th on Queen Street in Toronto, styled like an illicit dispensary to educate consumers on unregulated pesticides, heavy metals, and the official AGCO Authorized Retailer Seal.
Wesley Bowles Says: Retailers should also verify that their stores are visible on the official OCS Store Locator map. It is an opt-in service, so ensure your dispensary logs into the portal and activates its listing so local shoppers find your legal storefront.
Tom Ritchie Says: Joining us today is Michael Barenboym, professional inventor and founder of Weedgets!
Michael Barenboym Says: Thank you for having me, guys! I’m glad to be here.
Tom Ritchie Says: You hold over 100 patents in the medical device sector. How did an engineer designing life-saving medical devices enter the cannabis hardware market?
Michael Barenboym Says: I earned two master’s degrees in mechanical engineering—one in Moscow and one at Northeastern University in Boston. My entire career has been dedicated to designing cardiovascular artificial heart systems, orthopedic implants, and pulmonary surgical tools for COPD.
Michael Barenboym Says: When my kids grew older and began experimenting with smoking, I knew prohibition wouldn’t work. As a daily cannabis consumer myself, I asked: how can I engineer hardware that makes combustion cleaner, smoother, and significantly safer?
Michael Barenboym Says: Our first invention was a universal filtered tip adapter for joints and pre-rolls. Traditional combustion produces hot toxic resin and unburned particles—commonly called ‘Scooby Snacks’—that hit the back of the throat and coat the tonsils.
Michael Barenboym Says: We launched that small filtered tip on Amazon and Etsy, and it took off organically—selling nearly 500,000 units before Amazon restricted smoking accessories. That proved consumers were desperate for effective smoke filtration.
Tom Ritchie Says: Weedgets earned an official endorsement from the American Cannabis Nurses Association (ACNA). How did you convince a medical organization to endorse combustion hardware?
Michael Barenboym Says: Most medical associations avoid combustion entirely. But the reality is that millions of medical patients rely on inhalation for rapid onset of relief. When lighting a pipe, the burning cherry reaches 1,400°F, delivering 250°F to 300°F hot smoke directly to the throat and lungs, causing airway contraction and intense coughing.
Michael Barenboym Says: It took the nurses’ association four months of testing our hardware. When they saw that our multi-stage filtration cooled the smoke down to 100°F–110°F while blocking tar and particulate matter, they granted Weedgets their official endorsement.
Michael Barenboym Says: The MAZE pipe is only five inches long externally, but inside it features a patented internal maze path that forces smoke to travel 14 inches. As the smoke travels through the alternating chambers, heavy resin and unburnt oils lose velocity, condensing onto the internal walls rather than entering your lungs.
Michael Barenboym Says: It disassembles completely in seconds—just drop the pieces in a ziplock bag with isopropyl alcohol and rinse with warm water.
Michael Barenboym Says: Many people assume vaporizers are completely harmless, but with handheld vapes, the heating chamber is situated inches from your mouth. The expanding vapor reaches temperatures that still irritate lung tissue. By cooling combusted smoke down to ambient body temperatures through filtration, patients enjoy full-spectrum terpene flavor without thermal irritation.
Tom Ritchie Says: How does your charcoal filter technology differ from standard carbon tips?
Michael Barenboym Says: Traditional charcoal filters use crushed loose carbon flakes that rub together, creating fine carbon dust that users inhale. Weedgets filters use highly porous nano-crystal spherical beads that produce zero dust while capturing tar and impurities without stripping THC or terpenes.
Michael Barenboym Says: We are launching the X5 One-Hitter: a smell-proof dugout holding five interchangeable pre-loaded cartridges separated by a charcoal filter. It includes a contactless loading scoop designed for consumers with dexterity challenges or contact allergies to raw trichomes.
Tom Ritchie Says: Where can Canadian consumers purchase Weedgets hardware?
Michael Barenboym Says: We are establishing a dedicated fulfillment office in Toronto! Previously, shipments from Miami incurred high cross-border brokerage fees. Canadian orders will now ship directly from Toronto via our website.
Tom Ritchie Says: Welcome back! We are now joined by Eugenio Garcia, Founder and CEO of Cannabis Now and Hemp Magazine, joining us live from the Benzinga Cannabis Capital Conference in Chicago!
Eugenio Garcia Says: Great to be here with you guys!
Tom Ritchie Says: Take us back to the founding of Cannabis Now in 2010.
Eugenio Garcia Says: In 2004, Montana passed one of the earliest medical cannabis initiatives while I was a political science student at Montana State University. My roommate and brother-in-law became licensed caregivers. While visiting Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco, I found a discarded copy of West Coast Leaf and realized there was a massive void for a professional, glossy publication covering cannabis policy, science, and culture.
Eugenio Garcia Says: In 2011, we featured Harborside founder Steve DeAngelo on the cover alongside photography from Ed Rosenthal. We sent copies to Barnes & Noble—they ordered 4,000 copies and achieved an unprecedented 85% sell-through rate!
Eugenio Garcia Says: That propelled Cannabis Now to become the first cannabis publication distributed in 89 major airport Hudson News terminals nationwide and the first approved cannabis app on the Apple iTunes Store.
Eugenio Garcia Says: Between 2011 and 2013, our digital team curated mainstream, visually stunning cannabis content on Facebook. During that early algorithmic window, single posts reached 15 million people, allowing our social footprint to scale past 4 million followers.
Tom Ritchie Says: How do you balance content between hardcore legacy connoisseurs and mainstream consumers?
Eugenio Garcia Says: Our editorial North Star is accessibility. About 10% of cannabis consumers are dedicated connoisseurs, while 90% are casual or canna-curious. If you produce overly insular stoner content, you alienate the 90%. But if you publish sophisticated, high-production journalism on science and culture, the 90% embrace it and the connoisseurs still respect the craftsmanship.
Tom Ritchie Says: What is the single biggest advantage of US federal legalization?
Eugenio Garcia Says: When the federal government legalizes cannabis, it sets global economic precedent. It unlocks interstate commerce, eliminates duplicate manufacturing facilities in every single state, and allows cross-border trade between Canada and the United States.
Tom Ritchie Says: Looking at the 2024 US Presidential election between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, who is better positioned to advance federal reform?
Eugenio Garcia Says: The Biden-Harris administration initiated federal rescheduling to Schedule III and championed pardons for non-violent federal cannabis possession. While Donald Trump is pro-business, he generally defers drug policy to individual state legislatures. A unified Democratic administration is more likely to pursue federal descheduling as a landmark policy achievement.
Tom Ritchie Says: What lessons should US regulators heed from Canada’s Cannabis Act?
Eugenio Garcia Says: Canada succeeded in establishing public capital markets and strict quality testing, but the severe restrictions on marketing and brand communication have crippled brand equity. Brands like Liquid Death prove that storytelling creates consumer emotional connection. Without marketing, cannabis becomes an undifferentiated agricultural commodity.
Eugenio Garcia Says: In 2019, we opened a Cannabis Now flagship retail and wellness concept in Beverly Hills—blending art galleries, coffee, premium hardware, and curated flower without security guards or sterile dispensary counters. Navigating COVID restrictions and retail unrest proved challenging, but it established the blueprint for modern consumption lounges.
Tom Ritchie Says: In 2017 you launched Hemp Magazine following the 2018 US Farm Bill. Where does industrial hemp stand today?
Eugenio Garcia Says: Recreational cannabis is exciting, but industrial hemp is a multi-trillion dollar agricultural revolution. From sustainable textiles and paper to bioplastics and hempcrete building materials, hemp will transform global manufacturing once capital investment catches up to processing infrastructure.
Tom Ritchie Says: Thank you to Michael Barenboym of Weedgets and Eugenio Garcia of Cannabis Now for two incredible perspectives on hardware innovation and global cannabis media.
Wesley Bowles Says: A reminder to all retailers to explore Breadstack to elevate your e-commerce operations. We’ll see everyone next week on Legacies!
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Founder & Inventor
Michael Barenboym is a medical device engineer, inventor with over 100 patents, and the founder of Weedgets Innovative Smoking Devices.
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Licensed Hardware Manufacturer
Weedgets is an innovative American cannabis consumption hardware brand founded by medical device engineer Michael Barenboym. The company specializes in...
Learn More About Partner ↗The patented MAZE Pipe uses advanced cooling and filtration pathways to lower smoke temperature from 1400°F at the bowl to roughly 100-110°F when entering the mouth. It also incorporates screens and filters to block ash and resin (often referred to as 'Scooby Snacks') from entering the throat.
Barenboym explains that liquid vaporizers compress fluid which expands as gas inside the lungs, applying pressure to and stressing out the tiny air sacs (alveoli). This stress can contribute to lung issues over time, making them less safe than commonly assumed.
The Ontario Cannabis Store (OCS) launched the Buzzkill Campaign to educate the general public on the risks of illicit cannabis products. The campaign includes a fake, 4-day popup dispensary activation in Toronto to highlight non-AGCO-authorized packaging, harmful contaminants, and lack of safety seals.
