Soon You'll Be Able To Smoke Hunter S. Thompson's Weed

Hunter S. Thompson once said, "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me." Soon, you'll be able to partake in the same strain of at least one of those things that the "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" author once did.

Thompson's widow, Anita Thompson, told a newspaper in their hometown that she is planning to start selling marijuana grown from the same strains of cannabis that Thompson smoked on his Owl Farm ranch in Woody Creek, Colorado.

Thompson said she has often been approached by marijuana sellers about partnering with her to grown Hunter S. Thompson-brand weed ever since Colorado legalized recreational marijuana. But she's always told them no, and is now ready to do it on her own, using six original strains she still has.

Here's an excerpt describing her thinking from The Aspen Times:

“Since it became legal I get approached probably once a month by cannabis growers, dispensaries,” Thompson said. “I’ve had probably 10 meetings in the last three years and I always ended up saying ‘No’ because it’s the same story every time: somebody wants to slap Hunter’s name on their strain.”

Thompson said she has, however, saved six different strains of cannabis that the “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” author actually smoked. She is now working with a cannabis company to grow those strains — or hybrids of them — and sell them to the public. She said she was glad that she held off on partnering on a marijuana brand until it could be done right.

“If I put Hunter’s name on somebody else’s strain I can never go back and say, ‘No, this is the authentic one,’” she explained.

Thompson added that she's going to use the proceeds from the pot business to remodel the Owl Farm property and turn it into a writers' retreat and museum.

Read the full story from The Aspen Times here.

Celebrity status aside, Thompson should have plenty of success selling her marijuana in Colorado, which has had legal recreational weed since January 2014.

A recent study found that in 2015, marijuana legalization injected Colorado with nearly $120 million in new tax revenue from nearly $1 billion in sales. That led to $2.39 billion of economic impact, the study found, through the creation of 18,000 new jobs, business-to-business transactions and indirect job creation.

Thompson told The Aspen Times the weed will be branded as Gonzo, a nod to the style of journalism Thompson popularized with his energetic, first-person accounts of Hell's Angels, celebrity at the Kentucky Derby and Las Vegas nightlife.

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