In this weed detective story, Lester Black goes on a year-long hunt for the legendary Big Sur Holy Weed. Did a monk named Perry really create the strain in the 1960s? Black clearly wants the myth to be true, but the world of weed is a hazy one. While it seems the Big Sur Holy weed may be more mythic reputation than a reliably preserved strain, in his fascinating search Black does uncover some plausible contenders—now themselves threatened by heavy-handed modern legislation.
If a journalist like me wanted to verify that a farm was really growing gala apples, or a winery was really selling true cabernet sauvignon, I could take those products to a botanist who would be able to verify through genetic testing that they are accurately labeled. Nothing like that exists for cannabis. That kind of standardization is done by institutions like agricultural schools, federal regulators and scientists. Almost none of that is available to cannabis because it is still federally illegal. On top of that, a century of prohibition made it a criminal liability to keep notes on strain types and where you got them.
More picks on cannabis
The ‘Godmother’ of Weed vs. Her Uncle, the DEA Agent
“Cannabis officials courted a rising pot star to join New York’s legal market. Then a stunning police raid upended everything and shattered a family.”
Confessions of a Journalist Turned Weed Smuggler
“A veteran reporter looks back on when he was laid off from his newspaper gig and instead of taking a dead-end desk job turned to running van loads of marijuana across state lines.”
Purple Haze
“Cannabis returns to Kathmandu.”
The Feud Between a Weed Influencer and Scientist Over Puking Stoners
Regardless of certain recent viral tweets about “scromiting,” cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome (CHS) is a very real thing. But figuring out the root cause of the unfortunate condition gets a lot harder when a prominent CHS sufferer (and, yes, “weed influencer”) decides to waylay a burgeoning scientific study. Another banger from Amanda Chicago Lewis, queen of…
Driving While Baked? Inside the High-Tech Quest to Find Out
“Once stoned, the study participants find the 10-minute Cognivue test overwhelming, to say the least. ‘I kept questioning my sanity,’ one guy tells me. The clusters of vibrating dots confuse and frustrate almost everyone. ‘Are there dots? There are not dots,’ one person says. ‘All the dots, they turned into an amorphous borb,’ adds another.…
The Visionary
“Friends call him the ‘consummate vibe curator,’ and with Rage & Release he has created space for a community to coalesce around a common interest in running and using cannabis not to party or to zone out, rather to be present and talk about things like physical and mental health.”
