Author Toke of the Town

The lion may be king of the jungle, but the tiger is king of flavor. I’d reminisce about saving my allowance for tiger’s blood snow cones (watermelon, strawberry and a hint of coconut) more often if it weren’t for Charlie Sheen’s implosion. We all know Frosted Flakes are more than good, and Tiger’s Milk was the only edible power bar until the health-food explosion. Face it, Hobbes was right: Tigers are the best. And there’s one more trophy to add to the list: Tiger’s Milk, the cannabis strain.

I only came across Tiger’s Milk within the past year, but we’ve been on a fast track of burning love ever since. This strain has qualities that are rare in the weed world, giving off smells closer to a vanilla milkshake than citrus or pine trees. Bred with Appalachia and Bubba Kush genetics, Tiger’s Milk comes from the mysteriously hidden strain breeder Bodhi Seeds and was eloquently described as “nursing from the smoky tit of a giant psychedelic tiger” by the people at SeedFinder. It’s hard for me to disagree: This milky strain lullabies me to sleep like a wet nurse.

Dear Stoner: My very Christian, conservative, Texan in-laws wince when I even say “marijuana,” and any discussion of its benefits or the industry sends them into a tizzy. How do I convert them?
A Faithful Prophet

Dear Faithful: My go-to campaign has always been CBD benefits. Epileptic children can suffer dozens of seizures while on prescription medicine, but hundreds of videos and articles online show how CBD can reduce those seizures to fewer than one per day. And that’s only CBD’s benefits for epilepsy cases. Retired athletes, senior citizens and patients suffering from various chronic conditions have all documented how CBD helps treat their inflammation and pain better than prescribed narcotics and painkillers. A combination of talking up CBD benefits and warning of the life-threatening dangers of opiate addiction has been my winning formula for quite some time now, and I’ve made a lot of conversions.

Bradley Nowell’s stoner scripture, “I smoke two joints in the morning,” sounds too extreme for most — but plenty of functioning, successful people prefer a hit or two of cannabis in the morning to a cup of joe. Durban Poison, Lemon Skunk, Sour Diesel and other sativas can definitely perk you up for the day, but nothing beats orange juice in the morning…or in this case, Tangie.

Tangie is a sativa-dominant hybrid of California Orange and an unknown Skunk strain that smells like a dank bag of clementines. The freshly squeezed stank and energetic high make the strain stand out in an already powerful line of tangerine-flavored strains like Tangerine Haze and Tangerine Dream. It’d be hard to differentiate between members of the group blindfolded, but Tangie separates itself from the pack with an impressive THC potency, winning awards at multiple cannabis competitions for its cured flower and concentrates. Although Tangie’s Skunk heritage is clouded, Denver’s most popular variety, found at the Clinic, is derived from Candy Jack, a hybrid of Jack Herer and Skunk #1.

Bradley Nowell’s stoner scripture, “I smoke two joints in the morning,” sounds too extreme for most — but plenty of functioning, successful people prefer a hit or two of cannabis in the morning to a cup of joe. Durban Poison, Lemon Skunk, Sour Diesel and other sativas can definitely perk you up for the day, but nothing beats orange juice in the morning…or in this case, Tangie.

Tangie is a sativa-dominant hybrid of California Orange and an unknown Skunk strain that smells like a dank bag of clementines. The freshly squeezed stank and energetic high make the strain stand out in an already powerful line of tangerine-flavored strains like Tangerine Haze and Tangerine Dream. It’d be hard to differentiate between members of the group blindfolded, but Tangie separates itself from the pack with an impressive THC potency, winning awards at multiple cannabis competitions for its cured flower and concentrates. Although Tangie’s Skunk heritage is clouded, Denver’s most popular variety, found at the Clinic, is derived from Candy Jack, a hybrid of Jack Herer and Skunk #1.

Dear Stoner: I think pot will help my grandfather’s arthritis. Is there a kind of pot product — flower, edible, whatever — you’d recommend?
Scott

Dear Scott: According to science, you’re probably right. A study by the University of Oxford showed that cannabis-based medicine administered orally helped reduce rheumatoid arthritis pain and disease activity for the large majority of those studied. Big surprise, right? But researchers from the National Academy of Sciences took it a step further and studied the effects of CBD (cannabidiol, the non-psychoactive part of cannabis) on cows and mice with arthritis, concluding that “the treatment effectively blocked progression of arthritis” in both animals, protecting the joints against further damage. So get your grandpa some CBD products.

Dear Stoner: I recently went all in on dabs and now love shatter, butter, rosin, resin, etc. After dabbing, if I take a hit of even the dankest flower, it tastes like sh*t — like burned hair mixed with dry hay. I mention this to fellow dabbers and almost always get a quizzical look. Is this just me?
Job

Dear Job: If you have a dirty bong, then it’s not just you. Any flower will taste like ass out of dirty glass. But if your piece is clean, then, yes, it is you. Live resin and extremely well-purged concentrates can taste just as good or even better than flower itself — but unless you’re dabbing the best of the best, you’re probably not hitting anything that tastes better than cured flower out of clean glass. Even if you were, the taste difference isn’t drastic enough to be as bad as you describe. Maybe it’s just the butane you like?

After a heavy week of sleep and sadness thanks to indica-leaning joints of Death Star and the ending of the new Star Wars movie, I decided to blast off with a much more uplifting variety. Space Queen, a fruity hybrid of Cinderella 99 and Romulan, always takes me on a giggle-ridden journey to the moon — without the crushing fall back to Earth.

Space Queen has many enjoyable traits, but my favorite is easily the smell. Even people who don’t like the usual stank of cannabis tend to appreciate a whiff of the warm combination of apples, berries, sandalwood, cheese or butterscotch, depending on the cut — but you’ll find fruity notes in all of them. The strain’s terpene profile is dominated by caryophyllene and humulene — also found in cinnamon, cloves, coriander, ginger and hops — which makes for calming aromatic effects, despite Space Queen’s being a sativa.

You send us your questions, and every week our resident stoner answers them. He’s told you everything from how to pass a drug test to where you can stash pot at concerts. We’ve rounded up the ten most popular Ask a Stoner questions of 2016 (most of them from this year, but a few greatest hits), with links to the original columns and summaries. Keep those questions coming in the new year to [email protected].

Not all stoners are Star Wars fans, but I’d bet a lot of the midnight movie-goers at Rogue One: A Star Wars Story last week were smoking themselves into a galaxy far, far away before walking into theaters. Cheering on Leia, Luke and the boys as they fight the Evil Empire is a pastime for many potheads, but not all. Some of us just want to get blunted and listen to the voice of James Earl Jones voice rule with an iron fist as he Force-chokes peons to oblivion. For that, I give you Death Star.