BC Business
When it comes to holiday cheer, cannabis is the gift that keeps on giving
God rest ye, merry gentlefolk
Let nothing you dismay
For you can purchase rolling kits
For five bucks on eBay
Or vapourizers, joints and grinders
At your local mall
‘Tis the season, why not buy it all?
(I mean, it’s your call )
It’s legal now, so why not try it all?
Welcome, holiday revellers 19 years of age and older! It’s the most wonderful time of year, a season when you’ll scarf too many canapés, listen to too much Dean Martin and feign celebration of whatever secular, ethnic, historical or faith-based festival ticks the personal boxes. Regardless of persuasion, during this deeply contemplative time of year, your true holy objective is to buy lots of stuff. (That mercantile dream ain’t gonna happen by itself!) Herewith, a gift guide for the cannabis aficionado.
Although (most) Canadians are legally allowed to grow up to four cannabis plants per household, very few of us have tried. To create your own burnin’ bush, you’ll likely want to germinate marijuana plants from decent-quality seeds. Tweed offers a four pack of its feminized Bakerstreet seeds—essentially, in vitro Hindu Kush plants—for $87 at City Cannabis locations in Vancouver and the Comox Valley. Caveat emptor: there’s no guarantee they’ll actually sprout, so to help ensure they do, bundle this gift with a vintage copy of the once-outlawed (and out of print) 1974 Canadian classic, the beautifully illustrated Grow Yer Own Stone ($100 on eBay.ca).
Got a stoner foodie on your holiday shopping list? The Levo II infuser ($469.99 at Kiaro) alchemically takes cannabis and, at the push of a button, processes dried flower into fragrant cooking oils, aromatic butters—even CBD-laden bath bombs. (You decide the concentration and terpene profile.) A complementary stocking stuffer? Gift a copy of Bong Appétit: Mastering the Art of Cooking With Weed ($40 at Chapters), a righteous cannabis cookbook. Give us some figgy pudding, dude—now!
Whether you call it cotton mouth or the more nostalgically evocative desert mouth, one of the irritating side effects of smoking marijuana is, I’m told, an uncomfortably dry pie hole. According to one study, after we use weed, our body’s own cannabinoid receptors can prevent salivary secretion, which is to me a very scary thing, mainly because it involves science. To ameliorate this, try Dry Mouth Mouthwatering Lozenges from appropriately named High & Dry. They’re gluten-free! (Around $10 online, various outlets.)
Tokers know that Reek isn’t just the eunuch from Game of Thrones. Described poetically as a combination of “angry skunk poked with stick” and “mink farm litterbox,” the odour of burned marijuana can be—and we’re going out on a limb here, but that’s what we do—a little off-putting. To mask it, Tokyo Smoke sells Cloud Mist ($10), a fabric-safe, spray-on odour eliminator. But to transport your stash—no more than 30 grams, right, boys and girls?—you may want to invest in a Smell Proof Backpack from Tweed ($79 online). Stylish and discreet. (And lockable.)
Finally, what’s a winter holiday without a movie about cannabis? There’s, uh And, um OK, there aren’t many, aside from A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas and the Seth Rogen vehicle The Night Before. But there are plenty of non-seasonal pot-centric contenders, from Richard Linklater’s brilliant Dazed and Confused to Cheech & Chong’s Up in Smoke. The granddaddy of them all? The 1936 repertory theatre staple Reefer Madness ($9.99 on iTunes).
A tale of innocent high-school kids lured into depravity by “pushers,” the flick is a hilarious Depression-era exercise in propaganda designed to terrify youth into avoiding the evil weed and turn them into sexless, God-fearing Republicans. That worked well. Ho, ho, ho.