Pot Culture: The A-Z Guide To Stoner Language and Life

by Shirley Halperin, Steve Bloom, and Tommy Chong

March 18, 2008, 05:42 AM

You don't really need a handbook to learn how to be a stoner. You really just need to know someone who is one, and pretty much everyone does. However, if someone were to write a handbook for those interested in taking up pot smoking, Pot Culture would be it. It's an encyclopedia reference guide for the weed smoking culture, with additional entertaining bits from notorious celebrity stoners and pop culture highlights across music, television and film.

As a seasoned citizen of this 'underground' society I found this book lacking nothing. I recall a time when someone in my friend circle expressed an interest in smoking for the first time. I knew he would take to it like a fish to water...he just had that personality type. He did and the next few weeks were spent essentially filling him in on what it's all about. What to look for when gaging quality, how to break it up, how to load a bowl, how to roll a joint, proper etiquette when smoking in a group, etc etc etc. This book takes it a step further with their features like The Seven Stoner Wonders of the World, Famous Pot Busts, Stoniest Simpsons Episodes, the best colleges and vacation spots for smokers and the histories of marijuana in every major form of entertainment throughout the last few generations. And in typical stoner book fashion, there are also recipes.


The celebrity contributions are great, as it is always nice to put familiar faces on something that is inexplicably taboo. Tips for MacGyver-style apparatus construction from street smokers like Steve-O and Jonah Hill as well as more advanced tutorials from 311's P-Nut and expert blunt-rolling from master smoker, Redman. Marijuana's relationship with music has a long and rich history, and it is fairly represented in Pot Culture, with numerous music suggestions from people like Bob Pollard and Adam Levine, as well as features about the most famous smoking artists, The Doors, Bob Marley, The Beatles, Pink Floyd, and many many more.


This is a must-own book for anyone's collection, no matter your involvement in 'the life.' The stoner culture is made up of a global community, as marijuana grows in every part of the world. The various governments have imposed a broad spectrum of laws relating to marijuana regulation, the United States enforcing some of the strictest penalties. Despite its 'official status' in regards to legality, there is no denying the large percentage of the global population that has toked some reefer at some point in their lives and it's pretty sad what a large part of the prison population is comprised of first time drug offenders. I mean seriously people. Politics aside, Pot Culture accepts this reality and celebrates one of the few things that humans on every continent have in common...we smoke the ganja.



Pot Culture: The A-Z Guide To Stoner Language & Life
by Shirley Halperin, Steve Bloom, and Tommy Chong
Abrams Image
ISBN-10: 0810994402
ISBN-13: 978-0810994409
$19.95