Denver website seeks dope critic

Nice work if you can get it

Denver's Westword newspaper has unsurprisingly received more than 120 applications for the post of marijuana reviewer, many of whom are offering to do the job for nothing.

The site is seeking a permanent critic for its "Mile Highs and Lows" column, AP reports, who'll become "the first professional newspaper critic of medical marijuana in the country".

And therein lies the catch. In what will doubtless be a major blow to our Colorado readers wishing to occupy this unique post, the successful applicant "has to have a medical ailment that allows them to legally enter a dispensary, and buy and use marijuana".

AP explains that there's a burgeoning business in online reviews of medicinal dope. Califonia has around 800 medical "pot shops", while Colorado boasts 100, and users are keen to sniff out the best smoke to cure their ills.

Justin Hartfield, manager of California-based weedmaps.com, explained: "People are really desperate for this kind of information. There are so many places to go that users are really looking for honest reviews."

AP helpfully provides one such honest review for "Afghan Gold Seal," which is apparently cheap but "delivers a very heavy stone with the same degree of munchies to go along with it", according to one bombed and peckish critic.

Westword's eventual critic will review not just marijuana varieties, but also the outlets which provide them. The idea orginally came from the paper's non-dope-smoking Joel Warner, who explained: "Some really looked like your college drug dealer's dorm room. You know, Bob Marley posters on the wall and big marijuana leaf posters.

"But then some were so fancy, like dentist's offices. They had bubbling aquariums in the lobby and were so clean. I thought, somebody needs to review these. Somebody needs to tell people what these places are like."

The paper is now sorting the weed from the chaff by asking wannabe pro dopeheads to outline "What Marijuana Means to Me". One hopeful, a former heroin addict, explains: "it has never let me down. never made me want to rob a bank. never put me in a situation where i felt compelled to prostitute myself".

He continues: "i am a good writer. the one thing i know that i excel at. i am also a daily weed smoker who visits dispensaries 2 -3 times weekly. i'm glad you guys are doing this. mm in colorado is exploding. i am a stay at home dad. i don't need money. i don't need a job. but. i have wanted to write for westword for so long. and this would be the perfect union. i will get a marijuana leaf/westword tattoo on my forehead to get this gig. and i have no tattoos at all...please. don't make me beg." ®