It has been a very long time since I have lit up a bowl, inhaled, and then immediately started to choke on the smoke.
I’m not trying to toot my own horn here, but over the many years of reviewing weed that I have put in, I’ve gotten used to the feeling of that harsh first hit — the one that hits the back of your throat like a Mack truck and then compels you to lose a large chunk of your lung.
You know the one.
And, the fact that I typically use a Pax 3 (not #sponcon; it’s just what I use) to smoke it helps. The weed in that thing isn’t combusting like it would in a pipe, so it just tends to be a lot smoother of a hit.
Apparently a smooth hit with my overpriced gadget is not a guarantee, though — which was just one lesson I learned with the Nana OG strain, which I’m reviewing in this issue for The Green House in Durango. If you aren’t super familiar with Nana OG, here’s the gist. This strain is a hybrid of two very popular strains: Banana and OG Kush. I love OG Kush and Banana, and so do a lot of other people, so I was pretty excited to try this one.
Well, let me tell you. It did not disappoint, from the beautiful nugs to the choking and gasping for air..
Before I get to how I choked, though, let’s start with how it looked. The first thing I noticed when I popped open the lid on the container was how fluffy and completely green the Nana OG nugs were. I’m not sure why the bright green color surprised me, but it did. Maybe I was expecting something a little more yellow since there’s banana in the strain name, but that is not what I got. However, when I looked closely, I did spot a few light orange hairs throughout, so maybe there’s more color in there than I thought.
I also kind of expected it to smell like bananas, but when I stuck my nose in the container, all I got were hints of, well, weed. It smells like freaking weed. Danky, thick, skunky weed. That’s fine with me, but don’t expect this strain to smell like a fruit bowl or you will be sorely disappointed. And, when I broke the weed apart to put it in the grinder, that skunky funk only became more noticeable. Again, I like it.
I don’t mind my weed smelling like weed. But if you hate the stench of your good ol’ regular bag of weed, you may not love this one. You’ll probably love its effects, though. At just 24.95% THC, you wouldn’t think this strain would outweigh some of the heavyweight strains, but I’ll be darned if it doesn’t. It is POTENT.
And I do mean potent.
This is probably not a strain that you should smoke if you need to get work done, cook dinner, or otherwise function, because there is a good chance it will render you useless. That’s what it did to me, anyway. But not before it knocked me on my coughing ass.
The first hit of this stuff and I was choking like I’d never inhaled weed smoke before. It hit my throat like a freight train, slamming into my esophagus with a 1-2 punch.
Pretty impressive, if you ask me. And that coughing and gasping for air continued well after the first hit. Every time I inhaled another hit of Nana OG I choked — but I also got very high very quickly into smoking, so the choking made me laugh hysterically every time.
This went on for a while, the pattern of choking and then laughing, choking and then laughing — which I’m sure was a ridiculous site to see from the outside. Once the bowl was finally cashed, my lungs and throat were on fire, but my brain? Well, let’s just say it was completely and totally calm and introspective. But for me, that’s totally and completely fine. I have a hard time shutting my brain off these days. I’ve been an introvert since, like, forever — probably the beginning of time — which means I live in my own head. I don’t need company.
My spinning hamster wheel of a brain can entertain itself, and entertain itself it does. It is not uncommon for me to wake up with early 1990s pop songs stuck in my head, if that tells you anything about how my brain typically works. My brain on Banana OG, though? There was no hamster wheel. There were no pop songs. I just wanted to wax poetically about everything I could think of to show off how smart I am instead.
I guess you could say I was thinking in a straight line instead of spouting off with a crooked tree branch worth of ideas.
Whether or not I was saying anything worth listening to, I have no idea — but I do remember feeling very smart for a while. And it just so happened that my brain was on smart mode while my arms and legs stopped cooperating. They melted like butter instead.
You ever get that super heavy feeling when you’re stoned? Like you’ve been turned to stone by Medusa and you are now a very smart statue?
Well, that’s what this felt like.
My brain was on smart and empathetic power mode, but my body was not. I was sluggish and oozing down the couch. So sluggish, in fact, that I must have just straight up passed out while talking. And, oddly enough, I do not even remember feeling tired. I just remember talking about, like, the origins of life or something as my limbs melted like candle wax, and then everything went black. I was star-wiped into sleep. And that sleep lasted. And lasted. And lasted some more. I didn’t wake up for hours, you guys. I was dead to the world. I don’t even remember dreaming about anything. It was just pure sleep.
So, yeah. That was Nana OG for me. I was introspective, stoned, and coughing, and then I was dead ass asleep. For that reason alone, this strain isn’t one for parties. You’ll be fine making conversation, but then you’ll be the awkward jerk who’s passed out on someone else’s couch all night when the sleep creeps in. It is a strain for insomniacs, though — and a great one at that.
So, if you’re having trouble sleeping or just want to knock out some pain or something, this is a great strain to keep on hand. Just don’t bust it out when you need to be social or awake or whatever — or things could get super awkward.
