THERE'S nothing quite like a celebrity endorsement to sell a product, and US cannabis manufacturer TPCO is ramping up the star power by appointing rapper and entrepreneur Jay-Z as its "chief visionary officer".
The company said the artist would help guide strategy and use his "unparalleled cultural influence" to enlist other leading artists and entertainers to promote the business - perhaps even his wife Beyonce?
Of course there's a corporate social responsibility angle too so users can all feel good about getting high, with Jay-Z set to lead TPCO's investments in minority-owned cannabis firms and initiatives to "rectify the wrongs" done when the drug was still illegal.
Jay-Z is also getting right into the cannabis action, last month launching his very own brand of weed called Monogram.
And while we're on the subject of not-so-illicit drugs, officials in Thailand who touted a US$1 billion seizure of ketamine have red-facedly been forced to admit the powder they impounded was actually trisodium phosphate, normally used as a cleaning agent.
The country's Justice Minister Somsak Thepsuthin described the incident as a "misunderstanding" which was caused by a glitch in the field.
Apparently preliminary tests, which turn purple in the presence of ketamine, also react in a similar fashion to trisodium phosphate.
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