Grow California issue #6

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Budshots See what 8 dispensaries have on the shelf - TODAY!

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GRowing up Green Cannabis Manipulation Tales from the Pot Garden

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issue 6 - January / February 2010

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Advanced Growing

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Bud Shots

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Growing up Green

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Tales From the Pot Garden

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The Mile High City

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How the Dutch do Medical Marijuana

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What’s Good

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A Growing Acceptance of Marijuana

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Humboldt County Grow Magazine assumes no responsibility for any claims or representations contained in this magazine or in any advertisement nor do they encourage the illegal use of any of the products advertised within. No portion of this magazine may be reproduced without the written consent of the publisher. Please address all correspondence to : Humboldt Grow Magazine 7219 Hampton Avenue #1 West Hollywood, California 90046

Advertising inquiries: Kenny Malloy - 323.568.7755 toll free - 888.707.GROW (4769)

2009 Š GROW MAGAZINE COW MOUNTAIN MEDIA

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Sta f f E RIC SLIGH editor / layout / photogr apher

kY M kE MP writer / photogr a her

Scott Mckenz ie layout

jOH N dE IKE R writ er

TOM GREEN photogr aph er / CULTI VATIO N R EPORTER

Kenny Malloy marketi n g / adverti sing

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Advanced Growing

10

Propogation

101

Peak propagation requires little more of your day than taking a shower does; but for the vast majority of people trying, success is not favoring them. Back in the day, when walking into a garden shop to mention the word “clone or cut” was a plain give away, success was built on learning the hard way. We really don't want our readers to have such a hard time, so go ahead cut this page out post it on the wall, here is your free copy of Cannabis Propagation For Dummies. Let's get started....

The Mother: She should be in optimum health each time you take cuts. If cutting off your indoor /outdoor plants, just don't cut anything you wouldn't plus it keeps vigor in your stock. Spray House&Garden Magic Green or Technaflora Thrive Alive B-1 one day or up to three hours before you cut.

The Plugs, Dome, and Heat: Don't panic it's not blown glass anymore its the 100% organic iHort 35/65 plug with 72 cell tray insert or an equivalent like rapid rooter. These plugs have an ideal water/air ratio at the root zone and also release moisture evenly. The plug seems to sustain a clone for quite sometime once rooted with proper nutrition. Keep plugs at room temp(68-75). The plugs should soak for 1-2hrs to make sure there is consistent uptake of water. Spot water if needed using the water that you drain from the tray. Use a chop stick to poke a hole to the bottom of the tray. The Mondi propagation dome or equivalent with top opening adjustable ports for air transfer are essential. The vents should be open a bit. The seedling mat is universal and comes in many sizes and brands. Note: Oasis cubes need a little water 1/8” to ¼” in the bottom of the tray at all times.

H2O Soak/Starter Mix: 1 gallon of purified water. This means reverse osmosis, carbon filtered, Crystal Geyser or even a Brita pitcher. The machines in front of grocery stores are great! Mix 2ml of BioBizz Bloom, 1.1ml House&Garden Roots Excelluator or Humboldt Roots and 2ml of SM-90. If you have big bucks Advanced Nutrients Voodoo Juice also. Adjust pH to 5.8-6.0 Soak ½ gallon of this mix per tray. If you’re on a budget Liquinox B-1 and ¼ strength bloom nutrient of your choice.

Cutting Enhancers: So many....Dip 'n Grow, KLN, Olivias, are some of the classics, Clonex and Rootech gels are the trend. How you take care of the plants during the rooting process is the single biggest reason for success not the enhancer.

Cutting the clones: For the first stage of this miracluolus energy transformation there is a secret I would love to share with our readers. Select 4”-7” cuttings to allow a second cut in one day. Let up to 20 cuts per 8oz Dixie cup soak overnight in PURE water (R.O. or Machine filtered) mixed with Thrive Alive B-1 Organic at 2ml/gal. During this day change the water a minium of 4 times. Mist them with Advanced Jump Start 2x daily. The next day when you prep; cut and dip at

by J. Dillion the new length(3-5”). If possible try to include node/ leaf sites towards the bottom of the cut. Believe it, no node needs to be on the stem section to have rooting occur. Now in order; cut any present node/leaf site off the stem to ~1/16”. Leave the top 2 leaves and cut the last 1/4” off the tip to help with transparation rate.

Then with a razor or new scissors, cut the bottom at 45* and 1/8” below any node/leaf site. Insert in your desired enhancer...and into the hole it goes.

Watering: Each day you should fill tray with 1/2gal of the watering mix let soak for 1-3hrs and drain. Roots Excelluator 1.1ml, BioBizz Bloom and every other day Hygrozyme then pH to 5.8-6.0. If you are propagating multiple trays and have time the run off of other trays could water the next set and so on. Saving water for the next day is not recommended.

Foliar Spray: Mist babies 1-2 times a day with Advanced Jump Start and/or Botanicare Liquid Karma. Every 5 days use SM90. Use according to bottle.

Environmental: Being Mother Nature can be quite hard with a large indoor room but in propagation we use a 17”x21” tray about a foot tall, requiring minimal light....this should be a breeze. Using a dome, or environment lid is highly recommended for at least the first 6 days since 70% relative humidity is required. Keep your temperature steady 74-78. You need a precise system to monitor the seedling mat. Purchase a temperature monitor with a probe that shares a plug spot.

This device will turn on/off the seedling mat when temperature range has been achieved. Your room should have some type of air exchange at least once per day to keep it fresh. After 8 days you can take the lid off if room humidity is above 45%. The light should be on at least 18 hours a day and 24 will only hurt your wallet, but the plants do like it. Cannabis is one of a select group of C3 plants that can grow indefinetly if given the opportunity. Rudearalis is the sole exception with a genetic auto flowing based on days growing, not photo period.

Light: Seedlings only need to recieve 250-300 foot-candles.

Using a standard 2’ floucesent fixture with a full spectrum (5-6500K) bulb per tray is ideal. Mount 2”-4”above humidty dome. This spectrum of light encourages root growth, leaf growth and stronger stems. If the hardware is all you have the cool white will have to do. If you are using HID light 400watts is more than enough and should be mounted 6’ off the ground. HPS light will slow rooting by a few days .

If you want roots like these, you should read this article.

Advanced Growing

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Cannabis

Manipulation

4-6 days after the first topping, 2 new mains show 2 nodes each and a inter-nodal stretch site perfect for the next topping

5 days after transplant and 6 nodes high on the main stem the A-Typical node was topped. This produced 2 mains.

A

s humans have domesticated animals, plants have been around for the ride as well. Humans have breed , hybernized and stabalized many food staples. Human contact and use of cannabis for thousands of years resulting have resulted in endogenous cannabanoids being produced in our bodies. That is quite a connection with a plant here on this beauitful planet.

To “Progressively Form” (PF) plants is the way I’ve come to know of ancient practices of plant manipulation applied to cannabis. Many growers are now just learning these techniques and others are perfecting it with practice and patience. The blending of bonsai pruning, tree standardizing, rose bush thinning, fruit tree thinning, branch selection, sucker shoot removel, intuitional and foresight perception. Topping,pinching, bending, stalling... all of these can lend to growing more squat uniform plants but can also increase your yeild if properly performed and timed, indoor or out. Growers are increasingly improving their attention to detail and time spent in the

garden which is condusive to trying new ideas. It becomes contagious to play with the plants and see how they respond to the attention. PF does however create more work for the grower. If you grow SOG (sea of greeen) then I would not suggest manipulating anything but photo-period; but that is another article. Since most indoor growers do consider plant count; real SOG is rare.

The topping of a plant does change it’s life drastically. This is of course natural and therefore does not decrease the THC levels; as this is genetically decided. If you want main-branch colas with few laterals TOP early! This should be done as soon as you see your plants grow 1”-2” after transplant.

Manipulation of plants is an ancient art still performed throughout the world today.

This stunts your plants for 5-7 days with energy going towards root growth and plant apex adaptation. Some people bend the top of the plant over touching the soil or horizontal with the soil to induce the same effect as topping. When topped most plants will try to produce a 2-5 branched main base. They don’t look like main branches because they are 1”-2” tall but you need to be looking ahead(foresight), imagining what it will become is the trick. You must tell the plant as early as you can what it should focus it’s energy on. When you have a plant that put 2 mains up you need to top again as soon as each branch has 2 nodes; now you have 4 at the very top of your plant and you gave a chance for other lowers of making it to the top canopy. Topping your plants will induce growth in all directions and you will need to form and thin (PF) the subsequent growth in 5-7 day intervals in order to maintain the exact growth you desire.

Using PF on your plants will correct this. 4-5 days before inducing flower you must control the pattern of growth by forming and cleaning your plants. This time is also the last for topping of the plant. Each main branch will show it’s self on the plant. Clean up the nodes/branches until 4-6 nodes are visible from the branch tip. Good goals for pot size to top ratio could be; 4-6 mains for a 3-5 gallon pot, 6-10 for 7-10 gallon pots and 12-18 for 15 gallon pots. This does not include side laterals of each main branch which vary from strain to strain. All strains show which laterals are being given more energy so thin the others leaving 1 on lower branches and 2-3 on the upper crown of main branch stems. Cleaning water leaves in the center when forming for air flow and spray coverage.

Weekly clean the DDD: dying(60%or more) dead, or diseased leaves. Good luck and have fun with playing with your trees.

Topping,pinching, bending, stalling, super cropping, FIM...

its ALL manipulation.

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community Growing up Green

36

Green

growing up

What Happens to Childhood when Parents Produce Marijuana?

By Kym Kemp

When Anya* comes through the kindergarten door, one or the other of her divorced parents drives her to their home and spends hours playing with her and including her in their work. She is much loved and it shows. But if Child Protective Services knew how her parents made money, they’d put them in jail and Anya in foster care.

Barely out of preschool, Anya is the third generation of a cannabis growing family. Sometimes, she works beside one or the other of her parents farming what she calls the “medicine plant.”

“I like to help…[I like to] make piles of it,” she explains, swinging legs clad in immaculate white tights. Unaware of society’s stiff penalties for growing marijuana, she is not afraid of working with marijuana--though there is one thing she worries about. “I don’t like walking down to [Daddy’s] garden.

It’s far and.... sometimes I’m afraid I might tumble.”

Anya has been a part of the process almost since she could talk. She laid out the details in simple words:

“We plant it first. We give it lots and lots and lots of sun. And lots and lots and lots of water. And lots and lots and lots of rest. And lots and lots and LOTS of love. It will grow and get big…well, maybe,” she adds sadly, the truth of farming already a reality.

She helps harvest the sticky buds, too, though she only gets to pile the cut stems, she doesn’t get to use the sharp trimmingshears. With the hint of a pout, she holds forward a pair of child safety scissors, “I have fake ones.”

The idea of a parenting system that provides their children with safety scissors, surround them with love, and also allows them to be part of growing an illegal drug, can’t be comprehended by most Americans. Yet, the parents and children of this story exist within part of an enormous alternate economy.

Marijuana as an underground has existed in this country since it was first made illegal in 1937. In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, the Love generation fled the cities for rural areas such as Northern California and began cultivating new strains, crossbreeding preexisting strains and developed a seed-free system of growing (cloning). Because of its’ illegality, children in this new society were raised in environments that incorporated a high level of secrecy into day-to-day affairs. Sometimes that secrecy created fears so powerful that the apprehension almost had a physical presence. Many of the children grew up feeling so different from the rest of society, so isolated from their peers, they might well of been aliens. *the names and some of the details have been changed to protect the identity of the people interviewed.

Growing up Green

38

SECRETS...

Kitty, a high school teacher now living in Washington, moved to the North Coast of California when she was 11 years old. She relates a story that partially explains why she doesn’t want to raise her children in the lucrative marijuana trade. “Before we moved to Humboldt, I knew my parents smoked…. and I told the neighbor girl. She blackmailed me. She made me give her money or she was going to tell her parents. I gave her a few dollars that I stole out of my mom’s purse.” Then, her voice slick with shame for something she did 30 years ago, she adds, “…that is totally uncharacteristic of me.”

When they moved to Humboldt, her anxiety was reduced somewhat, “It was a community thing….

It was a relief for me that more people were doing it. It was…common.” Nonetheless, the burden of carrying a secret that could send their family to jail resurrects itself when speaking to those who grew up in the marijuana culture.

Kitty had plenty of friends whose families grew pot. But she also had friends whose families weren’t involved in marijuana cultivation. One of her good friends was the daughter of a police officer. “He welcomed me into his home.”

However, because of where she lived--in the hills--and her parents’ lack of a visible means of support, “he probably made assumptions and based on those assumptions, she didn’t come to my house.” Thoughtfully, Kitty added, “I wouldn’t have put her into that position. It was never even discussed.” She paused, and then added almost under her breath, “The unspokenness of it...”

Men and women who grew up in the marijuana culture stressed how rarely they talked to others about the weed. The “unspokenness” of it pervaded their existence. The subject was taboo in the children’s lives. Brandon, a newly divorced father of a three year old boy, recalls that “[There was a] group awareness that we should just keep it to ourselves.” When tempted to reveal the source of his family’s income to someone, even a girlfriend, he would think, “I probably shouldn’t tell that.” To him, it was like, “…opening a door that probably shouldn’t be opened.”

Partially, though, they didn’t talk about growing pot because “not talking” was simply part of their everyday reality. It was a given—like the sun coming up. The more recently those interviewed had grown up, the more unremarkable marijuana seemed-- this might in part be because Proposition 215 and the changing cultural values it represents led to a reduced likelihood of criminal charges. Ivan, a twenty-something man whose parents abused meth as well as dealt marijuana, explains “It wasn’t something we talked about because it was just normal.”

I knew my parents smoked…. and I told the neighbor girl. She blackmailed me.

She made me give her money or she was going to tell her parents.

But talking could also be dangerous. Megan, Anya’s mother, (who grew up in the late Eighties) reminisced that, “Back then it was the DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) era. I went to public school. If any one we knew used drugs, we were supposed to tell. I felt nervous. I thought everyone knew. Looking back, I think maybe many kids’ families grew but I was sure we were the only ones [in public school]….We had friends [in the hills] that grew, but we didn’t really talk about it.” Whether in reaction to her childhood fear or not, Megan now lives almost entirely within the Marijuana culture. At home in the mountains she loves, not far from her large extended family, she says, “I don’t have a lot of people outside [of growers].”

Tom, an EMT who also cultivates marijuana remembers that in high school, “I had relationships with girls and if they asked too many questions because I had money, I broke up with them!” In fact, the woman, Carly, who became his wife wasn’t allowed to know that the marijuana they clipped belonged to his family for almost two years after she moved in with him. He explains that he knows now that was “ludicrous.” But, he had learned to compartmentalize his life. He still doesn’t tell many people. “This isn’t the kind of thing we talk to everybody about.” He worries that in the straight world, where he spends much of his time, he will “get green-stamped” if co-workers know he also farms marijuana. Growers, he says, are known in the world he works as being “lazy and arrogant.” He likes his reputation as a hard worker and doesn’t want it affected by the stereotype.

Stories about children slipping and letting some of the secret escape are part of grower lore. Tom relates an oft told family story in which he and his brother were eating in a restaurant with his very straight grandparents. His brother held some parsley under his nose. Much to his parents’ embarrassment, the exasperated young Tom explained loudly to his smaller brother, “That’s not to smell, that’s to smoke!”

The horrified gasps and stifled giggles greeting these tales acknowledge that such a slip, in which a child is merely interpreting the world they live in, could result in estranged family relationships and possibly even jail for his or her parents. Each child, if they spoke the secret word, could destroy their family as effectively as if they had opened a dungeon door and let a monster out.

Growing up Green

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COMMUNITY AND FAMILY TIES

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The same secrecy which can often aliente a child from the outside world is also capable of fostering a sense of community among the growers and their collective offspring. Kitty doesn’t tell her children much about how she grew up. “I’m cautious about the information I share because I don’t want to overburden them with secrets…I feel I was overburdened…I’m still horrified that I stole money.” Yet, when asked what she misses about marijuana, she bursts out, “I miss the community. Is it the small town? Or, is it that everyone is in on The Secret?”

She laughs at the inherent contradictions within herself—what caused the most anxiety for her, is also what forged bonds that bring her back again and again to visit.

He worries that in the straight world, where he spends much of his time, he will “get green-stamped” if co-workers know he also farms marijuana.

Brandon, the newly divorced father of the three year old boy, was arrested when he was 22. He left behind cannabis cultivation for many years, working in construction, and supporting his family with long hard hours until the dissolution of his marriage left him with custody of his son. Now, he’s back growing and says with conviction engendered from experience, “In this community, I always felt like everybody was watching out for each other.”

In fact, the “hill folk” of the Emerald Triangle are known for taking care of their own.

Because of where they were situated, Tom’s family repeatedly lost portions of their crop to rip-offs. One year when he was around 10, he explains, “…we lost the majority of our crop. Broke, we had to rely on our community.” With the neighbors’ help, they managed to hang on until another harvest was completed successfully.

Family bonds, as well as community ties, can be enhanced by the cannabis relationship.

Growers often have a sense of being inside a warm house while outside a storm rages—they have a feeling of working together against the outside world. One grower called it a “sense of clannishness.” Kitty explains that when she and her mom were clipping at a neighbor’s, she felt close and “cozy.” Megan, Anya’s mom, whose parents also grew, remembers the times she came home from school and “the girls,” as she calls the women who came to manicure the pot, were upstairs working with her mother. “[All the clippers] asked me questions about boyfriends and my day at school. I’d snuggle on the bed and they’d start talking....” she smiles with remembered pleasure. “I heard a lot of laughter. It was a fun feeling” Then her smile widens to a wicked grin. “They always had the good snacks. Things we weren’t usually allowed to have, like chocolate.”

The feeling of family togetherness can extend for a lifetime.

Several of the growers who are parents of young children mentioned that they hope their offspring remember, “the time

spent together in the [marijuana] garden.” They believe working side by side weaved the family together more closely than most modern families where parents work long hours at occupations that often require extended commutes.

To illustrate that point, Tom, the EMT, explains how recently he had to be away from home for a month on his “straight’ job. When he returned, his three year old daughter, Tera, refused to follow his instructions on the grounds that “…you’re not my daddy anymore.” Tom, and other parents in the marijuana culture, feel that pot growing provides extended time with their offspring which translates into stronger families and healthier children. Tom remembers proudly the first time he worked in a cannabis patch: “I was nine…Dad had gotten hurt. I had to help Mom. We had to pull it out of the rain [before it was ruined].” Looking back, he believed he was central to his family’s survival.

Today, Tom wants his children to feel that same sense of importance and has already began having his daughter help him in the garden. His two year old son is not quite ready for the task: “He was just ripping it and ripping it,” Tera explained importantly, proud that she is old enough to be trusted with the crop. While not ready for detailed effort herself, she assists the family by watching over her little brother so her mother can work. She also removes leaves when they yellow and waters. She’s learning the family business just like Anya. Already, she can describe buds growing. “They get bigger and bigger and then they get purple,” she explains, her large eyes widening and her curls bouncing as she sits on dad’s lap holding a handful of this year’s crop.

For many of the growers and their children, being involved in the family business is not so much about learning, as it is about spending time together.

Brandon, who had quit marijuana production when he was arrested for cultivation, recently returned to illegal farming and describes it as, “a wonderful thing. I get to raise my child as opposed to having him in daycare. When my son asks me what I do, I say, ‘My job is to take care of you.’” Without the flexible hours and extra time at home that marijuana growing provides, these families would be struggling to find time together. As Megan, Anya’s mother explains, “So much of the work I do is at my house. [The hours] are flexible [so] I get to be with my kid.”

Without the time and money that marijuana provides, the culture and the families would be struggling to survive both financially and emotionally.

Growing up Green

42

VIOLENCE: When asked about violence associated with marijuana grows, most of growers dismissed the idea. Even those who were raised in homes with parents who used Meth and other harder drugs nearly daily said that the linking of violence with pot growing by the media wasn’t reflected in their lives. Ivan, who described his early childhood home as a “flophouse” with both his parents heavy into meth, said that “the only violence was my mom whipping my ass because I was misbehaving.”

Anya’s father, a fairly recent transplant to the area said that he hadn’t experienced violence and wasn’t worried about Anya experiencing it either. “There is violence throughout the world no matter what you do.” But here in the hills of the California North Coast, he felt Anya was growing up safer than most other children. Tom, himself a father of two preschoolers, agreed. “Growing up in a more metro area there would be more violence. In Eureka [the nearest city], I’ve seen 20 guys fighting [all at one time]. Intercity would be worse. Here, pot makes people non-violent.”

Anya’s father, who wasn’t raised in the area and has only began farming pot in the last few years, appears to have never dealt with the gun culture of earlier cannabis growers.

However, Tom describes himself as “packing heat” since he was in his teens. He makes it clear that he “never actually had to shoot anyone.” But, after listening to his stories, that sounds almost a matter of luck rather than reluctancey to fire. He describes an account of the time he and Carly, the woman who became his wife, were guarding the road up to their garden. “Guys came rolling up. They screeched across the driveway. I fired warning shots into the bank.”

Incredibly, rather than racing away, the men got out, started throwing rocks and threatening his life. He raised his gun again.

This time he was going to shoot one of the guys. “I wasn’t prepared to fight them [physically]” and leave Carly to face the two men alone if he was injured (even though she had her own guns). Luckily, at that moment, he recognized the man in front as a neighbor. And the neighbor recognized him. Apparently, the man had just been ripped off and thought that Tom and Carly’s truck resembled the rip-off vehicle. The incident ended peacefully but it wasn’t the only one Tom was involved in.

As mentioned before, Tom’s family was the victim of marijuana theft several times. Once, after Tom and Carly had their own place not far from his parents, his dad called with the news of yet another possible theft in progress. Tom remembers clearly his dad shouting that a mini van had just dropped two guys off at what the family labeled “Rip-off corner.” “Hurry, get here right away,” he demanded. Within a few minutes, Tom and his dad were following the tracks of the would-be thieves towards their “patch.” In fact, according to Tom, “the whole community mobilized.” Some of the neighborhood put up a roadblock in order to keep the driver from returning for the two thieves.

Others joined the chase on foot.

Soon the thieves were “pinned down [behind some bushes]…

with people all around. So we started having fun with them— verbal torture…” The two terrified robbers cowered behind whatever cover they could find while the community folk described (falsely) how they had already killed the driver of the escape vehicle and were going to kill them. Coincidently, though, a drunken neighbor had driven over a cliff the same night and much to everyone’s dismay, a tow truck and a highway patrol car made their way up the dead-end road. The roadblock hurriedly dissolved. And, as soon as it was safe, warning shots were fired at the “rip-offs,” and they were allowed to escape.

Neighbors driving the road reported that the two would-be thieves must have followed the creek until they reached the freeway. They were spotted coming out a couple miles away somewhat scratched and battered from their trek but rapidly fled into the waterway again when the spotting cars turned around to question them.

With a laugh, Tom describes a t-shirt he has. “It says, ‘Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies.’” Sitting at the dinner table with his pretty wife and gently stroking the soft ringlets of his big-eyed daughter, the motto seems incongruous.

However, the Wild West mentality of many in the marijuana growing communities leads to an independent, solve-it-yourself attitude. More recently though, as Proposition 215 laws in the Golden State make marijuana production safer, the growers seem less likely to use guns and more likely to call police. Most of the cannabis farmers who moved her as adults have never seen weapons pulled. Most of the ones growing up here have.

When Kitty was a child in Humboldt, she said, “I wasn’t personally exposed to violence. [A] murder happened [in the neighborhood]. But there was more worry about violence then there actually was. [However,] there was a heightened sense of awareness about violence.” She saw people carry guns more than once.

Yet , Cory, Anya’s father, who wasn’t raised in the area and has only come to farming pot in the last few years appears to have never dealt with the gun culture of earlier cannabis growers.

He states comfortably that he hasn’t seen violence. He has heard stories but he feels safer in marijuana country than elsewhere. “There is violence throughout the world…with 215, it’s pretty much legal.” Coming here more recently appears to have cushioned him, and those like him, from some of early marijuana farming’s harsher sides.

Growing up Green

44

DRUG USE Parents who raise their children in the pot culture often worry about whether their child will use drugs earlier and more often than their counterparts in mainstream society. Kitty is typical in that she started at an early age, in her case 11. “I [also] experimented with mushrooms … and acid and cocaine but I didn’t do any of them much— cocaine a little more but none of them habitually.”

She asks herself if that “would have been unusual somewhere else. Was I more comfortable trying those things because I was around pot?” She doesn’t know the answer to that but she does know that she doesn’t smoke much now that she is an adult. “I’ll smoke when I’m agitated. We don’t buy it though. My parents give us some.” She has to worry about her teaching job. Her district currently doesn’t check for drug use but others do and she never knows when hers might begin testing..

Growers often seem to feel that marijuana use among their offspring is inevitable. Ivan, who described himself as growing up in a “flophouse,” started smoking even earlier than Kitty—at age five! He used to do it with his mother who told him that she knew he would start anyway so he might as well do it with her, not in the “middle of town.” According to him, she didn’t necessarily want him to smoke but he says she felt, “… because we live here, I was going to end up smoking it anyway.”

Among those interviewed for this article, marijuana use started early but eventually tapered off. One no longer smokes at all—“For me, it was like coming out of the fog when I quit.” Others smoke a couple times a week but not usually around their own kids. Anya’s father is typical when he describes himself as only smoking “when [Anya]’s not here.”

Marijuana use, while present in all but one, appeared to happen in only moderate amounts while use of other drugs had tapered to rare instances once those interviewed were past their early twenties.

TO GROW OR NOT TO GROW: At some point the children of growers must decide what they are going to do to make money.

For some it is an easy choice. The lucrative returns make growing very attractive and it is one of the few ways people can afford to live in the golden rural hills they love. Megan says that financially it “swayed her.” She loved this area but knew there weren’t many good paying jobs.

“What [else] are you going to do to stay? ... The option to grow has kept me here and that has been a good experience.” For others though, the money isn’t enough. Kitty explains, “I never wanted to grow pot for a living—the pressure was too intense and it was such hard work….The intensity—everything had to be done in a certain amount of time. Pressure…The fear the crop would not come in; too much anxiety. I don’t miss that. I never thought I would be successful and it was not something I wanted to go back and do—the legal risks. And then it would ruin the possibilities of what I really wanted to do--teach.” So she left the area she loved and now she works in a large city.

For some, it’s a choice they make more than once. Ivan, the child of Meth users, was determined not to get involved in the drug world in any form. “I’ve avoided using it as a crutch or an income. I considered it as a free ride that I didn’t want to take.” But as he struggles to make it on his own he finds that “as I pay my own bills, it is literally impossible to cover expenses with a 40 hour a week job….I’m forced to financially.`” He has started middle manning to supplement his income (he finds buyers for the marijuana that growers need to sell, making around $100 per pound). He doesn’t want to build a full time job around that aspect though, because, as he puts it, “I know what it is like to just sit on my ass and make all my money …but it makes me depressed.”

Brandon, the newly divorced father, relates that at first “It’s not like one day I decided. You grow up in it and the next thing you know you’re part of the family and you’re doing this and doing that. Then you branch off [into doing it for yourself.]” However, his arrest for cultivation became a defining moment. He quit growing for years. He was determined to stay out of the life. Then a divorce left him caring for his son and unable to work the long hours construction demands. According to him, “Being in Humboldt, if you can’t get a job, you grow some pot.

There is a group consensus that it’s a way of life. Its okay--just welfare in another context.” So he found himself back in hills farming marijuana. “I had managed to start a new life but now I’m back. I’m broke. And I need to grow some pot.”

For Megan, who is over thirty, as well as many others, it’s not so much a choice as it is a temporary solution, “…until I figure out what I’m going to be when I grow up.” For others, even though by most standards they are successful--owning homes and businesses—growing marijuana is something they enjoy but they worry whether they should be doing something more important. One marijuana farmer wondered if he was “…not living up to expectations by doing this?”

Interestingly, growers who were raised outside of the culture, have little qualms. Cory, Anya’s father says, “Not growing up here, I’m not concerned that I couldn’t make it [elsewhere].” He’s content to enjoy the marijuana farming without worrying about if he should do something different. “I think you’re a failure if you’re not happy,” he says. Even those who have left the culture only temporarily like Brandon, are less concerned than their completely immersed counterparts. Brandon says, “I’m waiting for the day its legal…I have the skills. I could get a job with a construction company.”

Apparently, the chance to live outside the culture and succeed leaves the grower more secure in their ability to survive without growing cannabis.

Growing up Green

46

DO GROWERS WANT THEIR KIDS TO GROW MARIJUANA?

The final test of whether growers are happy with their occupation would be if they wanted their children to follow in their footsteps. Like the rest of the world, most marijuana farmers want their children to become whatever makes them happiest. Anya’s father smiles at his daughter as he explains, “She can be whatever she wants. I’m pushing her to follow her passions!”

Many in the cannabis culture also wish their children to have the option to grow pot if they want to but worry that society’s trend towards legalization will make the job obsolete. Tom, the EMT, wants his daughter, Tera, to “…do what she wants to do. I hope, however, that if [pot growing] is something she has passion for, that it is still something that can be done.”

None of the parents admitted not wanting their child to become growers but many of those who were raised in the culture definitely felt a push to work outside of the marijuana culture. They wondered whether they were “failures” by not doing “real jobs” elsewhere.

Conclusion: The world of pot growing has changed drastically from the secret, frightening world of just a decade or two ago. Proposition 215 and the changing standards of society that it reflects have created a lifestyle for a grower which is much friendlier.

Brandon, back growing after a long hiatus, claims that he sticks to the Proposition 215 guidelines. When pressed about how this provides money, he concedes, “I have a legal crop until its harvested--then I fudge a little.” He grows only 6 to 15 plants per year but, because he no longer smokes at all, he is able to sell his entire harvest.

Those who grew up under the earlier harsher laws still have residual fears. “When I was five, I thought [growing] was scary. I thought it was dangerous. I knew it was illegal.” In spite of her own feelings about marijuana production when she was a child, Megan, Anya’s mother, continues to grow and include five year old Anya in her work. She feels Proposition 215 has dramatically changed the feel of being a grower since she was a child. Now she says, “Basically, what we do isn’t illegal.” She hopes that instead of feelings of fear and shame, her own daughter will remember happily heading down to the garden to water. “It’s a ritual. We walk down as a group.” She pauses then laughs, “At least, I hope that’s what she remembers instead of having to watch out for pot on her socks!”

Hitchhiking cannabis leaves are still somewhat of a worry. No one wants to bring attention to what is still actually illegal.

For more recent growers though, cannabis cultivation has become almost comfortable and almost normal. Growing up green no longer means feeling like an alien in a society that vilifies you and your family. While still somewhat dangerous and illegal, Proposition 215 provides a softening cloak of legality for those who are raised in the marijuana culture. It provides a measure of invisibility that pot growers can hide behind. The children of this generation of farmers, like Anya and Tera, will likely be much less terrified of loosing the secret that lies behind their family’s door.

Dispensary Directory Southern Bay Area

Los Angeles

MediLeaf San Jose Collective 1340 Meridian Ave. San Jose, CA 95125 High grade and afforadable.

(408) 448-4798 Open Daily 11-7 www.MediLeaf.net

Kelly's collective Pico/ La Cienega 8638 W. Pico Blvd.

Los Angeles CA 90035 Tel: 310.854-5874 www.kellyscollective.com Mon-Sat :10AM-12PM, Sun : 10AM-8PM

MediLeaf Gilroy Collective 1321-B 1st Street. Gilroy, CA 95020 High grade and afforadable (408) 847-2400 Open Daily 11-7 www.MediLeaf.net

Orange County The Healing Dragon 2506 S Sante Fe Ave B8 Vista, Ca 92084 760-599-8700 Kush Kingdom 722 S. Main St. Santa Ana Ca 92701 714 881 7054 mon-sat 11a-10p sun 12p-8p Kushkingdom420@gmail.com

San Diego Green Leaf Wellness 1747 Hancock st suite B San Diego, Ca 92101 Phone: (619)574-9500 Web: www.greenleaf.cc

LAX / Westchester Westchester Collective 8936 S. Sepulveda Rm. #202 Westchester 90045.

310.410.3200

Sherman Oaks 420 Discount Collective 5616 1/2 Kester Ave Sherman Oaks, CA. 91411 818-904-6797 10am-10pm 7 days a week Holland House (818) 849•5500 opens at 11 and closes at 8 sun-wed closes at 9 thurs-sun www.hh420.com located in Sherman Oaks, CA

The Green Easy 7948 West 3rd St. Los Angeles, CA 90048 323-782-0255 877-321-KUSH Liberty Bell Temple 5642 Hollywood Blvd.

Los Angeles, CA 90028 323-798-4813 Sunset Organic Collective 2210 West Sunset Blvd.

Los Angeles, CA 90026 213-908-7442 Hollyweed 1607 North El Centro Ave, upstairs #24 Los Angeles, CA 90028 323-469-9073 La Brea Collective 812 S. La Brea Avenue Los Angeles, CA 323-939-3374 St. Andrew’s Green 432 S. San Vicente Blvd.

Los Angeles, CA 90048 Evergreen Collective 1606 North Gower St. Hollywood, CA 95528 323-466-2100

Van Nuys Green Earth Farmacie 6811 Woodman Avenue Van Nuys, CA 91405 818-994-1045 Green Club Pharmacy 13647 Vanowen #B Van Nuys, CA 91405 818-779-7962

Encino The Coffee Joint 15826 Ventura Blvd Ste #116 Encino, CA. 91436 818-788-1835 Mon-Sat 10am-10pm Sun 11am-8pm

Studio City COR City Organic Remedies 11306 Ventura Blvd.

Studio City, CA 91604 818-980-1122

Woodland Hills New Age Compassion Center 19720 Ventura Blvd.

Woodland Hills, CA 91364

Palm Springs THC of Palm Springs 2235 Palm Canyon Dr. Palm Springs, CA 92262 760-778-1848

Follow us on Twitter for specials & new arrivals: twitter.com/GreenhouseHC

rare high quality medication. we have all your planetary needs: jupiter

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Must be 21 & over Mon-Sat 10am-8pm Sun 12pm-6m

(323)666-2591 5224 Hollywood Blvd.

Los Angeles CA 90027 Greenhouse5224@yahoo.com

In compliance with prop. 215 & senate bill 420. Pre-ICO. Serving the Hollywood community since 2006.

Knowledgeable budtenders

Real Stories

50

Tales from the Pot Garden:

By Kym Kemp

Cue James Bond Music...

“Out in the mountains, it’s almost like you forget it’s illegal…

We’re just these farmers with veggie gardens. But the reality is, we’re breakin’ the law.” As a second generation grower, James isn’t against marijuana but his twenty-second birthday changed his life forever.

The big grin that normally fills his broad cheerful face disappears as he looks seriously out across the hills that he calls home. When he was in his late teens, he quit working for his family and began to take care of marijuana for a big grower. “This was a whole different ballgame,” he says. “[Our family] would leisurely grow some plants and I’d smoke some pot. But this scene was all about how ‘we’re gonna make …money!’”

He moved into a nearby house owned by the big grower and, within a year or two, he had tucked away almost $15,000 in a closet at his new place. Even so, he was ready to get out. “These people were really flagrant. They were making me nervous…They were in an entirely different headspace--money, party, rage, drive trucks, … be idiots…I was making money for the future so I didn’t have to do this forever.” He says that he was only two weeks from his final harvest when his life changed on the morning of his twenty-second birthday.

In honor of the day, he had been partying heavily the night before.

I was sleeping in—completely tacoed [hungover]. I heard a car door slam…I looked out the upstairs window. OH, SHIT! I saw a sheriff with a shotgun…

Wearing only his boxer shorts, he crawled out through the open glass and …cue James Bond music. I ran and grabbed the upstairs porch rail with both hands and vaulted over and down 15 feet…I landed on a rock face…I tore the bottom of my feet off but I didn’t feel it….Adrenaline pumped, I tripped over a rocky ledge and face planted--shattered my nose. Totally barefoot and [almost] naked…The choppers were flying…I ran through a ravine.

Blackberry bush [He waved a hand wildly]--I ran right through it--- I was going to Mom’s.

While running, he realized that he didn’t want to lead the police to his family’s house. … [I] hid myself in a pond.…[I] crawled out of the pond and into [a] bush. From 7 in the morning ‘til 8 at night I hid….I was hung over--hammered. And the yellow jackets kept eating my feet. I tried to keep them off but I didn’t have enough strength… Man, it was painful... I tried to walk but I couldn’t.

I was too injured…I needed a cigarette. [I was] hungry. Now I know what people stranded in the desert feel like. Seriously, a couple days would drive people crazy…[A] chopper flew for hours looking for me…It started getting dark.

He worried, “I can’t just lay here and die.” But he couldn’t manage to put any weight on his feet. [Later, he would find that they had lasting damage.] His brother, who had been combing the hills looking for him, drove by and he managed to flag him down. “When I got in the car, I lost it. I cried.” He paused for emphasis. “Like a baby.” But, in spite of the agony and the loss of the large amount of cash he had left stashed behind at the house, at least he’d gotten away.

Epilogue: Unfortunately, in his rush out the window and over the railing, he had left not only his money but his wallet behind—with his license and other identifying papers.

“The cops drove around the hills showing my license to people.” They asked if anyone recognized who he was.

Everyone was familiar with him but no one told the officers.

Nonetheless, as one of his neighbors later told him, “…you were fucked."

No one, of course, acknowledged knowing him or how to find him but, eventually, accompanied by his lawyer, James turned himself in. “I didn’t want to run forever. I’ve seen The Fugitive. That’s not cool.”

He eventually had to do 120 days of SWAP (Sheriff's Work Alternative Program), one day a week, for over two years, and felony probation for three. James says he liked the work. “I was impressed with the sheriffs in the program. If you offered them respect, then [you got respect.] They were friendly guys…”

At first, he worked low paying restaurant jobs but then he moved into construction where he continues supporting his family well.

He says in spite of the hardship, he wouldn’t change what happened to him. “That was a defining moment. I quit growing, I quit smoking, I quit drinking. I was a reformed Christian without the Christianity!” In spite of his experience, he doesn’t think marijuana should get people arrested. “It’s an herb not a drug. Just because its illegal, doesn’t mean it should be.” But for him, the ordeal helped him focus on what was important in his life.

Fear, necessity, and shame stitched tight the mouths of bootleggers and most of the stories from Prohibition were never told. We here at Grow Magazine don’t want the same thing to happen to the tales of pot producers. We want to capture some of the best accounts before they are forgotten.

Every issue will feature an anecdote from the life of someone involved in marijuana. If you’d like us to feature your story, contact kymkemp@starband.net.

News

52

The Mile High City

By J. Deiker

The citizens of Colorado have named it, “The Great Green Rush.”

South Broadway, a Denver thoroughfare traditionally remembered for its’ restaurant dives, pawn shops, collectables stores and everything else Americana, has taken on a new look, and a new name. The new look is the now ubiquitous emblazoned green pot leaf that hangs in store front windows up and down the boulevard. As for the name, Broadway has been given a new moniker: it is now Broadsterdam.

The mass-media has arrived to catch the transformation, and the same catchy green headlines that have emboldened the papers of southern California for years, have found another city to besiege speculation upon, a city which appears to have just as much medicinal mayhem taking place as Los Angeles.

Indeed, The Rocky Mountain Marijuana Media blitz is in full swing, and the Mile High City, is earning her appellation.

For many, the spread of medical marijuana onto the streets of Colorado’s capitol is not surprising. Anyone who has ever had the pleasure of perambulating around the streets of central Denver, near the capital, down Broadway, on Larimer Street, or east towards the dives of Colfax Avenue, and has scene, with their own eyes, the city behold, well, it should come as no surprise to you, that medical marijuana shops are beginning to bourgeon in the Mile High City. Denver has always had a colorful side, with many colorful streets and wily characters between. Since the days when sawdust was still swept from the parlor floors, the denizens of Denver have always nurtured a small-butsignificant cultural eccentricity.

[ [ Does Denver really have four different regions within the city which necessitated an entire weedmap?

Yes.

That being the continuing case, in a region of the country still dominated by those who drum to a more old-fashioned, conservative, NRA-bent beat, the city of Denver has carved a nook for itself as the cultural and cannabis epicenter of all the red states-- and, much like Austin is to Texas, Denver is a quasi-social island of sorts, an ideologically split, middle sized city with many liberal alternative backdrops for those who oppose the conservative croneyism prevailing around them.

So clearly, the stage was set for a massive marijuana proliferation: the economy is devastated, city buildings once lined with proud business owners are now empty brick masses with for lease signs in the window; people need jobs and money in there pockets to stimulate their neighbors pocket; indeed, with a cultural lean behind it, Denver was the logical next step for medical marijuana.

Now just how far has the cannabis collective reached into the Denver conscious? How big is the marketplace?

What is all the hype about? These questions are answered by the ascending statistics, and the numbers speak for themselves. ( Honestly, as a marijuana advocate who commonly reports about the pulse and evolution of the medical marijuana community, I was shocked to see how quickly the numbers had shot up; so fast, I was apparently unaware of a whole other subculture developing almost overnight.)

The best way to empirically illustrate how quickly medical marijuana is spreading across the Rockies all one must do is analyze two statistical categories.

One: Look at the number of marijuana collectives there are in the city, and two: examine the number of registered medical marijuana patients within Colorado, particularly the registration trends of the

past year.

In order to understand how many collectives are operating within the city of Denver today I can turn to the internet site known as Weedmaps.com. The Sacramento based site was originally designed to provide California patients with both detailed maps of all collective locations and forum boards allowing members of the site to rate and self-evaluate clinics. (Think google maps style navigation with a Zagat guide rating system.... but for collectives.) Weedmaps has gained a strong following in California, where with more than 1000 clinics across the state, the site has been busy updating the cannabis checkpoints daily.

But the most obvious change to the Weedmaps site in past months is the precarious new position of “Colorado,” on the list of clickable cannabis options. It was a revelation to me when after clicking on Denver, there was not an immediate link to the entire city, but a four part regional break down dividing Denver up into regions, so, said stoner could find the closest shop to his couch.

Does Denver really have four different regions within the city which necessitated an entire weedmap?

Yes.

In fact, the total number of clinics registered on Weedmaps today is 79! This is great news, of course, but still, totally shocking to see that directly under our California noses there is blossoming another cannabis epicenter.

Further, these seventy-nine collective found on Weedmaps.com represent only those who have decided to advertise on the site. And presumably, because the collectives of Denver are newer and haven’t seen proven advertisement techniques like the fanzines and internet resources California owners have become familiar with, it is logical to assume that possibly as little as 30-50% of the total number of collectives in Denver are being represented on the weedmaps site. If this hypothesis were true, it would mean Denver could actually be home to somewhere between 120-150 collectives.

Equally as incredible as the proliferation of collectives in the city-- on South Broadway I counted seven in a one mile radius-- is the number of patients who are flooding doctors offices to be prescribed scripts. In 2000, Colorado voters legalized medical marijuana. As reported by CNN, between 2000 and 2007, the state issued about 2,000 medical marijuana cards. In the last year, that number has grown to 60,000.

State Senator Chris Romer said,” that more than 900 applications [come in] a day.”

Attorney and medical marijuana advocate Rob Corry sums up the good side of this new scene thus far when stating: “dispensaries are paying taxes, hiring employees, renting out space, purchasing supplies and moving this economy along.

Local governments need to get on the bandwagon and start realizing this is a major source of revenue and it can help us cure our bankrupt governments.”

But there is opposition. Not everybody is in favor of this new movement,

and many state legislatures are pining in silent desperation over the turn of events.

Yet, in Denver, what does seem clear, is that the city officials do not plan on eradicating, closing down, or harassing clinic owners.

The question on the officials minds is: how many is too many?-- When do we regulate?

How do we regulate?

So now, like Southern California, Denver city legislatures are facing new challenges in deliberating over exactly how to allow for, yet still regulate, the influx of marijuana collectives. City officials hope to quickly implement legislation on the regulation of medical marijuana clinics, doing so in an effort to avoid the proliferation-disaster occurring between the clinics and judicial bodies of Los Angeles today. In fact, in the future, every city that has passed, or ever will pass, favorable legislation for medical marijuana, can and will always look to Los Angeles as the de facto model for how not to handle medical marijuana regulation-- or non-regulation.

In conclusion, the developing scene in Denver sounds positive and appears to be moving fast. The city is in a unique position to become the first city outside of California to enforce what could be fair, or questionable, regulatory enforcement. In Los Angeles we have seen almost entirely questionable, if not repulsive, leadership on behalf of the city. If Denver city officials can manage to drive even half-asleep at the wheel, they have a chance at steering this culturally unique mountain city into a legitimate, taxed and regulated model for future medical marijuana designs across the nation.

News

54

LA City Council Sets Cap on the Number of Collectives If you live in Southern California, unless you’re a junky who can’t read and doesn’t own a television, or have been sleeping under a moon rock, undoubtedly you realize that Los Angeles has been in the midst of what I can only call: the Marijuana Collective Conundrum.

In the past three years Los Angeles city development planners had allowed for the proliferation of marijuana collectives, and the result of their ambivalence towards regulation has resulted in an explosion of new collectives.

Originally there were 186 collectives in Los Angeles County, and the licenses, purchased from the city, were expensive-- somewhere in the field of 20-60 thousand dollars per license. In 2007, Los Angeles enacted a moratorium on all new collectives, which, if properly enforced, today, would have kept the number of registered medical shops to under 186.

However, without any official regulation or infrastructural enforcement of the moratorium in place, there developed a new loop-hole: prospective owners, those who desired to open collectives after the 2007 moratorium, were still able to due so, because a new breed of marijuana lawyers provided them with hardship documentation.

These hardships-- the bane of all the original 186 owners-has caused the massive proliferation we have seen in Los Angeles in the past two years, the time period during which Los Angeles went from having under 200 collectives, to possibly over 1000 operating today. Essentially, the hardships gave new owners a temporary license to operate while the city was figuring out how to regulate the collectives. That was the initial selling point behind buying a hardship: it was temporary, but it gave you the ability to open up immediately. What neither lawyers nor buyers

could have known was how temporary these hardships might be.

Moreover, these hardships did not cost nearly as much as the original city issued business licenses, something that guts members of the original 186 club. In speaking with owners who had purchased them, the hardships were usually attained for a legal fee between 5 and 10 thousand dollars, roughly a fifth, or a tenth, of what the original 186 clinic owners paid for their license to operate.

Further, the 186 owners have been fuming over this cheap loophole for another reason. Not only does the hardshiploophole give new shops an economic advantage from the beginning, when business are most strapped for cash, but the hardships also added a fierce element of cut-throat competition to what once was a fairly consolidated field.

More and more owners within the 186 circle have been dismayed by these new collectives who have been known to, with all disregard for business ethics, often open within 500 feet, or directly next door/across the street from collective’s who have been established since the pre-1997 moratorium.

But the months of November and December placed both pre and post moratorium collectives at a silent impasse; however, this time, the two separate groups were not dismayed by each other, but what Los Angeles officials, namely, the newly appointed District Attorney Steve Cooley, had been threatening to do. The city wanted all the collectives to be shut down. Licensed or unlicensed, legit or connected, every collective owner feared the tangible possibility of being shut down and locked up.

Luckily, a degree of that fear has subsided. That is to say, it has subsided to a degree for the original 186 owners of the original, Pre-2007 business licenses. Those who established shops after the 2007 moratorium by means of a hardship license-- well, their fate is entirely up in the air. The cap has been passed, and soon, the hard-shippers, all 600-800 of them, may soon be shutting down. The reason: December 8, 2009 After weekly meeting in November, Los Angeles City Council decided that the cap number of operating collective would be 70. But there is a positive catch to the

pole: it doesn’t mean that only seventy collectives can operate within Los Angeles, but that only 70 can co-exist along side the original 186 collectives. Out of these 186 licenses officials believe that approximately 130-140 of these licenses are being used, i.e. have business that are open. Hypothetically, if there were 135 officially licensed collectives in the city, what city Officials have said is that they will allow for 70 more collectives to operate, outside of the original 186 license. This means that if all 186 licenses were enacted, businesses were erected, and 70 additional collectives were operating, the capped total of Los Angeles Country would be 256 collectives which could legally operate.

Conversely, what this also means is that as many as 800 other collectives will be shut down. District Attorney Steve Cooley has asked those owners who are operating under a hardship to either voluntarily shut down their businesses, or possibly face prosecution under the law.

This news has brought smiles to the faces of those who purchased expensive, city-approved licenses and have been operating in a city festooned with quasi-illegal competitors.

However, the question still remains: how will the city enforce the shutting down of 800 other collectives? And is it fair to shut these facilities down? Although they operated under cheaper hardships, the “outsiders� did pay for said hardship, did pay for the expenses to own, operate and maintain a business, and did employ people in an economy that desperately needs new occupational pathways.

Goin’ Dutch

56

The Cannabis Bureau: How the Dutch Do Medical Marijuana.

For any globe trotter with a taste for historical cities and good ganja, Amsterdam represents the geographic shrine of all grass hopping destinations. The city which has more canals than Venice, and hosts a red-light district more risque than Times Square circa 1970, also has been home to those coffee-shops, known around the world more for their practice of selling marijuana than espresso roasts.

These green-cafes are scattered all over the cobblestone capitol, and because of the high-quality of Dutch commercial doja, these little dives are sought ought by novice and professional smokers by the million, every year-- for a certain demographic of US college students, making the trip to Amsterdam to experience the buds and venture under the city’s red lights is almost a rite of passage. Whether the Dutch prefer it be so or not, marijuana is an integral-if-infamous aspect of Amsterdam’s tourism.

The red and green provocations so curious to the Dutch capitol are well known by the public and have been enjoyed by many a few along their travels, myself included.

However, what I only recently came to understand-- after having spent a month in Amsterdam-- was that the country famous for its’ liberal stance on marijuana also has one of the most evolved medical marijuana systems in the world.

In January 2001, The Netherlands opened up a medical marijuana cultivation, research, and dispensing facility that is entirely government owned and run. The title of this new health organization was simple and straight to the point: The Cannabis Bureau. The Bureau, now almost a decade old, serves as an exemplary model of what the United States, and

other governments around the world, could be doing with their own health sectors. ( Think tax revenues: By decriminalizing use indoors and creating a private medical sector alongside, the Dutch government has created a cannabis cash cow, a practical way of handling “the marijuana issue,” that if translated into the United States judicial and health systems would create an entirely new tax stream capable of generating billions annually.)

The Cannabis Bureau also goes under the government tag OMC-- The Office for Medical Cannabis. As stated on their website, the OMC is: “the government office which is responsible for the production of cannabis for medical and scientific purposes. Pharmacies, universities and research institutes can get legal medicinal cannabis from us.”

And these doctors are serious about their buds.

The government program grows three delectable strains for its’ patients, each as good, if not better in quality than what high-end smokers in the states are consuming. The variety isn’t astounding, but the quality and value of the buds is.

By visiting their finely tuned government website (www.cannabisbureau.nl) one can see not only the names and notable effects of the three strains of cannabis cultivated, the viewer can also read about active chemical ingredients in cannabis and actually see the THC percentage/content of each strain. The three cannabis strains are called Bedrobinol, Bedrocan, and Bediol. Cannabis Bureau statistics show that the Bedrocan-- I know you are wondering-- has the highest THC

content, coming in at an astounding 19%! The Bedrobinol comes in at a respectable 11% second place, on par with most any mid-tohigh level medical cannabis in California. The Bediol is for more light smokers, containing a reasonable 6%.

By comparison, most California medical marijuana collectives stock strains that are anywhere between 7-20%.

Sometimes, the highest quality sinsemilla can reach levels of between 20-25%, and on rare occasions, master growers have, on occasion, cultivated cannabis that tested at 25-28% THC levels, but the last group is extremely rare. It is scientifically agreed upon that standard sinsemilla-- non-concentrated: no hashish-- can never reach THC levels of beyond thirty percent. The fact that Dutch doctors are able to consistently cultivate marijuana with a THC percentage of nineteen is evidence to any skeptics concerned with the potential potency of government grass, and there ability to provide quality

CANNABIS BUREAU WEBSITE

produce.

How about the prices for this Dutch Doctored Dank?

Reasonable: the most expensive strain costs 43.50 euros for a five gram quantity. At current exchange rates in American dollars that number equates to $63.50, very decent for a five gram stash of 19% cannabis.

So how do the Dutch do medical marijuana? They do it well.

The Dutch Cannabis Bureau is a small-scale model of the possibilities for medical marijuana in the private health sector. It is possible. What the Dutch show us is that if the governments behind these types of projects are willing to finance the means to facilitate quality, consistency and competitive costs, then maybe it is possible that medical marijuana gone big-government would not be an utter failure; though rightfully, the American public are skeptic about their currents bureaucratic governments, and there capabilities of providing standard health care, let alone the cultivation of highquality medical marijuana.

However, if the future of medical marijuana was privatized, hypothetically, and if medical marijuana collectives became a thing of the past and big-government buds the wave of the future, then the Dutch approach appears to be the most ideal of situations for the patients.

Yet for now, let us hope for a continued lack of intervention from the lobbyist and politicians in Washington. The current situation is not perfect, but somehow, I suspicion the suits on Pennsylvania Avenue could make it much worse.

Strains

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What’s Good There is a HUGE communication gap between the south and the north of California. Indeed, the two worlds-- one urban miasma, one a cradle of mother nature-- are not much alike at all. Yet what they do intimately share is a connected love for marijuana.

Consequently, Grow magazine wishes to provide a small piece each issue that will work towards forging that gap between growers and patients by providing a “what’s good” section in each issue. We hope that this will enable Northerners to have an up-to-date grasp on what is the: “fire, good, dank,” what have you, in California clinics. (Though, in particular, Los Angeles, home to a modestly estimated 800 medical marijuana dispensaries.)

So: What’s Good this year?

Californians had spoken: they wanted more OG Kush! After last years harvest, it was apparent, in order to feed the appetite of our fair state’s smoking community the growers-- from the closet invaders to guerrilla operatives-- would need to grow more OG this harvest.

The people were not disappointed. This was a harvest season slogged by the lemon-pine zing of OG Kush.

There have been so many newly finished units of OG arriving in dispensaries across California that owners have staggered at the task of having to name these flowers. Nearly every planet has been given an OG’d name: Venus, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, and Pluto. Recently, at one collective they were moving into Roman Mythology, incorporating a Zeus, Titus, Poseidon and Apollo OG into the mix. Today nearly every area code, county, city, and smaller communities within a city, now has a name for their OG: Hollywood, Los Feliz, Thai-Town, 707, Arcata, Humboldt, all have OG representation. There is even marketing towards the video gaming crowd, as I have seen Halo, Zelda, and Mari-OG. However, your faithful correspondent is not complaining about these numerous names, not by any means. Actually, I am pleased to be burdened with the task of having to sample, categorize and experience the effects of this OG dictionary excursion the clinics have taken me upon.

Cheese! Just as I had predicted, one day, the general prescribed public would eventually get over its’ repulsive odor and give Cheese a chance. The strain that takes its name from the pungently cheese-like aroma it effuses, has been a long time staple in the United Kingdom. The Original Cheese was engendered in the UK and has been successfully crossed the Atlantic in seed and clone form with results, that, after years of perfecting the difficult strain, are better every harvest. This year patients have been enjoying the pure sativa high of the Original Cheese as well as the Blueberry crossed, indica-dominant Blue Cheese counterpart.

Speaking of Blues, just like last year, Blue Dream continues to be a favorite amongst patients in Southern California. The strain seems to perform well outdoor, excellent indoor, and because of the tropical smell and lime green, white tinged topicality of the bud, all the senses are easily taken in by the Blue Dream. Blue Dream is one of the few strains that remains a 50/50 cross, a unique hybrid of both half sativa and indica. Perhaps it’s that perfect ratio that keeps patients coming back for more dream.

This harvest season there was, as usual, a massive landing of Sour Diesel and Afgooey, outdoor favorites for growers with ideal climates for the large spouters. However, what there was, once again, not enough of, was quality indoor or outdoor Headband or Chem Dawg. On the rare occasions where I have come across either strain on the shelves, it was usually a shoddy version of the real thing: long, dry outdoor with the sour scent slightly reminiscent of the Dawg’s stench, but accompanied by obvious genetic and horticultural disabilities. Both of these psychedelic sativas are absolute favorites of the dispensary dropper. We need more Chem Dawg and Headband in our lives!

Green Crack continues to be popular and the season’s crop this year exceptional. Green Crack, much like Blue Dream and quality Silver Haze, has a tropical aroma, sexy appearance and satiable taste. All three strains aforementioned are vicious crosses so the effects of each are uniquely potent. Unfortunately, although we have seemed to of witnessed an influx of Blue Dream and Green Crack-- both indoor and outdoor-- very rarely can a California consumer find traditional, pure, Super Silver Haze. Like Master Kush, the once Cannabis Cup worthy strain, seems to be disappearing all together-- quickly becoming lost in the plethora of cross-breeds and new genetic desirables.

Other old-school strains that seem nearly extinct are: White Widow, White Rhino, the Original Purps, Northern Lights, and Skunks.

Somewhere between the past years’ Kush craze and OG epidemic, growers and patients have turned their pipes to strains that used to be the absolute best genetics could offer. I miss Shiva Skunk, thick colas of Northern Lights #5, purples that are actually full-bodied purples with heavy indica-ted affectations. Hopefully, these older genetics won’t be completely forgotten, and both seeds and clones become more prevalent in the seasons to come.

Blue Dream Bubba Kush OG Kush UK Cheese Green Crack Blackberry Kush Lambs Bread

Portland Gets First Clinic, Michigan Gets First School Portland, Oregon-- another infamously “foggy” west coast city-- opened its’ very first cannabis clinic. Named the Cannabis Cafe, it is the first place in Portland where certified medical marijuana patients can get their cannabis. And the new-Amsterdam-Portland model goes a step further than just having “flowers” on-hand for patients: If you want to stick around, you can enjoy the fruits on-site.

In Los Angeles many collectives also have “hash bars”-- smoking lounges on-site-- some furnished with lavish seating designs, televisions, chess, xboxes, and just about every smokable cannabis product you could imagine.

However, the majority of Southern California’s collectives do not allow onsite consumption of medical marijuana.

“Our plans go beyond serving food and marijuana,” said Madeline Martinez, the executive director of

Oregon’s NORML chapter. “We hope to have classes, seminars, even a Cannabis Community College, based here to help people learn about growing and other uses for cannabis.”

In related marijuana-education news, Southfield, Michigan is now home to Med Grow Cannabis College. The school was opened by Nick Tennant, a 24 year old with the hopes of developing a curriculum that can teach students the horticultural methods of, history behind, and judicial ins-andouts, of Michigan’s newly acquired medical marijuana status. “The State needs jobs, and we think medical marijuana can stimulate the state economy with hundreds of jobs and millions of dollars,” says Tennant.

A Growing Acceptance of Marijuana: How the Baby-Boomers and their Kids are Changing the Perception of America’s Favorite Plant

It is legal for medicinal use in thirteen states. Today there are over one-thousand marijuana dispensaries in California, with over a half million prescribed medical marijuana patients in the state. There are cannabis clinics opening in Colorado, Washington, Maine, and most recently a medical club-cafe opened in Portland Oregon.

In a recent poll, west coasters voted a majority 53% in favor of full legalization; the nation as a whole was between 46-48% in favor. The goal is in site. Pro-marijuana advocates can logically make the claim that in a short number of years, with an annual increase of only 1-2%-- which is a very reasonable statistical possibility considering the current trends-- the United States will have a majority base that is in favor of full legalization of marijuana.

After seventy years of intense persecution against marijuana smokers; after thousand of inmates having been sentenced for possession of said substance; and after an uncountable number of wars on drugs, i.e. marijuana, public enemy number one, why today, has our country made such a sudden shift in public opinion regarding the place of marijuana in society ? What social factors have changed within the moral compass of our national populace? Why is marijuana gaining such staggering support?

The answers are demographics, and awareness.

Let the reader think of the term demographics as population trends. For example, the median age of a nation, the number of births per year, basically the statistics behind human life and death. By definition, Demographics reads: “the characteristics of a population as used by government, marketing or opinion research, or the demographic profiles used in such research.”

Today, demographically speaking, many of the PreBaby-boomers, those who were of the age to actively participate in life during the Great Depression and World War II, are growing older. Their children, that great swell of post-World War II babies that came in the years between 1945-1957, are referred to as the boomers. These are children of the fifties and sixties, those who would go on to become squares, then hippies, then radicals, and then squares again.

These people are the parents, aunts and weird uncles of the predominant readership of this magazine. If you are between fifteen and thirty, these are your parents.

Now: though they went on to work at IBM, DOW Chemical, ConAgra and AT&T, and though you might never of expected it from your square dad or coy little mother, what apparently never changed about those kids-turned-parents from the spring sixties and foggy seventies was this: their appetite for marijuana. The Baby-Boomers--the next generation of fogies-- are just as important a factor in the recent favorable surge in promarijuana public opinion nationwide as “the kids”. Only with the boomers support could we be seeing these slides in the polls and in the legislation.

In California, as someone who has worked in and around these medical marijuana clinics, let me tell you first hand, it is definitely not only young adults who are getting the green scripts... the boomers are coming into clinics by the bucket full. Which is important because..

The baby-boomers of today make up the most powerful political and economic force within the United States demographic pool. They will continue to hold this post for thirty to forty years, until, like all humans, they pass. After this, the young bucks of today will be the boomers of tomorrow, and so on and so forth.

Basically, the nut of this boomer rant is that it is with their support-current boom babies in their forties & fifties-- along with the combined efforts of their children: Generation X and Generation Y, that the fate of marijuana is turning towards full on legalization.

But demographic shifts in population and the social values changing therein are only one side of the reason marijuana consumption and categorizing is being demystified and liberalized in the mainstream conscious. Awareness... is another important reason why public opprobrium is shifting.

Groups such as the American’s for Safe Access (ASA), National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana (NORML), and Medical Marijuana Advocates (MMA) are responsible for raising awareness. Comedians, actors, news anchors, the President himself (“of course I inhaled... that was the whole point”), messages from all of these entities have shifted the way people view marijuana.

Television and movies, and their presentation of marijuana as both accepted and, even, fashionable, are also directly responsible for the favorable slide in marijuana attitude, I would argue. How could they not be? Americans are glued to their television sets every day, and at least half of them are watching hyper-popular liberal shows that caterer specifically to the grassfriendly community. How many quips has Jon Stewart made about pot? Why is Weeds one of the most popular cable TV series? Why is Hank Moody always stoned all the time? And how many times have the boys hit the bong in Entourage?

The climate on the streets and television has changed.

Today, Cheech Marin is being invited on guest panels to talk politics. Bill Marh delivers the news via HBO with red pupils and Colbert can’t hardly make it through a show without passing at least five stoner-quips. Whether it is Saturday Night Live, Showtime, HBO, MTV or the Channel Six news, the one thing anchors and actors seem to agree is always good game for a hot topic is marijuana.

Therefore, the big shift in public pot opprobrium is a mixed bag: it is part cultural shifts by way of demographic changes-- the old timers are passing on, and conservative marijuana values are going with-- and part due to a raised awareness by activist organizations, the mass-media, and Tinseltown.

R G E R E V E O L L E C T IEVN C

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Reflect

66

“What an astonishing thing a book is...

One glance at it, and you’re inside the mind of another person...

Across the millenia, an author is speaking to you clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you.

Writing is perhaps one of the greatest human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other...

Books break the shackles of time.

A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic” .

Carl Sagan November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996