There's a cone-shaped joint the length of a Bic pen filled with Colorado-grown cannabis burning in the ashtray a few inches from my keyboard right now and I'm going to get paid to smoke it and write about it.

I am the first newspaper medical marijuana dispensary critic in the United States. No, it's not a joke.

Colorado has allowed for medical marijuana since 2000, but in October of 2009, US deputy attorney general David Ogden released a memo noting the government would not waste money prosecuting "individuals whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws" for medical marijuana. Overnight, medical marijuana shops popped up like weeds in long-vacant shops in Denver and across Colorado.

The boom was so big that the alternative weekly newspaper I work for, Westword, decided it was time to hire a critic to help distinguish the good shops from the poor. (Despite what people think of alt-weekly newspaper staffs, nobody in the Westword newsroom was a pot head.) They brought me on in November 2010 and I have been smoking my way through Denver since.

Each shop has a different identity. Some have the feel of sterile doctors' offices while others are more like the basement of that guy you used to buy weed from in college. I'm not picky about decor, but a shop has to be clean. If the place feels gross to me, it's probably going to make other patients feel the same way. What is most important, though, is the quality of the medicine a shop sells. Not all weed is the same and not all growers are created equal.

Each strain is different, with distinct looks, smells and tastes. As important as the lineage of a grape is to making wine, different strains of marijuana have been bred through the decades for certain properties.

Some are known for their beautiful flowers and smells; others are known for how much of a knock-out punch they pack. Depending on the origin of the strain, it can vary in flavour from the light, citrus-like tang of fresh-cut tangerines to a musky, mushroom-like richness.

Also like wine, the flavours in a strain flourish more depending on how it was grown. For example, the earthy, rich smell of organic soil will come through and accent the rubbery, tart smell and taste of a well-grown OG Kush.

The shops I like tend to grow rare strains in small batches, paying more attention to each plant than how much weed they can grow overall. Smaller batches mean higher prices, but for the connoisseur they also mean better flavours and cleaner medicine. Some shops don't care as much about that and select high-yielding, fast-growing strains and sacrifice quality for quantity. If it were wine, it would be sold in a box.

I bring home a few grams of herb every week from a different dispensary and sample a few. Like a food or wine critic, my newspaper pays for the herb I review, which I admit is a nice perk to the job. In the end, though, that's what this is: a job. I've got real deadlines and real editors who will not sign my real pay cheques if I miss said deadlines.

Which reminds me – I've got to get back to work. Has anyone seen my lighter?