What’s the best weed to smoke before a Sacramento Kings game?

I am a Sacramento Kings fan who likes to get high before games. Can you recommend some purple strains of pot I can toast my team with?

—Toquille O’Neal

Go Kings! I would say stick to the classics. Grand Daddy Purple, Mendocino Purps, Grape Ape and Purple Kush (if you can find it) would all be good choices.

Let’s talk about “purple” strains for a moment. While some cannabis strains are naturally purple (Black Domina comes to mind), and some plants will turn purple if allowed to flower in a colder climate, most of the time, the word “purple” refers to the flavor. Yes, good-old synesthesia strikes again. The purple taste reminds me of that old-school lavender-flavored gum you can sometimes find at a corner store. It’s delicious.

I was gonna make a joke about how you should be careful not to “Ty-reek” of weed, but since Tyreke Evans has been traded, I guess I will have to go with some sort of warning to all you Travis Outlaws about being careful.

So, what’s all the hubbub in Washington state about getting rid of medical cannabis?

—George

Here’s the deal: The Washington State Liquor Control Board is in charge of developing the rules and regulations for legal cannabis sales and distribution. The rules it proposes would do away with medical collective growing, and most likely close medical-cannabis dispensaries. Medical-cannabis patients would have to go to recreational outlets to get their pot, but wouldn’t have to pay taxes.

Washington state medical-cannabis activists are crazy upset right now. In my opinion, they have good reason. The backers of Initiative 502—the initiative to tax and regulate recreational cannabis—repeatedly told the medical-cannabis community that medical-marijuana would be untouched. Tempers have flared, name-calling and yelling “I told you so!” has happened. The trolling, the flaming, the wailing, the gnashing—oh, the humanity. None of it is productive. Everybody likes legal weed; it’s just a matter of hammering out the details. Everyone: Smoke a jay and calm down so we can discuss our issues like adults.

The government, of course, wants to make as much money as possible from legalizing weed. The best way to do that is to make sure it is in control of the whole thing. You know, like a monopoly. But good luck getting people that have been growing and distributing pot for years, often at great personal risk, to just stop doing what they do. It’s an unrealistic expectation.

It wouldn’t be hard for medical-cannabis clubs to go back underground. The Liquor Control Board should allow collective medical-marijuana growing and distribution separate from the recreational market. The medical clubs are going to see a decrease in members, anyway, as most people won’t want to go through the hoops necessary to get a recommendation, when they can just go to the pot shop down the street. Any revenue lost from medical-marijuana patients (who wouldn’t be paying a weed tax because Washington doesn’t tax medical cannabis) would be small.