Jackie Bryant: One mother of a journalist

San Diego Magazine's storytelling star is an A-list pot reporter + way, way more

I fuck with a only small number of cannabis journalists. There’s my old boss, WeedWeek’s Alex Halperin, obviously. Madison Margolin gets props too, especially for helping to expand our plant section of the wellness beat into psychedelics. Author and editor Ellen Holland is fun to get high with, and I love her approach to reporting. These and just a few others are cannabis people that I might see away from a work event.

My favorite is Jackie Bryant. Like some of the aforementioned cronies, this Long Island native has a leg up: We all understand that it’s quantifiable right? That most compelling West Coasters have lived in New York.

Bryant brings an East Coast skepticism to covering a Weed Revolution whose brief, colorful history has too often been short on incredulity. Paired with a dangerously sharp wit, Jackie Bryant’s skepticism creates the whole food-meals contemporary cannabis news consumers need.

Her weed and travel writing have appeared in the New York Times, Best American Travel Writing, MJ Biz Daily, and the San Francisco Chronicle, among many storytelling venues. It’s hard to believe that it’s been more than five years since I began highlighting Bryant’s incisive and sometimes hilarious Cannabitch writing in the WeedWeek California newsletter.

Bryant, 38, is the mother of a 15-month-old son. Her role at San Diego has evolved from editing to something more in line with content strategy and production. Of all the gossip and pontificating and inside cannabis baseball that passed between us in our July conversation, it is this pair of Jackie Bryant changes that I find most interesting.

My Substack podcast’s first return guest and I spoke on a Zoom call that is visually hilarious, but the audio’s not as strong. In a strange complement, Bryant’s 2023 Sojourn pod appearance ended up being audio-only and only somewhat indicative of our rapport.

But differently, so there’s that.

Our summer gab has been edited, for clarity and reasons slightly tangential to clarity.

Warning: This conversation took place in the breech between President Biden’s June 27 debate performance and Kamala Harris reviving the Democratic Party. Though neither of us knew it, we both badly needed to get Tim-Walz’d. Harsh words for American liberals abound.

Donnell Alexander: Welcome to the West Coast Sojourn podcast. We have a lauded journalist [today]. I’m proud of my friends who are doing great things in the cannabis industry. The San Diego Writers’ Festival—they named you Journalist of the Year? Not Cannabis Journalist of the Year, but legitimate, straight-up journalist:

Jackie Bryant, welcome!

Jackie Bryant: There are so many other San Diego journalists who are doing a good job—there are many who are not. I’m not 100 percent sure of the rationale behind that, but I have to think some of it was the culmination of the last two years of my work at San Diego Magazine. It’s a legacy title. We’ve been printing for 76 years.

(Waves packaged pre-roll)

For everyone watching—or listening—I’m judging a weed competition right now. It’s hash. Some of this is hash holes; I cannot fucking get this bag open. So, I’ve been here this whole time fumbling with it, trying to talk.

DA: Don’t be a quitter.

JB: Oh no. I’m getting it… Anyway, I have to think it’s because I was managing editor of the magazine and I’d been a long time freelancer in town. When I became managing editor—this wasn’t part of my initiative, but part of why I was brought on—we changed the magazine a lot. Changed a lot of our contributors and our coverage angles and we re-branded it, visually. The design of the magazine and a lot of other things.

I don’t know, but I think the community was really happy to see what they called a breath of fresh air breathed into the magazine, into a legacy title that had become a little staid. It had a reputation for being very conservative, white, rich. There’s always going to be an element of that; this is San Diego… I have to think that’s why they gave it to me?

DA: That’s mainstream success. I was going to talk to you later about Alex Halperin’s work in the LA Times. And I’m a believer that, whether it’s credible or not, a rising tide lifts all boats. When people I’ve worked with are doing good work, I feel great. I do.

I got an award last year for my fairness in cannabis coverage and… ya know? It mattered to me, because there’s so much stigma remaining. I ask stigma-oriented questions.

JB: It wasn’t like a contest pool that I entered. With some writing contests you have to pay to play, or even be in the mix to play. It was a total, random surprise. I was nominated—I don’t even know there were nominations. So, I was like, “That’s pretty cool!”

It feels nice especially because I do live here. I felt a little disconnected from here while I was focusing on my cannabis a lot. Just because I wasn’t writing about San Diego. So, I have to think that it has to do with my work at the magazine. And if that is the case, that’s really cool, because we work really hard to make that kind of what it is today. (Laughs) We’re proud that we’re still printing.

It was a topic around town. People don’t know that I know this, but I have ears everywhere, little rats. It was definitely, “Oh, the weed chick is going to be the managing editor?” And everyone who really knew me was like, “She’s a legit journalist.” You look at her clips like, that’s obvious.

DA: You’re everywhere.

JB: (Makes face) I’m like, too everywhere.

DA: Well, I wanna get too everywhere myself… can we talk about the other thing? I want to talk about Racist Chicken.

JB: I actually think I’m getting cancelled right now. Right at this moment. And I’m just not engaging with it.

I went on our local NPR station, KPBS, for a round table segment about our food scene.

We did a short video segment about how fried chicken is exploding here, like it is everywhere. Supreme fried chicken places, there’s new Chinese-style fried chicken places—all kinds of shit. And so, I backed up a little bit and was explaining it and was, “Of course we know that in the United States the tradition of cooking fried chicken comes from the slave era and from Black cultures and Black cooking techniques during the slave era.” Then I said, you know, that it flowed out from there to other cultures—and other cultures also had their own frying techniques. It was pretty matter-of-fact.

There are some White people. I don’t know what they’re mad at, but the exact comment said was, “Just what I needed today, two White ladies talking about slave boats and the slave era.” She’s white, to be clear.

And it’s like, We’re actually talking about chicken, first of all. We’re not actually talking about slavery. Second of all, I’m just giving credit where it’s due, buddy. And then a White guy commented and said, “I was disturbed by this, too.” Now, in my conspiracy-minded brain, I think…

You know, who cares what I think. What do you think?

San Diego Magazine’s Jackie Bryant

DA: Good play.

I was thinking in terms of a thing I’m going through with Black people right now. I think we’re at a place with Biden right now and who’s sticking by him and who isn’t, where we really start calling our bullshit on the carpet. There’s this constant stream of people who the Biden people trot out who deny the premise—openly, on camera—conflating the idea that not supporting Biden with not seeing the threat that Trump is.

This is my bugaboo, my pet fucking peeve. And no one will call them on it. I’m not sure why. The don’t want to make people look stupid? But it’s hurting us, as a culture. What you went through is this kid gloves thing on eleven. You know these tropes are edgy in some contexts, but the fact is that you can get that truth in under two seconds. The pose is more comfortable. It’s leftover, warmed over liberalism, and that’s all I have to say about White people. (Laughter)

And know that when we say this we’re not talking about everybody.

JB: If it doesn’t apply to you, it doesn’t apply to you. You know this in your heart. You know when people not-all-whatever something? If that’s not you, then know that. Be confident and move on with your day. (Laughs) Like, truly.

DA: I feel like Journalist of the Year is uncancelable. You’d have to do more than be a little… what’s the word? Historically accurate?

JB: Am I being racist? (Laughs) Lord, dude. I will say that there was someone from a burner account who commented to these two White men—and listen I don’t know they’re a burner account; I can’t tell who they are—but they wrote, “So, actually she was talking about fried chicken and she brought in a culture from another place that cooks it in a different way and she mentioned that’s where it comes from. And that made you mad.” He was kind of flipping it on them.

That’s what I think is happening. A lot of White people got confused during George Floyd and confused to be called out, so to speak. So many white people are desperate to prove that they’re not racist at all. They have no racist thoughts, tendencies, even if they were (raised) that way they’re better than that. They’ve risen above it. How can they fall in this trap if they’re so good, right?

I think there’s some guilt and projection going on among White people pointing out that what you’re doing is (racist) because they want to be seen and recognized as good by non-White people. They’re projecting their own racist thoughts without even realizing it.

Like, Why did these two White men think it was bad that a White woman—merely in the context of just talking about food traditions—attributed fried chicken cooking traditions to the slave era? I know the stereotypes that come from that, but I didn’t say them. I didn’t hint at them, I didn’t make any reference to them, I just moved on to something else. But clearly their brains went there, right?

Their brains went to the stereotype. It didn’t become obvious until afterwards, but that just shows the levels of intersectionality that we don’t have. The levels of understanding on this that we don’t have. That white people in their own levels of consciousness thinking they have the utmost understanding because they’re reading Instagram slides about racism.

It’s like, Ooooh… we’re fucked. We’re all just White people screaming at each other, calling each other racist. That’s great for business, everyone needs that.

DA: Where exactly can we find this online? (Laughter) I want to switch subjects, but it’s also a culture thing. I feel like when we get together we’re talking about culture more than the industry.

JB: I think that’s fair.

DA: You wrote something in Cannabitch about going back to Long Island. Long Island, which I find really interesting: Some of my best friends are from Long Island, ha ha ha! And I’m from Ohio. It’s funny, with the new Vice Presidential nominee coming from there. It takes me back to the essence of that place, what produces people.

I know that Long Island is diverse. Ohio has very different kinds of people. But when you write about Long Island and you say, “Long Island is a wild place, but nobody who lives here thinks it is” what are you talking about? Why are they able to deny their wildness?

JB: (Coughs) This thing’s hitting!

When you haven’t left a place and you haven’t lived elsewhere, it’s really hard to get the full picture on it, because you can’t know what you don’t know, right? I have this perspective of home where I left and spent time other places and I go back (to Huntington) and I can see it.

I talk to my mother about this all the time. Born and raised, New York Tri-State Area. No intention of leaving the area, doesn’t understand it. Her whole family is within whatever radius. She grew up pretty poor, as did my dad. They’re still together, they’re wealthy now. My dad has no illusions about how that happened: Right place, right time. A lot of luck. Some privilege baked in. And he was good at what he did at the right moment.

My mom seems to think they… deserve it a little?

DA: And what’s wild about that?

JB: Well, it’s not true. No one deserves it… which she also believes, deep down. My mom’s a trip.

But, because it’s the only place she’s ever lived and a lot of my friends have ever lived, the extreme wealth there—and I live in San Diego, and I mention in the newsletter that it’s not different here—I just didn’t grow up under that, right? I can kind of exist around and can choose what parts I want to exist in, but when I go home I can’t pick who I know.

I grew up in a very, very wealthy area, which was great. It was a great place to grow up. I’m not complaining. But, starting when I was a teenager, my politics were super at odds with it. I was 16 when 9-11 happened and a lot of our neighbors actually died in the towers. They worked for Cantor-Fitzgerald. Literally never came home. People I knew, I went to all those funerals, everything. I knew a lot of first responders. My uncle is a first responder. He also worked in the towers.

Politically, I’m very left. Everyone on Long Island is not. It’s a hyper-wealthy area because of its proximity to the city. It’s also hyper-poor because you need people supporting that wealthy population. It’s where a lot this MS-13 rhetoric is currently coming from. Obviously, they’re in LA, but there’s a huge presence on Long Island and in New York and there has been for many decades. Because Long Island is conservative, the politics around that have spun out of control.

DA: Can I give you a quick interruption? I never get to talk about MS-13. I don’t know if you remember that story I did about the San Luis Obispo County Supervisor who committed suicide. Well, that led to a tip about a Central California town that’s completely controlled by MS-13. I took the assignment, and I was going to do it, then I realized… Nooo. No, we’re not doing that for whatever amount of money we’re makin’. That’s for the LA Times to do.

JB: I’ve done stories in San Diego where my own sources have warned me, I like you… there’s a certain point where you drop this. Just know that. There’s Hell’s Angels, cartels, Mongols, down the line; it’s the border. I have literally been told by my sources that there’s a point where you stop, just get the hell out of this story. I’m hoping you get this part of the story published… and it wasn’t because they had an interest in the story not being published; they were literally helping me get the story out there.

But they were like, For your own safety, I’ll take you this far. It’s your choice to go further. I wouldn’t if I were you. I’ve hung around this stuff long enough that…. I’m good with that! If I lose a story I’m fine, I can take that.

Just to close the loop on my Long Island galaxy brain thought… it’s just a place of extreme wealth and extreme divide. So is everywhere in the United States, but there especially, which is saying something. I love where I grew up, I love the people I grew up with, but I do feel a discomfort with my politics and level of wealth that I was surrounded by and was also afforded. I really don’t know how to reconcile that, except to physically separate myself from it and be chill about it and then do the most honest work that I can. I try to live that way, and that’s how I atone for that, I guess, or make peace with it. Because I’m not willing to cut it out of my life; that’s my family and friends.

So, I think it’s a really crazy place. Also, the politics are crazy. You have all of these recent immigrant White communities—Irish people, Italians— who are just feverishly foaming at the mouth for Trump. Long Island is Trump country, but it’s wealthy White people. It’s different. This is not Kentucky.

DA: How much of this is just geography? They’re out there for a reason, they got away from the city, years ago.

JB: You’ve read the Robert Caro Robert F. Moses biographies, right? That’s real. They’re out there for a reason. But Long Island isn’t the White enclave it used to be and hasn’t been for a very long time. All those center towns, they’re all Central American communities. There are a ton of Black people on Long Island. Oh my God, you have Persians, Persian Jews, Muslims, Muslim Persians, you have Palestinians, the entire Muslim diaspora is there.

It’s just not as white as it used to be, but obviously those coastal, wealthy towns very much are. I grew up in Huntington. My parents live in an enclave, an incorporated town called Huntington Bay. It’s right on the Bay, as the name implies. It was so interesting, because I just kinda looked around the beach and realized, Oh everyone’s White. Which isn’t the case with wealthy Long Island everywhere. There are wealthy Indian families. There are wealthy Jewish families who are white, but as we know historically they were treated differently.

But, no no no, this neighborhood was just… White. And I was like, Huh. I hadn’t seen that in a minute. Even in San Diego, in wealthy neighborhoods there are wealthy Mexican families. Usually that may be that’s the extent of the diversity, but I’m realizing there are some spots on Long Island that are truly White. No Jewish families. WASP-y White. And now the Italians and the Irish families who were once denigrated from those circles have moved in and become dominant. It was weird on Long Island to not even see Jewish families there, because they are a wealthy majority.

It was like, Oh, I’ve just been away for so long I kinda just didn’t realize what that was really like.

DA: You say it’s weird. It’s weird-in-the-shadow-of-New York weird. Or is it just a singular spot on the map?

JB: It’s a weird-in-the-shadow-of-New York weird. But also, it’s not weird. It’s totally typical. It’s how things have been forever, right? It’s naive of me to think they’re not that way for a reason and haven’t been that way for a very long time. At the same time, it’s weird for human beings to treat each other that way. Just naturally, inside me.

DA: I feel you. Can we talk about something weird—let’s even go as far as to say something wild—in the media world?

JB: Oh, boy.

DA: I knew that the Alex Halperin-LA Times collaboration was happening.

JB: I did too.

DA: And when it happened I was surprised at the length of it. I thought it was… well, I’m not going to put any thoughts into your head. What did you think of that piece?

JB: (Coughs) I thought it was great. As someone who’s done investigative work, I could tell where he got kneecapped? Or couldn’t pursue more, you know what I’m saying? And I don’t mean that in a bad way, it’s just sometimes your investigation just goes where it goes, right?

I thought it great, necessary. I knew everyone would freak the fuck out. It’s so disconcerting to see people I otherwise liked in the industry call it a hit piece, though it’s not surprising because it fucking happened to me.

DA: The industry turned on you in what, 2021?

JB: I’m going to say something real mean.

DA: Can’t wait.

JB: But I gotta say it.

I just don’t understand the cannabis industry, how they try to legalize and modernize, but they’re just so media illiterate. They’re just so illiterate as to how the normal, professional world works. Just figure it out. It’s so embarrassing to me that they think a reporter from the LA Times could be bought off like that. People were literally alleging that he was bought off. (Laughing) I was like, “You obviously don’t know Alex Halperin!”

This is what I say behind closed doors. I worked for him, I consider him a friend. We talk. He’s a journalists-journalist. He’s not some hanger-on writer who’s just trying to glom on to the cannabis industry because they think it’s cool and they just want to write fun culture pieces—which I do plenty of—he’s just a journalist hunting for a big story and the truth. That’s the motivation here.

And they’re so brain poisoned from being in this fucked up industry of cannabis that they’re like, “Clearly he got paid off. Who paid him off?” I’m like, Nobody paid off Alex Halperin—what the fuck are you all on? It’s so insane and it makes me doubt everything anyone in the industry tells me. It makes me doubt their perception of everything.

I understand that media trust is at an all-time low, as well as media literacy, but, really? You’re surprised that the guy who’s regularly putting out scoops in his WeedWeek newsletter is going to do a door-kicking-down-investigation for the LA Times? They think that writers are ultimately boosters. They literally don’t know what the function of journalism really is. They pretend, and then when you’re writing nice things about them they’re like, “Woo, this is great!” It’s just juvenile and psychotic behavior.

DA: That’s great. I have to do a TikTok, and you just supplied the substance of a very good one. So, thank you for that.

JB: At the same time some very important and smart people have taken up the mantle and supported him. It gives him a lot of credibility in an insular culture and industry—one that he’s part of, but as an observer. It’s been nice to see important big voices, like Elliot at Catalyst, for example, pick up the mantle and say, Yeah, this is fucking rotten.

I went on a news segment on CBS, in San Diego, and of course the clip where I said, “They’re poisoning us!” made it in.

(Laughter)

I really need to be media trained, for a media person. But it’s true! They’re poisoning us, dude. I don’t understand how everyone’s not totally outraged. It’s because they are so desperate to be part of this industry, for the clout—no one’s making money, so I know it’s not for money. They’re so desperate for this specter of a life that they got to taste that they will do anything, including accept a little poisoning as a treat. And they’re calling Alex’s piece a hit piece. It’s gross.

DA: Nicole Elliott, the director of Cannabis Control. Are you surprised that she still has a job?

JB: Yes? No? Yes-no-yes-no. No, because California enjoys longevity and dynasties in its government positions and it rewards loyalty. Two, I’m pretty sure her husband is a Newsom staffer. Right?

DA: Maybe that’s true. I didn’t know that.

(Note: Jason Elliott left the Governor’s staff in May).

JB: Check that out. Fact check that for ya! Number three. We’re on three, right? She’s really nice and she’s very smart. She does care. I do think she’s been handed a rather impossible task, with no enforcement powers, absolutely the wrong people advising her along the way. I have genuine sympathy for her. I can see some very human combination of all those factors probably conspiring to keep here in there.

DA: Do you lay the failure of this industry on Lori Ajax, her predecessor, or was it bound to fail from the beginning?

That’s not true. Even I don’t believe that.

JB: I think I believe that.

I will admit that some of the spring in my step regarding legal weed is gone. (Sighs) I don’t know, people will not stop making a big deal about it. I don’t know. Literally, what do you do about that?

DA: What do you mean, a big deal?

JB: Even our new Vice President, future Vice President—JD Power and Associates Vance—

DA: (Laughs) Why did that one elude me. I didn’t get to do that one. It was right there.

JB: He doesn’t believe in federal legalization. Why dude? And this whole haranguing with Biden and Schedule III and what it means… just fuckin legalize it! Just do it!

Did you see this article, to this point, that came out today? It says since 2002 there have been 500,000 deportations from the United States and 42,000 or 47,000 of those were merely cannabis possessions. It just clicked for me today, that’s why they’re keeping it illegal. It’s super-easy to deport somebody for that.

DA: That’s an amazing fact. I want to talk about something near and dear to my heart. I’m sure it will be near and dear to yours, as you take a toke.

I’m writing a little advertorial, about my son and I. He was hanging out the other day. He wouldn’t go home, because he was waiting to get high with me. He wanted to get high with Dad. I was telling another Dad this, and he was like, Oh, that’s so great. And, yeah, it is kinda great.

JB: “I get high with my dad”—It’s a thing.

DA: When we do, we go directly to playing ball when he was a kid. That kind of rapport. The distance between the years, me not being in LA the whole time—all of that stuff goes away. And I just thought it was so amazing. How much are you looking forward to consuming cannabis in some way or another with your child?

JB: Oh my God. You know, I haven’t thought about it yet, because he’s so young and out of that. I mean, I’m excited, but I think I’m dealing with my own stigma. It’s like, I almost view it as a polluted thing that I haven’t pictured him in yet. That he’s pure and this is my bad side.

I guess I didn’t really think about that until right now. And now that you mention it, I realize that’s how I feel, which really sucks. But I have time to work on that.

DA: I love that. It’s my favorite question, I saved it. Here’s something she hasn’t thought about, because it’s going to be a part of your life.

JB: (Coughs) There’s a gram of hash in there. It’s crazy. I’m not a baby, I promise. It’s really crazy.

DA: I’ve smoked with you. You don’t have to tell me that you’re not a baby.

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You should have been around in the Olde Days

Why, these tip bits were once hilarious. Now they are pro forma. I believe the turning point came when the Venmo QBR code began appearing in free content. Isn’t it odd—and sort of indicating, frankly—that the effort visibly diminished once the author stopped catering to the monied? It’s all a pose, obviously. One more lapdog to Big Substack subscriber!

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JB: I don’t know if my dad ever wondered what it was like to smoke with me. I’ve only had one kid, I’m only having one kid. I don’t spend a ton of time around other kids historically. So, I don’t know. I don’t have who he is figured out yet. And I’ll be able to picture that a lot better I think, once he develops more concrete personality traits. I have him now, but I can’t picture future him.

DA: [Ophelia Chong] has this great house and an amazing garden. I was house-sitting there when I first got high with my older son. He was 22. We were there in that garden and it was an unforgettable place. My other boy, our first time together was above the Rose Bowl. As someone who’s from Ohio and flat country, these places live in my brain. I think it was special for the boys, too.

It wasn’t anything I had imagined. I did know that drinking with my sons when they got to be of age, just sitting and having a drink, is one of those levels of parenting pleasure that isn’t suitably talked up. It’s just really nice to have a beer with your kid. And it gets to the point where you’re smoking weed with your daughter or son and, it’s great.

There’s a healing aspect to weed that fits so well with parenting. I’m writing about it because the rapport we have just went right there (with cannabis). I was oblivious to his desire to get to that place, and once we get there we don’t want it to go away. So, we should just always get high together. (Laughs) That’s not what we do.

JB: I read an interesting article in The Atlantic the other day. It’s a publication that I read… occasionally. I don’t really love it. It’s a little to mainstream libby for me, you know what I’m sayin’? It’s like, “We’ve got to respect both sides.” No we don’t!

They do have interesting parenting pieces from time to time. And I had just been having this conversation with my husband. We have a kid now and our parents are kind of hard to deal with, truthfully. Everyone’s being weird about boundaries. I’m 38. People my age are not starting families and are clasping onto their friends in a way that I don’t think people at their 40s ever have in history. They were busy working and raising families. I think these roles are just messed up. Adults are just closer with their adult children for the first time in like history. I don’t think there are generations that have been friends with their parents the way our generations are becoming now.

It’s kind of a new social paradigm for everybody. We’re raising children at the same time we are becoming friends with our parents, and I don’t think anyone is used to these dynamics. My parents were not friends with their parents. They’re Boomers. They just were not. It was an economic relationship. Yes, Love. But so much more cut and dried. They weren’t friends. It’s just so different, the expectations now. You need love and support and talking.

This article, it was like a week ago. We came back from New York, visiting my family and just thinking about things. Then The Atlantic had the article about this very thing. We have these new expectations of adults and children and, at the same time, adults are not separating from their older adult parents. They’re still living in the home, part of the economic unit or they just hang around a lot or they talk every day. Apparently, this is unprecedented, for any culture.

That’s really interesting to me. Historically, you might have had a drink with your dad probably on your wedding night. A hundred years ago, I don’t know. But you wouldn’t be hanging out like buddies with your sons. We’re the first people to do all of this stuff, in so many ways, I guess is my point. It’s a totally new paradigm.

DA: You have a new title at San Diego Magazine. Is this because of your mom stuff?

JB: No. I just don’t feel like doing the monthly slog of producing a magazine, because it gets to be a lot, every single month. It’s just so much work. I loved it, and I got burned out on it after two years. Long term, I can probably make more money at it on the business side. And I was just displaying a natural inclination toward running and organizing the business. So, I’m on the business side now.

I’m the content strategist, which essentially means that I’m brought in for high-level, creative strategy on all of our branded products: Our videos, events, custom publishing, all of that. I’m basically like an editorial person in that role. I also can sell and I have some content production responsibilities. And sometimes I’m the talent. I do video work and audio work.

It’s kind of like taking an editorial producer—a maker of sorts—and putting them in a more monetizable role, basically. It’s the same type of stories that we would do in editorial, just you can pay us to do it. It’s agency work, but a little beyond that, because it connects to a magazine.

Editor’s note: The Divine Ms. Bryant is also pursuing a Master’s Degree in religion from the University of Denver.