Читать книгу Marijuana Smoker's Guidebook - Matt Mernagh - Страница 7

There’s not a published article, going all the way back to my beginnings as a music geek for Exclaim Magazine, that hasn’t been written while I’ve been under the influence of some wicked weed. That’s because without cannabis I’m unable to sit comfortably in a chair and write these words. Medical marijuana allows me to function. Inhaling responsibly, I’ve obtained a Humber School for Writers diploma and a journalism diploma from St. Clair College, penned articles for Toronto alt-weekly NOW Magazine as well as Cannabis Culture magazine and I’ve made several appearances on Newstalk1010, an influential news radio station in Toronto.

Marijuana manages my fibromyalgia, scoliosis and a rare brain tumor behind my left ear better than any prescription medication on the market. I can function like a normal human with medical cannabis, whereas seizure and opiate medications render me blah. In 1997 I joined a then-fledgling organization called the Toronto Compassion Centre. It helped people to obtain high quality cannabis to treat their illnesses. When Toronto Police raided the feisty organization in 2002, I came out of the cannabis closet and began my personal quest to overgrow the government.

As the coach of a group of activists known as the Toronto Hash Mob, I’ve led and organized almost a decade’s worth of marijuana smoke outs. We risk arrest every April 20th by publicly puffing down with friends. Now we have grown into a sizeable crowd of thousands of tokers. Our celebratory cannabis cannon (about a quarter pound in one super-sized joint) has led to my photo being splashed in newspapers all the way around the world. I’ve appeared in print and on television numerous times in my legal medical marijuana garden. It’s fair to say that cannabis has given me a quality of life I could not have had without it.

However, it hasn’t been all ganja gravy. I’ve been charged for a cannabis-related offence on five separate occasions, did two weeks in Canada’s most notorious prison The Don Jail and I’ve spent five of the last seven years on bail. Yet even in these bleak moments there’s some cannabis clarity–like when a justice proclaimed during a bail hearing, “That must be the largest balcony in the city”, after learning I had placed 32 plants outside to see how they would grow 420 feet above the city of Toronto.

My so-called “confession video” (don’t ever make one of these) shows me explaining to an inquiring detective, who claimed to have busted plenty of grows before but had never seen anyone label their pots, the difference between indicas, sativas and hybrids. The labels allowed me to keep track of the different strains that I confessed to growing for myself to determine which ones worked (and which ones didn’t work) at treating my illness.

Turning my worst moment into my best took four years of monthly court sessions and a thirteen-day trial. Our four months of preparation, wherein lawyer Paul Lewin and I interviewed people across Canada about their inability to access the federal government’s medical marijuana program, resulted in the largest victory against prohibition ever achieved. Together (myself, 22 witnesses and our lawyer Paul), we struck down Canada’s marijuana laws for personal possession and growing.

I am currently the only Canadian who has a court order allowing me to possess and grow cannabis. In the last year and a half, I’ve grown multiple marijuana strains by a slew of reputable seed breeders and it’s been a remarkable experience.

Many of the strains in this toker’s guide were grown by myself or other medical marijuana users. Plenty were picked up at various medical marijuana centers from across the country and others from known quality dealers. Obtaining or growing strains wasn’t a real challenge, but writing about and photographing 150 different buds turned out to be tough!

I hope that this guide will help other marijuana users to learn about the smells, tastes and effects of the most popular and effective strains of pot that are available today. I also hope that this guide will teach marijuana users how to identify the quality and genetic nature of the cannabis that they are purchasing or growing. After all, no one likes to smoke bad shit.