Last year, if you headed up to the men’s section of Selfridges, you would have found something a bit odd: on your way towards the skate ramp, in clear view of the Acqua Di Parma barbers, a company called Mr Nice had set up a foil-wrapped jeep filled with weed plants.

It was the first CBD company to appear in Selfridges, but what was most interesting was the energy it brought: this was Hacienda clubbing, nights out in Tottenham warehouses, hypebeasts drinking Red Stripe in the few remaining fun bits of Shoreditch. There was even a clothing line alongside it, featuring an ingenious set of jogging bottoms with a secret drugs pocket in the leg cuff. It was cheeky, fun and deliciously naughty: not an energy you see very often in the current CBD market, which feels more like Space NK than Spaced the TV show.

Mr Nice, explained a company spokesperson, is inspired by the life, times and ethos of Howard Marks: an Oxford grad and the biggest cannabis smuggler of the 1960s and 1970s, he was said to be working for MI6, taught Biggie Smalls in prison and wrote the incredibly successful autobiography Mr Nice after smuggling tons and tons of weed into the UK. As a result of being drawn from Marks, going down the sterile route wasn’t really an option for the company. “Those would be two opposing views,” explained a company spokesperson. “We don’t discredit the wellness approach, not at all, but we are communicating it in a younger and more street-digestible way.” They want to engage with the cannabis culture that already exists in every country, the one we perhaps associate more traditionally with weed smoking. “This part of society shouldn’t be ignored and needs to be spoken to. Like how skaters in the 1990s went from nuisance kids to a much bigger culture that they never expected.”

While Mr Nice’s entire vibe is one drawn from a very distinct, nightlife-infused aesthetic, its bottles still have something stripped back and simple about them: there’s nothing of the poppers-esque clipart-and-Comic-Sans clandestine designs you might have expected before, when weed grinders and CBD products sat in the windows of vape shops. While you can find grinders and spliff papers in the Mr Nice range, you can also find bath bombs and coffee. At the end of the day, as fun as the brand seems, it's also careful about following regulations and producing the best possible product for customers: “Our shop staff may look very young and cool, but they’re well educated about the topic,” said the spokesperson. “We make sure that people coming into the store who have questions about CBD are answered in the most professional way.” These bottles are, fundamentally, just as nondescript as many of their competitors. 

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