So what was on offer this year ?

The short answer is nothing new. The only real contender the punters were excited about was the Amnesia Haze. I did track some down at Amnesia Coffeeshop along with some Shiva. Soma, I was told, had a hand in the production of it. I'd been told the same just minutes before over at Pink Floyd where I'd scored some Mothers Finest (8.3/10) & Sensi Star (7.8/10). He also, it seems, supplys Barney's.

The Amnesia Haze was an alright smoke. A bit stronger than some of the other stuff I'd smoked that week but it was nothing to get excited about (7.6/10). There wasn't anything that special about its taste. Good weed yes, nice smoke yes, but I prefered the Shiva (8.2/10) I scored over at Stix as my main smoke. I was familiar with this strain. Had been familiar with it for at least seven years. This was good bud, it burned right, tasted right, & hit you right. When you find something this good you stick to it. I must have smoked an ounce of it this trip.

By comparison the Shiva from Amnesia was slightly tastier but the bud still had residual moisture locked in it (7.8/10). The Mothers Finest from Floyd was very nice indeed. It also burned well, tasted great & hit nicely. I re-loaded on that a couple of times. The Sensi Star was all it should be & better than what I'd tasted in previous years at other shops.

The Blueberry (8/10) I was smoking was Tony's from his own stash & of course was of high quality though he was upset there were one or two seeds in there. This was a very nice variety of Blueberry. It should be, his seed company sells the seeds. It was a smooth strong tasting heavy hitter.

One of the things I talked to Tony about while smoking with him was the plans he had for future exhibitions. He's going to use sandwich boards. They'll have built in display cases & lots of sections to carry flyers, catalogues, seeds & the like. He'll be able to set them down when he's tired & have a smoke to. Walking around the events he believes will prove to be a better, more interactive experience for himself and those attending. Also in cramped venues like this it would negate the need for a table. Remember you read about it first here. I wonder how many other venders will follow his example ?

I also sampled some NYC Diesel (7.8/10) from Tweede Kamer & enjoyed it very much. It was a good bud, tasted magnificent & helped me quickly get back into Amstedam headspace.

Cheese from Homegrown Fantasseds was also very nice to smoke (7.9/10), but the bud from Tessa I was given last year was tastier.

Knowing that I'd be smoking hash right through till new year at home I wasn't that fussed about smoking it over here. Word was that the really good Nepalese had all but dried up since the Bullshit Terrorist War. Moroccan was everywhere in all its grades as usual & I was given a very nice piece by a fellow THC Minister. This was very high quality & a couple of times I needed to hold onto something when I smoked it (9.7/10).

The Northern Lights Skuff (8.3/10) was a soft oily rich hash that was also very strong. A soft crème like taste like a favourite chocolate. The Nep I did score was nothing to write home about as Neps go (6.6/10). I've had a lot nicer, but quite an adequate taste & high.

The Ice-O-Later hashes at E15-00 per 1g or even per 0.5g is far too expensive to waste money trying. If you have never tried it then fine, go for it, but I bet you'll wish you'd bought a few grams of bud in the morning. These can be very nice hashes, but often they have a harsh dry acric smoke that leaves you coughing badly. They can also be unpleasantly strong.

Jelly hash is unpressed resins mixed with butane produced hash oil. There are no long term studies on the safety of consuming butane hash products ! I don't smoke this stuff myself.

Speed

Real speed is amphetamine sulphate. Street speed is the dirtiest drug you can score its been cut so many times. 90% of it is something else. I haven't done amphetamine sulphate since 1991 when I stopped going out 'raving', just as it all went mainstream. Nasty stuff.

In Amsterdam though you can go to any smart shop & for around €7-50 you can buy a pack of four tabs of some kind of caffine concoction. It acts like speed in that it will keep you awake. There arn't any rushes off it though, no real high to speak of, but if your on a hard party they will get you through the nights session. I did not try taking more than one at a time, or in a day.

High Times, The Expo

Four Amsterdam based Seeds Companys that did NOT attend this year with stands:

Flying Dutchman, although Lorna Clay of Cannabis College was around & about.

Homegrown Fantaseeds, although their Cheese strain won an award.

Nirvana Seeds, just weren't there.

Seeds Direct, although Gypsy Nirvana was staking out the doors all week & passing out free seeds.

Soma was located up the narrow twisty stairs all by himself from what I could see. It was very difficult to move around inside the Melkweg. A.J. made several abortive attempts to get up there. I don't know if he eventually succeeded, but I do know that he thought that it might be better to do the Hemp Fair In England next year because he could see from the photo's we had a proper exhibition space with plenty of room for both stand & walking punters with shopping bags. The density of the smoke inside the Melkweg also made conditions uncomfortable. Hearing speakers from the stage was not only difficult but a chore as there were almost no seats & first time punters kept moving from stall to stall. Most of what came from the stage was a repetition of what had been said the year, or years, before.

Attendence seemed to be down overall. Most of those that I came across were first timers who felt somewhere between disapointed & cheated, although they were determind to make the best of their stay. High Times had trippled the price of renting a stall at this years Expo. A master stoke of magnetic attraction, as was the way they attracted headline bands.

This year the pass system worked like this;

You pay for either a day pass - €50-00 which gets you into all day time events, but not night time ones. This pass entitles you to nothing really. You are unlikly to get coffeeshop discount on smoke purchases.

Or you pay $250-00 for a pass that entitles you to roughly 10% off your purchases in all participating coffeeshops. You get into day & night events & thats about it.

There is no free weed. There are however many stands offering vapouiser hits though. So you can get stoned pretty good inside the expo without dipping into your own stash. The one drawback to this is that usually someone has a cold or flu. Sharing smoking equipment spreads it faster than a brush fire. Its your risk.

You can not buy weed at the Expo or Epxo stands. Only from a coffeeshop.

The idea is that you take the official list of contenders & run around the city in a frenzy to all 21 shops buying up your samples like good punters(consumers) in a space of three days. Your also supose to sample all 42 entries in 3 days & come to a balanced decision. Then vote. It is just possible to get around the shops, but not get around them all & smoke everything at the same time.

That's working up to around 42g of smoke. If you get picked up by police & they find more than 5g on you, your in trouble mate. Possibly big trouble.

The Competition is an impossible sham, the awards are rigged, the voting is irrelevant & the entertainment was nothing worth waiting around to see when there were coffeeshops, bars, clubs, & whore houses to explore in a way they aren't availible to most folks back home.

The magazine is abysmal. They haven't even apologised to their readership for fucking up so badly with their image & format change. So their Jan 2005 cover has buds on it again, so what. Its going to take a lot more than a couple of bud shots to put right all that is now very wrong with the magazine. Its credability is blown. Its identity is in crisis. It is too full of adverts. Its ideology & perspective are out of date. It is directionless like a ship without a rudder. Its articles lack bite & punch, the information within them has become suspect, and it pushes the market brand 420 like a whore selling condoms.

High Times is almost now as much a part of the past as Laker Airways. Either it will radically alter itself to reflect the 21st century, and fast, or it will stutter on until the unsold copys pile high enough to be recycled & used to build another few dorms down on The Farm.

Hookers

A girl in the windows will cost from €30-00 upwards depending on what sort of sex your into & how much time you want to spend doing it. You are not going to have the romance of the century. Don't look for it. Your going in for a service like any other. Maybe even to try something new, or play out your fantasy. Remember that.

Ever had a straight massage ? That's the sort of attitude.

Depending on you, & depending on the girl, a very good time can be enjoyed by both parties, but this usually works out expensive and can be the exception to the general rule. You should be prepared to pay if you want to engage in a little conversation & foreplay before getting to it. It might be that you get on particularly well with the girl. You may find each other suited to each others mood or something. Enjoy yourself, but never forget this is a one off experience & you should not attempt to re-create it again. This isn't love, or a romance, this is business & your the customer. The girl will always be willing to spend more time with you so long as your prepared to pay for it & your getting on well with each other. Lets face it, she would sooner spend time with one client & earn her days money rather than service a dozen for the same pay.

Always treat the lady respectfully, & always use a condom.

Pussy licking is your own choice. All the girls take great care to make sure they are in good health & the Prostitution Information Centre leaflets state that AIDS can not be caught in this way, ordinarily. If your going to engage in Red Light sex then you should make a visit to the Prostitution Information Centre & get yourself clued up on all the facts. They also have some interesting literature & information leaflets. 'Closed Curtain' by Bruce Harris & Michelle Bird is a good, humourous & informative read. The 'Pleasure Guide' is a little more, er .... detailed, and very useful as a directory resource. In the back of PIC is a mock window set up where you can get an idea of what lies behind the curtain.

Those interested in renting/working a window should make enquiries here.

Prostitution Information Centre
Enge Kerksteeg 3
1012 GV Amsterdam
www.pic-amsterdam.com
Open Tue, Wed, Fri, Sat;- 12:00pm - 7:00pm

Mushrooms

There are half a dozen common varieties in Amasterdam depending on which shop you go to. The important thing to remember is if you go on a bad one you should find a coffeeshop go inside, tell the person serving what the score is, & that you wish to come down fast. They will be understanding of your condition & probably serve you a variation of sweet fruit drinks & candy bars until your feeling better. Do not give in to panic. You are not the first or only person to get a surprise at the strength of the trip. Sit quietly & keep telling yourself its O.K., your just on drugs, relax, it will wear off soon.

Further Comments

Also this year while traveling around the shops;- Greenhouse were refusing entry to anyone not wearing a green ribbon Judge pass. I can only guess how regular locals felt about this. I know that if I was refused entry into my local pub to make way for 'out of town' visitors I'd be far from happy.

Barney's was rammed all week, both shops. Staff were rude & unpleasant & for the first time in fourteen years I did not eat at Barney's.

A lot of people I spoke to said yes, they knew the Cup was on, but they were not here because of it, but to meet friends that were in town. Mostly, others I spoke to were first timers in both Amsterdam & the Cannabis Cup madness. The few old timers I met were all busy doing their own things. They were all distinctly unimpressed with this years Expo & entertainment. I heard many stoned folken trying to figure out what they were getting for their money.

"Is that it ?!",

Outside Piss Station

was something I heard a lot.

For my own part I'd concluded all my own interests within the first thirty six to fourty eight hours of landing. Having done that there was little else to do but kick back & relax in the way its impossible to do elsewhere. The shambles down at the Melkweg, and the 3:30pm starts, left me in no doubt that the vast majority of punters would use their own common sense & head out for coffeeshop exploration & the sights rather than hang around the scant two dozen or so stands all pretty much a variation on each other. I'm sure it was much more fun for them to actually go around & visit the seed companys at their shops for themselves anyway.

I have been aproached since my return & publication of the first three parts of my tale to be a guide for a group of people who wish to go visit Amsterdam for the first time, but are too scared to go there 'cold'. Aparently they require somebody with my specialist knowledge to keep them & their wives & girlfreinds safe from street dealers & street trash. Show them where the shops are, museums, markets & the like. Sounds good to me, so long as all my expenses get covered. It will be interesting to see if it comes off.

Hippies

I give them a very hard time. Hands up. However, I believe they need stirring up a bit out of their stoned complacency. Especially the High Times/Amsterdam set. They may well have done a lot in their own country, in the past, & fair play to every environmental activist, more power to you. All hippies are not the same, I accept this. I also know many are engaged in a variety of activist activities & that preserving even the status quo in some places, back home in the 'land of the free', takes a great deal of effort.

I apluad your efforts.

Times have changed though & these folks have not. They look just like those portrayed in the early 1970's, now classic, British comedy film 'Carry On Camping', staring Syd James & Barbara Windsor, & their ideas do not seem to be any more progressed or cohesive. What do they stand for ?

What do hippies believe in ?

From where I stand it looks like $.

The flower carrying, open toe sandle, tie dye, flares wearing long hair image has got to go. All that is missing from that is the big red nose & stupid outsize shoes. No wonder you aren't taken seriously. Its an image that belongs in a museum or a comic book. It limits you, & fixes the parameters of your perspective. Take the rainbow painted blinkers and rose tinted star glasses off & for fucks sake move on.

THC Ministry

Keep up the good work my brethren. One of you do Kapt Sam a favour though, take him for a couple weeks rest & relaxation somewhere out of town. It looked to me that he needs a holiday to re-charge before continuing.

May the G-Project blossom.

Blessed be the ways of the one.

Rev. Vern Paiyne 10/12/2004

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General Information On Hash Types:-

Moroccan: so many grades & qualities it makes your head spin.

Lebanese: (Red Leb) usually excellent hashish.

Indian Charus: varys greatly from excellrent to pityful. Can be truly wonderful.

Nepalese: the choice of many mature & experienced hashish smokers. Though there are a number of commercial grades the high quality stuff is indeed the nectar of the gods.

Afghani: often thought of in the same way as Nepalese, but Afghani can be much stronger. Many grades of quality like Moroccan.

Pakistani Black; usually only a commercial low grade, but can be nice.

Ice-O-Later hash: very high quality hash that is also refered to in some circles as 'hippie crack'.

Pollinator hash: very high quality hash, also very strong.

General Information On Weed Types:-

Most weed in Amsterdam comes from the same pool of genetic material which is commonly shared among seed companys, one way or another. Essentially there are a few must trys,

Northern Lights in all its many combination & variations.

White Widow for the same reason. The White Family

Blueberry because this one is different. The Blue Family

Skunk No.1 - just so you know what its like by itself.

Afghani - all types. Is usually used in crossbreeding, Forms part of the genetics of Skunk No.1

Durban Poison - African also used in cross breeding.

Shiva - used a lot in breeding.

Hindu Kush - also extensivly crossed.

Everything else is pretty much a re-combination of above sometimes with some Columbian, Thai, Mexican, Indian or Jamaican added to the mix.

Viper 10/12/2004

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First Published 10/12/2004 by Viperslair.co.uk

Re-published 1/1/2006

Re-formatted and edited for Disc 12/10/2006

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