Smoking AK-47, thinking about AR-15s

I’m smoking some AK-47 and while at least it’s not called AR-15, the name of this Sativa-dominant strain is just not sitting right a week or so out from another school shooting. This one in Parkland, Florida, resulting in 17 dead and from there, the expected Republican cowardice combined with circling the wagons on behalf of the NRA, Trump hitting a new nadir, and then that nearly equally tedious moment where Democrats say “no more” but then half-step their way out of responsibility. Meanwhile, the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, amid all this trauma, are at the right age to be pissed off and politically engaged and have called the president and everybody out — famously, Emma González called BS on the predictable political talking points. A nationwide school walk-out’s planned for April 20, the 19th anniversary of the Columbine shooting, and that will keep this conversation going.

April 20 is, of course, also international get high day, and so once again cannabis is weirdly connected to serious pain. What I’m getting at here is there is death and pain emanating from my bowl this afternoon because at some point or another, some cannabis dude-bros decided to name their strain after an automatic weapon and there are people being shot with semiautomatic weapons all of the time, it seems like. The mythography of AK-47 sends you back to the early ‘90s when it was effectively reimagined, though its origins bend back to the ‘70s, supposedly tied to some Thai and Afghani strains. And so perhaps, given the global chaos of that era there was some gallows humor to calling it AK-47, but that has long passed when it’s now sitting in, say, a dispensary so dickweeds like me can buy it.

Another fraught strain name: jittery favorite Green Crack. Let’s be more thoughtful about our weed strain names. And while I’ve never fired an AK-47, I’m pretty sure this strain — or really any strain — doesn’t invoke a famous Russian war weapon. AK-47 actually proves thoroughly calming, with a high that’ll find you forging connections between whatever bullshit’s in your mind and on the news or in the world — this is how you get the rant above, I do beg your pardon — and doesn’t let your mind sit still, even as you feel as though you’re morphing into a water bed. It’s also one of the most tasty strains, a marked plain yogurt taste from the buds that gets a bit more sour on the exhale. Overall, a quilt of alleviating weed feels.

• Strength: 9
• Nose: Chobani
• Euphoria: 9
• Existential dread: 5
• Freaking out when a crazy person approaches you: 2
• Drink pairing: Some kind of mezcal
• Music pairing: Squirrel Bait, “Squirrel Bait”
• Rating: 8