BILL OXFORD / GETTY IMAGES

Over the first couple of months, I unconsciously began drinking more to help distract myself from how much it hurt. But I’m from a family of Irish alcoholics, so that seemed like a dangerous road to continue down. I was hesitant about becoming dependent on any substance—self-medicating makes me nervous—but needed some way to subdue the pain. I decided to try edibles, because I could closely monitor and control the dosage. Plus, a lot of the products on the cannabis market are specifically crafted for people with chronic pain. I knew what I wanted: something I could take right after work, since my wrist would be tired from typing all day, that would give me a light body high without making me too loopy or sleepy. These are five of the edibles I tried, ranked in order of how well they met these qualifications.

Tarukino

Thanks to voters all over the country passing legal weed measures, we’re seeing new companies bringing all kinds of cannabis-based products out of the shadows and into the light of the market, including edibles, topicals, and more. And one of them, Tarukino, based in Seattle, is aiming to bring their line of get-you-high liquids to the Portland market sometime this summer—and they’re doing it by chemically stripping out the terpenes from the THC found in cannabis.

Terpenes, according to Tarukino’s Janson Lander, are what give you the munchies and red eyes. They’re also the ingredients that give cannabis its smell and taste. Tarukino’s process, Lander says, was achieved by Juan Ayala, an MIT-trained chemist who formed the company with Michael DeLance and CEO Howard Lee before bringing their first product to the Washington and Colorado markets in January of 2017.

Lander won’t say how it’s done, other than the process involves centrifuges to spin the terpenes out of the THC, but he did offer this:

“We’re using plant extracts as our source for THC and CBD,” Lander says. “We isolate the oil droplets on a very small scale and then make them water compatible, resulting in a uniform and homogeneous distribution. We do not use solvents or co-solvents.”

What resulted is Tarukino’s ability to create ciders, sparkling wines, and soda waters that will stone the people who drink them, sans the taste and smell that other cannabis-delivery vehicles, like edibles, often possess. And because they know everyone’s tolerance is different, the Tarukino team offers drinks with different and precise measurements of THC.

Jason Sturgill

In 2014, University of Kansas professor Barney Warf published a paper called “High Points: An Historical Geography of Cannabis” in the Geographical Review academic journal, revealing how, even from early days, the shifting borders and population movements caused by imperialism and war affected the history of weed.

Warf writes that cannabis—first grown in central Asia, where it then spread to Arab countries, India, and Southeast Asia—was initially brought to Africa by Arab merchants into places like Egypt and Ethiopia by the 13th century. Known as dagga, its use spread down the continent, and records show it was used by Indian indentured laborers in South Africa for centuries. Cannabis didn’t become widespread in western parts of Africa until World War II, when it was introduced by soldiers serving in the British and French armies. (For this discussion, we are speaking of cannabis used for consumption, and not the plant used for industrial purposes. Please don’t email me diatribes about rope and sails, hemp-os.)

In the 19th century, the British brought 1.5 million indentured laborers from India to the Caribbean, who also brought along their ganja.

Jason Sturgill

This isn't the first time the Mercury's devoted pages upon pages of content to cannabis. In what's become an annual, April-20-adjacent tradition, the Portland Mercury's Weed Issue has become the funnest and bestest way to read about what we're smoking, vaping, eating, and rubbing on our skin. (Because there are cannabis topicals now, you see. We're not just being weird.)

So take a gander at this jam-packed Weed Issue, either on old-fashioned ink-stainy newsprint, or by using the magic of pixels and electricity to absorb its dopey, green goodness. Here's what's inside:

• Cannabis and Race
How Imperialism Almost Erased the History of Our Favorite Plant

• Weed in the Water
Tarukino's Cannabis Waters Are Making Their Way to Oregon

• The Chronic (Pain)
Five Edibles I Ate to Self-Medicate

• Vape Up or Ship Out
Evaluating Two of Our Favorite Vaporizers

• Come to the Source
Make Your Own Cannabis Extract at Home

• Let's Get Stoned with Bilbo and Chewbacca!
Pipe-Weed, Death Sticks, and Other Made-Up Drugs

• A Potpourri of Cannabis Product Reviews
Get It? Pot-pourri? Eh? Eh?

• Leafly's Guide to Cannabis Is Dope
Finally a Pot Primer Worth Recommending

• "Don't Be Concerned. It Will Not Harm You."
Tips to Take the Edge Off When You're Too High

• A Cannabis Crash Course in Cinema
Feed Your Stoned Brain with These Nutzoid Films

There's news, tips, reviews, history, and maybe some sorta dumb stuff that we thought was a good idea when we were high. In other words, it's the Portland Mercury Weed Issue—so get to readin', potheads!