By the grace of some benevolent god, I managed to pull off the impossible. I know where I lie in terms of things; I’m a small website. I know where I stand and what that entails. But never did I ever think that I’d be able to qualify for press tickets to THE event of New York for cannabis. But by some stroke of luck, or passion for the plant, I managed to get them for the third time in a row. I know, it’s insane. I don’t know who I appeased but I was THRILLED to go. I’d been to Revelry in both Spring of 2025 and Fall of 2025 and I was absolutely elated to be attending again this year. So let’s get this rolling because I got a lot to say. SO! Here we go. Another year, another “What I Learned”. Let’s go.

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I’m cheap, I’ll admit it. Well, it’s a little more complicated than that. I’m on a fixed income so a lot of my purchases are dictated by the necessity to keep things on the less expensive end of the spectrum to make my money go further. It sucks having to cheap out on what is essentially, for me, a medicine but here we are. So when I learned that The Kolektor came to Grounded, a brand that I’d been following for a LONG time on Instagram, I was torn. I wanted to try it. Like…really bad. But $62 total for an eighth was well out of my normal budget. But I wanted to try it SO bad that I decided to do without a few things this month just so I could pick it up. Was it worth it, though?

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Note: Sample provided by a friend.

I’ve been exploring the cannabis industry in NY for close to a year now (I think I registered the website on 5/23) and, in that time, I’ve made a few friends. It’s cool making friends in the cannabis space because, truth be told, they have opinions and are willing to share them with you. And a lot of those opinions are about cannabis. Which they are weirdly gung-ho about sharing as well. So when I was bemoaning not being able to find the Puna Budazz from Ravens View Genetics, a friend of mine nearly jumped at the chance to get me a sample. She strongly believed in the RVG ethos and wanted me to try it, come hell or high water. After one slightly sketchy meet-up in a parking lot, I had samples of the Puna Budazz in hand. I let them mellow a tiny bit in my humidor (yes, I have a cannabis humidor) because I had a few prior reviews I had committed to doing. I decided I’d pull them out for 4/20 and enjoy them then. Well, the day arrived and I pulled ’em so here are my thoughts!

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Alright, I’ll confess: I’m cheap. Well, not necessarily CHEAP, per se, just on a very constrained budget. SSI barely pays the bills and if I need to pay out of pocket for medicine (which I consider cannabis to be), then I gotta be judicious about my purchases. But one thing that’s never steered me wrong is the classic .7 gram bag. The dime bag, the dub, the $10 special. I like it because I get to try without having to buy a massive amount, it’s pretty economical to entry, and if I don’t like it, I’m not stuck with a bunch. Bing bang boom. So when I stopped into Dutchess Roots and saw that they had dime bags, I knew I had to get one. And the 5 Boro Cereal Milk definitely struck my fancy to an umpteenth degree. So I full sent it and bought it, took it home, and waited for my grinder to empty. Well, my grinder is empty so let’s give this a test run!

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When it comes to infused prerolls, I’m like a moth to a bug zapper. I know I’m gonna get absolutely wrecked but I just can’t help myself. I’ve tangoed with a few of them before and every time it leaves me borderline catatonic but this one…I have hopes for this one. First off, it’s infused with hash, not distillate, so that’s a bit easier on the ol’ system. Also, it only clocks in at 28% THC so that’s not BAD, right? I can handle that! And it’s a Hudson Cannabis product, which I’ve heard good things about. This should be a walk in the park! So…was it?

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Supporting veterans is an easy thing for me. It takes no huge leap for me to do that. Hell, if things had worked out the way I was thinking, I’D be a vet. I was thinking of joining the Marine Corps for a bit until I realized…oh yeah…my body is absolute garbage. I even tried to get a job at Picatinny Arsenal after realizing that I’d never make the cut but that didn’t pan out either. Ah, the dreams of youth. Anyway, I like supporting veterans because A) it’s the right thing to do and B) most of them are cool as hell anyway. So it was an easy thing to support Leadfarmer once I saw it was in local shops. I mean, c’mon, the tube has “MAKES THE GRASS GROW” (BLOOD, BLOOD, BLOOD) written on it, it’s got a skull with NODs (QTNVGs to be exact), and it’s cannabis. How can I, a military obsessed little nerd, go wrong here? But did I go wrong? Here’s the review:

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It sucks being disabled. It especially sucks to have C-PTSD. It works its way into the most benign things like an insidious worm that ruins fun. I recently went out to The Pass and picked up a few things, one of which was this pre-roll. When I decanted it, I knew that I’d have trouble with it because of my C-PTSD. You may not know this about me but I’ve had 35 surgeries, and countless hospitalizations, so I know my way around a hospital pretty well. From the sights, to the sounds, and, most critical, the smells. The smells of a hospital haunt me constantly. And this pre-roll, well, it had a smell. What smell was it? Um…

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This sample was provided to me by Nanticoke.

When I was in college, if you wanted cannabis you got “weed”. I don’t mean that in a pejorative way, really, you just didn’t have many options in far upstate New York. My next door neighbor in college was a bit of a stoner and he’d occasionally (and I do me very occasionally) invite me over to partake/ hang out and he got “weed”. It was rare to find anything other than brick cannabis that wasn’t very good. But if you knew the right guy, who knew the right guy, who KNEW a guy…there WAS one bespoke strain you were getting from 2006 to 2010 and that was Sour Diesel. You loved and hated to get it: it smoked so delightful but it was impossible to hide due to the smell. Many of my fonder memories started with a sesh of Sour Diesel fresh from someone’s backyard or something. And I’ve been looking for that heady hit ever since so I love it when I get Sour Diesel in my rotation. So when Nanticoke handed me this to try out, I was pretty stoked. And surprised. That’s a high THC. Anyway, here’s the review:

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I’ve heard a lot about White Widow, it being a classic strain and all, and I realized that I had never had it. When I stopped into my local, Dutchess Roots, I saw it on the menu and went “huh”. I said that for two reasons:

1. They had it in stock and I hadn’t noticed it on the website
2. It was from a brand that I’d heard literally nothing about before and that intrigued me.

I was a bit skeptical at first. I’d heard nothing about it and I try to do my research so I was dubious. How could it have slipped through my carefully woven research network? And it was a strain that I wanted but wasn’t sure if it’d be a good representation of the genre, so to speak. But after checking the price on it, I decided it was coming home with me to be evaluated. I had to try it at some point, why not now? But how did it fare? Well, let’s see…

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Note: I received this sample from Jetty.

I got these at a recent Revelry and, frankly, had been too scared to try them. After my little foray into infused pre-rolls, I was wary of this one. I knew that I would be tempting a fickle mistress of THC with one of these after my Chernobyl experience. But I put on a brave face, dear readers. I did it for you. I decided it was time to give this a try not too long ago. I was in a rough patch in terms of pain and wanted something to give me a little mental boost to help me white-knuckle through it until I could get antibiotics for the infection. So I dipped into the humidified stash and pulled out this. What did I think of it? Well…

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