Book Review by Heidi Simmons
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Heart of Dankness: Underground Botanists, Outlaw Farmers, and the Race for the
Cannabis Cup
By Mark Haskell Smith
Nonfiction
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Grow Girl: How My Life After The Blair Witch Project Went to Pot
By Heather Donahue
Memoir
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UCR Palm Desert finished the last of the 2012-2013 Arts & Letters Series on a high note.
Sharing their personal opinions and perspective, the two attending authors have made it
their “business” to understand the production and use of Marijuana. Both Mark Haskell
Smith’s Heart of Dankness: Underground Botanists, Outlaw Farmers, and the Race for
the Cannabis Cup (Broadway, 256 pages) and Heather Donahue’s Growgirl: How My
Life After The Blair Witch Project Went to Pot (Gotham, 352 pages) have written timely
and relevant books that look closely at the interior world of Marijuana.
In Heart of Dankness — that’s DANKness, Haskell Smith explores what it takes to grow
high-grade marijuana and ultimately attends an international blind tasting competition
in Amsterdam called the Cannabis Cup. Like a fine wine tasting, cannabis from all over
the world is enjoyed for its nuance and quality. This is not the skunkweed you grew in
your bathtub in the 1970s. Haskell Smith reports on the sophistication of the growing
techniques and the science that is refining today’s marijuana.
In Europe, “dankness” creates a community and culture. Dankness refers to the
distinction that individual strains of plants have. Each variety has fans that love the
flavor, smell and effect, which bring a cross section of connoisseurs together. Haskell
Smith explained, “It is the kind of thing that connects a banker from Düsseldorf with a
skateboarder from Madrid because they love the plant.”
Haskell Smith spoke about the seriousness of botanists who travel the world in search
of pure plants. “They are botanists as well as business men. They go to places like
the Himalaya foothills or Malawi looking for new cannabis plots that farmers or witch
doctors grow that have never been cross pollinated. They want to find pure genetics.
They take them back to Amsterdam, grow them in their labs to create new strains, flavors
and new medical applications.” said Haskell Smith. The Dutch marijuana business is a
$2 billion dollar industry — a taxable consumer product for the small European country.
Heather Donahue writes about her experience becoming an indoor pot grower in
Northern California after her acting career and love life ended in Hollywood. Donahue
gained fame after she starred in the 1999 micro-budget horror film The Blair Witch
Project. In Growgirl she writes about her travails with family and friends and the new
relationship she has with her “girls.” The buds of Marijuana are what is harvested and
smoked, so the plants are all female. Donahue shares her struggles and her triumphs as
she digs into her new, complicated and rewarding way of life.
“I found it really hard not to love it. These “girls” were my roommates. They are such
a force of nature. So responsive to every little thing. Every night I didn’t know what to
expect when they were in bloom. I respect the way they taught me how to listen in this
quiet and nonverbal way,” said Donahue. She passionately talked about her experience
with the growing process and the intimate job of farming quality plants.
In the state of California, Marijuana is legalized for medical use. Both authors have
medical marijuana cards to use it legally. Marijuana has been legalized for recreational
use in the states of Washington and Colorado. Both Haskell Smith and Donahue want
to see Marijuana legalized and regulated. They hope the future of California’s cannabis
crop will be treated like the California wine industry, with private growers developing
boutique varieties allowing room for small growers as well as corporate farms.
Many attending the event had questions about marijuana use for medical purposes.
Haskell Smith explained that as long as marijuana is classified as a narcotic, — although
it is non-addictive and non-toxic — testing in the United States is difficult because
it requires DEA involvement. Sadly, scientific testing of marijuana is mostly done
overseas. Haskell Smith believes California and the US is missing out on important and
valuable science.
Heart of Dankness and Growgirl are great introductions into the subculture of the
existing world of marijuana production and use. They are well-written, informative and
entertaining. If cannabis is to become a greater part of our lifestyle and culture, it is
essential to understand this amazing plant and the gigantic potential is possesses.
