Weed in 2023 starts off with a bang this week as American music icon Snoop Dogg brings Death Row chronic to California fans. 

Snoop Dogg’s new Death Row Cannabis brand starts with a 40-pound lot of SFV OG, LA Runtz, and Trop Cherry in Los Angeles stores beginning next week, according to Death Row Cannabis grower “AK.”

Death Row Cannabis, which comes in some sick, blingy bags and should retail for $35-$45 (before tax), will be available in a dozen stores in SoCal starting with Cookies. Batches will stay below 50 pounds to focus on quality. 

Death Row isn’t growing its own flowers yet, though. The cannabis initially comes via Cali Supply Co in Chatsworth, CA, AK tells Leafly. AK has focused on scooping up the best of the best from licensed cultivators in the sprawling LA scene, he said. The tree will be high in THC, with a target of 2 to 4% terpenes, the aroma molecules that amplify weed’s high, he said. Terp scores will be indicated on the bag.

The small team behind Death Row Cannabis is also selecting a Strawberry Gary (Red Pop x Gary Payton) from seed packs by Exotic Genetix, said AK. Death Row has 50 licensed lights under use for hunting hit strains, and plans to add commercial growing capacity. AK shouted out breeders like Exotic Genetix Mike and Archive Seeds‘ Fletch (breeder of Leafly Strain of the Year 2021 Dosidos) for pairing THC scores with the real stars of the show, terpenes.

“Honestly, I’d smoke a flower that was 6% terpenes and 10% THC, over something that was 20% THC and no terps,” AK told Leafly.

Death Row Cannabis will test high in both terps and THC, AK said.

The team behind Death Row Cannabis

Snoop Dogg has gone from smoking and slanging weed, to rapping about it, to banking legal cannabis dollars, and now buying the iconic label he helped build.

Death Row records made hundreds of millions of dollars mainstreaming ‘90s LA gangsta rap and street culture, including high-grade hydroponic indoor ganja, aka “chronic”. Death Row released Dr. Dre’s The Chronic, Snoop Dogg’s Doggystyle, 2Pac’s All Eyez on Me, and many more classics. Snoop purchased the rights to the defunct Death Row in 2022.

Snoop has 19 studio albums, 17 Grammy nominations, and dozens of TV shows and film credits. The recognized weed industry power player appears on the Doggy Bag branded flower—a Grandiflora cross of Project 4516 x Zkittlez #18—on sale in Cookies stores. Snoop also won again with Uncle Snoop’s Snazzle-Os infused onion rings, which contain about 1mg THC per ring.

Death Row Cannabis must stand on its own separate from his other ventures, Dogg told AK. 

“We have huge shoes to fill,” AK said.

AK’s aware of the stigma against celebrity cannabis, but his team has the bonafides and bomb tree to triumph, he said.

Snoop’s a proven selector of good herb. AK is a 20-year grower, first from Seattle, and for the last five years in LA. Three people direct the Death Row Cannabis project: AK; ‘Shaggy’—Snoop’s sound engineer and weed man; as well as ‘Tiffany,’ who’s also Dogg-affiliated.

I asked AK the strains he smoked on Tuesday by lunchtime: a super-rare cut of Deo Farms’ Rainbow Sherbert, RS#3; an SFV OG; and the Tommy Shelby cut of Ice Cream Cake, he said.

AK’s also the VP of Cultivation for TRP Co—with grows in Florida, and Cookies and Lemonnade stores in California under management. And AK worked on a runner-up to 2022’s Leafly Strain of the Year—RS#11, bred by Deo Farms and selected AK and Wizard Trees’ Scotty. 

AK helped pick RS#54, while Scotty focused on RS#11. AK also kept the most Z variety of the project—the RS#3—which he looks forward to bringing to the legal market; so watch out for that.

We’ll have a hands-on review of Death Row weed soon, so stay subscribed and keep your Leafly app updated. Air out from all this indoor Hollyweed talk with our outdoor-focused 12 best cannabis strains of harvest 2022.

David Downs

Leafly Senior Editor David Downs received a Literary Excellence Award from Oaksterdam University in 2022. On the cannabis beat since 2009, he’s published three books, including the best-selling cannabis crop science book ‘Marijuana Harvest.’ Downs guest lectured at the Loyola Marymount University Law School’s Journalism Law School, UC Berkeley Extension, and contributed to Continuing Education of the Bar’s Marijuana Law Hub, sponsored by University of California and the State Bar of California. Downs’ work has appeared in San Francisco Chronicle, New York Times, Scientific American, Wired, Rolling Stone, The Onion, Columbia Journalism Review, High Times, Billboard, and many more. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English Literature from UC Santa Barbara, and was a Fellow at the Medill School of Journalism’s Academy of Alternative Journalism in Chicago.

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