The Beginning
When I started smoking pot, the UK options were various types of commercial hash or basic landrace weeds.
The mainstay hash was usually a Rocky which I believe was nicknamed from Moroccan and was a heat n crumble hash. Often we'd get a Slate which as per the name came in thin slabs which fluffed up when heated and crumbled - anyone know what the origin of that was? Squidgy Black of various but often low grades would often be available. We'd usually get red seal but gold seal and other stamps did turn up. It'd roll into snakes. Plus we'd get other basic, and often poor quality, hashes with some variations like soap bar or double zero. Often you'd find hash cut with something unpleasant like henna or plastic. Although equally you'd sometimes get a lovely treat like a temple ball.
Weed tended to be Thai sticks or similar dry stuff with more seeds and sticks in it than weed. I'd hear about sensimelia but I didn't ever see any in my town. It was all pretty basic.
This was universally true across life in that period. Channel 4 was brand new and edgy and digital watches still seemed like a pretty neat idea. It was a simpler time. You couldn't even buy fancy long rizla at Tesco.
Original 90s Hash
Honestly, if you bought the cheapest rock solid hash on LB, wrapped it in plastic, smashed it up with a hammer, then stuck it back together so the plastic was on the inside, you'd be a long way towards creating an authentic 90s hash. I don't recommend it but the option is there if you'd like to experience it. I'm hoping some old stoners will confirm to the younglings that I'm not making this up.
The Dam
During my first trip to Amsterdam my eyes were opened to a new world of cannabis. Which was ironic considering they were half shut for much of the trip. I think many of us brought back a piece of Dam with us (quite literally in my case) and the sharing of those experiences seemed to progress everything forwards. We wanted to be more Dutch.
I loved the weed out there of course but it was more than that. It was the open and tolerant culture that allowed it all to happen that really hit home for me.
Slow Progress
Although the four channel options on TV and digital watches seeming a pretty neat idea persisted for some time, we gradually got better at growing weed here until we reach the point today where we're comparable to much of the rest of the world - and now smart watches seem like a pretty neat idea instead of the digital ones.
In between then and now I've had a wide range of oddly grown weed and lack of flavours. Even as we made a bit of progression, for long periods, everyone would seem to have the same grow.
It'd be cheese, then blue cheese, with lemon haze phases, then stardawg. Variety, as a concept, seemed to take a while to bed in. There were of course highlights and exceptions but the mainstay weed was very samey for years - at least locally - and definitely below the quality and variety abroad. This period developed my loathing of lemon haze. I've simply had it one too many times.
LB Quality
Now, all these years later, I'm ordering high quality buds delivered to my door from a menu of a thousand products. The difference in the cannabis now to then is almost immeasurable.
We've got strong, tasty and exotic weed with new strains on a regular basis. We've got fresh frozen hashes and powerful extracts. We've got vapes and dab pens. We have clean D9 edibles and decarb products. It's a golden age of cannabis consumption with a bigger crowd of us than ever before. I'm excited by it - by all you loons in the LB community.
While attitudes have certainly progressed, we're still a wee bit behind when compared to the tolerant attitude to cannabis use we're seeing in the US and parts of Europe.
Channel 4 Cannabis Night
The afore mentioned Channel 4 once did a cannabis night back when they were still keen to be edgy. All night they showed a stream of cannabis TV shows which sent shockwaves through the mainstream UK of the time but was of course dynamite viewing for my generation. It felt like part of a culture shift. A line in the sand between the stagnant and repressed old folks versus the new, dynamic and hedonistic youth.
In one of the programmes it showed how a legal cannabis future might look. I remember that it showed designer prerolls in professional looking cigarette looking packets. Funnily enough even our cigarette packets don't look like that any more! It'd be an interesting clip to watch again actually.
As a 80s/90s stoner I don't think I'd have predicted how the cannabis market looks now. Firstly the sweetshop flavour names and youth-styled graphics on the packs are a naming convention and style that's a world beyond stuff like skunk and white widow. But also the products available expanded far further than I could ever have imagined. It all leaves me as wide eyed as Charlie was stepping foot into the chocolate factory.
I don't know where we go from here but it'll be fun to find out. I hope the UK will ultimately find a more tolerant and legal status for our favourite plant just like many of our friends abroad have.
Thanks
As always, thanks for reading my topic, I hope it was informative and if not I hope it was entertaining in some way.
I Stole it.
And yes, for the astute Douglas Adams fans, I did steal one of his lines for this piece. Twice in fact - to try and get good value from it. My grandma would be proud.
