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Imagine if coffee were banned. The black market wouldn't allow the luxury of choosing between Jamaican and Colombian, latte and espresso. You'd take what you could get — and then you'd get out of there, before the cops arrived. So it is with the marijuana market. Most smokers are lucky to know a single distributor, and that one distributor usually has only one strain for sale; it's called What's Available. That's why The Cannabible Collection by Jason King is such a treat. Treating marijuana like wine or music or any other legitimate pastime, the book revels in the many colors and flavors of marijuana around the world. Ponder the virtues of a strain known as the Real McCoy: "It has a balmy sort of muskiness, sometimes with mango overtones." Makes that stuff you bought on Linn Street last week seem pretty drab. Luscious photos of such varieties as Alaskan Matanuska Thunderfuck, Hogsbreath and Mothership accompany a connoisseur's guide to growing, smoking and coping with marijuana use. I used to buy in Mount Adams, before P&G took over the neighborhood, from a guy who insisted pot should never be ignited with a butane lighter. The Cannabible Collection backs him up; it seems the fuel interferes with those overtones. The book is sometimes pedantic — advocating "devoting a few days a month to not smoking," the better to facilitate good dreams — and sometimes absurd, asserting that marijuana can cure cancer. When the revolution comes, we'll be able to order after-dinner hookahs of Love Potion No. 9 at upscale restaurants. Until then, potheads can savor the wondrous world of ganja in The Cannabible Collection. (Gregory Flannery) Grade: B
