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The Cannabis Connoisseur
Pubdate: Tue, 01 Nov 2005
Source: Maclean's Magazine (Canada)
Copyright: 2005 Maclean Hunter Publishing Ltd.
Contact: http://www.macleans.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/253
Author: Julia McKinnell
THE CANNABIS CONNOISSEUR
It's Got To Be Organic, And If You're Not Using An $800 Vaporizer To
Inhale...
Where wine is concerned, there is much to know. Even the actor Paul
Giamatti, who played a wine connoisseur in last year's hit movie
Sideways, reportedly didn't know that the chianti he ordered at lunch
during filming would be red. Legions of drinkers pore over the subject
as if fact-gathering itself were the addiction.
And so it is with another of the world's most popular intoxicants:
marijuana.
The average pot smoker may not know or care what type of weed is in
the dime bag, so long as it gets him lit. But others can't stop
obsessing over every detail of the subject from, say, how to produce
kick-ass bubble hash from plant debris (don't throw away those
sticks!) to questions about the Linnaean nomenclature of the
subspecies cannabis indica.
Chris Bennett is a Vancouver-based producer at Pot TV and an expert on
the history of cannabis.
Not only can Bennett differentiate by scent pot strains such as
Blueberry and Timewarp, he has a very particular preference for the
type of buzz he's after.
And we're not talking potency here (i.e. whether it's weak in THC or,
at the other end of the mind-blowing spectrum, one of the so-called
polio pots one grower describes as "vegetative heroin, so strong you
can't move"). No, what Bennett cares about is whether the buzz causes
a "high" or a "stone": two very different things.
Bennett describes a "high" as a "bubbly situation brewing up with lots
of thoughts and ideas," and in general arrived at by smoking the
cannabis subspecies sativa. "A good working daytime thing," says
Bennett. This, as opposed to a "stone," a more "meditative, focused,
stiller mind," most often achieved by smoking the subspecies indica.
Bennett prefers to get stoned.
More specifically, he likes a strain of stone-inducing pot known as
God Bud, which, incidentally, did Canada proud at last year's 17th
annual world Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam, where in years past Bennett
has acted as a celebrity judge in the category of hash. Indeed, a God
Bud from British Columbia took top honours, and reigns supreme as the
world's best indica bud until this year's competition, from Nov. 20 to
24.
But to each his own -- sativa or indica; high or stoned -- the
subculture of pot is opening up like never before.
Pot connoisseurs are excited. "It used to be all we'd get was this
really dry Mexican shit with lots of sticks and seeds," remembers a
Vancouver grower, who's talking over the phone as if he's high but who
claims, in fact, to be stoned. "Dan" started smoking pot in the '70s,
before the notion of grow-ops and seed banks, and before he realized
he could grow for himself a strain of indica so glistening with resin
the bud looks like a "crystal ball" and sells for $2,000 a pound.
Dan is passionate about growing.
Get him going on genetic variation, and he sounds like a
botanist.
Get him going about the time his Green String took third at the
Cannabis Cup and, well, he sounds a bit fried.
He can't remember the exact year, but, whatever, it was a
thrill.
Dan doesn't want his real name revealed because growing is illegal,
but among non-growing pot connoisseurs, there is a surprising
willingness to speak on the record.
Michelle Rainey speaks with pride about her own recent addition to the
pot festival circuit.
Toker's Bowl in Vancouver is a four-day event in July that operates
like a Cannabis Cup North, except more hands-on and intimate for the
participants, says Rainey. Participants are given pot samples when
they arrive and then have four days of organized bus tours, cruises
and parties at which they sample the strains, take notes and
ultimately grade the varieties. "It's just a wonderful event so that
people can understand how marijuana works," says Rainey.
As with the importance of terroir in viticulture, pot connoisseurs
care deeply about how their bud is grown.
Dan, the Vancouver grower, explains that "hormonal and enzyme
additives affect the taste, and it doesn't burn properly." Once Dan
made the mistake of applying too much of a certain additive and the
entire crop turned into a kind of non-burning "fire retardant." "A lot
of people are growing B pot," he says. "If you're concerned with
volume, there are a huge number of compromises. But if a person wants
to have the best-tasting, the best-smoking, the triple-A pot, they've
got to go the organic route." Dan uses indoor five-gallon pots under a
maximum of eight lamps, eight being what he figures he can get away
with before the hydro bill looks suspicious.
Then there's the question of how to smoke it. Oenophiles swear even
the lowest-quality wine improves when sipped from Riedel stemware.
By the same token, Bennett contends you're missing out if you're not
inhaling from a vaporizer. A vaporizer costs around $800, weighs about
six pounds and looks like a metallic volcano. "It forces hot air up
through the marijuana, causing the resin to melt and turn into vapour.
It tastes better, and there's no carbon or smoke, so the health
dangers associated with smoking are removed." But wait. Whatever
happened to the trusty bong? "I don't like bongs," says Bennett.
"Bongs are a European thing, nothing the Canadian connoisseur would
use."
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Discuss Canada's pot predicament with Bud Inc. author Ian Mulgrew in
our special guest forum at www.macleans.ca/marijuana
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