Am I the only one calling bullshit on all these 30 percent THC strains? I’ll smoke something from a dispensary claiming just that and feel like a sober turd, then puff something stinky marked at 15 percent THC and get burnt to a crisp. Stop juicing your testing results, ya bums. You know who you are.

Some strains can back up that shit talk, though, and make you regret being so cocky. Some strains will make you feel like a lost virgin again, leaving you gasping for air and a few more seconds of focus. Of course a strain named MAC would be one of those strains: You’ll be lured in and spit out like a spent piece of meat. And you’ll keep wanting to come back. No one can resist such powerful mackin’.

Meringue, you fluffy bastard. Always around to dupe me. I love creamy desserts, sweet flavors and adding egg whites to just about anything. So why can’t I get down with you? (TMI answer: Being reminded of my limitations is depressing, but that’s better left for the leather couch.) Even when I had a younger stomach and tastebuds, meringue was too much. Too light and sugary on top of my pie, too hard and acidic in cookie form. Call me myopic, but I’m more of a cheesecake guy.

Still, I won’t stick my nose up at a cannabis strain named Meringue. After all, I love creamy desserts, sweet flavors, adding egg whites to just about anything…and weed.

Being a cannabis writer doesn’t require a fine wardrobe. I wear lots of baseball tees, jeans and hoodies, and most people I encounter still think I’m overdressing for my job. That means my shlubby shoulders will probably never feel the touch of cashmere, but they’d get a lot more attention if they did.

The Kashmir region of India is known for producing some legendary indicas as well as the yarn made from goat wool. Given cashmere’s reputation for smoothness and comfort, any indica named for it had better comfort the body and mind. More important, the grower had better make sure that smoking it is smoother on the lungs than Marvin Gaye. Nobody wants to cough aggressively on Cashmere. Fortunately, everything will go smoothly if you buy it from the right place.

Know that jealous, confused feeling you get when you find out that some mediocre celebrity is worth way more than you thought? I remember when I discovered that Judge Judy made almost $50 million a year, and when I heard that the New York Mets owe former outfielder and third baseman Bobby Bonilla $1.2 million annually from 2011 to 2035 (he retired in 2001 — the Mets front office had a lot going on back then). Such revelations aren’t appalling, but they do make me scratch my head.

I was itching my hollow noggin for a solid minute after learning how popular Citral Glue has become in Denver. A mix of Gorilla Glue (or Original Glue, GG #4 and whatever else dispensaries call it to avoid a lawsuit nowadays) and Citral Skunk by Ethos Genetics, this new Glue phenom can differ on the phenotype, but my favorite has the best of both parents, with a heavy layer of milky trichomes and skunky aroma that makes you feel like you just made a wrong turn in a cornfield.

A couple of friends and I recently lugged about fifty beers three miles up a mountain for a camping trip, then argued over who was carrying all those cans back down. My buddy’s girlfriend, meanwhile, brought two liters of pinot noir in a bag and didn’t have to worry about shit. Not only did it make me realize how dumb my drinking habits are, but it also reminded me how much I miss that purple stuff. Not purple drank (R.I.P., Pimp C), but purple weed — and I wasn’t particular about what kind during a dispensary run on a hot July afternoon.

My visit turned up several popular choices in Blackberry Kush, Northern Lights and Purple OG Kush, but I decided to try something new in Purple Punch. Or new to me, at least. Purple Punch began making a name for itself in dispensaries in 2017, with fat, supple buds that win in the looks department and trichome production. A mix of Grand Daddy Purple and Larry OG, Purple Punch’s potential to create amazing hash has made the sedative strain a hit among regular users and medical patients, while its dense, violet buds draw in excited newbs like flies to a bug zapper — and then fries them just the same.

When you’re an adult, there’s really no upside to being sick. You either don’t get paid when you miss work, or you get paid but still have to do all the work you missed when you return. But at least being sick is a rare excuse to use nighttime cough syrup, which knocks me out as hard as cannabis ever has without completely zapping my dreams.

Research has shown a link between regular cannabis use and decreased REM sleep, or the stage of sleep when your body relaxes enough to let your mind dream. Still wanting to keep up my REM activity without totally ending the cannabis use, I hoped a strain by the name of Sueño (the Spanish word for “dream”) would bring me some good juju.