Frequently Asked Questions

In Illinois, you buy pot in a dispensary. Thrive in Harrisburg is my local. They usually have a decent selection, decent price and most important … you can buy pot. Legally. No shit. The first time you walk out the door of a store with weed in your hand you just about shit yourself. And you’re still completely paranoid all the way home. 

You can relax. The DEA isn’t going to come kicking in your door. Well, not from the weed you buy at Thrive at least. 

I’ve also hit Consume Cannabis in Marion and Carbondale, and Ascend in Fairview Heights. All have good shit, all are professional organizations and I feel comfortable buying from any of them. All have sales, buyer’s programs and the price doesn’t vary more than five or ten bucks.

Unless you’re looking for something specific, the nearest one is probably a good, safe bet. Then again, there’s a certain thrill in traveling for just the right weed.

If you live in southern Illinois and usually smoke commercial weed, then you probably can’t. Thankfully. Obviously since its legal the price is going to be high. To balance it out, the quality of the cannabis is a lot higher unless you’re one of the lucky ones. 

That said, you can likely find some relatives of the pot you’re familiar with. Or the taste you remember from back in the day. 

So remember when looking at the menu, that pot, weed, grass – the stuff you smoke – is flower now. 

It’s often said, (nearly as often disputed and never said without a caveat), that there are two types of cannabis, Sativa and Indica. Sativa is more known for giving you a lift. Euphoria if you will. Indica is known for pinning you to the couch.

Some of the old cannabis strains, such as Acapulco Gold and Panama Red were Sativa. Others, such as Afghani and Northern Lights were Indica. 

And Indica was often the source of hashish.

Good luck. It’s been around, but seems to have disappeared again. For those who never had it, it was compressed marijuana, traditionally done in countries like Afghanistan by rubbing it between the hands and scraping it off. In southern Illinois we likely got it from a slightly different source. It smelled incredible and got you higher than regular weed. 

And cost about $30-35 a gram as I remember. When I’ve found it in the dispensaries it was a bit more than twice that.

It’s a marijuana concentrate and still common in Europe, where it can be transported easier than across oceans. Since all cannabis sold in Illinois has to be raised here as well, they focus on more profitable concentrates. 

But even though people call most concentrates hash, it’s not hashish. It’s stronger. The smell is still sweet, but not the same. It comes in a variety of consistencies, none of them as hard as a chunk of Lebanese. 

Yet concentrates do have their charms.

That depends. If you mean “what’s the best weed to get a woman to have sex with me,” that weed ain’t been grown yet. 

If you mean “what’s the best weed to put me in the mood?” then that would depend on what kind of mood puts you in the mood for sex. 

If you use the common rule of thumb, a Sativa would make you more energetic. An Indica will make you more relaxed. For hybrids, read the description and reviews.

If I knew the answer to either of these questions then trust me, I’d have had a lot more sex than I did. 

Whatever I’m smoking now.

No. Even a gram will run about thirty bucks. And it doesn’t come in baggies in the dispensary. The usual quantity for flower is an eighth of an ounce, particularly for buds. Shake pretty commonly comes as a quarter. I have seen a few ounces on the menu at various dispensaries, but that’s out of my price range. An ounce of weed from a dispensary is an investment for me. I’ve yet to find one I want to cozy up with for that long without sampling the new ones. A few strains you can get a gram, and prerolled joints are usually a half gram to a gram and a half. The small ones often comes in packs of four or five.

Hashish comes in grams, as does hash oil, and most concentrates.

If you live in Illinois, and can prove it, you can purchase 30 grams of flower, 500mg of THC edibles, and 5 grams of cannabis concentrate. If you live out of state, you can buy half that. But keep in mind, when you cross state lines into a state without legal cannabis, your legal weed is now contraband. Plus you’ve crossed state lines, which could really land your ass in a sling.

The simplest solution to that conundrum? Move to Illinois. Abe Lincoln came from here. It’s a decent place.

Illinois legal cannabis is likely the most expensive in the country, and that’s before taxes.

A gram of flower is usually $20, an eighth runs about $60, though sometimes you can find it for for $45-$55. A quarter of shake will set you back $80-$100. Buds go for $95-$100. A half ounce runs about $180, an ounce about $315.

Then there are taxes. At ThriveIL in Harrisburg, taxes run about 35%, give or take. In Chicago it’s between 40-50%, which is yet another good reason to live in southern Illinois. Did I mention we have the Shawnee Forest?

Whether legal weed is worth the price or not depends on you. In the end, it comes down to quality and supply. Now that the dispensaries are more or less fully stocked, there is always some quality weed available. I never had a supplier who could provide the high standard of weed I get at a dispensary on a regular basis. Certainly not with this kind of choice. Nor flavor. 

Whether it’s the higher THC content in legal weed over much of the commercial market, or the qualities of the line of cannabis and their various properties, I get higher off legal weed, smoking less. Probably about 30% less. That’s brings the price down to where it’s close. 

Perhaps more important for an older crowd, who spent most of their lives abusing their lungs, that’s 30% less wear and tear on those. Switch to a dab rig and do concentrates and you’ll inhale even less, and it’s believed that you’ll do your lungs even more of a favor by choosing vapor over smoke.

Inhaling concentrates you bought on the street is a crap shoot. It’s the golden rule of drug dealers. If they can cut it with something to make it go further, and fetch more money, they often do it. Even if it damages their customers. 

And then there’s the ethical side of it. Pot dealers aren’t normally motivated by altruism, once you get past your connection, or better yet, a friendly grower. The suppliers are trying to make a profit, or at least get their own dope for free. The companies growing and selling legal cannabis in Illinois are trying to make a profit as well. But a big chunk of what you pay goes to the town where the dispensary is located. Some of these smaller towns were in desperate need of a cash infusion. 

In short, smoking legal dope now makes you a good citizen. Ironic, ain’t it?

Most important, I love the taste, the buzz … how it makes me feel. Ditch weed never did that for me. One of my research victims has smoked dope for as long as I have. He can smoke dope all night and never notice he’s caught a buzz. Now he can be laid out with a properly timed hit of Mag Landrace Shatter. 

I realize that for some people, none of this matters. They love smoking dope, the ceremony, the ritual, even if the actual buzz faded away years ago because of their tolerance. They buy for quantity. They should stick to it. 

But if you’re looking for the buzz, legal weed tends to provide more of a buzz for your buck. 

As much as you can purchase at one time! 30 grams of flower, 500mg of THC edibles, and 5 grams of cannabis concentrate

Only if you have a medical marijuana card, then you can grow five plants. Start working on those symptoms!

The short answer is yes, if edibles work for you. I don’t have the evidence to back it up, but that’s a safe bet. Those nasty little vape pens might run a close second. Only if by the end of the week your lungs are so shot you have to ration yourself. 

Edible don’t work for me. They work well as a supplement, just not as the main course. It feels like taking drugs. I have little control over how high I get, or how long it takes to get there. 

I get high, but I don’t get the ritual of getting high. Just over time it dawns on me … “oh I say, I believe I’m high now.”

That doesn’t work for me. I like the ritual. Maybe someday, when smoking it is just too painful, then I’ll advocate. Till then, I’ll stick to the old ways.

Terps, or terpenes are the oils in Cannabis which add scent and flavor to the plant. Not a lot is known about their affect on your buzz, but it’s a safe bet they have one. And quite likely a substantial effect.

Look, you can go as deep into this as you like. As for myself, I treat terpenes like I do the elements that go into beer or whiskey. There are certain kinds of beer I like, and some kinds that I love. It’s the same with weed. Knowing that I’m tasting Pinene doesn’t really change how I feel, or how the weed tastes. I’m not a scientist, and I’m not out to impress anyone with my knowledge of weed.

God only knows if you need someone like that, you can usually find them standing in line at the dispensary, talking way too loud about this shit.

Now you can use the terpenes as indicators of what the weed will taste like, and perhaps how it will warp your mind. That’s great. There are all kinds of sources online for exploring terpenes. Here’s a good one to start with …

They do! You can even buy them rerolled now. With decent papers, not a pack of cherry flavored EZ Widers.  

Since a full sized joint of a gram to a gram and a half can knock your dick in the dirt, they also come in smaller sizes. Some in cute little tins. Poetic justice for when you carried your weed in an Altoid container. 

The full size comes in a variety of hermetically sealed tubes. You can almost imagine a little universe living in there with it. You’ll end up saving those, like the little containers from concentrates, even though you’ll never come up with anything to do with them.

And you can roll your own. They even sell tubes which you stuff with your weed to make it easier. For those who never got the hang of rolling.

Sure you can. I can find a decent, if somewhat high end selection at Thrive dispensary even. A lot of liquor stores and convenience stores appear to sell them. I got my current bong in a gas station. CBD dispensaries also sell them.

Some of these devices you won’t understand. You should be able to spot the bongs and pipes. They haven’t changed much. 

But as a rule of thumb, if you’re looking at it and can’t figure out where you’d put the pot, it’s probably not for actual grass. 

You can still find acrylic bongs, in all the old colors. I’ve got one in the closet now, but I converted to glass. It’s thick glass, unlike that thin shit from the eighties that broke when you looked at it wrong.  

Besides, at my age if I can’t hold onto the bong, I shouldn’t be smoking it. I don’t drink out of a sippy cup, so why should I need an unbreakable bong. The real danger is in spilling the motherfucker, and turning your carpet into The Bog of Eternal Stench.

Ceramic bongs are still around as well. So you can find that dragon bong you had in the seventies, or a penis shaped one for those who are so inclined.

Glass pipes are big but you can still find the metal ones. I have a nickel plated one I’ve had longer than I can even remember. It’s a hash pipe if you want to get technical. With a lid. Where it excels is with a small bud broken up and buttered with hash oil. With the right combination, it almost, almost smells like hash. And quality screens are totally worth it. 

Mellow out. It’s called a crutch. Sometimes it’s an actual filter. Other times it’s just a bit of rolled up cardboard or thicker paper, to keep the pot from coming out in your mouth, and to keep you from getting your fingers burned. I know, I know, that’s why god invented roach clips. But the younger generation isn’t as adaptive, they want everything built in. Most prerolled joints contain a full gram, unless it’s a short where you usually get two half gram joints.

If you’re old enough to remember when a joint was all there was, then you know a joint is marijuana rolled up in a rolling paper. Or the Yellow Pages or even the Bible if you didn’t have any papers. Pretty simple, providing you know how to roll.

A spliff is a joint rolled with a combination of pot and tobacco. In Britain these were known as reefers in the seventies, with hash often taking the place of flower.

A blunt is a cigar hollowed out and filled with weed. If you’re good, you can roll a blunt yourself, using the same tobacco papers used for rolling a cigar.

Back in the day, most bongs were made of acrylic. They didn’t shatter like glass, were a cheaper alternative and came in a wide variety of shapes, sizes and technology. The drawbacks to acrylic is they add a bit of unwanted flavor to your cannabis. They are also more prone to develop that nasty bong funk smell that could ruin a room for a day or two when you spilled the water on your carpeting.

Today’s glass bongs taste cleaner, and tend not to develop the rancid funk quite as quickly, because it doesn’t absorb bacteria like acrylic. Bacteria is the prime source of stench in a bong, just as it is in your crotch on a summer day.

It used to be glass was pretty fragile, but today’s bongs are made with thicker glass, including super thick glass which can survive a tumble to the floor. They also include built in devices such as percolators that cools the smoke even more.

Also available are silicone bongs. These are virtually indestructible, but due to the nature of their materials, the high falutin features you find in glass bongs typically aren’t available. Great for travel, camping in the Shawnee Forest, but lacking the panache of glass, or even a ceramic dragon bong.

I still think silicone would be a lot like smoking out of a Doc Johnson dildo, but that’s just me.

Ceramic bongs are of course still around. They don’t taste as nasty as acrylic, and since you can’t see through them, don’t look as nasty when they’re dirty. The drawback is you don’t necessarily know how dirty they are till you notice the smell. Plus they can be poured into all kinds of nifty molds, so you get dragons, wizards, necked women and of course, the every popular penis or breast shaped bongs.

That’s a contentious issue. My own technique, which is pretty common involves alcohol and coarse ground salt. For glass bongs or pipes, the highest percentage of alcohol you can get is the best. For acrylic, you want to keep it at about 50-70% alcohol.

There are those who say that salt and alcohol can scratch the surface. It’s entirely possible, but I haven’t seen it yet. It’s also pointed out, rightly, that you never want to inhale alcohol fumes. So when you’re finished, rinse, rinse and rinse again. If it still smells like alcohol, keep rinsing. Then rinse a little longer.

I usually start by popping an Effervent denture tablet into the bong with clean water, above the water line, and let it sit till I finally remember to go pour it out. I replace the water with the alcohol so that the dirty bits are able to soak.

I then pour a goodly amount of coarse salt into the water chamber, along with enough alcohol to fill once again above the gross line. Then wander off for a while. When I come back I add more coarse sea salt, cover all exits and shake the living shit out of it, till the walls look clean. Then shake some more, because it’s good exercise and lots of fun. Then rinse as noted above.

There are a variety of methods. You can finagle it into a bowl and smoke it through a pipe or bong. But that’s wasteful, as you’re not heating it at the right temperature. Ideally, you heat it till it turns to vapor, then inhale the vapor. Which in theory is better on your lungs.

For that you need a nail. Essentially a nail is a bowl, but in this case made from metal, quartz or glass. You heat it with a torch. Carefully. Till it’s about the equivalent of red hot. Then using your alchemist’s intuition, you let it cool to the proper temperature, then drop your concentrate into the bowl, er, nail, and puff away. A dab rig is essentially a small bong, with the nail attached. Unlike grass, the idea isn’t to cool it off with as much water as possible. Instead, you want the vapor to travel a short distance, and through water to cool it.

If it sounds a bit complicated, it is. It takes learning how to do it, and practicing. And watching lots of YouTube videos. Here’s a good place to start.

Another good option is an electronic pen. It has a battery, some kind of control, a coil and a mouthpiece. You drop the concentrate on the coil, put it all back together, push the button and puff. Then cuss because you forgot to charge it. When you do, it usually works. But gets a lot dirtier, faster than a dab rig.

But travel well.

Send me a message and I’ll come over and demonstrate, providing you have hash. And pay travel time. I’m not cheap.

Otherwise, I prefer a hash pipe. Metal, about three inches long. Don’t know why, I just do.

You can put it in a bong, break it up and sprinkle it in a joint. An old favorite is to put it on a thumbtack, light it and put a glass over it. When the glass is full, tip is so can get your mouth against the opening and suck in the smoke. That likely tastes the best.

I haven’t tried a dab rig or an electronic pen. Or any of the new tools the cool kids are using. We’re old school here.

A Bic lighter is the old standby. Avoid the cheap knockoffs. I was smoking dope at Wesselman Park in Evansville, Indiana one fine spring day, sitting in the car. I was lighting a bong, because I was fearless and stupid, and I noticed that the plastic was bubbling next to the metal flame guard.

I thought that curious.

I realized I’d melted the plastic, the gas was mixing with the plastic and at the instant I thought “throw the motherfucker” and opened my hand it exploded, shooting through the open window like the Challenger space shuttle accident, sending shards of melted plastic into my fingers. Which then dried.

“Ouch,” I said.

So long story short, don’t begrudge an extra buck and pick up a decent lighter.

Currently I use a torch. Not a particularly powerful one, but a nice blue flame with a whooshing sound. I probably got it in the checkout lane at Walmart, or at Hucks. The advantage is it burns it quick, so can pull softer and for a shorter period of time. It helps avoid the cough.

The drawback to all those methods would be the butane adds a flavor to the smoke. Plus you’re inhaling butane, which can cause problems.

What I’m transitioning to myself, is the match. Book or wood, doesn’t matter. Of course it puts off a sulphur smell when you light it, but once that’s settled down, you apply it to the weed, and there’s no added scent.

Unless you have rancid matches.

Apparently not. I grew up in southern Illinois in the seventies. There wasn’t much to do here, so when you finally found pot, life turned technicolor. How do you outgrow that?

Granted, you hit a certain age, you look at your consumption, and the variety of things you’re consuming, that all lead to untimely death, and start to ponder your life choices. If you’re like me, you have a reason to live.

So you chuck out the vices that are most likely to kill you, pick the one or two you don’t want to give up and develop moderation. Instead of working on your tolerance, you work at weakening your tolerance.

Congratulations! I know a lot of people like you. Unfortunately, there are people like me who pick up a bit of heart and lung disease along the way. I’ve known some people who got so nutty they had to quit. I’ve known a few that blew a gasket the first time they smoked it.

In short, the damage can be non-existent, or fatal, depending on how much you smoke, what you smoke and your genetic makeup. You don’t know when you start, so it’s always a gamble. Some of us are gamblers.

But when you get our age, the stakes are higher. So are the THC levels, and a lot of long time smokers find their face melting the first time they smoke legal weed. Or take a puff off a dab pipe.

So for myself, I take advantage of the higher THC content, and smoke far less. And smaller hits.

267

The same thing that happened when you mixed alcohol and pot as a teenager. Quite often it was something that you don’t want to remember, and likely have never told your spouse. I always considered beer a marijuana enhancement device. It’s a win-win. You smoke less pot and drink less beer.

Once again, moderation is the key. Unless you have a raging drug habit or buy your beer by the case. Hard liquor is a different story altogether. Hard liquor is an advanced class, and more dangerous for a variety of reasons. Not the least … the dreaded spins. You know you don’t need that last bong hit, but you do it anyway. You find yourself flat on your back, tasting stale whiskey on your tongue, the room is tried to break loose from its moorings and finally it does. I go straight for the vomit, I don’t fight it. Besides, a good puke helps prevent hangover.

It depends on how much you smoke. You need your vitamins but you should be getting them from what you eat. That said, I do take a multivitamin. If I’m not getting an abundance of fruit, I’ll pop Vitamin C. Potassium and Magnesium are good as well.

That’s about all I can vouch for. But yeah, marijuana does eat up the nutrients in your body. You’ll find if you eat right, and plug the holes in your diet you’ll feel a lot better. And get sick less.

No, I’m an artist, writer and sometimes dabble in music and advertising. But I’m alive, relatively healthy and where most people dropped the habit, I kept going. I never became a burnout – my brain works better now than at any other time in my life. I think. Of course I could be totally fucking nuts.

It was the late eighties, a Sunday afternoon and I was walking into a restaurant/lounge which had live music outside. As I walking in, I saw an empty package of Emge hot dogs there amongst some other trash. I’m guessing LSD was involved as it didn’t make me crave one. Instead, I was turned off by trash. When the music started, I kept noticing the garbage all around me. Plastic, paper, boxes and I thought, “what if I started eating like my granny Bert did back when she was poor?” In the middle of the twentieth century, shit was hard. And people like her ate simple and ate right.

So I decided that day I’d stop eating anything that came in a package with a logo on it. Which turned out to be a good idea, because it pushed me to the basics, I had to learn to cook. And though I wasn’t religious about it, for most of my life after that I ate fairly well.

Otherwise, I surely would have died years ago. Instead I started studying food and nutrition, how to avoid the things which were likely nasty. Here’s the bottom line. Each region of the world has its cuisine, that was developed over the past thousand years. It wasn’t developed to be yummy, but to keep you alive and healthy. If you eat the way they ate in the past, supplement with fruits and vegetables your ancestors never could have dreamt of, you’re pretty much following the most recent dietary advice.

Where I fucked up was cigarettes, and I knew it. And having a job which had me sitting on my ass twelve hours or more a day.

So no, I’m not a professional. Take everything I say with a grain of salt, (but under 1500 mg per day), and double check anything I say for yourself, starting with asking your doctor. Then make your own choices.