Why was Cheech Marin in Modesto? The answer will not surprise you (but it’s still fun)
A man walks into a marijuana dispensary. Wait, did I mention that man was Cheech Marin and the marijuana dispensary was Modesto’s Jayden’s Journey?
I know, man, shoulda led with that.
The actor, half of the comedy duo Cheech & Chong, stopped at the shop in north Modesto on Friday afternoon as part of the cannabis dispensary’s Epilepsy Awareness Day festivities. The event included a pop-up family craft fair with local merchants that drew a large crowd.
But the main event was inside, where Marin — now 75 — met with a stream of hundreds of fans who were eager to say hello, snap pictures and snag an autograph with one of the originators of high humor. Marin rose to international fame in the 1970s thanks in part to his cult classic movie “Up In Smoke,” about a pair of pot-smoking slackers, with comedy partner Tommy Chong.
This is at least Marin’s second visit to Modesto. He and Chong played a show at the Gallo Center for the Arts in 2019. The duo, which produced a slew of comedy albums through the ’70s and ’80s, went on to make a handful of other movies together.
Over the years Marin and Chong have become stoner legends and fully embrace their places in pot history. Both men have their own cannabis lines, which they run together as Cheech & Chong’s Cannabis Company. Marin’s marijuana brand is called Cheech’s Stash, named after his thick “Up in Smoke”-era mustache.
Marin has gone on to mainstream success on TV and film, including as one of the stars of the police procedure series “Nash Bridges” and in family franchises from “Cars” to “Spy Kids.” He has also been working on one of his other passions, Chicano art collection, with the upcoming opening this summer of The Cheech Marin Center For Chicano Art & Culture in Riverside.
But Marin isn’t shy about his weed roots either, and said he’s pleased that public perception of marijuana use has shifted considerably through the decades.
“We always said in the days when everyone was getting down on us, ‘Well, what if we’re right? What if marijuana is good for you and it can help you and it can be used as a medicine? What about that?’” he said. “So we now are at that process where everyone is accepting that, and it’s better than what came before.”
Fans brought albums, license plates and even a newborn onesie for the comic actor to sign. Perhaps the oldest fan there 85-year-old Modesto resident Maureen Venturini, who stopped by with her granddaughter.
Teresa Covarrubias and her son Adam Ochoa, who has autism and epilepsy, also snagged a coveted autograph. Ochoa uses the dispensary’s signature Jayden’s Juice, a CBD oil product that proponents say can treat severe epilepsy and other ailments.
Jayden’s Journey has gained national attention for its products with CBD, a compound found in marijuana that its advocates claim offers health benefits without weed’s other psychoactive properties. Dispensary owner Jason David has been using CBD for more than a decade to help treat his son’s rare form of epilepsy.
In 2016 David went on to found Jayden’s Journey, one of the region’s first medical marijuana dispensaries, which also began serving recreational users after California voters legalized retail cannabis sales in 2016.
“My son was dying, I kept on going to the doctors. They kept giving more pills — side effect after side effect — nothing ever helped,” David said. “The first day I gave (CBD) to Jayden was the first day he ever went seizure free in his life. I knew we were going in the right direction ... Jayden is 15 now and they told me he wouldn’t make it until 5.”
This story was originally published March 26, 2022 at 10:33 AM.
