BLOGTOWN

Rankin/Bass

The Lord of the Rings

There are an infinite number of annoying things about Tolkien nerds (stop speaking Sindarin, unless you are actually as elegant and erudite as the High Elves of the Undying Lands, which you are not), but number one with a bullet are their jokes about pipe-weed. Also known as “Halflings’ Leaf,” and with a particular strain known as “Old Toby,” pipe-weed was enjoyed by Hobbits all over the Shire because they were dull-witted deadbeats who, aside from literally only five of them, accomplished nothing of worth in their entire useless existence.

That’s all canon (pretty much), but what isn’t canon is people snickering whenever a Hobbit sparks up a pipe or zones out staring at Gandalf’s smoke rings. “Get it?” nerds giggle, except in Sindarin. “Pipe-weed is like weed!” Yes, we get it, and no, Tolkien didn’t mean for it to be weed. Tolkien was square as hell. But if partaking in Old Toby will get you to shut up about second breakfast, by all means, please.

The Stormlight Archive

Drugs aren’t a huge part of Brandon Sanderson’s epic fantasy series (Start with The Way of Kings! See you in three years!), but wine plays a role in the narrative—yellow wine has practically no alcohol in it, and thus no reason to exist, while violet wine will seriously fuck you up. Since reading about wine in any context is incredibly boring, Sanderson also includes a few other intoxicants, like firemoss, which smokes when you rub it between your fingers, and the Thrill—a bloodlust that turns warriors’ vision red, filling them with fury and an unquenchable thirst for slaughter. Uh, I’ll stick with firemoss, thanks.

JULIA SUMPTER / LEAFLY

The content in the "News" section is well researched and written—a great way to keep up with all that’s happening around the globe with cannabis. But the “Strains” and “Products” sections are goldmines of information. With “Strains,” you can sort through hundreds, if not thousands, of types of herb, and filter your search by strain name, medical conditions, “moods & activities,” and nearly a hundred other filters. With user reviews and rundowns of benefits and effects, it’s a comprehensive repository of information that you would otherwise need a number of different sites to compile. The “Products” section is similarly useful.

Now Leafly has assembled a “book,” which, for the post-millenials, is like a super analog Kindle, from which you can consume content, but it uses dead tree pulp to make “pages” that you “turn” using your “fingers.” It’s kind of like swiping. Ask your parents.

Jason Sturgill

My friend stalked her room, listing the reasons her current relationship wasn’t working, and I pulled a heavy art book off her bookshelf. I began turning its massive, colorful pages—hoping that somehow the art would calm me. I do not remember anything concrete about the book. I only remember an unreasonable terror that I was about to ruin an important friendship because I was so thoughtlessly stoned.

I bet the whole internal ordeal that felt so epic to me lasted 10 minutes, tops. I looked up, interrupting her. “Hey, I have to confess something,” I said. “I ate a weed brownie before I came over—before I knew you were back in town—and I haven’t understood anything you’ve said since I got here.”

“Oh,” she laughed. “You’re so stoned.”

“Desperately.”

I like to use cannabis responsibly, but I have, as evidenced by this anecdote, misjudged my tolerance from time to time. Although the heart-racing panic of feeling way too stoned never seems to lessen with frequency, I have developed some approaches for calming down or managing my high when things have gone, as the professionals say, all higgledy-piggledy.

Mercury Staff

You can make any of those at home fairly easily. (Insert obligatory disclaimer that making concentrates at home using butane is a great way to end up as an 11 o’clock news story called “Local Dipshit Making Hash Oil Blows Up Self, House.” Don’t use butane outside of a regulated, professionally overseen production facility, ever.)

But “fairly easily” is relative, and time, effort, and the quality of your final product are all considerations. Which is why many forgo making their own tinctures and edibles for the same reason many forgo brewing their own beer—it can be messy and time-consuming, you need lots of equipment, strong smells can ensue, and so on.

I’ve made cannabis tinctures and water-extracted concentrates with varying degrees of success for years. But stirring a pound of weed trimmings in a five-gallon bucket filled with ice water for 10 minutes straight loses its charm quickly, and the alcohol tinctures I’ve made resulted in a effective potion, yes, but one that blended the flavors of a garbage bin of lawn trimmings with a hint of burning feet.

On the flipside, cost is a big factor in purchasing premade cannabis tinctures and concentrates. Taxes and other high-cost regulations placed upon the cannabis industry lead to a much higher price for a finished product than what you would make at home. And hobby recreational growers, especially those with plants grown outdoors, often end up with Ziploc bags of surplus bud and trim that they can’t use.

I was intrigued by a new product by Colorado-based company ExtractCraft, who make the Source Turbo. What's that? (Deep breath.)