NORTHAMPTON — In 2017, when Michael Kusek began winding down the last arts and culture magazine that he published, Take Magazine, he was looking for a new project.
It was a time when voters had just recently legalized recreational marijuana in the state, and one of Kusek’s friends, a cannabis cultivator, spent an evening explaining to him the intricacies of the law and what regulators were hoping to do. Kusek, who is 50, realized that there was a need for older marijuana consumers to navigate the new industry.
“I saw a space there for a guide to help people negotiate it,” he said.
So, this month Kusek premiered his new magazine focused on cannabis culture — Different Leaf. In a press release announcing the new quarterly, Kusek said many people’s previous experience is buying cannabis flower in a setting where they simply had to accept what was offered.
“Interacting with and understanding the hundreds of legal products on sale in the typical dispensary can be an overwhelming experience,” he said.
Different Leaf features a wide mix of content, from a cannabis product roundup and medical information to more in-depth features. Kusek said the first edition includes a deep-dive into the topic of social justice in the cannabis industry and an exploration of a “secretive crypto-anarchist computer bulletin board for cannabis growers in Vermont who are confronting their own transition to the legal market.”
This fall, Kusek will also begin releasing a podcast series to accompany the publication, delving into topics that arise between the print issues of the magazine.
Though the first issues of Different Leaf will be Massachusetts-focused, Kusek hopes to eventually expand the project as legalization and the larger marijuana industry come to the region’s other states.
“I’d like to take it over the border to Maine or Vermont, or whatever New England state that goes next,” Kusek said.
Dusty Christensen can be reached at dchristensen@gazettenet.com.