Etana Launches "Herbs" Cannabis Brand at Her Berkeley Birthday Party

Reggae singer/songwriter Etana introduced her women-grown, organic cannabis brand Etana Herbs at a concert celebrating her birthday at the intimate Chapel of the Flowers in Berkeley, CA on Saturday May 23. Hot off the presses and flown in from LA for the event was her packaging, featuring a fearless image of the musician, now available on a T-shirt at her website. 

Wearing a glittering jacket and luminous "high" heels, she commanded the stage and conjured up much enthusiastic dancing / swaying with joy in the crowd of Reggae fans, who had just feasted on an authentic meal of jerk chicken, oxtail, veggies and plantains. 

Stopping her concert to make her ganja brand announcement, she noted, "It's all natural, organic, just the way we like it," and named some of the strains/flavors, like  papaya.

The artist then treated the crowd to some of her songs from "Etana - The Ganja Collection," her 4/20/26 digital release,  a "soulful 7-track tribute to the Sacred Herb, Roots Reggae & Jamaican culture." 

She began with "Sesnsemilla":

I have found a tree that heals inside of me
Changes everything, everything that I've been told....

And moved into "Gimi De Weed": 

This one is for all ganja lovers around the world
All ganja boys and all ganja girls...

No more youths in the jail house for weed...
Oh what a day when ganja man get free...

"I am Etana, the Strong One and I'm from Kingston, Jamaica," she introduced herself, evoking the meaning of her name and the title of her first album. "In this time, I am fearless," she announced, leading into an a capella intro to "I Rise" that high-lighted her angelic voice. 

The (quite obviously) Strong One then told us of being asked by Stephen Marley to record "Young, Gifted and Black" for a Nina Simone tribute album at a time when she was feeling low, and drinking. The experience lead her to stop drinking, and "with no liquor, I just keep rising," she told the cheering crowd.  

Born Shauna McKenzie in Kingston, Jamaica and raised in the eastern Saint Andrew community of August Town, Etana's vocal talent was discovered when she was eight. She migrated to Miami in 1992 and studied nursing at Broward College, before leaving school to join a female vocal group named Gift that sparked interest from Universal Records.

Unwilling to conform to wearing "skimpy outfits dictated by the music industry's pervasive stereotyping of female artists," Etana returned to her birthplace and "focused on making music that reflected her embracement of Rastafari principles, which include a royal representation of women, adhering to a natural lifestyle, and an acknowledgment of the teachings of Marcus Garvey and Emperor Haile Selassie I." She soon became a vocalist on Richie Spice's tour of Europe and North America, and subsequently launched her own career, starting with her debut record "The Strong One" in 2007.  This year, she was named as the first-ever Reggae Month Ambassador by Jamaica's Minister of Culture.

“I believe the Most High puts the people you need in your way,” she said, bringing up for thanks and applause Aundre Speciale and Linda Jackson from Cannabis Buyers' Club of Berkeley / The Chapel, who hostessed Saturday's event, which coincided with her 43rd birthday. 

Etana Herbs are available at CBCB in Berkeley and soon will see a wider release. We need more of Etana and her healing herbs and songs everywhere. 

Colbert and Cannabis: A Farewell Tribute

As we approach the final days of Stephen Colbert hosting CBS's The Late Show this Thursday, we follow CelebStoner's lead and look back at our favorite moments when Colbert celebrated cannabis. 

In a January 2006 City Arts and Lectures interview in San Francisco, Colbert said he smoked "a lot of pot" for a period of time in high school. That would explain a lot. 

On his 2007 The Colbert Report debut, during a (mock) interview with Ethan Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance, Colbert demonstrated that he knew what "shake" is. Nadelmann commented that while viewers surely must get drunk to watch Fox host Bill O'Reilly, probably half of Colbert's audience got stoned before watching. On his January 18 show that year while introducing O'Reilly, Colbert announced, "You're not high, Bill O'Reilly is really here. You might also be high." 

That July, he showed a clip of the USDA's 1942 film Hemp for Victory film before introducing Marijuana Policy Project's Aaron Houston. Later, he asked Ben & Jerry about their flavor named for VIP Willie Nelson, "What's his made of, shredded tax forms and hash?" 

During a 2008 interview with Carole King, Colbert pulled out his Tapestry album and noted it was a double, briefly demonstrating how this allowed people to clean their pot on it in the 70s. On his premiere Colbert Report of 2014, after Colorado started selling legal pot, he took on columnists Ruth Marcus and Davis Brooks with the line: "I applaud Marcus and Brooks for taking a stand against legalizing the pot they smoked." 

Since The Late Show with Stephen Colbert premiered on September 8, 2015, the pot jokes continued. 

A 2016 segment, "Stephen Colbert Gets All Up in Your Faith" had him commenting on the first cannabis church while pantomiming a killer bong rip. That year, he interviewed Whoopi Goldberg when she introduced her Whoopi & Maya cannabis product line, designed for women. In 2017, he introduced Kathy Bates as "an Academy Award–winning actress who terrified us in Misery, inspired us in Titanic, and now she sells us weed on the Netflix show Disjointed." Bates demonstrated her technique for using a vape pen.

The Late Show won a Best Video Segment Tokey Award in 2023 for "The Ganja Girls: Seniors Smoking Weed." For 4/20 that year, he opened with a "Yes We Cannabis" segment from the "dank, grooved-out wonder planet known as Chillaxia."