2017 could be the year of the great American pot bonanza – even for those who invest but don’t partake.
With the latest round of legalizations stretching pot-friendly zones up and down the coasts, the national weed market could leap up to $21 billion by the year 2020, if New Frontier Data – now in partnership with the pot industry’s Arcview Group – has the right idea. That’s a pretty major increase from last year’s $5.7 billion last year and this year’s projected $7.9 billion, according to figures cited by CNN.
That’s got markets buzzing. Although different pot stocks have performed wildly differently, and it’s probably still way too early to break out the IPOs, sites like The Street have already picked out some hot Canadian stocks, “with one returning 85% in a month. Another stock performed so well that its market capitalization increased more than $100 million in one month.”
Thanks to DEA scheduling delays, FDA approval questions, and the like, other stocks aren’t quite so lit. But even among that crop, it’s not the cannaboid products that are bringing values down. Friendly reminder, this isn’t investment advice. But stoned or not, your mileage may vary.
Playing sports has been a common childhood experience that has led to lifelong hobbies, exercise, and forming lasting friendships. However, it’s gotten less common in recent years. Sign-up fees, uniforms, and many other expenses have led to most low-income families unable to afford to have their kids play. With that in mind, the city of Oakland, California believes they found a solution: a library. No, not the book kind.
Officials are letting children check out soccer balls, footballs, yoga mats, tennis equipment, and other sports supplies at their newly opened Park Play Lending Library. Kids can also check out board games and card games like UNO as well. Using this library located at the Larry E. Reid Sports Center is absolutely free to anyone.
“Every child deserves the opportunity to play, learn, and thrive,” said Maribel Lopez, City of Oakland Recreation Supervisor said in a press release. “The Park Play Lending Library is an investment in our community and a step toward ensuring that all Oakland residents have access to the recreational resources they enjoy, regardless of their financial situation.”
Encouraging kids to socialize, play, and grow
Oakland residents and officials welcome this sports equipment library for a myriad of reasons. It’s not just to allow access to certain activities, but to help address the lack of third places and areas for children to play overall. Whether it’s through sports or games, face-to-face playing helps children’s social skills, combats loneliness, and expands the immediate world around them.
“We’re aware that sports can lead to social mobility,” Lopez told SFGate. “When kids are familiar with golf, tennis, soccer, and other, you know, games or sports that are more socially mobile, then they have access to different communities, different friend groups, different neighborhoods, and we want to be a vehicle for that. We want kids to be able to speak each other’s language and connect through sports.”
Expenses in youth sports has become a federal government issue
Children being priced out of local sports programs due to expense has been a rising issue across the country. It’s to the point where the federal government is looking to intervene.
Representatives of both Congress and the Senate have introduced the Let Kids Play Act bill to their peers. The purpose of the bill, according to Congressman Pat Ryan and Senator Chris Murphy among other authors, is to limit or outright remove private equity firms’ involvement in youth sports. The representatives state that the cost to participate in youth sports rose by 46% over the last five years. They also claim that many families are paying more than $5,000 per kid so they can play. By removing private equity involvement, the hope is to cut down on junk fees, stay-to-play schemes, data mining, and other issues that are making it harder for families to allow their kids to participate in local organized youth sports.
While the federal government debates on this issue, a local library or park allowing children access to sports equipment to have pick-up games may be a great first step to renew what was a common American childhood experience.
Arizona middle schoolers that were a part of Greenway Middle School’s “After the Bell” summer program were really looking forward to their field trip. However, funding for their end-of-summer field trip fell through. That’s when School Resource Officer Sean Reavie stepped in.
Using money from his own pocket, Reavie rented out all 144 seats at a local movie theater so the kids could enjoy a screening of Toy Story 5. The movie, the snacks, the sodas, all on him. For many of the kids, it would be their first time ever watching a movie in a theater.
An act of generosity, an act of community
After being contacted by the program director, Katie Jenkins, Reavie didn’t hesitate to spend his own money on the theater rental and treats. The cost added up to nearly $2,000.
“If they needed more, I would have given them more,” Reavie said to 12 News. “You can’t break a promise to a child. They come here knowing that there’s a reward at the end.”
Reavie understood that this trip to the movies was more than it seemed. Greenway Middle School is a Title one school, meaning that the majority of the students came from low-income households. Several of the students qualified for free breakfast and lunch daily from the school. Going to a movie theater was a luxury that most of the kids’ families cannot afford.
“Some of them live in a different life than most of us would comprehend, and they just haven’t seen a lot of good things with their own eyes,” said Reavie. “Their family doesn’t have a car. Parents, if they have two, work multiple jobs. Half of them have never been to a water park before. They’ve never been across the other side of the highway before.”
Prior to the movie, after Officer Reavie explained that he would take care of all expenses, he made just one request to the kids.
“As you get older in life, help other people, as a payback to me,” he told them. “Would you do that? That’s all I ask of you.”
Reavie is a superhero (well, dresses like one sometimes)
This isn’t the first time Reavie helped fund a great experience for local school kids. In 2025, he spent more than $3,000 to take students to Hurricane Harbor water park.
Reavie spent the early years of his police career as a child crimes detective for six years before taking on his current role. Along with that, Reavie started a superhero-inspired charity that supports teen youth programs and child advocacy.
“It dawned on me that little kids who were scared responded to superheroes,” he said. “So I started a superhero-based foundation called Put On The Cape: A Foundation For Hope.”
The Put On The Cape organization has officers and “causeplayers” dress up as superheroes to host events to raise money for children’s causes. Their homepage reads,”Our mission fills the toy closet, food pantry, and clothing wardrobe to the children and their families. This takes the burden off the center so they can focus on healing the child from the trauma they’ve endured.”
With or without a cape, Officer Reavie is setting a great example of giving in order to plant hope in a generation that could grow up to give back tenfold.
A teenager is being praised for pulling off a heroic act straight out of an American western film. The boy saved a man from drowning by lassoing him like a cowboy.
Fourteen-year-old Jory Thomas was just visiting with his grandparents on their campground near Yellowstone River. Jory had his lariat to practice the roping skills he’d been learning for the past year. That’s when he heard cries for help from the nearby river.
“We all heard, ‘Help, help,’” Jory said to KTVQ News. “There’s two or three people floating down the river, one hanging on to the cooler, and he wasn’t saying anything.”
A raft carrying four people crashed into a bridge pillar, knocking them all into the Yellowstone River. While three of them made it to shore, the fourth was drifting quickly downstream as he clung to a cooler. Jory emptied his pockets and grabbed his lariat, immediately rushing to help.
Practice prepared him for this moment
“This current was pretty fast then, and he was moving pretty quickly,” said Jory. “Only thing I could focus on was helping him get out of the water because I didn’t want to see anyone go in front of me.”
Jory had been practicing using a lariat to rope a dummy on his parents’ ranch nearly every afternoon when the weather was fair. Ready for action, Jory ran into the shallower part of the river, getting chest-deep into the water. Letting his training do the work, Jory took his 12-foot lariat and lassoed the drowning man.
“Luckily, I caught him first try,” he said.
Jory slowly pulled the man to shore as first responders arrived.
“I felt pretty good afterwards that I knew he was okay and was out of the water,” he said. “God was basically putting me in the place of all this. God was just telling me all of this at the time and saying, ‘Go get him, you got it, and I believe in you.’”
Jory’s instinct was to help
Jory’s family was proud but not too surprised that he leapt into action. To them, being helpful was just Jory being Jory.
“His first instinct always is to help other people. He’s always been that way,” said Sandy, Thomas’ grandmother. “The whole community is proud of him. We’ve had a lot of feedback, but that’s Jory. He’s always there to help somebody else.”
“We’ll be in town at the grocery store, and you’ll see an elderly person,” Jase, Jory’s father, told Cowboy State Daily. “They can’t pack the groceries, and he never says a word. He goes over and gets their groceries and packs them out. That’s just who he is.”
The local police also praised Jory for taking action.
“My opinion, Jory saved the individual’s life, 100%,” said Sweet Grass County Sheriff Alan Ronneberg. “Had Jory not acted, I believe the chances of this individual making it to shore were very slim.”’
“Jory saw another in trouble and acted, not for himself but for another,” Ronneberg added. “Jory is a lesson for all of us in this day and age and showed us what is courageous and right.”
