Weed Coast: Take Me Higher

Cannabis is about a lot more than getting high. But if that’s what you want, here are three strains that’ll do the trick. 

I love cannabis, I really do.

I use it often, usually in the evening to relax the tightness in myshoulders and to relieve the tension in my brain after a busy day. I love it somuch that I spend most of my professional and personal time waxing poeticallyabout the glorious potential of this incredible plant. I can talk aboutcannabinoids, terpenes, growing and delivery methods, legalization, and thebusiness of cannabis from dawn until literal dusk.

And one of the reasons I’ve loved writing this column over the past 12months is because it offers a platform to educate and empower our readers tomake informed buying choices. It’s a gift and an honour. I truly love weed – physically,academically, and emotionally.

Lately though, I’ve come to the realization that my passionate stanceputs me in the minority of most Canadians. I now believe it’s time that thecannabis industry at large (myself included) comes to grips with the fact thatthe majority of people use cannabis for just one thing: to get high.

And that’s ok.

It’s likely that most Canadians, whether they’ve been using cannabis fora long time or a little, don’t really care to be educated about the differencesbetween THC or CBD. They don’t feel the need to understand how each cultivar’s aromaticblend of terpenes contributes not only to flavour, but to the experience aswell. They don’t care who grew it, where it comes from, or the potential healthdifferences between vaping and smoking.

They just want to get high. And that’s fine by me.

A friend of mine, who has smoked cannabis for 30 years,told me recently about how he decides what to buy. He’d contact a friend of afriend, who’d bring him a Ziploc bag of dried buds. He would smell it, smokeit, and if he got a buzz, he was happy. That was it. I’ll wager that hisapproach to buying cannabis represents the majority of cannabis consumerstoday.

This is certainly not to downplay the needs of manypeople who rely on cannabis for purely medical reasons alone, whether it be totreat the symptoms of PTSD, Crohn’s disease, multiple sclerosis, arthritis,postpartum depression, cancer, or Parkinson’s disease. Cannabis has been shownto not only help with those symptoms, but also to improve people’s quality oflife.

Yet despite all of this, the federal government hasplaced so many restrictions on the promotion of cannabis that our industry hasfew options but to focus on education, even though we’re not freely able totalk about the one thing that the majority of people really want to know: will it get me high?

I am well aware that everyone experiences cannabisdifferently, but I also believe that as a society, we’re shit scared of peoplethat just want to feel pleasure. Let’s be real – there’s far too much pain andanxiety in the world today. With or without “Health Canada-approved” evidence,we all know that cannabis can provide the relief we all need, on many levels.

Call it recreational or call it medical, but it’sreally just the same thing. People want to relax. They don’t want to be angry.They don’t want to be anxious or depressed or in pain. Most people just want tocalm down and lighten up. They want to have a laugh, enjoy an old record or a newmovie and forget about their problems for just a few minutes.

That all said, I’ve been digging into a number of products from BC-based suppliers that may provide that required reprieve. Flowr’s BC Delahaze pre-roll tastes of tropical fruit and sweet spice, with a potent THC concentration of around 19%. The Galiano (aka Northern Lights Haze) from Vancouver Island’s Broken Coast is equally lovely, featuring green flavours of Bartlett pear and celery, but with a slightly higher THC count of almost 20%. Start low and go slow with this one. For those that prefer a less intense, but equally pleasant experience, try the Blue Dream pre-rolls from Tantalus Labs. Weighing in at a moderate 11.4% THC, each one offers dark chocolate-covered cherry flavours intertwined with notes of pink peppercorns, leading to a perfect kickoff to a Spring weekend. Should one want to pack ‘em all up for one’s next adventure, I highly recommend picking up the Silverton travel case from Stashlogix. Created in Colorado and now available in BC, these smartly-designed containers feature rubber seals, combination locks, adjustable dividers and an odor-trapping silver lining. This is one of those indispensable accessories for on-the-go pleasure seekers.

The breakdown: BC Delahaze by Flowr, sativa-dominanthybrid ($10.99 / 0.5 gram pre-roll); Galiano by Broken Coast, sativa-dominanthybrid ($11.99 / gram); Blue Dream by Tantalus Labs, sativa-dominant hybrid($18.99 / 3 x 0.5 gram pre-rolls); Silverton by Stashlogix ($59.99 – $89.99,various sizes)