It is safe to say I have been navigating the benefits of cannabis as long as I’ve been a journalist. My first role as a reporter came during middle school where I covered the sports beat and co-penned a comic strip with my little league friend. We didn’t have any idea how to roll a joint or apply the inverted pyramid, but I was in love with both from the start and was eager to learn.
My early passion for the newsroom was fueled by the pages of National Geographic, Sport’s Illustrated, Rolling Stone, and Jon Krakauer adventures. And, an endless supply of herb found in a “magic” can on the top shelf in the garage, helped sparked my interest in the illicit plant.
My stepfather smoked the finest Northern California herb and I daydreamed of wild adventures as a future journalist within the books and music he and my mother had stored in our family garage. I wanted to document the great moments of human history and follow the adventurous paths that led to them, and my occasional experiences with the hippie flower brought those visions to life in my head.
Two decades have passed and we find ourselves embarking onto a new green horizon as cannabis laws begin to crumble around the country and things have changed since I was a boy. If you would have told me as a youth growing up in Nevada, that Utah would be one of the states joining the good fight, I would not have believed you. If you would have told me in the same breath, I would be publishing a cannabis themed magazine in the Beehive state, I would have laughed and asked you to share what you were smoking.
We’ve come a long way and what a long strange trip it’s been. As the days pass by since Proposition 2 became a reality and the first cannabis products were sold in the state, it’s still hard to believe how far we’ve come and I’m proud to call Utah my home.
Although grateful, I’m not satisfied. Not nearly and neither should you be. I, along with 562,071 Utah residents voted YES on Proposition 2 during the mid-term elections in 2018. Since then, the voices of patients have been ignored, laws manipulated and changed on capitol hill to suit the mainstream, and sub-par coverage by local media, which almost seems like a carefully orchestrated plot by those “in charge” to cause medical cannabis to fail in the state.
I will not, and I cannot stand idle any longer.
Salt-Baked Staff – Matt Crawley
Bijan Sakaki is the latest pharmacy operator to join Utah’s expanding Green Scene. Sakaki announced during an interview with Salt Baked City, his pharmacy is opening doors to patients Saturday, October 24.
Our promise at Salt Baked City is to bring you accurate Utah cannabis news and culture stories with a strong local focus. We want patients to know their rights, know which doctors can help with their medical needs, and know where to find safe and reliable medicine in state, while navigating this new Green Scene. I’ve worked in Utah media for nearly a decade in many different roles and have grown sick of issues being ignored, tip-toed around, or misrepresented – in the sake of the mainstream. Working with cannabis and hemp advocates in the community has left me no choice but to fight the good fight in the best way I can.
Our only prerogative at Salt Baked City is to see medical cannabis patients, hemp growers, and local businesses prosper in the state. We have no loaners, no outside companies dictating our content – just passionate journalists who are fed up with Utah politicians ignoring the citizens of the state. Let us be your voice!
The will of the people will not be ignored, and Salt Baked City will be your megaphone in regard to the issues that you hold dear to your heart.
Salt-Baked Staff – Matt Crawley
