How to Smoke Pot Properly A Highbrow Guide to Getting High

Once literally demonized as “the Devil’s lettuce,” and linked to all manner of deviant behavior by the establishment’s shameless anti-marijuana propaganda campaigns, cannabis sativa has lately been enjoying a long-overdue Renaissance. So now that the squares at long last seem ready to rethink pot’s place in polite society, how, exactly, can members of this vibrant, innovative, life-affirming culture proudly and properly emerge from the underground—without forgetting our roots, or losing our cool?

In How to Smoke Pot (Properly), VICE weed columnist and former High Times editor David Bienenstock charts the course for this bold, new, post-prohibition world. With plenty of stops along the way for “pro tips” from friends in high places, including cannabis celebrities and thought leaders of the marijuana movement, readers will learn everything from the basics of blazing, to how Mary Jane makes humans more creative and collaborative, nurtures empathy, catalyzes epiphanies, enhances life’s pleasures, promotes meaningful social bonds, facilitates cross-cultural understanding, and offers a far safer alternative to both alcohol and many pharmaceutical drugs.

You’ll follow the herb’s natural lifecycle from farm to pipe, explore cannabis customs, culture and travel, and discover how to best utilize and appreciate a plant that’s at once a lifesaving medicine, an incredibly nutritious food, an amazingly useful industrial crop, and a truly renewable energy source. You’ll even get funny and informative answers to burning questions ranging from: How can I land a legal pot job? to Should I eat a weed cookie before boarding the plane?

In two-color, with charts and illustrations throughout, How to Smoke Pot (Properly) is truly a modern guide to this most revered herb. And remember, marijuana has the potential to help us live more meaningful, satisfying and authentic lives, and create safer, happier, more harmonious communities, but first we must learn to consume this miracle plant properly.

"David Bienenstock is my official weed mentor, and as such has taught me many fascinating things about an innocent little plant that’s shifted the tectonic plates of history time and time again. In How To Smoke Pot (Properly), he compiles these insights and many others to provide the most comprehensive guide to cannabis to date." Abdullah Saeed, author of VICE’s Weediquette column and host of Bong Appetit

"David Bienenstock’s writing skills and sense of humor are matched only by his intimate knowledge of marijuana customs, history, industry and etiquette. As cannabis moves from the underground to the mainstream, no book can better help you navigate the intricacies of this wonderful new era." Danny Danko, High Times Senior Cultivation Editor

"It’s refreshing, in the midst of our binge culture, to find a voice that clearly articulates the benefits and pitfalls of cannabis enthusiasm while strongly encouraging responsible consumption and cultivation. There is no better spokesperson for the cannabis-positive lifestyle in the post-prohibition era than David Bienenstock." Ben Sinclair, co-creator and star of HBO original series High Maintenance

BEST NONFICTION FOR SPRING 2016 Bustle

Once literally demonized as the Devil's lettuce, and linked to all manner of deviant behavior by the establishment's shameless anti-marijuana propaganda campaigns, cannabis sativa has lately been enjoying a long-overdue Renaissance. So now that the squares at long last seem ready to rethink pot's place in polite society, how, exactly, can members of this vibrant, innovative, life-affirmingculture proudly and properly emerge from the underground without forgetting our roots, or losing our cool?
In How to Smoke Pot (Properly), VICE weed columnist and former High Times editor David Bienenstock charts the course for this bold, new, post-prohibition world. With plenty of stops along the way for "pro tips" from friends in high places, including cannabis celebrities and thought leaders of the marijuana movement, readers will learn everything from the basics of blazing, to how Mary Jane makes humans more creative and collaborative, nurtures empathy, catalyzes epiphanies, enhances life's pleasures, promotes meaningful social bonds, facilitates cross-cultural understanding, and offers a far safer alternative to both alcohol and many pharmaceutical drugs.
You'll follow the herb's natural lifecycle from farm to pipe, explore cannabis customs, culture and travel, and discover how to best utilize and appreciate a plant that's at once a lifesaving medicine, an incredibly nutritious food, an amazingly useful industrial crop, and a truly renewable energy source. You'll even get funny and informative answers to burning questions ranging from: How can I land a legal pot job? to Should I eat a weed cookie before boarding the plane?
In two-color, with charts and illustrations throughout, How to Smoke Pot (Properly) is truly a modern guide to this most revered herb. And remember, marijuana has the potential to help us live more meaningful, satisfying and authentic lives, and create safer, happier, more harmonious communities, but first we must learn to consume this miracle plant properly."

"A humorous and informative trip through the drug's various medicinal compounds, a timeline of the its history, and recipes that take you beyond the standard pot brownie--with pro tips from cannabis-friendly celebrities sprinkled throughout."
--Vanity Fair

Once literally demonized as "the Devil's lettuce," and linked to all manner of deviant behavior by the establishment's shameless anti-marijuana propaganda campaigns, cannabis sativa has lately been enjoying a long-overdue Renaissance. So now that the squares at long last seem ready to rethink pot's place in polite society, how, exactly, can members of this vibrant, innovative, life-affirming culture proudly and properly emerge from the underground--without forgetting our roots, or losing our cool?

In How to Smoke Pot (Properly), VICE weed columnist and former High Times editor David Bienenstock charts the course for this bold, new, post-prohibition world. With plenty of stops along the way for "pro tips" from friends in high places, including cannabis celebrities and thought leaders of the marijuana movement, readers will learn everything from the basics of blazing, to how Mary Jane makes humans more creative and collaborative, nurtures empathy, catalyzes epiphanies, enhances life's pleasures, promotes meaningful social bonds, facilitates cross-cultural understanding, and offers a far safer alternative to both alcohol and many pharmaceutical drugs.

You'll follow the herb's natural lifecycle from farm to pipe, explore cannabis customs, culture and travel, and discover how to best utilize and appreciate a plant that's at once a lifesaving medicine, an incredibly nutritious food, an amazingly useful industrial crop, and a truly renewable energy source. You'll even get funny and informative answers to burning questions ranging from: How can I land a legal pot job? to Should I eat a weed cookie before boarding the plane?

In two-color, with charts and illustrations throughout, How to Smoke Pot (Properly) is truly a modern guide to this most revered herb.

David Bienenstock is the former West Coast editor of High Times magazine and has more recently grown a following as a journalist and video host/producer at VICE, where he writes the Weed Eater column and produces a video series called Bong Appetit. He’s appeared as a weed expert on NPR, Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, CNBC, and HBO, and has been quoted in Salon, Fast Company, AdWeek, Playboy, and The Nation.