Have you ever read “To kill a Mocking Bird” by Harper Lee? It’s an American classic that won a Pulitzer in 1961, but it’s the only book ever written by Lee, which is a bit strange when you think about it. Honestly, if your first book ended up being one of the all-time best, wouldn’t you write something else? Or maybe it isn’t strange at all, because if you’re going to retire, maybe doing so at the pinnacle like Lee did would make you an instant legend. Know what I mean? If you’re gunna go out, go out on top.

But the real reason I started thinking about Harper Lee is that her one-and-only book was 100,000 words long, so she and I have something in common: this is the 100^th blog I’ve written for The Greenery, and since they’ve all been around 1,000 words long, today marks the day wherein I’ve written 100,000 words about cannabis. That’s the same thing as writing a bona fide book about pot, but I’m pretty sure the Pulitzer people aren’t going to call me, and there’s no way I’m stopping now. Also, everybody knows that when you write 100K about pot, you get to write one post about anything you want, and it doesn’t need to make since. So, this week, I’m going to write about two completely unrelated topics: borosilicate glass, and xerostomia (I do what I want).

Let’s start with the glass. There are two types of glass people use to make pipes and bongs and whatnot: soda-lime glass and borosilicate. The soda-lime variety is the most common, and it accounts for about 90% of all the glass stuff out there, and I’m not just talking about pipes. This glass is made with SiO2 (soda) and calcium oxide (lime), and it’s used for everything from windows to beer bottles to pipes. If you’ve ever bought one of those multi-colored, handblown pipes, you’ve smoked out of soda-lime glass, but there’s a problem with that: soda-lime glass has a high CTE (coefficient of thermal expansion) which means that every time it’s heated up with your lighter and then cooled by the air after your hit, the stress causes little cracks to spiderweb through your pipe. That’s why those things never last. Eventually, you’ll drop your soda-lime pipe and it’ll shatter into a million pieces of smoke-session ruining glass. People always wonder why their pipes break so easily after using it for a while, but now you know.

The other type of glass is borosilicate which is made from a mixture of silica and boric oxide; this is the stuff glass blowers use to make scientific stuff like beakers and whatnot. And yes, it’s also the stuff your Pyrex cookware is made from, so I’m sure you know where I’m going with this. Borosilicate has a very low CTE, so it doesn’t matter how many times you heat it up. It won’t crack, and it’ll stay awesome for just about ever. And now, we’re selling both types of glass in our Durango dispensary, because we want you to have a choice.

Now, on to xerostomia (again, I don’t need smooth segues because this is my 100^th blog). The first peer-reviewed study on the health risks associated with long-term marijuana was recently released (you can read it HERE), and it confirmed what I’ve believed for quite some time: cannabis doesn’t suck. Basically, super-smart doctors in New Zealand started their study on a group of people in the early seventies and tracked their health through thirty years of research while keeping an eye on the individuals who smoked pot regularly. And after three decades of study and comparison, those super-smart doctors were able to tie only one adverse heath condition to long-term cannabis use: gum disease. Do you know why? Smoking marijuana can give you a dry mouth (xerostomia), and a dry mouth can lead to gum disease.

Um… duh. I could’ve saved those super-smart doctors thirty years if they would’ve just asked me what smoking marijuana does, but they never called. Yes, pot can make your mouth dry, and if you keep it that way, your gums will suffer, but thank goodness, there’s a cure to the one proven adverse health effect that stems from cannabis use: drinking water. Boom. Problem solved. If you make sure to stay hydrated while you’re smoking, you can stay high and keep your healthy gums; it’s that simple. Or, if you’re one of the unlucky few who get xerostomia on steroids after getting high, you can throw some Biotene into the mix and give your gums a hydrating bath that even the stoniest pot can’t parch.

There. Blog 100 is in the books. But there’s something else you need to know. I’m the guy who handles our wholesale to other dispensaries, and as such, I’ve literally visited the websites for all the other dispensaries in this state, over five-hundred of them, and nobody else in Colorado has a blog like ours. Yes, other blogs exist, but new posts come up once every month or so (not every week like ours), and frankly, they’re all sales-heavy and information-light. Here, at The Greenery, the owners have made a substantial investment into our blog, and they do it for education and enlightenment, not for an extra buck. That’s something special, and we’re going to keep doing it instead of going out on top like Harper Lee, because We’re Your Best Buds!

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