THE JAR — LIVE

Where the bench’s money is, what it just did, and what’s next in line.

Two Jars. That’s the Whole System.

Every counter in this country has a tip jar. Ours is transparent. Literally.

We spent years on the other side of a cannabis counter — so we built our funding the same way we build everything else: out in the open, where you can watch it work.

The Old-Fashioned Jar The classic. You like the work, you keep it running — monthly, pay-what-you-can, cancel whenever. Patronage the way it worked before algorithms: you back the people, the people do the work. It keeps the lights on, the field kit rolling, and the newsroom independent. Named for the method, not the drink.
The Test Jar The bench’s jar, and only the bench’s. Every dollar in it becomes product bought at full retail — receipt documented, lot number recorded, no favours. When the jar covers the next test, we test. Small months buy a few. Big months buy more. Arithmetic, out loud.

And the industry? The industry doesn’t get a jar. The industry gets a sponsor package, a firewall, and its name published next to exactly what it paid for — the platform, never a verdict.

Members fund the bench. Industry funds the platform. Nobody funds the verdict.

The Ledger

No goals. No deadlines. No thermometer. Just a jar, doing arithmetic in public.

Date The Jar Test Covered Front of the Line
Launch Open — first test in the works — The line forms at the question box

Your drop carries a voice. Every drop in the Test Jar can carry a request — the product you’re curious about, the label claim you don’t buy, the thing your budtender couldn’t answer. Requests aren’t purchases and they aren’t promises (the lawyers made us say that; they’re right). They’re the bench’s suggestion box, weighted by the people keeping it alive. When the jar covers the next test, the most-asked-for products are at the front of the line.

Every review this jar covers publishes the same line, forever: Funded by the member jar. Bought at [store], [city] — full retail. Receipt on file. No sponsor money touched this test.

Why We Run the Money in Public

This page is a sibling of our Algorithm Health Checker — same idea, different vital sign. That board shows how the platforms treat our journalism. This one shows how Canada treats it.

Because the jar isn’t just funding — it’s a barometer. What you rank on the story board tells us what you want covered. What lands in the jar tells us how much it matters to you. Together they’re the most honest audience measurement there is: not clicks, not impressions — a country deciding, in public, what its cannabis journalism digs into next.

You steer the stories. You fuel the bench. We do the work and show the receipts. That’s the whole deal.

Updated by an actual human. (Still ironically.)
HOLD BOTH JARS — BECOME AN INSIDER