Heart of Dankness

January 30, 2012
Novelist Smith (Baked) travels the multibillion-dollar world of high-end marijuana production from the sequoia groves of California to the cafes of Amsterdam. Smith’s quest is to discover the essence of ”dankness,” that quality which differentiates the good buds from the great. Along the way, Smith meets growers, buyers and “bud tenders,” and explores the murky legal status of the medical marijuana movement. Smith’s journey ends at the 2010 Cannabis Cup, where sativa strains like “Chocolope” and “Sour Power” battle for supremacy. Smith is a good-natured guide and the narrative moves smoothly. However, his approach remains superficial and repetitive in both substance and style: Smith visits some marijuana hub, conducts interviews, tokes up, and moves on. It’s a stoner’s dream job, but Smith doesn’t take us to the heart of anything. The strongest chapters detail a trip to hidden fields in the Sequoia National Park, but even there, Smith remains a tourist. Nevertheless, his is a pleasant guide to understanding the difference between indica and sativa.

March 1, 2012
A personal quest for the world's finest weed. "Dankness," a concept akin to "awesome," was first formulated by snowboarders to describe the ideal buzz from their favorite recreational drug, a notion that easily spread to other cannabis connoisseurs. In 2009, novelist, screenwriter and pleasure-seeker Smith (Writing/Univ. of California, Riverside; Baked, 2010) was sent to Amsterdam by the Los Angeles Times to cover the Cannabis Cup, a sort of Academy Awards for marijuana growers sponsored by High Times magazine since the late 1980s. The assignment (and Smith's natural curiosity) inspired him to seek in the coffeehouses of Amsterdam and in the medical marijuana dispensaries and underground farms and grow houses in his home state of California for the strains that best illustrate the concept of dankness. A food- and wine-appreciating epicure, Smith was most attracted to strains that taste and smell good--fruity hybrids like Cup winners Lemon Silver Haze or Chocolope--as well as the psychotropic so-called "sativas," which elevate mood, rather than the indicas, which induce stupefying couch-lock. Michael Backes, founder and curator of the exclusive Cornerstone Research Collective for medical marijuana (who incidentally Smith that every strain humans ingest is actually an indica) says the best strains are "pharmaceutical quality" and that the dopey effects of pot are due to impurities rather than the complex of psychoactive molecules, of which THC is just one, in the plant's genome. "Anything that impairs me, I view as a side effect," Backes says. "I want to get rid of the side effects." Smith is an amusing and easygoing narrator with a talent for describing the sensations good weed brings on, but beneath the fun, he has a serious message: Criminalized marijuana is not good for anyone but criminals. Witty, civilized and intelligent narcotourism.

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