Before dispensaries started pushing designer strains in bougie glass jars like it was Sephora for potheads, New York’s weed scene ran on grit. Dealers sold their flowers in whatever cheap plastic baggies they could score that were stamped with everything from cartoon characters to knockoff logos. Now that elected officials are busy arguing where to put another overpriced weed boutique, Brooklyn-based photographer Vincent Pflieger aka @Streetadelic is on a mission to document what came before. He’s been collecting street-level cannabis packaging since 2018, eventually turning the stash into 0.125oz (a cheeky nod to the classic eighth and typical amount people would cop). What started as snapshots of throwaway branding has since grown into a book, a magazine, and an exhibition—produced by Studio 3.5 grams naturally—that captures the rough, unfiltered aesthetic of the city’s underground weed economy.
It kicked off just as legalization chatter started gaining steam. Pflieger began casually, pocketing odd baggies here and there. But what began as a passing interest turned into an obsession. Hundreds of artifacts later, each one has been photographed, labeled, and archived like fragments of a vanishing city. Scrolling through the collection is like flipping through a diary — each piece with its own energy, its own mood. As legacy practitioners, ANIMAL had a few questions for the Frenchman.
Out of all the designs you’ve collected, which one is your favorite and why?
It’s hard to pick just one, but I’d say the ones that stick with me most are the very local designs from Brooklyn. They’re rare, tied to a specific moment in time — before everything became too corporate. A good example would be New York Kyandi, produced by B-Eazy and designed by Colin Zhang, a very talented illustrator I later met. He’s now created a wide range of work for different cannabis brands, but that early design captured something raw and authentic.
Was there a certain baggie that instantly told you, “Okay, this is either gonna be gas or straight dirt”?
There are so many that scream “straight dirt.” Usually it’s a funny or random illustration with no details about the weed itself. These were often common bags used by smoke shops, filled with whatever weed they had on hand — no control, no real sourcing. Most of those shops were unlicensed and have since shut down. That’s where you’d find what we called “sprayed” weed — low-quality flower sprayed with cannabis-scented additives to fake potency.
What’s the weirdest or most unexpected design you’ve found in the archive so far?
The mashups always catch me off guard — like Donald Trump morphed as Captain America, or Darth Vader doing push-ups at the gym. One that stands out too is Trees R Us — a giraffe chilling and smoking a G. You have to be pretty high to come up with some of these ideas, but that’s what makes them special.
If you had to explain baggie art to someone who only knows dispensary weed now, what would you say?
It’s like adults using their childhood references to create branding. I often say it’s candy for big boys — playful, psychedelic, and nostalgic. It’s also a way to build sub-cultural identity within drug markets. Think about the wax seals stamped on bricks of hashish with car brands or Playboy logos, or ecstasy pills shaped like everything imaginable. Cannabis packs are part of that same tradition — a signature, a calling card, a way to be remembered.
How would you describe the difference between old-school street branding and today’s corporate dispensary branding?
It depends on the brand. Some of the street-born brands that went corporate kept their original spirit — they doubled down with wild packaging: Game Boy themes, Monopoly-style designs, even pairing packs with tiny toys like Hot Wheels cars. They kept it fun and self-aware. Meanwhile, a lot of newer corporate cannabis brands aim to be more upscale and “clean” — closer to perfume brands in style. They’re trying to appeal to a broader, more adult market, but often lose the playful identity that made street branding so memorable.
Eventually, this city’s gonna bulldoze every weird, dumb, or brilliant thing left standing. It’s what we do. But when it happens—and it will—someone’s gotta remember what it was like to buy cheap mids in a baggie with a cartoon panda blazing a blunt. And thanks to 0.125oz, somebody will.
