How to Smoke Pot (Properly)

spring morning when I visited WAMM for the first time, the collective s fledgling seedlings were just getting transplanted into five-gallon pots. Valerie put my wife, Elise, and I to work right away, digging holes and mixing soil. She also welcomed us into an amazing community of reefer revolution- aries, and encouraged us to come back for more. So over the next year (and the years to follow) I got to closely follow the crop s natural life cycle from seed to harvest for the first time, while making a lot of new, kindhearted friends, learning the art and craft of outdoor cannabis growing, and at long last, getting some dirt under my fingernails.

Growth is so obvious in the garden you don t have to wait long to see it, Valerie once told me, explaining that many seriously ill and even terminal patients find the process of producing their own medicine to be highly empowering. The garden gives us an opportunity to build something bigger than ourselves. That not only helps the healing, it puts us more in touch with the cycles of life.

So let s begin by understanding how the cannabis plant germinates, grows, flowers, and reproduces, and then we ll explore the many ways clever cultivators seek to optimize this process in search of higher potency and heavier harvests.


THE CANNABIS LIFE CYCLE


Like humanity, Cannabis sativa is a dioecious species, which means it predominantly produces distinctly male and female organisms, in roughly equal number. Pot is also an annual, meaning individual members of the species complete their entire life cycle in less than one year.

In nature, each plant begins life when a previously dormant seed begins to germinate in early spring. Only the strongest and most viable of these seeds manage to throw off their seed casings,

Dr. Lester Grinspoon, Associate Professor Emeritus at Harvard Medical School and author of Marihuana Reconsidered and Marijuana: The Forbidden Medicine
 
"I read the shit out of this super funny and informative book, which includes a surprising answer to Should I eat pot brownies before boarding an airplane? David Bienenstock is like a really smart version of Ricky from Trailer Park Boys, who can form sentences that teach you stuff about weed and also make you laugh hard as fuck."
Mike Clattenburg, co-creator of Trailer Park Boys and Black Jesus
 
Humans have been using cannabis and hemp for tens of thousands of years, but only recently have smart people begun again to think and write clearly about what pot really does and what it's really good for. David Bienenstock leads the pack in this newly liberated thinking. Free your mind and your grass will follow.
Julie Holland, M.D., author of Moody Bitches, Weekends at Bellevue, and The Pot Book
 
"In our rapidly evolving new age of marijuana appreciation and education, How to Smoke Pot (Properly) provides a thoughtful, historical and comprehensive account of all things cannabis.  Filled with useful information that encompasses just about every situation imaginable, from rolling your first joint to properly passing one in a foreign land with new friends, David Bienenstock expresses his passion and commitment in a way only someone dedicated to keeping it weird possibly can."
Alex Lifeson, guitarist of Rush
 
How To Smoke Pot (Properly) is a delightful book proclaiming that marijuana smoking can be an exhilarating, creative experience. David Bienenstock sets the tone in his introduction when he says, It s no longer sufficient to talk about the harms of marijuana prohibition. We ve got to start loudly and proudly celebrating the many serious benefits this plant brings into our lives and communities."
Keith Stroup, NORML Founder and Legal Counsel
 
"It s a healthy development that society has reached the point where it needed this book, and I m glad someone of David Bienenstock s eloquence and experience has written it."
Doug Fine, author, Farewell, My Subaru, Too High to Fail, Hemp Bound

"A comprehensive look at all aspects of cannabis, penned by a master of prose...I love this book!"
Jorge Cervantes, author of Marijuana Horticulture and The Cannabis Encyclopedia

Incisive Whether you're a weed rookie starting from scratch or a seasoned smoker who's gathered disparate strands of information about the plant over decades, How to Smoke Pot (Properly) presents everything in one place, at the right moment in time.
Mashable.com