Maya Dukmasova on her December 26 cover story “Weedman’s not worried”:
Drug Dealing doesn’t exactly lend itself to close-up media coverage. But on the eve of Illinois’s recreational cannabis legalization I decided to try convincing a weed delivery guy to show me his world. I had little to offer him as an incentive—for obvious reasons the story had to preserve his and his clients’ anonymity and couldn’t serve as an advertisement for his business—beyond a philosophical argument. Luckily, Weedman is a philosophical guy. As an herb evangelist he took to the idea of a story that would serve to normalize and demystify weed procurement and consumption. He was taking a risk peeking out of the shadows but he seemed to think it was worth it to counter officials’ narratives about people like him. Weedman’s world is underground but in plain sight, populated by ordinary people, our neighbors and friends. The most intriguing thing about it turned out to be Weedman himself.