More than a decade after his death, Hunter S. Thompson is still smokin’.
The “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” author, who took his own life in 2005 at age 67, will be memorialized with his own brand of marijuana, his widow told the Aspen Times this week.
Anita Thompson, who earlier this year gained ownership of the author’s Owl Farm in Woody Creek, Colorado, said the brand will be based on six strains of marijuana that the Gonzo author personally smoked.
“Since it became legal I get approached probably once a month by cannabis growers, dispensaries,” Thompson told the paper. “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 … If I put Hunter’s name on somebody else’s strain I can never go back and say, ‘No, this is the authentic one.”
Thompson said that the brand will be made available in recreational marijuana dispensaries.
The author’s widow said that, in the years since Thompson’s death, she has been primarily occupied with preserving his literary work, but now feels that the time is right to promote other aspects of his life.
“I was always steering toward his work and away from his lifestyle, but now I feel like I can talk more openly about his lifestyle,” Thompson noted. “I’m proud to do it now. Before, it was a little too risky.”
Hunter S. Thompson, who became a counter-cultural icon due to works such as “Hell’s Angels” and the “Fear and Loathing” books, once stated, “I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they’ve always worked for me.”
In a Facebook post following the publication of the article, Thompson elaborated, “I have found a legal method to extract the DNA from Hunter’s personal marijuana and hashish that I saved for 12-15 years. I am in the process of making the strains available to those who would like to enjoy the authentic Gonzo strains in legal states … I am looking forward to making the authentic strains available in legal states to support the Farm and the scholarships.”