Name confusion brings anger over neo-Nazi allegations to other OG’s, including a pot shop in Eugene

Consumer anger over allegations that two owners of a Eugene marijuana lab sympathize with neo-Nazi views has caused unwelcome fallout at two unaffiliated but similarly named pot businesses.

OG Analytical’s owners were the subject of a scathing series of allegations by the group Eugene Antifa. The antifacist activists said Bethany Sherman, the company’s majority owner, supported white pride events and that her life partner, Matthew Combs, organized neo-Nazi groups. Combs has a 10 percent stake in the company.

But Eugene OG on Franklin Boulevard and Salem-based OG Collective, which has three shops in Oregon’s capital city, were bearing some of the anger Thursday about the Nazi allegations. The only thing connecting the companies is having OG in their names. Consumers and others appear to have mixed up OG Analytical with Eugene OG and OG Collective.

“I came into the shop this morning, and the first thing I did was answer the phone and immediately got death threats on my mother, on my life, on everybody here,” Eugene OG inventory manager Alex Traylor said Thursday. “It was completely ridiculous.”

Over the next five hours, the phone at Eugene OG rang about every three minutes, he said. Traylor said he thinks it was an attempt to keep the store’s phone line busy.

“We would just pick up and hang up,” he said.

OG Collective budtender George Grismore said the phone at the Salem shop where he works was ringing all day Thursday, with people calling angry about the owners of OG Analytical.

“We have no affiliation whatsoever” with OG Analytical, he said.

In general, “OG” is a common term in the marijuana world, referring to powerful pot. The OG in the name Eugene OG is a nod to “Oregon Grown,” but Traylor said that for some marijuana users it may mean “Original Gangster” or “Ocean Grown.”

“We kind of leave it up for interpretation,” he said.

OG Analytical, also known as Oregon Growers Analytical or OGA, is among 22 state-accredited marijuana testing labs, checking pot for potency, pesticide contamination and other traits. Sherman, the lab’s founder, has said she’s not a neo-Nazi, but also is not ashamed to be proud of being white. She said Wednesday that she will resign as OG Analytical’s chief executive and plans to sell the company.

Eugene OG has products on the shelves that were tested by OG Analytical, but Traylor said that doesn’t mean the pot shop supports the lab. State rules require pot producers to have their products tested before being be sold, Traylor said, and he estimates that about half of the products made in Eugene went through OG Analytical.

“(Eugene pot shops) all have those products tested by OG Analytical,” he said.

Source: http://registerguard.com/rg/news/local/36229514-75/name-confusion-brings-anger-over-neo-nazi-allegations-to-other-ogs-including-a-pot-shop-in-eugene.html.csp