How to Smoke Pot (Properly): A Highbrow Guide to Getting High (Plume, $15) is everything it sounds like, and more. VICE columnist and former High Times editor David Bienenstock reflects not just on (proper) technique, but botany, brownies, and the fascinating history of the decreasingly controversial plant, going back to 6000 BCE. He’ll be speaking about the book at Kramerbooks tonight at 6:30 p.m.

Among the many lessons provided by the “Emily Post of Pot”: How to do a “smell” test. The uses for medicinal marijuana. How to throw a weed-themed dinner party. How to get a friend high for the first time. Whether marijuana is, in fact, an aphrodisiac. A guide to ten legal jobs involving pot. Travel tips, including whether you should eat a pot brownie before getting on a plane (hint: how does “hurtling through space stuck in a metal tube” between two strangers while high sound to you?).

And, if you’re into pot economics, policy, or both, the book touches on that, too. Bienenstock writes about the importance of regulation that supports small, local, responsible businesses instead of the rise of Big Marijuana. He explains why marijuana taxes should not exceed those imposed on alcohol, and how people with medical ailments who need marijuana should receive it for free. He also gives some handy tips for advocates looking to make legal weed the norm.

The result is a hilarious handbook that will teach and entertain you in ways you probably wouldn’t expect.

Bienenstock is the former West Coast editor of High Times magazine and is now a journalist/host/producer at VICE, where he writes the Weed Eater column and produces the Bong Appetit video series. He has lent his expertise to NPR, Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, CNBC, HBO, and numerous publications.

The event is free and open to the public.