In the weeds of weed
I walk through the metal door and then the metal detector, ID in hand — into Harborside—and move towards the main room. What I’ve come for is cannabis and what I’m greeted with is lots of it.
At a waist-level display in the middle of the room I pick up small, clear containers half full of marijuana. I slide open lid vents and release the odor of what’s inside, like my six-year-old self granting a trapped frog some air.
Next to each jar are cards with strain names, prices, and some specs on THC (Tetrahydrocannabinol), THCA (Tetrahydrocannabinolic acid), or CBD (Cannabidiol) levels. I spot a few familiar strain names like Durban Poison and Ancient OG, both of which agree with me quite well. Less so with Cadillac Purple, who I had a falling out with when I found myself overly high, becoming panic stricken at the Sonoma County Fair as I was being strapped into “The Spider” next to a crying eight-year-old. I also wanted to cry.
Across the table I see some strain relatives, where I recognize one half of the name, like the Cookies in Sour Cookies. I’m hesitant to introduce myself. For the most part, I haven’t tried most of what I see, and, despite being curious to give them a whirl, I’m not sure what an evening with Sour Banana Sherbet would feel like. Maybe joy, maybe paranoia, maybe both. This is how it goes when I find myself at a dispensary or at a friends house or anywhere I’m offered weed. I hear myself thinking “stranger danger” and “this could be great” at the same time. And if I end up trying something new I feel as if I’m stepping into the smoke filled void. Will I fly across the sky on the wings of a friendly hippopotamus or will I find myself mildly anxious about how much hot sauce is on my mac and cheese.
So, how do I begin to conceptualize and rationalize my experiences with cannabis? Like with most things, I begin by tying how I’ve felt with the name of what I’m consuming. It’s what we humans do with everything we come into contact with: people, pets, brands, Oreos. We do this because names are anchors for meaning. What we know and experience gets tied to its name and the more experiences we gather the more lines we tie on. With cannabis it gets tricky when we’re presented with new names or names that are somehow related to strains that we’re familiar with.
Where did Twisted Velvet come from and who are its parents and grandparents? Did it come from a loving home or did it get to spend its life outside? Or how is Chem Krush related to Chem Scout. It feels a lot like looking at a selection of apples and coming across a new cultivar, say Autumn Glory. The sign might tell you that Autumn Glory is a hybrid of Golden Delicious and Fuji. I’ve had each of those before, so I expect to find Autumn Glory to taste somewhere in the middle of those two flavor profiles. Easy enough, but when it comes to cannabis I find myself going through the same exercise, expecting to put my mental state somewhere between what I know and what I can find out, if anything, about what’s a part of this strain. The results are less predictable than apples, in large part because apples, to the best of my knowledge, are not psychotropic.
To make sense of the beautiful array of cannabis that’s available to me I start to build a mental map of what I know and have tried—this feels part grand expedition, part fool’s errand. At the base level I know what I like and I know what works for me. But ultimately, the variables are too great and too plentiful to accurately predict how a new hybrid or completely unknown (to me) strain will affect me. I often know one piece, say the Cookies part of Nigerian Cookies. But what’s that Nigerian half going to do? Will I laugh more, feel more anxious, find myself ordering too much food? In trying new strains sometimes I find the grail, other times I fall into a crevasse.
It’s not as if I don’t have trail signs. I have my own experiences but I also have access to some of the history and lore. I’ll ask the folks at the dispensaries. In order to map out the lineage of what I just bought I’ll look at places like the IC Mag forum and dig for answers. I can look at “The Galaxy,” built by Phylos Bioscience, a cannabis genetic certification company, which visualizes an enormous database of cannabis DNA. It’s overwhelming and fantastic.
“You’ll see collaborations between indoor farmers, or see heirloom strains handed down through outdoor farmers. The sharing has always been there but now it’s exploded. The sharing was low key, in tight-knit groups but now it’s really opened up. What’s happening is it’s moving fast, exponentially hybridizing once you get into the first 15 or 20 years branching off from landrace. Can you recognize a Sunset Sherbet versus another Girl Scout Cookie and Durban Poison and knowing those connections, those are key. Knowing the genetics and knowing the farm and their lineage too. Not that many people know that level of detail.”
— Robb of Cut Creek Farms
Because cannabis is so popular and strains are expanding at such a rapid rate, we’re dealing with a naming and context situation at a scale that few other industries have found themselves. What’s missing is consumer facing information that would give people more anchor points to contextualize their experiences. Some of the pieces are available, but they’re often disparate if known at all. Why not equip people with as much contextualizing information as you have. Put it on the packaging or make it available on your website. Put the focus on the customer, give them the basics, the lineage, even the lore. There’s a rich history here, so share it, get people involved and educated about what it is you’ve created.
