For years, marijuana growers have approached Anita Thompson, the widow of Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, to put her late husband's name on their weed. "I always ended up saying no because it's the same story every time: somebody wants to slap Hunter's name on their strain," she tells the Aspen Times. Well she may have sorted out a win-win for herself and weed-loving Gonzo fans; she's found what she writes on Facebook is a "legal method to extract the DNA from Hunter's personal marijuana and hashish that I saved for 12 to 15 years." Now, she says, she's working to make those strains available in states where it's legal.
Working from Owl Farm, Thompson's longtime retreat in Woody Creek, Colo., his widow also has plans for major renovations, including setting up a museum and writer's retreat. She says that while she was initially trying to focus on her husband's work in the aftermath of his 2005 suicide, she now feels it's less "risky" to "talk more openly about his lifestyle." Indeed the writer did. Not only did he write openly about his own use of many different drugs, he once proclaimed, as the Guardian reports, that he had always loved marijuana: "It has been a source of joy and comfort to me for many years. And I still think of it as a basic staple of life, along with beer and ice and grapefruits—and millions of Americans agree with me." (Thompson also left his widow his sperm.)