Review by New York Times Review
ON THE SAME evening Donald Trump became the president-elect, four states - California, Maine, Massachusetts and Nevada - voted to legalize recreational marijuana, and three others voted to allow it for medicinal purposes. It was one of the few things liberals weren't depressed about. Should the legalization trend not be challenged by the new Trump administration, a huge new industry surrounding the care, consumption and enjoyment of weed will hit the cultural mainstream. "Brave New Weed," a loving rethink of all things marijuana by the former Details editor in chief Joe Dolce, is likely to be a trusted hitchhiker's guide to this new universe. Dolce takes a deep dive, explaining to the reader that he plans to "submerge myself in this brave new - and yet at the same time, ancient - world." By which he basically means traveling around and smoking his brains out, but it works. He sets his journey up as a test case, to see if he can sample all that this booming new industry has to offer and remain an "engaged, responsible and professional adult." By his own account, he seems not to be the first weed researcher to emerge from such a journey an enthusiastic apologist. One of the funnier stories in the book (there are many of them; Dolce is a witty writer) concerns Richard Nixon's bumbling efforts to crush the marijuana lifestyle. Determined to show up the "bastards" and "Jews" who want to legalize pot, Nixon names the former Republican governor of Pennsylvania, Raymond P Shafer, to lead the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse. Shafer, Nixon knows, is angling for a Supreme Court nomination and so will surely "do his bidding," as Dolce puts it. Shafer's commission, a humorous precursor to Dolce's own study, ends up spending the equivalent of $23.5 million in today's dollars to conduct over 50 national "studies" and visit countries like the Netherlands, Jamaica and Afghanistan in search of weed's evil heart. The Republican never finds it, producing a cheery report in 1972 called "Marihuana: A Signal of Misunderstanding," which concludes that the punishment for the crime was more harmful than the drug itself. He never got that Supreme Court nomination, although he may have acquired a new hobby. Baby boomers and Gen-Xers who smoked plain old "pot" in the woods or in the attic - the drug's illegality was part of what made it fun - will probably have some old-fogey reactions to particular passages in Dolce's book. The new fascination with weed in some way mirrors the sabermetrics movement. Just as old baseball fans enjoyed the game just fine before the advent of fWAR, there will be old stoners who say they don't need to know the difference between an indica or a sativa to get high. A bit of paper or an empty Mountain Dew can was enough to deliver the drug to their brains, and they managed without instructions on how to enjoy themselves. Which means Dolce's unironic enthusiasm asm about accessories ("The beauty of a precision vaporizer like the Plenty is that the temperature can be adjusted") or activities to avoid ("Tennis, at which I'm less accomplished, is overwhelming") may seem humorous. Dolce, to his credit, addresses the one truly dark undercurrent of this new movement - that white yuppie grown-up users are getting a place in the mainstream while inner-city black kids caught dealing or even possessing the drug are still going to jail (getting "a ticket to orange," as Dolce puts it). ENDING THIS MADNESS is theoretically a chief benefit of new legalization laws, along with America's catching up to research into medicinal effects (Dolce's account of Israel's 20,000-person cannabis study is fascinating). The rest of it - arduously crafted new strains on a spectrum as vast as wine vintages, "designer" highs, a fuller appreciation of how pot enhances creativity and the senses - is a matter of taste. Young people everywhere have always known that pot doesn't cause brain bubbles or werewolfism, that its illegality was stupid and hypocritical, and most of all that it's fun. The next generation will just be the first who can openly write books and reviews about that fun. While some may mourn the goofball-outlaw era of pot that gave us "Up in Smoke," Dr. Greenthumb and some pretty cloudy parking lots outside Phish concerts, the era of Dolce's "Brave New Weed" will probably be a better time. MATT TAIBBI is a writer for Rolling Stone and the author of "The Divide."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [December 11, 2016]
Review by Booklist Review
After seeing his cousin's hypermodern grow room of new breeds, journalist Dolce, a recreational user himself (but not a stoner, he swears), decided to delve into the history of cannabis in order to get a grasp on the future of the plant. His research takes him to Amsterdam, California, and Colorado, naturally, but also to Israel, where scientists have spent nearly 50 years trying to unlock the secrets of the plant no easy task, as they've identified some 400-plus compounds and isolated the two receptors in the human brain and body that seem almost primed to respond to the two main components of cannabis, THC and CBD. It's complex medical research, and stigmatization of the plant has halted progress for years. But as society and laws steadily change, the regulated industry will need to catch up with the homegrown side of things, where people have created strains that are 10 times more powerful than the stuff Dolce and his college buddies smoked back in the '70s. This is an interesting overview of the world of marijuana, and Dolce's easygoing narrative style holds lots of appeal for an ever-growing audience.--Vnuk, Rebecca Copyright 2016 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Dolce, former editor-in-chief of Details and Star, guides readers around the changing world of marijuana culture. Employing aspects of travel narrative, pop history, journalism, and personal diary, Dolce provides a wide-ranging introduction to the drug, aiming to refute stereotypes and showcase the many ways in which people interact with marijuana. These range from recreational fun, as showcased in his coverage of the Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam, to pain relief and even healing, as demonstrated by research he cites into cannabis's potential for mitigating traumatic brain injuries. As might be expected from a book about pot, the focus is soft and the narrative meandering, moving from profiling different types of cannabis users, to connecting the chemistry of cannabis to that of the brain, to diagnosing the growing pains of an underground market as it becomes regulated and mainstream. Dolce is a genial and engaging narrator with a knack for breaking down complex science and making it easily digestible for laypeople. The book will likely prove popular with cannabis enthusiasts, and it will surprise and entertain the general reader, even if, at times, the excessive detail feels in need of pruning. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Though his tongue is often firmly in his cheek, Dolce (former editor, Details and Star) is in deadly earnest here. Most people recognize that one of the great social changes of the past 20 years has been the legal status of marijuana use whether for medicinal purposes or just for pleasure. Dolce takes for granted it is a good thing. He provides a journalistic account of the contemporary scene with full portraits of examples of the medical benefits, for example, and ethnographic-like descriptions of the various dispensaries from San Francisco to Amsterdam. Political economy is discussed with the Colorado example being evidence of the benefits of taxation with legalization. Since science has also played an important role in the recent history of cannabis, considerable content is devoted to it. Dolce discusses the ways in which the various chemicals in marijuana have been synthesized, the benefits of the different breeds, and ingestion methods. Clearly, the book comes down strongly on the side of decriminalization. Verdict General audiences will enjoy this buoyant romp through the past and present socioculture space of Mary Jane.-David Azzolina, Univ. of Pennsylvania Libs., Philadelphia © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A journey through the brave newand yet at the same time, ancientworld of weed.The former editor of Details and Star magazines and founder and CEO of a media training company in New York, Dolce ends his author bio by stating he is not a stoner, and the final chapter describes how he made it through a month without weed relatively painlessly (though his alcohol consumption increased markedly). The rest of the book suggests that he is a staunch advocate for the medicinal and recreational uses of cannabis. Dolce makes a convincing case that marijuana should not be classified as a Schedule 1 druga drug with the highest potential for abuseand argues that it would be much easier to conduct scientific tests of the drug if it were reclassified. He discusses the workings of the two key chemical compounds of the drug, THC and CBD, and suggests that growers in the last few decades have been selectively breeding for THC, which makes the experience of getting high a less mellow one. Now that marijuana is legal in several states, however, growers are reformulating their product to achieve various ends. The authors travels took him to Amsterdam, which he found disappointingly old-fashioned; Israel, which has twenty thousand human subjects participating in the worlds largest state-run medical cannabis program; Northern California, where a medical marijuana club meets at a senior community center; and Colorado, where budtenders at dispensaries educate their customers on the contrast between great and average marijuana. In an appendix, Dolce clearly sums up his advice for potential consumers, including tips on cannabis for inspiration, intimacy, and other adult pleasures and directives regarding inhalation methods, edibles, and sharing etiquette. While the book is best taken with a certain amount of skepticism, it offers an entertaining and informative overview of the latest changes in cannabis production and consumption. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
