An example of Herijuana, a.k.a. Harijuana, Herojuana, from Colorado dispensary Wellspring Collective. (Ry Prichard, The Cannabist)

Herijuana, a.k.a. Harijuana, Herojuana (marijuana review)

If you’ve ever searched “Missed Connections” on Craigslist, you understand my relationship with Herijuana. In another way, it was the strain that promised to write me after we got home from summer camp, only to disappoint every time the mailman arrived empty-handed.

During my dispensary days, our shop would be occasionally graced by arguably our favorite caregiver (by virtue of this offering alone). He’d drop by with a QP of the stuff, assuring us that he “had it all day.” And for a few weeks, he was good on his word.

Herijuana by the numbers: $13/gram, $200/ounce at Wellspring Collective, 1724 S. Broadway in Denver.

I should have stopped calling after the third try when he didn’t answer the number that had been hastily scrawled across his paperwork. Sending a text was the move of a desperate man. It was five years until I saw Harijuana [sic] again, this time on the shelves of Wellspring.

“Oh, we’ve had it forever,” says the budtender casually, and my reaction is one of enthralled horror akin to an antiques dealer hearing about a Fabergé egg being used as a child’s bath toy. It had never shown up on Google because that’s the last way I’d ever think to spell it.

The name always threw me off. Herijuana. Herojuana. Wellspring’s Harijuana has the most interesting and NSFW entry in Urban Dictionary. I always chose to interpret it in a Joseph Cambell-ian light of bravery and metamorphosis instead of something I’d need to tie off before smoking. And similar to Alien Napalm OG or Green Crack, it’s an unfortunate title for an excellent plant.

Born from Reeferman’s infamous Petrolia Headstash (popularized in Humbolt) and Killer New Haven, two strains you’ll be hard-pressed to find in anyone’s jars, it’s a hard-hitting indica that annihilates most people. Diving in nose first, I immediately find those old notes of Jack Flash (cleaner, pine) with something more savory that you’d get from G13. Some say it’s cheese, but for me it’s like beef jerky stored with incense in a box you forgot to unpack when you left the dorms.


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I’m not a superficial guy, but visually she’s changed. The Herijuana I remember was a bright, light green that made the orange hairs an afterthought, like she had missed a spot shaving her knee that you wouldn’t have noticed anyway. Wellspring’s seems darker overall, resembling a nice Kush more than anything with pointier nugs and dark, almost red hairs.

After spending what seems like the entire day talking to friends and fellow media folks about The New York Times piece that ran about these weed-review columns, I’m entirely spent. My body declines to let my brain know this.

“What if I can’t understand the BBC host’s accent?”
“Who was that guy who wrote ‘Still a loser…’ in the comments section?”
“Why are you reading the comments section?”
“Oh, you think you’re going to sleep tonight?”


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Two hits later and I’m right back at summer camp, the first time our hands brushed nervously against each other. It’s a head-over-heels kind of high in that I’m flat on my back, warm from the numbness that becomes increasingly more pervasive. I’m terrible at sleeping, which is unfortunate considering it’s a basic life function. I find myself needing to be on my left side, pillow between knees, with my right hand under my chin before flopping over to my right and then starting over. Angle the pillow more so it is slightly less than 90 degrees. Almost there…

Instead, the bed envelops me in a way that causes a grin to wash over my face. My thoughts float freely in and back out of my head, none particularly more pertinent than another. I queue up some classic “Futurama” episodes on Netflix, waking up only to take a massive slug from the water glass my still-playing phone rests against. Like Fry, I’m resting comfortably in my own Cryo-tube.

Herijuana isn’t for novices, even if I regularly describe it as one of my first true weed loves to people who hadn’t solicited my opinion. While it’s great for pain relief, I recommend reserving it for the end of the day. This is a strain that gives you a bear hug you don’t want to end. And you don’t need a bear hug while you’re in line at Arby’s.