The Ritual of Lighting Up

Every time I light a preroll, I watch the paper catch fire and instead of a long inhale, I do five quick, short pulls of breath and watch the smoke as it lifts in spurts. Sometimes it drifts away like a swift-moving river. Sometimes it makes circles and lingers. Sometimes it finds its feet in the wind and is gone before I can even glimpse its shape.

After a bit, when there’s a good, glowing cherry on the end, I like to watch it when I inhale slowly, see the red-to-orange blend and ripple with life as I breathe, the ends of the paper creeping closer, while the effect hits from head to toe. I love the waviness, the awareness, the moment.

In absolutely, completely unrelated news, this morning I was surprised with an infused preroll from Codes. It’s a heavy-hitting indica with, in my experience, nice solid effects that one wants from a couch-locking strain. The cannabinoid testing breakdown is below, with the total THC a significant 29.76%. And holy cow, is it deliciously fragrant! Smells like cake, has a nice and smooth taste with some sweetness like vanilla and sugar and warmth. Because one of my local dispensaries frequently has these particular Codes X-TREME (*insert HEAVY METAL RIFF + CAMERA ZOOMIES*) prerolls as an add-on purchase, I have been able to smoke a lot of these over the past couple of years. It’s a banger preroll for the budget, and I’ll be adding some reviews of other strains and flavors of the Codes infused prerolls in the future.

Looking at the terpene content, there are a few in the mix known for pain relief, mood enhancement, and relaxation, which fully tracks with my experience. I was quite pleasantly high and free from the usual physical discomfort that I’m usually doing with, so this is certainly a good strain for me if I need a bit of pain relief.

The reason I need to be tracking terpenes to have a better idea of how they affect me as an individual is because the cannabis market is so new, and so unpredictable, that it is impossible to rely on any one brand or strain to be available at any time. I have a few “go to” strains that I look for, but depending on availability and price, I may not be able to have them for several months or more. My dispensary experience is that there is little-to-no awareness beyond the upper reaches of the organization chart what will be ordered or delivered when.

If the product is unable to be reliably bought from a source, it becomes necessary to find substitutes. A consistent flavor expectation is impossible from brand to brand, and strain names are usually not very helpful. You can generally get to recognize brands, but for the most part people are looking to a) get high don’tcarehow or b) find a specific effect from the high such as relief from pain, insomnia, anxiety or enhanced creativity, improved moode, and increased social-butterfly-ness.

That road of seeking specific types of highs or relief leads to terpenes. Keeping a journal or some kind of record of what affects you and how is useful for purchases in the future.

Theoretically, I should be able to gather enough data to give me an idea of what specific terps I can look for when I really need to be able to plan for a night that might require more social effort than normal or when the insomnia has stacked for too many nights.

Check out Show Me Grow Info for a detailed report on the specifics of this strain!