North Fork Valley: Home of “That Really Good Pot”

By Ash Trego

Picture it, Paonia, Colorado 1985, I am eleven years old, at the top of my game, and the world is my oyster…

Coincidentally, that same year, Windows 1.0 was released; the price of a Swatch Watch was a mere $29.99; an ounce of gold would run you $327 bucks; the funny guys on TV were Steven Wright, Johnny Carson, and David Letterman, in that order; and China forbid the showing of Back to the Future because it inaccurately depicted history … hmmm??  But another fortuitous event that took place that year was that a young man, not to be named, moved to this small town on the Western Slope of Colorado.

Purely by chance, this young man and his folks landed here. While on a hike in the beautiful Colorado wilderness, he spotted a bear sitting near some bushes. He swears that bear was smiling. He then noticed that those plants were cannabis, and the bear had eaten three of them to the ground. A happy bear indeed. He asked a friend about these plants and learned that they were in fact what was once thought to be Maui Wowie cannabis from the North Fork Valley: it was Paonia Paralyzer, Purple P-Bud, the stuff that dreams are made of. Fuckin-A.

Well, as it happens, Delta County, much to the conservative chagrin, has been known for this distinctive strain of weed dating back to the 1960s. In fact, when growing up and going places I would tell people I was from Paonia and the two responses I got were “where the hell is that” and “oh yeah, that’s where they grow that really good pot”.

So, with the up-coming 420 celebration, I decided to learn more about this crop; get back to my “roots,” so to speak. This is what I learned from my friend. Paonia Paralyzer, which in its true form, barely exists anymore, was the love child of four original land-strains—Oaxacan, Michoacán, Acapulco Gold, and Panama Red. This perfect botanical storm came to this small area via a drug smuggler from the Aspen area during the sixties.

In an effort to save a dying species, there was a different guy in the Valley around the mid to late ’70s who did some playing around growing the Paonia Purple with Colchicine, a highly toxic herbicide. Bad idea. This is nasty, toxic, stuff and what he produced, for the next 25 years, was called “numb skull” because one or two tokes would turn you into a real, well … numb skull.

Obviously, times change. Thank goodness for that. Pot is now legal in Colorado (with rules of course), but small towns like this also have their own rules sometimes. Paonia and Delta county have finally approved pot shops but due to egregious nepotism and stonewalling no one has been able to open an actual shop here. Talk about a wasted opportunity for a community that could really use that income

Here is the gist of it—if pot is taken off the Class 1 schedule as a narcotic the 10 percent excise tax could be put into a medical fund that would provide truly affordable health care for billions. Which would be funded by a bunch of stoners. Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

I did not know any of this until I spoke with my friend, but the 420 celebration started in California as a “code call” for cannabis infractions. Seems to me like there are a lot of other things that should probably warrant more concern: domestic violence, child abuse, rape, just to name a few.

We, as a society, have turned a blind eye when it comes to the relevance of this plant. We live in a magical sphere where, for some reason, God gave us the receptors to benefit from this healing herb, the clarity to avoid the use of opioids, and the strength to avoid the never-ending push from the pharmaceutical companies whose bottom line is the Benjamins, y’all.

The North Fork Valley is steeped in colorful eccentricity, littered with private airstrips, and lays claim to an amazing history of everything from rock stars to presidents to (possibly) the best damn weed one could get their hands on. President Carter took his first float through the Gunnison Gorge right here, Joe Cocker called this Valley home for many years, and the list goes on.

In light of all of us having gone through one of the most jacked-up years in a really long time, I say Happy 420, happy 2021, happy spring. Sending positive vibes out to you all.