Product Description

Marijuana is cultivated in nearly every region of the world, from the jungles of Laos to the arid hills of northern California. It's smoked and enjoyed for medicinal, spiritual, and recreational purposes by an estimated 200 million people worldwide. In Pot Planet, journalist Brian Preston sets out on a global ganja safari to explore strange new cannabis cultures, to seek out new growers, activists, and other reefer revolutionaries ... and to boldly get baked with each of them. Preston's journeys take him across every strata of pot cultivation and enjoyment. In the Canadian Kootenays he meets hemp farmers struggling to harvest their crop on the fringes of legitimacy. In Cambodia and Morocco he explores the final frontiers of Third World weed enthusiasts. In northern California he takes a clear-eyed look at the medicinal marijuana movement, seeing both its promises and its problems. In England, Switzerland, and Spain he observes grudging governments catching up to public tolerance. And at the Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam he joins in the raucous multiday tasting competition and celebration at the international summit of the best breeders, growers, and connoisseurs in the world. Part investigative travelogue, part cultural history, part polemic for the unfettered enjoyment of nature's most perfect and pleasing herb, Pot Planet is an unforgettable odyssey into the multifaceted world of hemp, full of wit, insight, and inspiration.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #367170 in Books
• Published on: 2002-05-01
• Released on: 2002-04-10
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

From Amazon.com
It's called "weed" for a reason--marijuana grows practically anywhere, and it has infiltrated deeply into societies around the globe. In Pot Planet, journalist Brian Preston scores big, compiling reports from Thailand, Amsterdam, Australia, his home in Vancouver, B.C., and other hotbeds of the high life. Part travelogue, part buyer's guide, the book is largely experiential reporting--where Preston went, whom he met, how high he got--but never strays far from its strong anti-prohibition message. The rules concerning growing, sales, and use are different nearly everywhere he goes, but there are always rules, and by the end of his travels he finds his paranoia strongly taxed. Preston has a knack for describing the unique qualities of his surroundings, whether natural or cultural; temples in Nepal and muggings in London are as real for the reader as they were for the author. Interviews with growers of all scales, street consumers, and occasional users from Tangier to Kathmandu keep the reader thinking globally, while the closing "pot polemic" encourages Americans to act locally. While Pot Planet won't turn on those who aren't already interested in the herb, statistics suggest that such readers are in the minority. --Rob Lightner

Books in Canada
A few years ago RollingStone magazine asked Vancouver journalist Brian Preston to write a feature on the burgeoning pot-growing business of British Columbia. It was logical territory for Preston. Known to smoke more than a toke or two, Preston had made a specialty of writing articles about quirky religious movements, New Age retreats and counter culture lifestyles for magazines like Details, Playboy and Vogue. The idea of examining how pot is grown and consumed in British Columbia was of course infinitely expandable to the whole world. After all, wouldn't it be worthwhile taking a look at what was happening internationally with this seemingly innocuous drug? What is it about pot which still raises the ire of police and politicians most everywhere? How is it used and tied to religion and life-style in different places? In a wonderful stroke of luck, Grove Press asked Preston to circle the globe to find out. His report, Pot Planet: Adventures in Global Marijuana Culture had some initial intention to be comprehensive. Preston chose some rather obvious places like Nepal, Morocco and British Columbia. Oddly he stroked out some rather essential possibilities like Jamaica, Africa and Mexico, hitting other more tidy and certainly safer places, like Australia, England and Holland.
Preston's research strategy was simply to go to an area well-known for its pot or hashish and connect with the local culture by trying to buy some weed. In most places this was easy. In Australia with its well-known pot centre of Nimbin in northern New South Wales, all he had to do was arrive, follow some potheads home and collect an easy story. Likewise close to home in Vancouver he could just stop by a pot seed supplier called Spice of Life as a way of discovering the nature of different varieties and species with wonderful names like Shishkaberry, Sweet Skunk, Purple Hempstar and Bubbleberry. He went out into the British Columbia mountains to talk to farmers and it's obvious that he preferred mixing with folksy growers rather than unfriendly associates of biker gangs who ran operations nearby which mysteriously escaped the attention of the police. To want to find an easy-going context is natural for a journalist but it doesn't always provide the complete story. Like Hunter Thompson, he should have talked to the bikers as much as the agreeable guys with the shaggy hair and shapeless overalls.
Predictably Preston found out that marijuana use is incredibly varied from place to place. In Nepal the farmers rarely smoked it but fed it to their cows when they were sick to improve their appetite. In Laos the marijuana went into noodle soup for flavour and appetite enhancement. While in Britain he found a feel-good religion built up around pot, the Universal Church of the Holy and Sacred Herb, which endeavoured to return people to a state of consciousness man once knew in Paradise. Preston came across people everywhere who had no ideological commitment but needed pot to suppress pain or improve appetite to override the effects of cancer or AIDS. By the same token, Preston is eager to note and defend marijuana smoking for purely recreational reasons which can be forgotten in the earnestness to push it towards medicinal use.
Even in a book which set out with no high claim to moral seriousness, Preston acknowledges the need to clear away a raft of issues related to lobbying for legitimizing pot's medical use, reefer madness propaganda, police abuse, continued political unease most everywhere over marijuana use and the confusion about whether marijuana inevitably opens the door to harder drugs. Preston does address all of them but usually piecemeal within the context of a particular story. What seems to be simple was certainly never simple. While covering the apparent pothead Shangrila of Amsterdam, Preston has to note that Holland is not as liberal as it so often seems from afar. Officials merely turn a blind eye to personal use, yet increasingly harass and arrest growers. Yet compared with Holland, most places remain obdurately opposed to private consumption. In Canada,for instance, where marijuana is deemed acceptable if used for relieving discomfort caused by major medical problems, there is still official harassment for those who try to obtain it. There are Orwellian dimensions to harassment south of the border where the Drug Enforcement Agency destroys crops in the fields in California rather than bother with formal arrests which will never lead to convictions in court because the local culture is so pro-pot.
Sometimes bordering on gonzo-journalism, Preston's style can be ironic and funny. This helps in certain situations; in places like Morocco or Nepal he nearly forgets marijuana for the other enticements and dangers of the environment. Unfortunately he often forgets that he is writing a book rather than a series of knock-off pieces for a counter-culture tabloid. He sometimes lapses into the rather tired vernacular which Tom Wolfe imitated long ago in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Phrases like "dudes", "sick fucks" and "getting her shit together" abound and undermine the seriousness of his text.
In the end, Preston continues to be perplexed by the fact that a drug, proven innocuous even by comparison with liquor, is so badly maligned. But despite his sybaritic side, Preston admits that marijuana is no cure-all for social evils. He has seen a niece muddy her future with excessive dope-smoking. For many sick people, the use of marijuana is a necessity, a way of alleviating painful symptoms of illness. There is an urgent need for politicians to address this issue despite its contentiousness. For himself, it's a simple innocuous relaxant, better than liquor, softer than any number of drugs. The best of it should be there on liquor store shelves in bright foil packages.

John Ayre (Books in Canada)

From Publishers Weekly
For this adventurous travelogue, freelance journalist Preston (a contributor to Rolling Stone, Details and Vogue) literally smoked his way around the world, investigating marijuana culture in the U.S. and Europe as well as in places as far away as Nepal, Morocco, Australia and Southeast Asia. Although the idea of a journalist smoking himself across the globe might sound like the kind of lightweight assignment dreamed up at a High Times office party, the book, based mostly on Preston's extensive travels, is a marvelously entertaining, well-written and probing look at the world through marijuana, from the plant itself to the subculture of peoples who smoke it (an estimated 200 million worldwide), grow it, sell it and outlaw it. Throughout, Preston proves himself to be both an intrepid traveler and a fine storyteller. He effortlessly weaves tales humorous and harrowing, vividly rendering his environs and introducing readers to an array of fascinating characters, from growers in Vancouver to activists in London and a variety of guides and acquaintances in exotic locales. A copious researcher, he is equally at ease detailing plant science or the evolution of Amsterdam's drug policies. To his credit, Preston avoids introducing any sort of legalization polemic until a final, brief chapter, which is an unfortunate addition. His musings at the book's end only interfere with any conclusions readers themselves might be expected to draw. Still, for those who share an affinity with Preston's subject, this excellent book will be devoured like a tray of brownies.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Great guide to global ganja
Brian Preston documents his travels as he encounters the people, places and events that make up the core of the world's modern cannabis culture.

Preston's flobal ganja voyage begins in BC, at the first Cannabis Culture Cup in February 2000, held at Marc Emery's home on the Sunshine Coast. From there, Preston travels the world's weedy hotspots, sampling buds and meeting the locals in Nepal, Southeast Asia, Australia, England, Amsterdam, Morocco, BC, and the USA.

Cannabis Culture readers will recognize many of the people who Preston encounters on his travels. In Amsterdam he tokes with Sensi Seeds founder Ben Dronkers, in Australia he hangs at the Nimbin Hemp Embassy and attends their annual Mardi Grass, In California he discusses DEA raids with med-pot icon Dennis Peron. In Vancouver he gets high on buds from Marc Emery, and discusses activism with locals like David Malmo-Levine.

Pot Planet is a perfect snapshot of the people, places and events that make up the global ganja culture during the dawn of the new millennium. The book is written in a friendly, conversational style. It's an easy and enlightening read, and will be enjoyed by both chronic and non-toker alike.

It's a Big Stoned World Out There
Thirty years ago, there were plenty of late night delirious conversations about how someday soon you could buy grass at your local supermarket. But pot somehow is a much bigger deal than anyone had thought, a world-wide obsession over a simple weed that millions find fun or useful, and others find perilous. So Brian Preston, a Canadian journalist, decided he would do a worldwide survey of the international marijuana scene. It was a perfect self-assignment: he likes vagabonding, and he likes getting stoned. The result, _Pot Planet: Adventures in Global Marijuana Culture_ (Grove Press) is a hilarious travelogue through smoke filled rooms, with a subtly serious message: "What's more likely to destroy the earth, pot or pollution? And there's a war on pot?"

Preston is a dedicated journalist, or at least he loves his subject so much that he is happy to go to enormous lengths to investigate it. "For much of the research and most of the writing of this book, I was high on marijuana. Now then - it can't be _that_ amotivating." He becomes a judge of the Cannabis Culture Cup, with the difficult task of rating all these strains, and more, in the categories of appearance, fragrance, texture, taste, aftertaste, and stone (and he remarks on the difficulties of evaluating that last category after you have already judged other entrants; he can't, like a wine taster, just spit it out). He has funny stories from all over. "If you want to score anywhere in Asia," Preston advises, "just find a place where they're playing Bob Marley music." In the town of Nimbin, Australia, there are "grass palaces," houses paid for by pot cultivation: "They were hippies; now they're middle class." One wants to franchise pot restaurants in the shape of a giant bong, the Big Bong Burger Bar. In Switzerland, searching out contacts, Preston asks a city employee, a tourist helper, "Do you know where I could by _hemp_ products around here? Like clothing and stuff?" She thinks a minute. "Hmmm. Hemp clothing... No... But we have three stores where you can buy grass!" In Morocco a shady tourist guide assures him about purportedly fine hashish, "Half a kilo, Brian! Very easy to hide in a suitcase for the flight home!" In Canada, backwoods growers have given death threats to those who wish to introduce hemp production for fiber, because of the fear that the low-stoning hemp will cross pollinate and ruin the intoxicant varieties.

In every chapter, Preston shows that American politics have affected global marijuana in ways that not even the most rabidly anti-pot politician would favor. Naturally, Preston knows just what the US and the world ought to do with marijuana laws, but he usually withholds proselytization on the issue. He is an amusing writer with clever comparisons; a stoner holds in his toke so deeply that he eventually disgorges "a cloud of smoke huge and heavy enough to show up on a satellite weather shot." He withholds most of his serious arguments until his last chapter, which is quite accurately titled "Pot Polemic." And he has graceful ambivalence about what legality might bring, having seen a bit of it in Amsterdam, pushed like booze and tobacco: "Is this what legalization would be like? Would pot become just another consumer product, marketed like any other line of goods in Babylon?" Maybe there would be disadvantages, yes, but this book is indispensable for anyone who wants an amusing survey of the current world marijuana situation. Americans, especially, would do well to catch this bigger picture.

great summer read
Having just completed 'Pot Planet', I'd like to say how great this book is. Being an lover of all things ganja, I am so pleased to see someone finally writing about the truths behind the marajuana culture. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

This travelogue/cultural history study is a fast-paced peek into the history and hypocrises of this happy herb. Without being too much of a tour-guide, and more like a buddy you're bumming around the world with, Preston takes us from the sweet, sticky buds of Vancouver, B.C, to the opium-laced weed of the Far East, stopping at places like England, Switzerland, Spain, Austrailia and the marajuana mecca, the Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam on the way.

I recommend this book to anyone who is not able to vacation this year - see the world without leaving your couch!

The book itself read a little fast, with the stops he makes feeling all too brief. Having visited some of the places mentioned myself, I felt there is more that could have been said, but as always, time is a factor.

All in all though, this book is finally a true testament to pot-smoking throughout the world, and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys this natural plant, in all her splendor.