What's It Like to Be a Medical Marijuana Critic?

As the nationâ??s first medical marijuana critic, William Breathes takes his work seriously, but not too much so.

â??I'll never get used to collecting a paycheck for taking bong hits,â?� wrote Breathes, who uses a pseudonym.


After all, heâ??s the opposite of a restaurant critic who tends to eat his meals anonymously and review them under his given name. Breathes must show his medical marijuana cardâ??with his real name on itâ??before he can gain entrance to one of the 400 or so dispensaries in the Denver area. Then he pens his review anonymously for "Westword," Denverâ??s alternative weekly since 1977.

Last fall, Westword editor Patty Calhoun decided to hire a freelance marijuana-dispensary reviewer to keep pace with the booming sector. She didnâ??t anticipate the response.

â??I'll just post a blog and we'll get someone,â?� she recalls. â?? Within a month, we'd had several hundred responses. We quit counting at 250. The applications keep coming in. Pot fans are not always punctual. They also tend to forget punctuation.â?�


"The Early Girl was done wellâ??flushed of fertilizer, dried and cured properlyâ??and had a light, fresh taste. By the time the joint had turned brown, I was over any lingering pain and nausea and was ready to destroy a turkey sandwich." --excerpt from marijuana critic William Breathes column.
The job posting also attracted the attention of late-night talk show hosts, who joked about it for weeks and a variety of national and even international media.

â??I pulled William Breathes from the pile because he's not only a great writerâ??with a sincere love of potâ??but he also is a strong journalist, and I realized that there would be many, many more stories in this subject,â?� says Calhoun.

That said, here's some samples of his writing. You be the critic.

*The Early Girl was done wellâ??flushed of fertilizer, dried and cured properlyâ??and had a light, fresh taste. By the time the joint had turned brown, I was over any lingering pain and nausea and was ready to destroy a turkey sandwich.

westword

was ready to destroy a turkey sandwich roflmao.

I in fact did just destroy a hot turkey sandwich thanks to my GF. It was fantastic!

I was smoking early girl in college in 98. That shit is some old schooool weed.

ha! glad you guys enjoyed that. it felt a bit self-serving to write, but it seems people got the humor of it.

:rastasmoke: