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J UNE 2019 12, issue 7
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10 Editorial 12 Letters 14 Gridbeam Building off the grid
by PHIL JERGENSEN
18 BudWise Trust your plants to The Rev by THE REV
20 Landraces The Importance by KAGYU
22 CANADA’S CHAMP
by JOHN VERGADOS
36 Frenchy Cannoli Wisdom from an artisan
by DRAGONLY EARTH MEDICINE
46 Sanity Vs. Madness Tahe 2
26 Reviews 28 True Living Organics The Daily Double
by THE REV
34 Why Not Raise Money?
by SIRI ADLER
48 Artist Spotlight Melejuana 50 Breeder Diaries Dan From Rebel Grown
by JOHN VERGADOS
58 Hot MILFs Fresh Facces 66 Unicorn Hunting
by THE REV
by FRENCHY CANNOLI
40 Friends Of The Earth Inside Cannassentials
70 Rev’s Raves
by JOHANNA SILVER
72 Tokin’ Female Marie Mills
by PEBBLES TRIPPET
78 Sensi Sermons Best Hash Chocolates
by THE REV
82 Superfoods
by MAYA ELISABETH.
74 Recipe Sweet Potato Fries
by JESSICA CATALANO
88 Parents 4 Pot 91 Herboscopes
by MOTHER SHABUBU
92 The Cannabis Trail Marie Mills
by BRIAN APPLEGARTH
by BRIAN ZISK
HAZY GIRL COURTESY OF GREEN BODHI FEATURED IN THIS ISSUE’S HOT MILFS
JUNE 2019
MY SAY
“You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don’t try to forget the mistakes, but you don’t dwell on it. You don’t let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space. ”
-Johnny Cash
I
have been thinking of failure a lot recently, but unlike much of my thinking, not in an overly pessimistic manner. Life is about learning, after all, and you don’t learn much when everything goes your way.
What really interests me is the nature of failure and how it affects and sometimes defines our lives. It’s no secret that I, and the magazine have been through a bit of a losing streak lately so the subject is more than academic, it hits close to home. The last couple of years in particular have shook what I once considered an almost unbreakable confidence within myself that led me to believe I could deliver under any circumstance. Wrong. I learned I was human and that humans often fail. Worse, I learned that you could get used to failure if you didn’t stay vigilant and instead forget what brought you here in the first place. SKUNK has played an important role in fighting prohibition and countering the lies. We taught many how to grow and showcased countless of inspirational people who had meaningful things to convey. I am incredibly proud of our history and that will never change. I love what we’ve stood for and how we’ve helped. I’m far less proud that we haven’t been able to send subscriptions out in nearly a year and have missed multiple deadlines, something that had never occurred during my first fifteen years in this industry. It’s been a very difficult pill to swallow and I know we’ve disappointed many readers and fans. I am very sorry, my friends. But it’s a bout to change. What will define us in the end? Our, beginning, middle or ending? I’m happy to report that subscriptions have finally been sent out and that we appear to be back on schedule with new and exciting partnerships to announce in the near future. I can’t truly say what the future will bring except that we’ll find out together. Oops, I almost forgot. This issue is filled with people who’ve failed in order to come out on top. That’s all we can ask for. Fall, fail, but get back up. John Vergados Editor-In-Chief
SKUNK • JUNE 2019 Editor-in-Chief: John Vergados john@skunkmagazine.com Senior Editor: Julie Chiariello julie@skunkmagazine.com
Photo Contributors: Marly Rush, Kagyu, Melejuana, Tyler Kittock, Rebel Grown, Dragonfly Earth Medicine, and all the MILF contributors
Contributing Editor: Pebbles Trippet pebbles@skunkmagazine.com
Advertising Inquiries: ads@skunkmagazine.com
Art Director: Niko niko@skunkmagazine.com
Sales & Marketing: Julie Chiariello julie@skunkmagazine.com
Photo Editor: Ike Anseefomyles
Account Manager: Juliana Urban juliana@skunkmagazine.com
Cultivation Editor: The Rev therev@skunkmagazine.com Graphics & Artwork: Niko Contributors: Kagyu, Brian Zisk, Johanna Silver, Shira Adler, Frenchy Cannoli, Matt Riot, Dragonfly Earth Medicine, Phil Jergenson, Maya Elisabeth, Deanna Jean Ryther, Brian Applegarth, Mother Shabubu and Sparky
Subscriptions & Accounts: Soula Vee soula@skunkmagazine.com Questions and Comments: info@skunkmagazine.com Submissions: submit@skunkmagazine.com
Published 4 times per year SKUNK Magazine assumes no responsibility for any claims or representations contained in this publication or in any advertisement. All material is for entertainment and educational purposes only, and SKUNK Magazine does not encourage the illegal use of any of the products or advertisements within. All opinions are those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect those of SKUNK Magazine. Nothing in this publication may be reproduced in any manner, either in whole or in part, without the expressed written consent of the publisher. All rights reserved. All advertised products and offers void where prohibited. Disclaimer: Occasionally, we use material we believe to be placed in the public domain. Sometimes it is not possible to identify or contact the copyright holder. If you claim ownership of something we have published, we will be pleased to make a proper acknowledgement. All letters and pictures submitted are assumed to be for publication unless stated otherwise. SKUNK Magazine cannot be held responsible for unsolicited contributions. SKUNK Magazine 7013 rue Durocher, Montreal, Quebec H3N1Z7, Canada Tel: 514-867-6694 PRINTED IN CANADA
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LETTERS
A Letter from Pebbles Trippet, the Senior Editor at SKUNK Magazine JOHN - Sorry to see you go down without the constitutional challenge you deserved. As I said, you have to raise the issues early or the opportunity disappears in never ending continuances, as happened to you. You came out pretty ok by waiting things out but you couldn’t have it both ways. Aside from my unneeded advice, the mag has not gotten derailed, thanks to Julie’s capable persistence. My point is you did the right thing by putting the mag in the hands of a competent partner who has kept it going economically and spiritually. That allowed you to take off in confidence that you did not ‘drop the ball’, you passed to Julie on the sidelines who came into the game prepared to help lift the burden. In your editorial in the current issue, a great issue indeed! - you are too hard on yourself. You say, “Where were we, self-professed champions of this plant -- where were we?” You add, “I dropped the ball. I allowed SKUNK to flounder. I denied its magic.” “Where were we?” John, you were right there, even under prosecution. You took the hit for a pioneering move--that is, to bring in and make available quality organic cannabis seeds to the community to spread like benign wildfire, the good kind of fire that keeps us alive and believing in the magic of the plant that guides our lives. Your choice of good people from Diane Fornbacher to the Rev, Peter Gorman, Niko, Jessica Catalano, Julie Chiariello and myself with your own family members making it a trusted mom and pop with a loyal SkunkFam and international readership growing richer and more distinguished over time, like fine wine. You were there from Day One! Don’t down grade yourself. You took it as far as you could. You needed a respite--it’s the way of all flesh--especially when prosecution begins to take over your life, as it always does. Believe me, I know, after 10 prosecutions in 11 years. It is a merciless slow vise squeezing your wherewithal and wits into dust, which Maya Angelou reminds us, always rises. and so shall we. The government, no matter which
blaze -- the Renaissance is gestating from the womb. I cherish my place and yours in the scheme of things. We helped make it possible. And Julie is willing and able to carry on as additional conductor. It appears she is up to the task.
one it is, has all the cards, and we, the targeted folks, can only respond. And you did, magnificently. After 5 years of being worn down from a relentless prosecution of you as a leader in the cannabis field, you accumulated too much bitter in your system and desperately needed a respite. You gave it a ride on limited resources. You raised the constitutional issues backing you up. Your ‘crime’ -- making quality organic cannabis seeds available to the public -- is closer to legal today because of your vision and hard work. High Times was not the source of knowledge and access -- SKUNK was and is. You were there at the outset and throughout. Our story will judge you well. From Day One, you created the vision and built the foundation of capable dedicated people willing to take over more responsibility when you took a longdeserved break from the action. That is not ‘missing in action’, that is a successful delegation of authority. It’s called a deep bench in sports, the ideal kind. So, my very best to you, my friend and cohort in the struggle for freedom of the planet, the plant and the community we hold dear, the principled pioneers who’ve never wavered as stewards of the most useful plant on the planet and the knowledge base over generations, kept alive by dedicated ganja outlaws. I hope to live up to your confidence in me as contributing editor and Tokin’ Female columnist of SKUNK Mag since 2013. We have both blazed our trails and the blaze has quieted to burning embers spreading at a lower temperature than a
JULIE - When you said a few years ago you could keep the magazine going with a dependable slate of cannabis businesses with ongoing repeat ads, you knew what you were talking about. The return of SKUNK Mag is living proof of your skill. Clearly, it’s been a rough road with you and John and the prosecution in between. Only if you’re fit do you survive. It’s not about strength but about adaptability, mental agility, flexibility like a birch tree, not stolid like an oak. Old limbs fall off leading to new limbs, new life. For instance SKUNK’s old letters page was basically HighTimesy stoner bud lingo, suited for an underground, but not the new above ground where cannabis for everybody is the centerpiece of the New Renaissance. The articles in this issue are serious erudition in the knowledge base from seeds to roots... growers expressing their philosophies about taking care of the earth, not just building a business. Drinking root tea has people buzzing since we are seeking uses for every aspect of the plant, wasting none. Growing organically from seed is the best approach, giving growers the most control over the process. Diversity of writers is excellent, scholars of the soil. I especially like John Bayes’ Breeder Diaries and Healer Do No Harm about the Endocannabinoiod System. Even further I believe your editorial influence enhances the overall impact-John’s hard edge, your soft edge, they bring an effective sophisticated balance. The new format with a visible rim is a step up in zine technology - like a book, readable on a shelf with permanent presence, not last month’s throwaway. This prepares for wider distribution from Europe to South America and Africa, in terms of shelf presence. I noticed even High Times is using this new format. So everything looks great. The cover is hot shit, phoenix rising in flaming green and SKUNK in bright red. I propose using these two colors or at least the red as SKUNK’s signature cover color from now on - building the brand via colorful artwork. All my best, Pebbles
GRID BEAM AND
IT
WORDS PHIL JERGENSEN
GRIDBEAM is a reusable structural system that allows you to dream-up and build complex projects faster than any other construction technology in the world. My personal junkyard was littered with obsolete welded frames stripped of their component parts that didn’t live up to my initial expectations. These frames are skeletons without a future. That was before I became a Gridbeamer. As a designer and futurist, we strive to build products that will be relevant 50 years from now, but, since none of us know what the future will look like, design flexibility and reusability is essential. You might think of Gridbeam as a structural glue that allows us to mix, match and mate different technologies together in new ways. This is because all of the components and custom parts that we make or purchase and use together, share the same hole spacing as the Gridbeam. This creates maximum parts interchangeably and design flexibility making this a powerful foundation tool. Since our design group of Gridbeamers began, we adopted Gridbeam building techniques from the 1976 Ken Isaacs book, How to Build Your Own Living Structures. We have found that it has dramatically improved our prototyping capabilities. Gridbeamers can take on more challenging ideas with less hesitation. Now, goofy ideas and “mis-builds” can now be completely disassembled and reused on your newest brainstorm! We all know that talk is cheap and that ideas are a dime a dozen. How do you separate good ideas from bad ideas? How do you test your idea? How do you actualize your dream? A working prototype is proof of clear thinking, or not. After all, nothing beats a real working prototype that you can actually test. A true reality check.
MAKING YOUR OWN GRIDBEAM One of the neatest aspects of the Gridbeam system is just how simple it is. Amazingly, it doesn’t require any special hubs or connectors to make a strong frame. It involves a little bit of work up from drilling the holes. If you have the patience to drill those holes, you will be rewarded with an amazing building system that is really fun to use. Gridbeam uses a simple geometry and a repeating hole pattern to create what we call tri-lapping joints or TriJoints. The three beams are brought together in a xyz axis, the bolts magically line up. Three bolts from three directions lock the materials together in a perfect 90-degree angle—something difficult to achieve when welding. Though clunky looking at first, they add strength and rigidity to projects. Tri-joints can be added anywhere in a frame but usually end up in the corners. The more tri-joints in a frame, the stronger it becomes. Gridbeam can be made of any square stock drilled with repeating hole pattern on all sides. It is then cut into modular lengths such as 1 ft., 2 ft., 3 ft., and so on. Any square stock can be made into Gridbeam so long as the hole spacing is equal to the width of the material. That important because the hole spacing is the key to its structural abilities. The most convenient sizes of Gridbeam are 1.5 inch width wood (also known as a 2x2) is the perfect material
What you are seeing is my daughter’s first “Blanki house” which she built herself.
for furniture and indoor use. I prefer the 1.5 inch square aluminum tubing, which is ideal for making vehicles and mobile projects. The larger 2-inch Telespar tubing is made of galvanized steel and is ideal for larger outdoor projects. Our Gridbeamers group have also had many discussions about the Gridbeam metric standards but that’s another topic that needs attention. If the component mounting holes were elongated, they could fit both American and metric sizes of Gridbeam. Gridbeam frameworks are always square, true, and easy to duplicate by anyone, anywhere. This feature could lead to new forms of design collaboration by interest groups. All that is needed is a photo or two of the project, a pile of Gridbeam, and some bolts. Just count the hole pattern and assemble! You have a duplicate frame! As a bonus, it assembles with ordinary hardware store nuts and bolts. I have an interest in building an open source vehicle that we could co-develop. We can create a perfect duplicate frame in California that someone built in Iowa the same day! All one needs is a clear photo or two of the frame. Since Gridbeam is cut to standard modular lengths, you know how many holes are on a beam. If you can count, then you can build! Assembling is super-fast and clean. It is so clean that you can even build stuff in your own living room or bedroom. Your domicile
might be the next new frontier! If you don’t have a shop, you can build outside on uneven ground and your frames will still be square. Gridbeam frames now become the easiest part of a project instead of the hardest. Other features of this Gridbeam system is that it is Scalable, changeable, customizable, upgradable, and reusable. We might even call it reprogrammable! With metal Gridbeam, there is a lot of potential for additional components. These include, gearboxes, motor mounts, pillow blocks, bearings, and axels that are now very easy to add or change. If the Gridbeam hole spacing doesn’t match component mountings holes, an adaptor plate is created, which has been drilled with the correct hole spacing for both component and Gridbeam. Since Gridbeam always creates square frames, it’s ideal for machines and drive trains. Gridbeam has it’s repeating hole pattern on all four sides. These components can be mounted in any position anywhere in or on the frame. It can be framed in an infinite number of ways This system now becomes a technology springboard that allows you to launch projects instantly in any configuration you wish. It’s a low-tech system that could create an explosion of applications. It should be considered a technology accelerator, a shape shifter that’s also a blast to use.
One of the games we enjoy when building is to see how simple we can make the frame. I have been known to reframe a project more than a dozen different ways all in one day! Sometimes major frame changes can even happen once you’re well into a project. No cutting torch and grinders needed here! Just a few wrenches and a nut driver. After working with this stuff for a while, one begins to accumulate parts with the Gridbeam hole spacing. Some parts are from catalogs and flea markets. Some parts are pillowblocks that I elongated the mounting holes to fit the Gridbeam holes. Most parts I custom fabricate and drill my own holes. As your materials and components grow, so does your construction capabilities. Now let’s imagine for a moment, a few hundred Gridbeamers making components and custom parts that are interchangeable. The more people we can get to build with Gridbeam for their special projects, the more applications and custom components they will be creating. If their projects turn into a product, they can create a demand for it, they can sell those custom parts to other Gridbeamers to use. The more people who use Gridbeam and the more they mix and match everyone’s components for their special projects, the more powerful the whole system becomes. Since
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GRID AND BEAM IT
it’s all open source no single person or company can control it! Could Gridbeaming be the foundation for a whole new industry? We think so. One of the questions I often get especially from non-builders is why do we drill all the holes in the Gridbeam if only some of them are used? The answer is, without all of the holes it has no future. Every traditional machine has a useful lifespan before it is obsolete or worn out. Then it is either buried in the earth or melted and reshaped into more one-use item. Gridbeam is different, it is extremely repairable and if you want to take it apart, all the component/parts including Gridbeam is ready for a new life. Also, by drilling all the holes, it forces us to stabilize the hole spacing on all our components. Besides, anyone who
ever built anything with an erector set knows why all those holes are there. Another convincing reason of all is that someday the whole system will be drilled with automated equipment anyways. Another issue that Gridbeam might address is insurance liability of products. I believe that in the world of kit cars, manufacturers are not liable if they provide less than 50 percent of the components in a car. The burden or liability and responsibility is transferred to the owner/builder who assembled it. Makes sense to me! In the case of Gridbeam, since component manufacturers have no idea how their parts are used, I don’t see how they can be liable. Responsibility would shift to the end user. Another cool aspect to this system is the fact that we can’t own everything, and this system allows one to, let’s say, build a tractor with in the spring to pull a plow (which you also built). This tractor can then be taken apart and made into a harvesting device or your lawn furniture (if you want to relax). Gridbeam empowers and allows us to become better problem solvers, which is one of our human traits. It also allows us to work with our own hands to solve our own problems. This shape shifting feature also means your Gridbeam projects can save you a bundle of money on all the stuff you can build instead of buying.
As we move forward, we are faced with many problems, most of these are because we are still in the dark ages of technology. We have all the pieces of technology to create a sustainable world, even a paradise, but like in a bad dream, we continue to make the same old mistakes over and over. Out energy dependent lifestyle and our total dependence on fossil fuel is endangering all the species of the planet. Is this our legacy? Biology is indeed our destiny, so we must evolve or die. The only way out of this mess is to begin to prototype a whole new smarter future and at much smaller scale, this time with people in control of their own technology and destiny. We gridbeamers think that our modular systems approach is the best way to create our common dreams and a better way to build a brand-new future. For more information, visit: gridbeam.com
BUDWISE BUDWISE KNOW YOUR GROW
advice from THE REV
FROM AMATEUR TO EXPERT, there can be troubles in anyone’s growroom. Since it’s generally not a good idea to go and ask the local garden center what’s wrong with your weed, we have provided a spot for you to ask away. Send any questions, pictures and/or tips to therev@skunkmagazine.com. If we use your submission, you might even get some free stuff.
REV’S TIP
If you have the ability, try using some pumice in your soil mix to replace some of your Perlite. Pumice is super bio-friendly to bacteria especially, and while this amendment weighs quite a bit more than Perlite does, I recommend it highly if playing into the strengths of living soil. Dual carbon filtration from Pure Water Products
WINNER
Q
Hey Rev, I have a question for you that has been bugging me for awhile now. About a month ago I read in one of your articles that you were using just worm farm collected liquid (leachate) with fish tank water additions as well added to your regular filtered water. Here’s my question… Since I know you like to grow using the perpetual harvesting method, how do you regulate the nutrients, especially the powerful nitrogen in those liquids you add per plant in various growth stages? I also love to use the continuous harvest method, I have a worm farm and a fresh water aquarium, plus I of course grow TLO style. Thanks in advance, keep on truckin’! Love from Vista, California, RAYJAY
A
Greetings my Vista friend—some of my old growing buddies live there to this day. That’s a great question man, and here’s how I do this. BTW… you are the winner of my latest book, signed if you like, for this excellent question. Check your email. First of all, my city tap water runs about 5060 PPM, so rather than going with lower PPM reverse osmosis filtered water, I simply have a duel carbon filter (see photo) that only removes the chlorine/chloramine from my water, leaving it with good groundwater dissolved minerals like Ca and Mg. This is now my base water, 50-60 PPM groundwater, chlorine free. Aquarium water is easily accessible, and I only use this addition for my plants in vegetative stage. I simply add 2 oz. of aquarium water per gallon of my water before watering plants, every time I water them, almost. That’s it. Out of three times I water, I will use this two of those times. My worm leachate I use at a ratio of 1/8th of a teaspoon per gallon of water. I use this on
WIN BIG!
plants starting about 2 weeks before they go into flowering, and until they are about halfway through flowering. There are times when I use both of these additions, the aquarium water and the worm leachate, starting 2 weeks before initiating flowering, and stopping all aquarium water additions about 2 weeks into flowering. Most of my (flowering) plants take about ½ gallon of water to water them when they are dry. I freeze my worm leachate in advance in mini-silicone-ice-cube-trays, and each cube is about 1/8th teaspoon. This makes everything more convenient for me, so once I know how many of my plants need watered, and depending on what stage they are in, I pretty much just whip out my additions on the spot just prior to watering them. Start out with your base water around 40-80 PPM dechlorinated, and you should be rocking mi amigo. When they are two weeks from harvest I use just plain 50-60 PPM dechlorinated water.
Q
Hello Rev, your biggest fan here with a question about cold weather indoor growing. I am having problems keeping my indoor garden warm enough when I am venting it properly in the winter months, even though I use multiple HID type lights that generate a decent amount of heat. I even have a heater in the room but my bills are sky high and it barely keeps it above 78 deg. What can I do, any thoughts? STEVE RAMOS, South Dakota, USA
A
Yeah man, a couple thoughts here. I assume you are drawing in fresh air from outside—very very cold air—so my first simple idea is to change your intake air source from outside, to fresh air from your household; if that’s an option. Your intake only needs to be passive not active, BTW. Also, consider going to
grow tents if you can, you will lose a bit of space for plants, but the insulated tents will really maximize those HID lamps allowing them to be heaters and lights that work great. This is in fact the way I grow indoors, and I vent the tents directly, not the lights.
Q
Rev, I need help. I keep cleaning my room and getting bug and mold free, but then I keep messing up and bringing them back in and it’s hard for me to always remember all the rules to staying pest free. Is there a simple way I can remember these things? Also, greensand is hard for me to get, anything I can use instead? Thank you. Sincerely, MR. PARKER
A
Yes, actually there is. What you do is schedule your garden time, consistently, at a time of day when you know you are free of any “hitchhikers” and as an example here, I do all my garden duties in the morning when I first get out of bed, and I never go back in there again unless I am absolutely sure I am free of any potential mites or mold. Also, keep a mat in front of your gardens with some slippers that are only used in the gardens. This will always remind you to change your shoes before entering your grow, which is a huge biggie if you have been outside at all. Don’t let anyone in your gardens, or any pets. Don’t pet your dog after going outside, then go into your garden. Don’t import any clones, grow from seed and clone your own selected stock. For your greensand sourcing problem, you could sub out river sand, or any agriculturallysafe sand, really. Also, up your ratios of kelp meal if doing this. Cheers.
Today’s winning question author will get a free copy of my book, signed. This is the new Bud Wise winning question prize, so get on board and send your questions to me at: therev@skunkmagazine.com or rolanterroy@yahoo.com cheers.
AJU P RNIEL 2 0 1 9
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LANDRACES AND THE PROMISE THEY HOLD
by KAGYU
A cursory glance at any cannabis seed bank’s catalogue reveals a mind-boggling array of strain offerings available to the consumer. Even more incredible is that these thousands of varieties are the offspring of a select few, the landraces. In this SKUNK column, we will be looking at some of these originals and we’ve found the perfect person to provide the history lesson, Kagyu and old school grower and breeder who has been collecting and preserving these precious selections since the 70s.
W
hile many cannabis strains have become diluted due to certain breeding practices, more breeders are beginning to use original marijuana genetics from their source regions to reinvigorate the cannabis gene pool, especially for the benefit of medical patients. Breeders will come to the realization that the terpene profiles in these strains are very unique. In response to over hybridization, some seed stewards have launched an aggressive campaign to locate, verify and save landrace seed in order to secure a healthy future. Those who depend on cannabis for their health and well-being face similar issues today. Today is a very sensitive time for marijuana breeding practices, as some questionable genetics continue to dilute the species. Fortunately cannabis seed stewards through collecting, trading and sharing rare and unblemished seeds for can protect these varieties for future generations.
Landrace agriculture enables us to honor our diverse values and come up with creative solutions and to listen to and cocreate with the values of the environment around us.* Landrace strains have often been grown in isolated areas for hundreds of generations, and therefore remain free from undesirable crosspollinations. Genetically, these seeds are very diverse phenotypes that maintain key identifiable characteristics necessary for preserving and continuing their genetic makeup. Landraces continue to evolve and adapt to our changing weather conditions. They are resilient plants capable of withstanding a wide variety of weather, soil and pest conditions. As we know unhealthy conditions often result from the industrial and commercial practices used by growers with a different agenda. Many old school growers, breeders and seed stewards are working on varieties with intertwined projects for one purpose: to
improve the marijuana situation for everyone. Living on the west coast not far from the beach, makes it very difficult to grow Pure Afghan landrace. They have a difficult time maturing without succumbing to Botrytis. However, these Afghans are perfect to breed with for reducing the time to finish for narrow leaf (sativas) landraces. Another benefit in working with landrace strains is the genetic diversity they promise. There is so much potential that we can unlock with our introduction of landraces to the cannabis gene pool. In the 60s world travelers brought back genetics from Afghanistan, Thailand, Nepal, Mexico and many other countries. I am very fortunate to have experienced most of these strains in the 60 and 70s. We look forward to sharing our experiences with you as we progress toward a sustainable cannabis future.
* Jake Wartell, “Landrace Agriculture as an Expression of Pluralistic Values.”
Canada’s
Newest Heavyweight Champion
WORDS JOHN VERGADOS
I
t is undeniable that Canada has made a significant mark on the global cannabis scene whether it’s been creating some of the most sought after genetics or producing a multitude of champion cultivators. Although there are many factors for this phenomenon, the most important is likely the ability of growers to hone their craft within Canada’s medical marijuana program. Here’s one of the brightest northern lights. Welcome Scott. You’ve been winning cups across the country during the last few years, with this past one especially fruitful, having won with 12 of the 13 strains you entered. What’s the secret to your success? I don’t think there’s a secret to my success, lol. I think it’s more to do with great nutrients (Remo Nutrients) amazing genetics and a passion to get better at my craft.
It wasn’t always this way though. The first few competitions you entered were disappointing by comparison. How do you explain the improvement? You’re absolutely right. I entered cups with little success in the beginning. I contribute this to me being from an old school background. What I mean by that is when I started growing over 20 years ago, the old timers I learned from didn’t worry about flush or how the ash was so it wasn’t something I ever worried about. It wasn’t until I really started getting into cups that I realized how important that it is to success. Once again, I also contribute a lot of it to the higher quality genetics and nutrients I use now compared to before.
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CANADA’S NEWEST HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION
(top) ChemValley Cookies B, week 7 in flower, bred by True Canna Genetics (above) Wedding Cake dried bud, bred by Seed Junky Genetics
Part of your winning formula is your actual formula as each time I see you accepting a trophy; you make sure you thank Remo from Remo Nutrients. How important are his products to you? I can’t say enough about how important Remo Nutrients has been to my success; it’s truly a key part of my growth as a grower. It helps that Remo and Sandra are great people and I’m happy to call them friends and support their family owned company. As we said, you’ve won almost everywhere you entered. How is each event different and which ones are your favourite? Each event is definitely unique they all have different ways of judging and different events going on but they are all a blast. The main cups I like to do are The Great Canadian Glass Gathering, The Prairie Harvest Medicinal Cup, The Unity Cup and of course my hometown Cup in Toronto and probably the biggest Cup in Canada, The Karma Cup. Jeff Lundstrom Patrick Vrolyk Paul Martin and Sarah Sunday all do an amazing job putting on their events.
photos by Marly Rush (tweedledoob)
As licensed producers get a firm foothold of the Canadian market, what do you expect to be doing in the country’s new legal environment? I’m currently taking the wait and see approach. Iv been approached to go into the LP market but to be honest the money that they are offering head growers is ridiculous. Without getting into to much detail you get what you pay for. Do you believe large-scale growers can grow your type of quality in their massive facilities? I honestly think it can be done; the question is does the legal market want to spend the money where it’s needed. If you put money into great growers who have tried and true systems instead of hiring mostly newbies to the cannabis industry you’re going to reap the benefits. It again comes down to you get what you pay for. What are your impressions of legalization so far? Well I live in Ontario so I’ll speak about my province; all I can say is that’s it been a disaster here. From no actual storefronts to running out of products it’s been a disaster. I’ve even seen mold and predator mites in products coming from LPs. It’s disappointing to say the least.
(above) Wedding Cake, week 7 in flower, bred by Seed Junky Genetics
Any tips for any aspiring reader wishing to experience your type of success? I’m not sure I have many tips. All I can say is if you take care of the big three as I call them you should have success. They are environment, quality nutrients and high-grade genetics. If you take care of those aspects in your garden you will have cup-winning success, without a doubt. I’d be nowhere without great genetics from breeders like Thug Pug, Seed Junky, Sin City, True Canna Genetics, Cannarado Genetics, Dinafem, Capulator, Ripper Seeds and so many more. The same goes for great nutrients from Remo. These people have been instrumental in my success and I can’t thank them enough!
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SKUNK PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT
SEED2SOUL ALL PRODUCTS: Focused on showcasing the original, small-farm, growing practices that made sun-grown cannabis from the Emerald Triangle famous, Seed2Soul’s™ mission is to seek out and deliver products that only represent the pinnacle of Northern California quality. Seed2Soul is led by Patrick King, “The Soil King”, a well-known public figure in cannabis and a Sonoma County Original Grower (S.C.O.G.). His success as a cultivator is legendary and led to the creation of a business built around his Big Rootz soil recipe, considered the standard of excellence for outdoor growing. Pat’s unwavering commitment to his community and for cultivating clean, pure and effective flower is reflected in every product Seed2Soul produces. As an extension of its mission, they carefully vet and collaborate with the community of farming partners. Each is locally owned, operated and committed
to encouraging natural plant tendencies through the low-impact, plant welfare practices of regenerative growing. This includes maximizing the use of all-natural elements, starting with full-spectrum natural light and a deep respect for our consumers by providing only the finest possible experience with all of our different cannabis products. You can count on quality when you see Seed2Soul on the package. PRE ROLLS: At Seed2Soul™ the mission is to provide the finest, clean, quality experience for consumers. So, if you are going to smoke a pre-roll, it should be from the finest buds on the cannabis plant, period. Unlike most other pre-rolls, we never use popcorn, smalls or trim and we never settle on anything other than providing the best experience and optimal enjoyment to our consumers.
SKUNK PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT
THE SERUM WHAT STARTED as a hypothesis on cannabis stem cells has quickly turned into one of the most exciting products I have been able to work with in cannabis to date. And yes, I said it….. Stem cells! But - if you’re not well versed in what that means exactly - do not worry, all of these cells come from cannabis plants and apples, NOT humans. Given the high levels of controversy on this issue I feel like it’s important to explain with a little science, because all of the stem cells we speak of come from organic apples and cannabis plants. In 2008, a research paper titled “Plant Stem Cell Extract for Longevity of Hair and Skin” was published in the International Journal of Applied Science where a research group produced stem
cells of an old rare apple plant with excellent storage properties grown in Switzerland by applying plant cell culture technique. The extract of the cultured apple stem cells was obtained using high pressure homogenization and had shown multiple beneficial applications [1] . “Clinical trial of Malus domestica (Phytocell Tech™), a liposome-encapsulated extract of cultured apple stem cells as a cosmetic ingredient has shown significant potential to reduce wrinkles in the crow’s feet area of the face [2]. Depth of wrinkles was measured using the optical device, PRIMOS system for 3D skin surface display, and showed that the wrinkles became shallower by 8% after 2 weeks and shallower by 15% after 4 weeks.” Utilizing the apple peptide culture (stem cell) research and bringing that technology to cannabis has created what we believe to be a revolutionary product for scars, burns, wrinkles, and other skin issues. This unique formula uses THCa
FLOWER: Seed2Soul™ is born out of the legendary, premium, outdoor cultivation practices of its founder, Patrick King, known in the cultivation world as the Soil King. For all of our products, finding farmers that meet their strenuous criteria for quality could only be possible through the decades of relationships they have built with craft cannabis growers that share their passion and love for the finest user experience possible. If it says Seed2Soul on it, you can trust that it is small- farmed, organic, sustainable, clean, limited- production, hand-picked, and loved from seed to your soul.
for cell regeneration as well as cannabis and apple peptide cultures for skin cell hydration and vitality. In synergy with the cannabis and apple peptide cultures, The Serum is blended with an abundance of mineral salts, trace elements, proteins, and vitamins utilizing liposomal encapsulated cannabinoids for their soothing & anti-inflammatory properties. This product is the brainchild and formulation of the mad scientist Shawn Lange who utilized liposomal encapsulation of fresh plant rosin created in collaboration with one of the leaders in solventless extraction, Nikka T. With an acute awareness for the importance of capturing the full spectrum of the cannabis plant, Shawn realized he needed to focus on a concentrate that extracted as much of the essence of the cannabis plant as possible so he began researching fresh, whole plant, and dry-sift based rosins which is what led him to collaborate with Nikka T. This product is not only what you want to get your mom for Christmas to replace her department store eye cream, but is also a growers must have for essential self care, as this product protects cells against ultraviolet light induced skin deterioration.
1. Schmid D, Schürch C, Blum P, Belser E, Züll F. Plant stem cell extract for longevity of skin and hair. SÖFW J. 2008;134(5):30–35.•• Connection of plant stem cells to skin and hair evidence-based literature. 2. Morus M, Baran M, Rost-Roszkowska M, Skotnicka-Graca U. Plant stem cells as innovation in cosmetics. Acta Pol. Pharm. 2014;71(5):701–707.
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TRUE LIVING ORGANICS WITh The reV
Y L I DA E L B DOU TLO GreetinGs all and welcome to another edition of TLO, and in today’s TLO article I am very happy to bring you a couple of great aspects of container growing using my TLO methodology and philosophy—ever forward. First, we’ll dive into a somewhat heady aspect of the wide role hitchhiking takes in the world of the minibeasties as well as the microbeasties. Mini can be seen with the naked eye, and Micro cannot. For part 2 of this article I want to show you all something that has not happened to me in several years at least, but since I just fixed this issue at a friend’s garden it reminded me of the sulfur drop off, that I also experienced the first few times I ever started recycling my soil. I will give you a fast fix, along with the long-term fix; alright then, away we go…
The GOOd hITchhIkers Like i have mentioned numerous times in the past, the bacteria in any living soilmix, or anyplace for that matter, doesn’t really travel, they colonize and grow in population size at a location(s). Fungi, however, posses the capability to travel quite fast through a container of soil-mix, as well as hitchhiking to get around; both fungi and bacteria are pro hitchhikers, but the bacteria rely on it utterly while the fungi use wind/air more often. Fungi can establish themselves in a 2-gallon container of living soil-mix within about 8 days max at 80 deg F. /63 (day/night respectively)—it strongly seems to me from what I have read regarding hyphae growth rates, and seen (hyphae are the “tentacles” fungi grow in order to travel/ spread underground). Worms are not unlike “mass transit” vehicles for bacteria to spread out. So, it stands to reason, based on the fact that cannabis prefers a bacterial dominant soilmix, that the more moving (living) things in the soil-mix, the better—ya with me?
Raw pumpkin seeds
Micro and trace elements matter in later flowering
A mite and mold free garden is an actual reality to me
Don’t freak out—seriously… Don’t—freak out if you find some larva or weird looking worms, some can look like maggots even, in your TLO soil-mix. Almost every life form there is there as part of the living soil, and very very few bad-guys could survive in a healthy and largely diverse living soil. They aren’t there to feed on your plant most likely, heh heh, and the living soil works with the plant and always has, not against it, so... there’s that. Have a little faith baybee, have a little faith. Things like worms, and larva, they all help move the bacteria around in your soil so they can find food and colonize. Fungi in your soil-mix is almost always good, unless they become dominant where there are living plant roots due to various causes like recycling peat heavy bagged soil-mixes, or not having sufficient levels of dolomite lime to keep the pH in the happy range for bacteria—around 6.8ish—or, you have used some kind of liquid organic nutrient on them that is chalked full of some
Awesome blue gray fungus is your friend
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TLO: daILY dOUBLe TLO type(s) of organic acids that are highly available, and there are several more causes as well. You can easily correct this using the replacement I have found (see below) for the CaMg+ which can seriously help the bacteria boom back if you need that. That fungal takeover also happened to me several times in the last 10 years, but not for 7 or 8 years now, so watch for it. Also, no need to freak out if you see mushrooms in your pots with growing plants in them, this is however a little “flag” for you to address high humidity levels around the base stem and start watering less, along with increasing air circulation and perhaps out-venting (air exchange) as well.
The Bad hITchhIkers these are many bad hitchhikers, and many are essentially or actually invisible to the naked eye, which is an awesome superpower for a stealth attack—i think we can all agree. here are several of the likely candidates: • Spider mites – these guys are serious buttheads and are master hitchhikers, being effectively invisible to the naked eye. If you get rid of your mites, take great care to not let your friends come over from their mite filled gardens to your clean garden, no-no-no. Don’t go working out in your yard or something and go into your gardens directly before showering and changing. Sorry no pets that go outside should be allowed in the gardens either. The most common way peeps get these buggers is imported clones they bring into their gardens. • Powdery mildew mold – another invisible hitchhiker with serious skills and abilities. All the rules above for the mites apply here as well, along with special intake venting concerns for indoor gardens or greenhouses. Powdery can travel airborne as well as truly hitchhike on people and animals extremely effectively. If you are venting in from outdoors (even passively if it is direct) make sure there aren’t plants covered with the Powdery Mildew outdoors in the general area. Most common way though of getting this stuff is from importing clones from clubs, etc. • Root aphids – I have never had the “pleasure” of these little bastards, but I hear they do likes to cause them some damages! 100% of these infestations I have heard of come from, you guessed it, importing clones. • viruses – a serious threat if unleashed in an indoor garden, and especially if that garden is full of older clones, in my opinion; seedling plants or clones of seedling plants less than two years old (all clones are the exact same age as the seedling plant, even clones of those clones) and I have seen twice where viruses ravaged their way through gardens indoors, taking out everything except plants/clones that were under 2 years old from sprout. Number one way this baybee hits, well the two times I saw its destructive results, these guys liked to take their plants outside to sun them and bring them back inside, often, so, you might wanna rethink that if you also do it. I’m sure they are hitchhiker pros as well; yikes, some spooky microbeasties right there. • thrips – these guys, like White Flies, and aphids usually will come in through gaps or intake vents; also, greenhouses are pretty susceptible if any of these plant parasites are near, because they actually get around pretty well themselves; but they can definitely hitchhike and imported clones can easily bring them in too. Ants can also bring aphids to your grow.
Store your gypsum in a quality container
StaRt CLean and StaY FRee FRom miteS and moLd It’s a mindset avoiding bad hitchhikers, one you have to practice to stay consistently good at, especially if you have friends with infested gardens that like to visit your gardens, that’s just not going to work. In my new revised edition of my TLO book I show you in detail how to use the Nuclear Option to get bug/mold free and stay that way, it’s harsh for many, but once you grow free from these sucking bastards, you can truly see the potential of SUPER HAPPY PLANTS, seriously; well worth it if you are willing to practice staying that way with some zeal; a true skill, if you ask me. imPoRtant tLo inFo: SULFUR So, your TLO garden is jamming killer, you have just started recycling your soil-mix for the first time or two (three maybe) and suddenly you start seeing an issue that looks a bit like an iron deficiency, with all the growing tips of the branches (including the main and axial branches) yellowing up a bit. This look can be due to several things, including not enough aeration to the roots via compaction and/or over-watering; it can also be due to a calcium build up in the root-zone, however, this yellowing I am talking about today will be a bit more on the pale-yellow side of things rather than a true yellow. This is a sulfur
Epsom salts Epsom salts
deficiency. The tint to the yellow coloration is a bit more on the whitish-yellow side of the spectrum, it’s subtle, and you must be looking for it, to see the difference. Rev’S tiP: Higher nighttime temperatures can exacerbate a sulfur deficiency in several genotypes/ varieties, so lowering overnight temps can give you some extra leeway time while the foliar spraying and top dressing sets in; which takes 8 days at least regarding the top dressing, in my experience. Sulfur is one of those things you can neglect when recycling your soil-mix easily, and as I mentioned I have had this issue in the past when I first started recycling my soil a few times. I no longer have any issues like this due to my homemade worm castings full of diverse organic matter like banana peels and other things with decent sulfur values in them. When your sulfur falls off your growth will get wimpy and slow, yields will suck and flavors and smells will be non-existent. When your sulfur is lacking, both magnesium and calcium will express issues as well, and in turn this will normally lead to nitrogen and potassium problems as well, so it’s a domino effect for sure with sulfur as the causal “first domino.”
Typical gypsum top dressgypsum top d Typical
the FaSt FiX You can troubleshoot this issue without any fear, by simply mixing up some garden grade Epsom salts into a spray bottle full of bottled spring water at a ratio of ¼ teaspoon per quart of water. Mix it up well and simply spray your plants, lightly covering the leaves with the mist from the sprayer—NOT until dripping wet! You want to do this while the lights are on and never allow a sprayed plant to remain wet when the lights go out, as this can encourage mold. I would recommend doing this twice per day and three or four times per day is also fine. Every 3rd day or so you do this, make sure and do a spray-down with just pure water to rinse any excess salts from the leaves. Don’t worry if this pure water drips on to your soil-mix a little bit. Do this for about a week everyday and you should see at that time if the plants are recovering by examining the growing tips. The good news is that this foliar spray will tell you if it is a sulfur issue fast, within 5 or 6 days you should start to see improvement with the yellowing becoming green again. This treatment will not hurt the plants at all, just be careful not to allow the leaves to become so drenched that they profusely drip on to your soil-mix; all you need is a light misting coat on the leaves, no more, and you can also do this to flowering plants, as long as you target the leaves mainly and just lightly mist them. You can top dress with some powdered gypsum if you find out this is the problem, top dress as shown in the photo, and never completely cover the soil-mix with a coating of gypsum, I prefer the “U” top dress myself but you could use little piles if you wanted to. You can easily use 1 tablespoon of powdered gypsum (per top dressing) in a 2-gallon pot size. Doing this twice, about
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TLO: daILY dOUBLe TLO 5 days apart should fix you up regarding that plant and the gypsum will take about 8 days to start becoming available in the soil-mix so while you wait just keep using the Epsom salts foliar spray and you are golden. Rev’S tiP: I do not recommend adding Epsom salts directly to your recycling soil-mix, as this has always caused me problems in the past when I tried doing this in a living TLO soil-mix. the LonG teRm FiX Powdered gypsum is a real easy way to fix this in your recycling soil, just up your gypsum amounts and 1 cup of powdered gypsum per 1.5 cubic foot (about 9 gallons) of recycling soil-mix is a pretty safe place to start out at. Azomite, rock phosphate, and banana peels all have pretty decent sulfur levels, and you want to be careful not to overdo your gypsum additions (like anything else) so just dial it in with small moves upwards until your plants no longer experience this issue. Any decent nursery should have powdered gypsum, and if they don’t, they can most likely order it for you. Making your own worm castings will also greatly help with sulfur as long as you feed your worms a diverse range of organic matter, and especially a lot of banana peels! So, you’ll have to start eating more bananas— “The Horror!”
aWesOMe repLaceMenT FOr caMg+ Alright, since I and others have had some concerns regarding G.O.’s CaMg+ product, as G.O. has been bought out by Monsanto, I have found a really cool workaround for that, and here’s what you do… I have a smaller garden, so I will give this recipe in gallons, and you will want a TDS meter, some pelletized (or prilled) dolomite lime, an air pump, and air stone, and you are all set! I personally love the sandstone airstones, myself. In 1 gallon of pure filtered or rain or distilled water, add
Prilled or pelletized dolomite lime is very inexpensive
1 (level) teaspoon of pelletized dolomite lime, and set up the bubbler like you would for bubbling an organic tea, and allow it to bubble for 24 hours. When it’s done you should have “ground water” at a PPM of around 50-60 PPM. Pour the bubbled water off the top keeping any dolomite sludge out of it. You can cut this with pure water by about 50% so you would add an additional ½ gallon of pure water to a bubbled gallon. This will bring your final PPM to about 40ish which is perfect, especially when used in combination with a sulfur issue, or a pH dive too, as this will effectively help the soil-mix to boom in populations of bacteria while hindering the fungi somewhat, perfect! Fungal takeover of recycling soil-mixes can be a real problem; this is a super easy way to address that. in CLoSinG FRom the Rev So, if you have a sulfur issue, do a long-term fix and add additional gypsum into your mix. If you need to add the bubbled dolomite formula all the time (every time you water) to kick ass, then long term fix it with additional dolomite lime levels in your recycling soilRev vaping TLO and pondering mixes. You can avoid having things and stuff things go south while you dial these in using the Epsom foliar spray and the bubbled dolomite recipe to make up for shortcomings in the shorter term. Also, recognize how things in nature hitchhike, and allow/help the good to spread, while hindering the bad from spreading. Pretty simple, in concept, but it takes some discipline to pull off consistently and you need to think small using a big ‘ol paradigm shifting scale—where true skills are born! Cheers and salutations. “An infection can be good or bad; it all depends on what is spreading from it.” -REvski
Prilled or pelletized dolomite lime
why to
NOT raise MONEY?
THESE DAYS, aa big bigtopic topicfor formany many THESE DAYS, CanCannabis Startups is whether to nabis Startups is whether or notor to not raise raise money by selling to invesmoney by selling equity equity to investors. As tors. As an experienced technology an experienced technology investor and investor and entrepreneur who hasinboth entrepreneur who has both invested and invested in and helped raise money for helped raise money for various companies, various companies, it felt to of it felt essential to point outessential at least some point out at least some of the pitfalls. the pitfalls. When a founder starts a company, you When a founder starts a company, you own 100% and can do whatever you want WORDS own 100% and can do whatever you with it. You can start and stop the business BRIAN ZISK ZISK BRIAN want it. You canand start and whenwith you want, open close it stop whenthe you business when youline want, open and close it when youor want, want, change your of business, and make decisions pursue change line of business, andyou make decisions or benefit pursueof projectsyour just because they’ll make happy or for the projects justYou because they’ll youas happy for bank the benefit humankind. can treat themake company your or piggy and of humankind. Youwhenever can treatyou thelike. company bank take excess money As soonasasyour you piggy raise money and excessthis money soon as you has fromtake investors, is no whenever longer the you case.like. OnceAs your company raise money fromyou investors, this is noduty longer the to case. Once investor partners, have a fiduciary by law maximize your company hasinvestment. investor partners, you fiduciary duty the return on that So even if anhave actiona is not in your by law tointerest, maximize thesomething return onthat thatwould investment. So even own best if it’s benefit investors if an action is not in youryour owncompany best interest, if it’sby something you’ve brought in overall, is required law to do it. thatTrying wouldtobenefit investors you’ve in overall, your raise investment capitalbrought is extremely difficult, usucompany is required by law tomaterial do it. creation, outreach, pitchally entailing tons of planning, ing, and if all goes well, an expensive legal negotiation, For many Trying to raise is extremely difficult, usucompanies whichinvestment try to raise capital money, they would have been better ally tonsspent of planning, material outreach, off ifentailing they had just that time growingcreation, their business. pitching, if all goes well, an expensive negotiation, When and you’re building a business, you havelegal all sorts of ideas For many companies which toare raise money, they would to of what will happen, but whentry you trying to get somebody have been they had just spent thatthe time growing invest, you better have tooff beifvery careful not to mislead potential their business. investor. If you say anything in the process of getting investors which turns out to not be true, you open yourself up to possible When you’re building a In business, you ahave all sorts of ideas of securities fraud charges. most cases, contract is a civil matter, what will happen, whenthings you are trying to get ifsomebody to and you can be suedbut to make right. However, someone can invest, youyou have to be them very careful not to the potential show that mislead when trying tomislead raise money, or if you investor. If you say anything in the after process of getting investors mismanage the company’s resources successfully raising, you which turns not be true, you open yourself up to possible could end up out withtocriminal charges. securities charges. Inismost cases, ainfrastructure contract is a of civil In mostfraud industries, there an existing matter, and you can be sued to make thingsCannabis right. However, Investors looking to back businesses. Because is still if someone can legal, show most that you mislead them when trying not Federally traditional investors do not want to raise be money, orThus, if youwhat’s mismanage company’s resources after sucinvolved. left are the a ton of non-traditional and often cessfully raising, youinvestors. could endThere up with criminal amateur and sketchy is little worse charges. than having an investor who takes unfair advantage of the fact that they In most an existing of Inveshave theindustries, leverage to there cause is problems or getinfrastructure their way against your tors looking back businesses. Because Cannabis is feel stillthat not wishes. Thus,tothough so many Cannabis Entrepreneurs Federally legal, most equity traditional investors nothave want to be they should be selling to raise money, ifdoyou other opinvolved. Thus, are abenefits. ton of non-traditional and oftions, please lookwhat’s closelyleft at their ten Journalists amateur and sketchy investors. There is little worse than induce FOMO by printing stories about fundraising having investor who takes unfair advantage of thea fact success an as that’s much more buzz-worthy than building sustainthat they haveHowever, the leverage cause problems or money get their way able business. unlesstoand often even if the is used against yourimprove wishes. the Thus, thoughonsoanmany Cannabis Entreto massively company ongoing basis, you will preneurs that they selling equity to raise money, likely end feel up better off if should you hadbe just focused instead on building if you have other options, please look closely at their benefits. a sustainable company. Brian is a Venture Partner for Exponential Creativity Ventures Journalists induce FOMO which by printing stories about fundraiswhich invests in companies enhance human creativity. ing success as that’s much more buzz-worthy than building Brian is a founder of BuzzMakers, Inc., which produces the Future aofsustainable business.Summit, However, and often even if the Money & Technology theunless SF MusicTech Summit, the money is used to massively improveDay the@company on an Maui MusicTech Experiment, MusicTech Mondo.NYC and ongoing basis, will likely end upofbetter off if you had just more. Brian wasyou previously a founder The Green Witch Internet focused on building a sustainable company. Radio aninstead Open Source Developing Internet Radio Network that we sold to (NASDAQ: CMGI) at the turn of the millennium. Brian is a Venture Partner for headshot Exponential Ventures which Attached please find the youCreativity recommended I send, invests in companies human creativity. Brian veris a but I think it might which be too enhance small and I don’t have a larger founder of BuzzMakers, Inc., which produces the Future of Money & sion. Please let me know, use the other larger one also attached, Technology Summit, the SF MusicTech Summit, the Maui MusicTech grab any headshot off of Google (I have the rights anything our Experiment, MusicTech Day @ Mondo.NYC and more.toBrian was prephotographer shot at our conferences) or let me know and I’ll send viously a founder of The Green Witch Internet Radio an Open Source another. Internet Radio Network that we sold to (NASDAQ: CMGI) Developing at the turn of the millennium.
Cannabis Concentrates Descriptions creating a common classification WORDS FRENCHY CANNOLI
ALL CANNABIS RESIN PRODUCTS
can be classified as “concentrates”, from the sieved and unpressed trichome heads to the 99.9% pure isolates of THCA, CBDA, etc. known as “crystals”. Once the resin has been separated from the plant matter using a sieving or an extraction process, the collected resin is a concentrate. The methodology employed to collect the resin can be differentiated into three main categories: sieved resin, non-solvent extract, and an extract made with the use of a solvent.
changed. It is still a simple sieving process however the use of water to rehydrate the plant matter which eliminates contamination, the main limitation to working with dry and brittle plant matter. The dry sieving methodology is made of two inseparable processes, the agitation of the plant material to detach the resin heads from their stalks and the separation of contaminants and resin heads through the perforations in the sieve.
• The use of water changes the SIEVED RESIN Sieved resin is made up of loose trichomes heads collected whole.
• Dry sieving is the oldest form of collecting resin heads from dried and cured plants. The methodology is possibly as old as agriculture, 15,000 years old, and its origins unknown.
• Ice Water Sieving: The use of water is the only evolution in the cannabis sieving process since its inception. The tools have improved dramatically while the methodology has not
very foundation of the sieving methodology. The processes of agitating the plant material and separating the trichomes heads from their stalks can now be divided into two separate stages.
• The plant matter can be manually or mechanically agitated in ice cold water to detach the trichome heads optimally from their stalks, then the water holding the resin heads can be poured through the different sized sieving bags to maximize the separation process.
DRY SIEVE/ICE WATER SIEVE LIVE RESIN A subcategory for dry or ice water sieved resin collected from live or fresh frozen material is also necessary. Live resin has a much higher terpene content, and a terpene profile that is as different to cured resin as hand-rolled live “Charas” resin from India is from traditional Lebanese or Afghan Hashish.
DRY SIEVE/ICE WATER SIEVE CURED RESIN While cured resin may have lost a large percentage of its terpenes during drying and curing, approximately 80%, the polymerization process creates a new terpene profile that will be different from the live expression of the plant. Live and cured resin are two pinnacles of different expressions of the psychoactive and medicinal potential of the Cannabis plant; the terpenes are crucial to the overall quality of the resin, but the percentage of terpenes is not the only determining factor. The uniqueness and appeal of the terpene profile is an attribute that defines quality as well.
We do not have a universally agreed upon name for loose dry sieved or ice-water sieved resin heads. In fact, we have too many names. In producing countries and Europe, this product is called “pollen”, which is confusing since biologically trichome heads have nothing to do with the plant’s fertilization process. In the U.S., loose resin heads are called many things - kief, ice wax, beach sand, grease, full melt, bubble hash, water hash, granular hash, and the list goes on. The different appearance of the sieved resin influences the descriptive name of the end-product. Hashish: Sieved resin pressed into a mass with a source of heat. Hashish is simply the unique and final expression of the wholeness of the cannabis plant’s secondary metabolites. Hashish is the substance of legends, the source of numerous myths from diverse cultures born from thousands of years of secrecy; its origins and most of its history are unknown. The word Hashish should not be used for any other type of concentrate if not only for respect for
history and traditions then for the simple fact that there is no other form of concentrate like hashish. Extract: Pure resin extracted from the trichome heads of the Cannabis plant with the use of a solvent or a solventless process. A Cannabis extract is like the juice extracted from a fruit, a true expression of the fruit but not the same as the full fruit in all its nourishing wholeness and beneficial characteristics. The fruit is the matrix that creates the juice as is the Cannabis trichome heads that biosynthesizes unique psychoactive and medicinal compounds; rejecting the matrix in a quest for purity is like extracting grape juice to make alcohol instead of crushing and fermenting the grapes to produce wine. This is the fundamental difference between sieved resin heads and all types of extracted resin, and while the manufacturing of hashish uses heat and pressure, the resin’s head’s cellular matrix is part of the final product and for this reason cannot be considered an extraction in the same manner that wine is not considered an alcohol extracted from grapes.
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CANNABIS CONCENTRATES DESCRIPTIONS I need to give a little history here to put the rebirth of sieved resin in the U.S. into context. Americans have been smoking cannabis flower since the ’60s, and while hashish was not unknown it was nonetheless not common, and it became rarer with the U.S. government’s crackdown on international smuggling in the mid’70s. North Americans primarily smoked cannabis flower until the rise and explosion of the solvent extract market that started approximately seven, ten years ago spearheaded by butane extraction. Solvent extracts in many forms have been the hottest items since. Many of the enthusiasts for extracts made with solvents never had the opportunity to experience sieved resin or traditional hashish and had no interest in any form of resin but the purest extracts. Ice water resin was introduced and marketed by trailblazers like Nikka T from Essential Extracts as solvent-less extracts that were close enough to the potency, purity, and appearance of extracts made with solvents to become competitive over time. Rosin is another product that was born from Nikka T’s non-solvent approach to extraction.
NON-SOLVENT EXTRACTS Rosin: Resin extracted with the use of heat and pressure from live or cured material. Rosin has been very popular the past three years in the U.S., a safe and apparently simple processing method to extract resin from sieved trichomes heads or directly from the flowers. Rosin was the first true non-solvent extract and while squishing trichomes heads or flowers seemed unsophisticated as an extraction process, the number of products produced using mechanical separation is becoming extensive as the following extracts exemplify.
Pure THCA Non-Solvent Extract: A mechanical separation of rosin into a pure THCA isolate Non-Solvent Sauce: A mechanical separation of rosin into terpenes and cannabinoids promoting the natural formation and growth of cannabinoids in their crystalline form. Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Extract: Carbon Dioxide is considered a non-solvent however CO2 at certain temperatures and pressures acts like a solvent by dissolving non-polar material, the process is known as Supercritical Fluid Extraction (SCF) and is widely used in the food, cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries. CO2 extracts are mostly used in vaporizer pens, salves, infused edibles, and drinks. The oil can then be processed further and purified into Shatter, THCA crystals, and Sauce but it is costly, labor intensive and hard to scale. Liquid Nitrogen (Cryogenic) Extract: Liquid Nitrogen, heat and pressure are combined to produce an extract known as Liquid Nitrogen Hash aka Ln2 Hash. The process is labor intensive and hard to scale.
SOLVENT EXTRACT
DISTILLATE & ISOLATE A distillate is the liquid form of a single cannabinoid. An isolate is the crystalline form of a single cannabinoid. Ethanol (Grain Alcohol), Isopropyl Alcohol aka RSO (Rick Simpson Oil): Ethanol not only captures cannabinoids and terpenes but water-soluble compounds as well. Full Extract Cannabis Oil extracted with ethanol contain a wide range of plant compounds with a higher medicinal potential. Ethanol oil requires further processing to create extracts like Shatter, Wax, Budder, etc. Isopropyl alcohol contains more toxic substances than pure Ethanol and is a poor second choice to Ethanol. The diversity of cannabis concentrates while expansive is certainly comprehensible when first defined by the methodology and medium used in the processing of the plant material. An agreed classification that would differentiate sieved resin, non-solvent extract, and extract made with the use of a solvent is mandatory to the evolution of the cannabis concentrate industry as a whole and should be legitimate in all legal states. I do understand and appreciate the need to simplify the bountiful diversity of the cannabis plant and its derivatives to a new and expanding market but is defining sieved resin heads as an extract a simplification or misinformation?
Butane aka BHO (Butane Honey Oil), PHO (Propane Honey Oil) These natural gases are the favored solvents to use in Cannabis resin extraction. The different consistency of the resin created gives their name to the vast array of extracts available in the U.S.; Wax, Shatter, Budder, Honeycomb, Honey oil, Nectar, Sauce (high terFrenchy Cannoli pene full-spectrum extracis a consultant, educator, and writer in the cannabis industry with special focus on hash making using tion), Crumble, Live Resin.
traditional methods. Frenchy can be reached through his website at: www.frenchycannoli.com or seen on Instagram @frenchycannoli.
FRIENDS OF THE EARTH inside cannassentials WORDS & PICS DRAGONFLY EARTH MEDICINE
REGENERATIVE FARMING is the saving grace for small-scale farms in the Cannabis Industry. As the industry rises, the paradigm has shifted from quality to quantity and we have seen a massive decrease in intentional, hands-on growing. The adjustment to the influx of mass recreational grows and the infiltration of large corporations leaves little room for homegrown farmers to focus on the quality of their crops — meaning that while these small -scale farms are taking a hit, so is our cannabis. The regenerative movement gives voice to the cannabis plant and leaves no room for harmful growing practices. Intentional farming is an essential element of the Green Renaissance. Cannassentials, an Oregon recreational farm, is fully in tune with this movement. The company is a Dragonfly Earth Medicine Pure Certified farm, practicing regenerative farming within a closed loop system — full circle farming, of the earth and for the earth. The Pure Certification agreement is that “Pure farmers and gardeners agree to go beyond monocropping to cre-
ate a rich, biodiverse landscape that supports a healthy, biologically intelligent environment. The purpose of this certificate is to grow food and medicine in a way that is gentle on the earth, healthy for humans and healthy for the environment” (dempurefarmers.com) Located just southwest of Eugene, on the edges of the coastal mountain range, this beautiful family-run farm is exactly what organic cultivation should look like. Shane and Allie, who own the property and company, purchased the land 10 years ago and built their home with the hands of their friends and family. Just down the hill from their home, across a creek that feeds into the nearby Fern Ridge waterway, is the grow site, which is surrounded by polyculture gardens of flowers, herbs, and vegetables. As we approached the greenhouses, Ruby, the family dog, came bounding up to greet us and welcome us to the garden. The recreational cannabis site on the farm is made up of thee large greenhouses, which are surrounded by pollinator plants, many native species, and fruit trees. Shane explains with passion the different inspirations of how he dialed in his growing techniques. Drawing from the Dragonfly Earth Medicine closed loop model and combining this with Master Cho’s Jadam style of growing, a method that Dragonfly has incorporated and been inspired by as well, Shane has built a holistic “farm-to-table” style ganja grow. “Our growing practices are really as much for sustainability and healthfulness as they are for flavor and clean burn”, says Shane, who discusses the art of growing flower as a parallel to taking care of our own bodies and well being, emphasizing the need for undiluted plant material in the soil rather than using by-products and processed macronutrients,
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opting to use the highest quality nutrient-dense plants and whole seeds. These unprocessed superfoods allow for optimal health in both our microbial systems and that of the soil The Willamette Valley is notoriously rainy and marshy, which sets limits on outdoor production levels, but lighted greenhouses can provide the warmth and humidity levels needed for successful year-round grows. The flower greenhouse combines practices from both indoor and outdoor growing, using full climate control to keep the environmental conditions within the canopy correct and thriving. It is also equipped with HID lighting that is controlled by light sensors when extra illumination is
needed. They use raised beds that extend deep into the native soil. DEM pure certification has moved out of “smart” pots entirely, as these pots are synthetic in nature and block access to the terroir of Appalachia. Because the property is in the lower part of the valley, the dirt has high water content,
causing the beds had to be raised up a little extra. These beds are wrapped in hydronic heat tubing that helps to keep the soil warm and microbes thriving. Shane emphasizes that the focus in the beds is for the worms, using the worm’s health and activity as a gauge for the beds’ health. Soil testing is
photos by Marly Rush (tweedledoob)
FRIENDS OF EARTH: INSIDE CANNASSENTIALS
Shane emphasizes focus a crucial element ofthat thisthe system, in the raised beds isbeds for the using so andworms, planting the worm’s health and activity mixes are frequently tested to as a gauge for thesoil beds’ health. ensure balanced that is neiSoil testing a crucial elementin ther lackingisnor overabundant of this system, so the raised beds nutrients and microbes. andJust planting acrossmixes from are the frequently flowertested to ensureisbalanced soil that ing greenhouse the vegetative is neither lacking nor overabungreenhouse. The greenhouse is dant in nutrients andplants microbes. lined with large aloe and Just across fromexplains the flowerother herbs. Shane that ing greenhouse is the each clone is rooted invegetative soil using greenhouse. The greenhouse is Willow, an excellent rooting agent lined along with large aloe plants and from the creek, and the aloe otherisherbs. Shane explains that that growing in the greenhouse. each cloneonisstrong rootedroots, in soilthey using Focusing Willow, an the excellent agent encourage plantsrooting to depend from thenutrition. creek, and aloe on thealong soil for Bythe using thatdresses is growing in the greenhouse. top of fired plant mateFocusing on strong roots, rial, kelp seeds, bran, rockthey dust, encourage the plants to depend and plant compost, they are able oncreate the soil nutrition. using to anfor active livingBy mulch top dresses of fired plant cover crop. The plants arematetreated rial, kelp seeds, bran, rock dust, with a multitude of materials and plant compost,that theyare aremade able from the property to create an active living mulch into a fermented plant juice, using cover crop. plants are treated plants withThe higher nitrogen conwith such a multitude of materials tent, as chickweed, nettles, from the property that are canmade alfalfa, comfrey, brassicas, into a leaves fermented plantjust juice, using nabis and even weeds plants with higher nitrogen confrom around the garden. tent, suchthe as chickweed, nettles, When plants are trans-
planted into the larger greenhouse alfalfa, comfrey, brassicas, canthey fed fermented plant juices nabisare leaves and even just weeds made from plants that are high from around the garden. in phosphorus and potassium When the plants are trans-like lambsquarter, blackberry shoots, planted into the larger greenhouse amaranth, chamomile, they are fedgerman fermented plant juices and thistly flowers.that Theare soilhigh is top made from plants dressed with dried material in phosphorus and plant potassium like and herbs, plant compost, shoots, fungal lambsquarter, blackberry wood chips german and a few extra nutriamaranth, chamomile, ent (aThe treat foristhe anddense thistlygoodies flowers. soil top worms) dried banana peel, dressed such with as dried plant material cacao, carob, and compost, whole flax and and herbs, plant fungal chia castings woodseeds. chips Earthworm and a few extra nutriand leaf mould from the forests ent dense goodies (a treat for the and trees around the farm arepeel, worms) such as dried banana used inoculate the soilflax with cacao,tocarob, and whole and indigenous microorganisms. The chia seeds. Earthworm castings result is mould a greenhouse full of thrivand leaf from the forests ing, ladies, the averaging about and happy trees around farm are 10 different strains harvest. used to inoculate theper soil with With namesmicroorganisms. like “Third Eyegasm” indigenous The (a crossisbetween headband result a greenhouse full ofand thrivsourdough), “Bomb-Diddlyumping, happy ladies, averaging about tious” (a cross between 10 different strains perScrumdidharvest. dlyumptious and “Third ObamaEyegasm” Kush), With names like “Sunshine Daydream” (Bubbashine (a cross between headband and and Appalachia), Cannassentials sourdough), “Bomb-Diddlyumphas a multitude of unique strains. tious” (a cross between ScrumdidThey phenotype of their dlyumptious andalmost ObamaallKush), seeds on the farm, allowing for “Sunshine Daydream” (Bubbashine around 30 diverseCannassentials strains that and Appalachia), have terpene-rich high has aintense multitude of unique and strains. cannabinoid profiles. They phenotype almost all of their Theonthird greenhouse is curseeds the farm, allowing for rently used to grow large aroundbeing 30 diverse strains that quantities of vegetables -- and using have intense terpene-rich high the same fermented cannabinoid profiles.teas and top The dresses that are used is for the third greenhouse cannabis The full sun beds currently plants. being used to grow have and chickweed large lavender quantities of vegeta-
growing, covering the soil and bles -- using the same fermented growing and untamed. teas andnaturally top dresses that are The beside the grow site,The usedfield for the cannabis plants. which inbeds the summer is a fully full sun have lavender and vibrant vegetable garden, hasthe a chickweed growing, covering cover crop of clover, vetch, rye, soil and growing naturally and peas, and buckwheat. The the passion untamed. The field beside grow in which Shane talks aboutishis site, which in the summer a food is on par with howhas he fullygardens vibrant vegetable garden, discusses hisofganja. The carerye, and a cover crop clover, vetch, attention to these gardens peas, and given buckwheat. The passion and plants is no talks different than in which Shane about his the weongive bodies foodattention gardens is parour with how he and our health because is no discusses his ganja. Thethere care and separation between us and the soil, attention given to these gardens or usplants and the cannabis. and is no different than the industry becomes theAs attention we give our bodies more and more because overrunthere with is bigno and our health pharma and mass grows, separation between us andstaythe soil, ing afloat andcannabis. making ends meet or us and the hasAs become more difficult for the the industry becomes smaller scale farmers. more and more overrunCombinwith big ing indoor techniques within the pharma and mass grows, staygreenhouse setting hasends allowed ing afloat and making meet Cannassentials todifficult maintain has become more forheavy the yield with organic, terpene-rich smaller scale farmers. Combinflower. Since cannabis within becamethe ing indoor techniques recreationally legal has in 2014, the greenhouse setting allowed industry has become inflatedheavy and Cannassentials to maintain over-saturated withterpene-rich farms competyield with organic, ing to grow quantities of flower. Sincelarge cannabis became high demand strains. recreationally legal inUnfortu2014, the nately, this boom in the industry industry has become inflated and has led many farmers awaycompetfrom over-saturated with farms the to their land and ing attention to grow large quantities of soil shifted the focus to yield highand demand strains. Unfortuand price points. nately, this boom While in the making industry a living is an essential element has led many farmers away from of society to and the land cannabis theour attention their and culture, are often overlooking soil and we shifted the focus to yield that whichpoints. is most important: and price While making
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growing ganja with intentional love and care and not compromising the integrity of the plant. The Dragonfly Earth Medicine Pure methods are better for all elements of the cannabis cycle -- a full circle of “highquality happiness” as Shane puts it. Dragonfly Earth Medicine is currently trying to set parameters for an indoor pure certification system, and the Cannassentials’ “beyond indoor” methods are a wonderful example of the possibility for keeping up with the fast-paced growth of the industry while staying true to the nature of the Cannabis plant. A family-run farm that truly loves the plant, the soil, and the health of their land.
SANITy vs REEFER MADNESS Take 2 WORDS SHIRI ADLER
I
f you’re to believe the headline of a recent NY Post article by Reed Tucker: “‘Reefer Madness’ not so mad after all, anti-pot author warns” — we might all be in for a rude awakening. Pot is BAD for you after all? Could it be? The author’s first sentence of the article wants parents to believe so. “Even primitive doctors in ancient China knew that something didn’t smell right with marijuana.” Here’s the irony to that sentence which opens Tucker’s book review on “Tell Your Children the Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence”, written by Alex Berenson. I was anti-pot once upon a clueless cloudy day. And I did research for a book too… one that predates by several months — and flies in the face of — Berenson’s hot off the presses fearmongering and stigma laden book. How can that be? Both books speak to opposite sides of overlapping information? One reason may be something my late father, an early-neuroscientist, and Ivy League Dean taught me. A study is only as good as the money behind it.
And sure, anyone can find ANY single sentence and twist information to support their agenda-driven claim. Isn’t that the very foundation of fake news, never mind the long history and misinformation that has been behind the decades long marijuana prohibition and propaganda? However, let’s take one step away from the content of Berenson’s book, and consider the big picture behind the uniquely timed publication. The book review is focused on a New York audience. NY is an already medical marijuana approved state progressively barreling towards an April vote, which will make it the next state to fully legalize marijuana. (To keep up with which state is doing what, check out NORML.org/states). What?! A politically driven diatribe? Well, if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck… But politics aside, I’d love to have a face to face with this author… perhaps the two of us should sit on a panel and discuss our personal perspectives, experiences, and evidence. Until then, I’m calling him out over his presentation of mental health issues caused by pot.
Marijuana is so highly touted as a deterrent to opioid use, addiction in general, and a treatment for PTSD, new legislation has been introduced to force the issue and demand continued research long squelched by stigma. It’s true, we need more research to sway naysayers, disbelievers, and the hyper-conservatives who just can’t wrap their heads around the fact that cannabis (and its related cultivar — hemp) can, always has, and always will continue to heal humans, and our planet. Let me add that I wrote my book as a woman who was strongly antipot! One might say I was a miniBerenson back in the day. I understand how easy it is to warp information about teens diagnosed with mental health challenges that suffer heartbreaking consequences. But facts have long been in evidence that marijuana is a profoundly effective tool in managing ALL mental health and addiction issues. The first step to understanding and accepting this is to change your belief that it’s not the “fault” of the plant, but the personality that drives the need state.
A tween, teen (or adult) who seeks to use maladaptive coping skills and self-medicate to manage their high levels of anxiety, depression, and PTSD will do so. Doesn’t matter what their caregivers say, or do. Nor does the substance, form, or “starting point” matter. Let me be abundantly clear. The “gateway drug” philosophy has been proven as a myth. I can also speak to this from first-hand experience as a mom who enlisted both of my minors in our State Medical Marijuana program. And yes, that includes my youngest who was using too much marijuana to selfmedicate. In the case of my own son — who “knew better” — having a healthy education in all things cannabinoids, he still needed me to step in, to find better therapy and under-medical-supervision create a compassionate care protocol with a well vetted, incredibly experienced practitioner and colleague, Elizabeth Cramer-Ernst (HamptonsMediSpa.com). Only through this level of diligence and correct plant usage were we able to shift his usage via an appropriate, measured, and controlled
level that actually balances his levels and biochemistry sans side effect heavy traditional pharma. So safe to say, I’m neither naïve, nor an alarmist. Any child with mental health issues will only see those problems resolve through infinite patience, an open-mind, and deep work on multiple levels and modalities to heal out emotional wounds, clear trauma, and encourage new perspectives. This is my mission and how I’ve arrived at this comPASSIONate care platform. What I’ve lived with my own children is why I wrote my book, and started my company. MY truth — one that has affected me, and my family directly, and intimately — flies in the face of Berenson’s book in almost every conceivable way — and is backed by FACTS. I mean really, anyone who would pick up a book clad in black cover, with ominous whisps of smoke with foreboding red letters would be susceptible to having an uncomfortable emotional response regardless of whether or not a word of what he wrote inside is true! That’s why I took the recom-
mendation of my wonderful book designer to go with his first choice — a pithy “Millennial pink” cover with a more endearing title: “The ABCs of CBD: The Essential Guide for Parents (and regular folks too) subtitled “why pot is not what we were taught.” I want you, the reader, to be comfortable picking it up. If you don’t you won’t take that next baby step… and the next… and the next. Myriad layers of educational, medical, societal, historical, and anecdotal information co-exist today. With more research — true and complete facts will be proved tomorrow. So I’m inviting you to read my book as a means to arm yourself with facts, not fear. Then, and only then, you can decide if you still feel alignment with Berenson’s “let-me-scarethe-S@*%-out-of-parents” diatribe! Trust your gut. Get educated. Then you’ll be your own, and your child’s, best advocate.
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SKUNK ARTIST SPOTLIGHT
MELEJUANA
Former world championship roller derby player turned full time artist and cannabis chocolatier, Melissa Perreault (@melejuana) is from Montreal, QC. Her art is inspired by cannabis and has the same therapeutic effect in her life. Her creative drive is animated by the cannabis lifestyle and lesbian relationships and strives to capture the innate sensuality of the feminine in relation to the cannabis experience.
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DAN OF REBEL GROWN
WORDS JOHN VERGADOS
I
first met Dan from Rebel Grown about five years ago when Tim Blake from Area 101 and the Emerald Cup assembled those whom he considered to be the finest breeders in the Triangle for a brainstorming session and some other things we can’t talk about. We discussed a lot that day, about genetics, about the seed industry and more important about these peoples’ stories and what had brought them to Cali. Dan impressed me very, demonstrating a consciousness towards cannabis and a reverence for this healing plant that goes beyond the usual lip service. He has a mission, and that is to create and share the best that the plant has to offer with a little help from friends like Dan. As we enter an age where companies like Monsanto become a real threat to the future cannabis genetics, people like Dan are becoming more important than ever.
Take us to the beginning. When did you know that cannabis was going to play such a prominent role in your life and why? In a way, I think I thought Cannabis was going to be a big part of my life before I had ever seen or smoked it. This is a funny story. When I was 8 or 9, I saw Cheech and Chong’s . I thought it was the funniest thing I’d ever seen although I was too young to understand what cannabis was or what the movie was about. I’d rent all the Cheech and Chong movies on VHS with friends on the weekends from the neighborhood video store. I had their
comedy tape cassettes and I’d act out their skits. I knew the whole let’s make a dope deal skit but I had no idea what blonde Lebanese hash was. Then in the 4th grade I had to take the DARE program. Our class officer was officer Notartomaso. What I took from it was I’m never doing heroin, don’t do coke or take pills and what are uppers and downers? I don’t think the cop actually knew, and… that pot looked cool and I wanted to try it. The program worked! As a young kid I liked to listen to lots of cool music. I liked a lot of late 60s and 70s rock, like The Doors and The Dead. I didn’t
know what hippies were, but they looked and seemed a lot chiller than uptight grownups. I knew hippies smoked pot and protested for peace, and I knew they didn’t have to go to school. By the time I scored my first bag of weed at 13, the pot leaf had become an iconic symbol that represented something way deeper than I could understand. When I finally smoked and experienced its influence in my life it was more impactful than I could have imagined. It is evident just by listening to you that there is a spiritual element to your work but you
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BREEDER DIARIES also employ as much scientific rigor as possible as well. How do these two facets coexist? Yes. Cannabis is a very spiritual plant. It opens the doors to perception. When I’m with the plants I feel a very strong connection as I think many of us do. I look at it and live it almost as some would a religion. I respect the plant and love the plant. I recognize it. It brings us such an abundance of energy and experience; it’s so powerful. I believe it’s an amplifier and conduit of what’s inside our souls. I also believe I’ve seen, grown, and smoked enough to have good taste. No different than one who might believe they have good taste in food or music, or art. I can apply those experiences and intuitions in a unique way when observing, collecting data, and selecting plants. I don’t believe I’m better than anyone, just unique, in that we’re all unique. SSSDH male 2010 with Dan’s dog Kingston
Therefore I realized long ago that it’s great that I really like weed and I that I also think I have good intuition, but that’s not enough to make you good at breeding. I realize there’s a ton I don’t know, there’s always more to learn, and seek out where I can I find some good information to research some basic science and technique used in other types of breeding that could apply to cannabis in theory. I found there was a lot of good information and was interested and disciplined enough to do some basic research. I don’t claim to be an expert in the science of breeding. I’ve been able to apply some basic techniques based on breeding orchids on much smaller scale as I’ve experimented with learning to control diversity in plant populations. And how you apply certain techniques simply depends on what you’re trying to do and what your goals are. Then there’s what lab testing can do in terms of data collection and what we will see with genetic markers and mapping. Bigger conversations. While I see the value for humanity of technology in cannabis breeding, I also wish we could go back to breeding, inspired by the vibe of the plants. Where it’s going might cure disease and fuel the planet, or feed the hungry, but it’s going to be genetically engineered through future biotechnology. Not cool. Another impressive feature of your work is your spirit of collaboration. While many in the industry are reluctant to share methods or secrets, you, on the other hand, freely share information. Why is this beneficial in the end and why is this important to you? It’s beneficial because I’m not a dick. I’m just like everyone else
Purple mountains majesty
who’s not a selfish asshole. Cannabis is supposed to be a culture and a community. We’re supposed to share a common bond and lift each other up. The problem is; it’s not a secret anymore. People in this industry can sometimes have so much animosity, jealousy, and ignorance. Success doesn’t come without hard work unless your mommy and daddy gave it to you. There are a lot of people in the industry doing amazing work with amazing intentions and integrity. And a lot of them have worked incredibly hard and possess awesome skillsets, and most importantly positivity. People who love and care about what they do and do it as good as they possibly can because that is how they roll. These are the types of people I love to collaborate with. In collaborations we want to work with groups who we’re fans and supportive of. We want to work with partners and likeminded groups who can make what we already do even better, more fun or exciting, and we in turn hope to bring some mutual benefit to their world in collaborations.
DAN OF REBEL GROWN
Permaculture on the farm
Just a few years back, although aromas were always a clue to what the final product’s effects would be, terpenes kind of took a back seat to cannabinoid profile. How have the recent scientific discoveries about terpenes and other cannabinoids influenced your work? I don’t think they’ve had any effect on my work. I’ve been looking for good terpenes for more than two thirds of my life. It makes perfect sense that terpenes interact with cannabinoids on a chemical level. We always knew there were receptors in our brains for THC; we just didn’t fully understand that there was an endocannabinoid system and how in depth it goes with our bodies as humans. I had always read that terpenes were bred out of a lot of lines in both Europe and North America to help avoid detection from law enforcement. That how a lot of legendary cannabis was lost.
In my personal smoke, based on the mood or what I’m looking to get from the experience. In cannabinoids sometimes I smoke a gassy 25-30% smoke, and other times I’m in the mood for floral and and greasy rotten fruit at 17% THC. But I always want the terpenes as loud and pungent as I can get. I judge cannabis by look, smell, effect, and cleanliness mostly in even levels of importance. It must have felt pretty surreal when you first saw one of your offerings available at a dispensary, sort of like a musician who first hears a song on the radio. Describe the feeling. It was and it still always is. I think the first time I worked with a dispensary was Harborside back in 2011-2012. They had my OG Chem flowers from my seed selection from the year before. It was grown really well that year. It was on and off their menu in less
than 2 days before they needed more. You can find hybrid flower and live resin from that same OG Chem line at Harborside today 9 years later. It was an awesome experience. I loved every second of it, I do every time I go into a cannabis store. I like to go into shops that have my products and wait in line to talk with the budtenders to see if they know what’s up, most of the time I’m impressed with their knowledge of cannabis and the products. I buy some of my weed back and a few other things to try. It’s a moment for me that goes out to the teachers and cops who were out to get me when I was younger. I can’t describe the feeling; it’s one of my favourite feelings. Another trend in today’s cannabis industry is the exploding popularity of concentrates versus flower. Does this factor into your decision making at all?
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BREEDER DIARIES
Beautiful garden with a view
It does. I’ve found that some varieties make incredible concentrates and hash but may not be as impressive as flowers. While some flowers are incredible but do not make impressive hash. It helps us in planning our cultivation on the farm. I prefer to smoke joints, but if I’m growing something to freeze and or have extracted I want crazy terps and greasy resin over bag appeal and easy to process. I can sometimes grow something for live resin that has 3.5% terpenes in the flower but the flower has more leaf than I’d like to deal with trimming and packaging up. If going solventless you need something with mold resistance. If it’s biocarbon extraction you can
take a bit more risk with something really dense that you might not grow for flower because of risk of mold although the quality is unbelievably good. Flower will always be the classic; I don’t ever see it taking less than a third of the market. I hope people keep preferring flowers for a long time. Hash is different for everyone. For me hash is for celebration, or to experience terpenes in an intense state. But because of the power it has I don’t use hash every day personally. Just for special occasions. What types of factors influence your selections? It depends on what it is and what my goal is with the selec-
tion. Obviously terpenes and resin production. But beyond that I usually prefer medium to thin bladed leaf selection of broad leaf varieties. They often have passed on good resistance to mold. I’ve had this sacrifice earlier finish times in theory but I like more light penetration to the canopy for several reasons. Vigour is always a top priority. With some exceptions for high plant density production vigour should always be an important factor. It’ll be easier to grow and save time in production. Overall plant structure has a lot of important factors. I examine the plants’ root systems asthere’s a lot they can tell you. The stalk; grow 200
DAN OF REBEL GROWN plants of a variety from the same generation, there is a lot you will learn about strength and weakness from the interior and exterior of the stack as paying attention to the roots in comparison with the others. If people want to go back to the last issue of I have an article that dives into male selections. Generally the same rules of thumb apply to both male and female selections, you want good traits in progeny. Sometimes the question is a guess of which parent will lead the way in dominant terpenes when bred or something like that. Aside from things we can see, smell, and feel it’s a guess until we try it and find out. Sometimes intuition and instinct proves correct and sometimes something you thought was a great idea was a bad plant combination. A lot of it is observation and preference. Which lines do you like working with? I like working with some older stuff that I don’t get to bust out as much these days like our 5G’s lines. It’s a 5 way polly-hybrid of 5 gangster strains, that grows weed so good it should be worth 5G’s a pound. That’s what the name was based off in 2011. The lineage is Sour Diesel x F13 X (OG Chemdog x C99). The story of where everything came from and the selections is great. As you would expect there was a lot of diversity, but everything from the F1 was so exciting I created F2’s from 2 males from the 4 standout females from testing at 3 farms. I broke them down by the color their flowers reminded me of. We have the 5G’s Yellow, Red, Blue, and Purple. They’ve all been worked and reworked to F3. If money and time were no object I’d spend a lot of time working with these lines. We have this Butterscotch hybrid that I’m pretty excited
about. It’s Guava Chem X Double OG Sour; crazy gas. Not sure if the Guava Chem was from Top Dog seeds stock or some clone from Western Ma, or both, but the combo is really good, great plants to grow. I grew 5 of my 6 legal plants in my backyard last year from these seeds and they are fire. I won 7th place in the non-licensed personal flower category at the Emerald Cup with one. We cloned them, made some seeds and are growing a bunch right now. I’m pretty excited about our Stardust line, the live resin from it came out really well and I love smoking the flower, like creamy vanilla floral and gas terpenes. I’m really familiar with Sour Diesel and always love working with Sour and Chemdog hybrids and lines. We always grow some of the original ECSD clones for the head and the taste and effect is unbeatable. Everyone says it but I love growing OG seed lines that are big and chunky and fuelly, gassy, and pine terps. There’s a bunch of stuff I’m excited about growing. I haven’t had the cut for a while but I love growing Strawberry Cough and any hybrids of it.
true and you find very little variance in the F1, while others have much more variance. Our Double OG Chems were as stable and consistent as I’ve seen in the F1. The F2 that normally opens up a Pandora’s box of genetic variation is also really consistent and equally impressive. The flowers, both live on the plant and dried are beautiful; they sparkle like gems. Most can hit 30% Cannabinoids, 24-26% would be low. It has vigor, great structure, big fat chunky giant OG looking Chem stinking gas. Great bud to leaf ratio, easy to trim. It’s like an improved version of every quality from both parents. Louder gas, bigger buds, most with an OG dominant flower structure. Crazy potency, I’m smoking some right now. We’re holding onto a bunch to test through another round or 2 to LSK Cola with plants in background
Which strain are you most proud of? I suppose I would say our Double OG Chem. It’s cliché as we recently won the Breeders Cup and 2nd place at the Emerald Cup with it, as well as 12th place. But it is really incredible. It’s an accomplishment for me because I got everything I wanted from that variety in 2 rounds of selection, and couldn’t even tell which generation is better. Many people assume under a misconception that F1’s are very unstable and full of too much variety in phenotype and character expressions. It actually depends of the genetics your working with. Some varieties breed
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BREEDER DIARIES find the best ones. You will be seeing a lot of this from us; I’m stoked. What is your favorite strain created by others, something you wish you had created? Oh man, I would have to say Strawberry Cough. I love it. I know the plant is a slow vegger and grows like a sideways vine but I love everything about it. Beyond that I used to have a Strawberry Skunk that was even better. It was from seeds that were given to me by a friend on my 20th birthday. I grew them for years and lost the last cut in 2010 when friends grow house was robbed. There are some hybrid seeds made from the last one though. That’s what I wish I bred. A lot of the times I’m more envious of the clever names other breeders come up with. There are some awesome strain names that make so much sense and others that are awesome because they’re hilarious. You also highlight the importance of the male in breeding, something that isn’t talked about much. Please explain. I just think a lot of people get more excited about female flowers because they’re so beautiful as females are, and so therefore females are discussed more. The male however is equally important in every way. When you’re breeding most of the time you are hoping to achieve some of the traits you enjoy in the female selections because your familiar with them. You’re trying to imagine what the males flower would look like if it were a female instead. You get an idea of this when doing a reversal. Many American breeders have an aversion to feminized and autoflowering seeds yet these
are areas you are exploring. What is your take? I see the need and demand for feminized and auto/fem seeds. I’ve seen and experienced enough to be sold. For feminized seeds, whether a home grower with limited space and time that just wants to smoke something good, to a large operation paying high tax per square foot and operational costs, fem seeds make sense, especially for commodity scale production that’s now starting to happen around the globe. We are working on some fem lines that could be available by the fall. It depends on the purpose. I’ll always grow regular seeds for full term outdoor, but for a dep replant, if it was to freeze, or indoor pheno selection I’d see value in fem seeds. I can’t wait to see what our award winning cuts do when S1’s flower out. Auto/fem is also very important to the future of this industry. As biomass production blows up in California this year and eventually all over the world auto/ fem will be the future of the global commodity production market. In some warm climates you can pull 3 maybe eventually 4 cycles per year, outdoors, without light deprivation and minimal input. To max yield an acre of production you need heavy plant density and lots and lots of seeds. We’ve got some things cooking up. It’s not my main focus on breeding or R&D but it’s necessary to diversify into the future. Who are some people you look up to within the breeding world and cannabis movement at large? I look up to a few people who have been doing it long before me, pioneers who put themselves out there and dedicated much of their lives to the cause, as well as some folks who really dedicate their
lives and passions to this plant with intentions of giving back. Ed Rosenthal and Mel Frank. Steve DeAngelo in a mixed up emotional way. My good pal Kevin Jodrey, Tim Blake, Dr. Uma Dhanabalan, look her up. Some of the oldtimers in Humboldt who’ve been doing amazing work with genetics and sustainable organic farming for decades. Sjoerd Broeks from Flying Dutchman seems like one of the best in the world. In terms of breeders who I respect, Mean Gene from Freeborn Selections in at the top of that list, Karma Genetics whose original breeding stock has some close relation to many of my lines, Bio-Vortex who’s been a lifelong activist and knows his cannabis. I have tremendous admiration and respect for anyone truly dedicated to Cannabis and fighting for freedom. What are you working on now and what lines are in the future plans? We are working on production and dialing in some of our existing seed lines that have been popular, such as Lemon Sugar Kush, Rebel Sour, and Dalai Lama, and testing and developing fem and auto/ fem lines. We’re working through R&D on a lot of clone selections. We’re definitely going hard on our Double OG Chem. Testing new hybrids and some old things we made but never got around to. Doing some pheno hunts with partners on our 5G’s Red and our Blueberry Muffins to find some stand out top shelf exclusives. In the future I want to dial in our Sours and OGs to the point that I don’t think they can get better. I’d like to start working with Strawberry Cough, Black Haze, and some killer east coast clones that have been around a long time. I’d like to start working with some legacy seed varieties that
DAN OF REBEL GROWN only exist in small communities in Southern Humboldt, some of the old neighbourhood strains would blow modern consumers away with unique terpene profiles. I’d like to help some of these farmers, breeders, and seed collectors bring life back to their old genetics. How has Cali legalization affected your work? What are the good and the bad things about the new environment? It has really been very devastating or at least intense for most people I know. I find it a very obvious; bad policy with very clearly evident corruption from lawmakers and lobbyist groups. California butchered this in so many ways. Our government has no intention of being for the people; our government wants to control the people. There is so much to say about this. It bothers me that several prominent industry leaders and activists publicly backed prop 64. It’s not a free market, it’s critically overregulated, the taxation is so absurd that most medical patients who shopped at dispensaries for years under prop 215 can’t or won’t pay the ridiculous taxes and buy their weed on the black market now. The new dispensary customer is generally the enthusiast, people with plenty of money, and the inexperienced who probably haven’t smoked much since college but will try it again now that it’s legal. People incarcerated do not immediately get out jail. To be honest what it’s done to my life is very complex. I’ve worked very hard my entire life to do this. I’ve risked and sacrificed a lot. Now everyone has their hand out and you have to pay to play. I feel comfortable with my position. I believe in my heart I’ve earned it. But for now in order to have a legal operation for my brand and my company I pretty much need to be a workaholic if I have any
Black and white Colas for days
chance at succeeding. I’m not afraid of hard work but the paperwork alone is ungodly. And what about the thousands of people that already failed or couldn’t keep doing what they did to support themselves from cannabis. Only the best, smartest, and luckiest may survive. There are some positives but it’s hard to feel that way sometimes. Most of the growers or people in the industry I speak with are going through very similar struggles of all types. Legal cannabis does not feel good in California. After all is said and done, what do you want your legacy to be? Wow, very heavy. Really, I’d want to know my kids are happy, healthy, positive, people living good lives. I suppose I’d want to be remembered as someone who cared very deeply about the universe and things I did and believed in, and always had intentions of doing the right thing. I’d like to acquire as much land as I can in my lifetime to preserve so nature can thrive. That’s what really matters, but I suppose it
would be cool if people grew my weed varieties thousands of years from now getting all future blazed on Rebel Grown. While I’m still around I want to continue to work with and create cannabis as good as anything in the world. Any tips for the aspiring breeder? Yes, don’t cut corners. Put in the time. Don’t rush. Be true, integrity first. Learn from your mistakes and failures. No egos. Read, research, and learn. Get good at observation, note taking and memory. Know your weed. Smoke your weed, all of it. Have a purpose and be original. Breeders and true ganja warriors and keepers of the sacred plant, respect the herb; what you take you must give back. As always we give you the last word. What’s yours? Thank you for this opportunity John, I’ve been reading since you first came out with the magazine so this is a huge honor to be a part of. Big ups to all the real Ganja warriors!
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HOT MILFs
MODERN CLASSICS
TK91 from Cannarado
THE LEGENDARY Triangle Kush. Known simply as TK91 or ‘ TK.’ The origins of this plant are mysterious and often debated. For simple sakes and purposes I consider the origins unknown. Varietals of legend and lore often hit the scene in the most mysterious ways. TK is a powerhouse; an absolute all-star. Her likes and attributes have made her a pillar piece in many a breeding program. This particular specimen was bred and offered by “Cannarado ,“ one of the hotter and more active breeders on the cannabis scene of later. Cannarado nailed it on this one. You can expect high, heavy yielding resin encrusted baseball bat shaped colas / buds of the highest order.
NAME: TK91 s1 NATIONALITY: Cannarado GROWER: Jay Plantspeaker HEIGHT: medium WEIGHT: Heavy/high AGE: 7-9weeks given the
nature or preference of smoke intended RACE: (Tk91 x Tk91) Hybrid; original origins argued and debated so let’s not argue , I’ll call them ‘unknown.’ PHOTO: ERIK CHRISTIANSEN
NUGSHOTS
All props to Cannarado for making this one available in seed form once again. You can find Cannarado on Instagram @reallycannarado and gear is available via many websites.
TASTE: Earthen fuel wrapped in subtle lemon undertones. SCENT: Smells range from lemony, earthen kush to straight gas, fuel. WHAT THE DRIED BUD/CRUMBLED BUD LOOKS LIKE: Fluorescent green, fully
developed robust earthen/ fuel based formations that are impossibly sticky; I found myself having to wash my hands 2 times before I could attempt rolling a joint. (a good thing). SPEED OF HIGH ONSET: Effects can be felt almost immediately upon exhale culminating to a full stone with 10-15 minutes time . DURATION OF HIGH: The high on a good , solid version of TK91 can last several hours easy. QUALITY/TYPE OF HIGH: Full bodied , heavy character , strong natured classic indica couchlock. Over indulgence will almost surely end in a nap. MEDICINAL QUALITIES: Appetite stimulant, anti anxiety, pain relieving, sleep/rest.
BLACK FIRE
from Jordan of the Islands
NAME: Black Fire NATIONALITY: Jordan of the
Islands HEIGHT: Compact WEIGHT: Heavy RACE: Indica GENETICS: Dosidos x Fire OG x
Blackberry Kush
BLACK FIRE marijuana seeds create a fast flowering, heavy yielding, compact to medium-sized marijuana plant. It’s a breeding project with Uprising Genetics’ Dosi Fire and our favourite, Blackberry Kush. The results are a five-alarm kush fire! A gorgeous marijuana plant, with fantastic indica traits, Black Fire is an excellent selection for first time growers. The uniqueness of the final buds and its ease of growth makes it a solid commercial or craft production choice too. HOT M I LFS
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NAME: Karma Sour Diesel Bx2 NATIONALITY: Karma Genetics HEIGHT: Medium to high stretch
and growth WEIGHT: Karma Sour D bx2 is a high yielder AGE: 10 to 12 weeks RACE: A sativa-dominant hybrid GENETICS: KG Sour D x (KG Sour D x (KG Sour D x Biker Kush) AKA as a Backcross 2, Karma Sour D Bx2
KARMA SOUR DIESEL
from Karma Genetics
THIS IS THE LONG-AWAITED Karma Sour D. A cut selected in 2007, which is also the mom of the famous Headbanger, was used as the cornerstone of this project. The BX2 resulted in the isolation of this selected genotype, and results far surpassed expectations. The return of the Sowahh is here and is an Uber-success! This strain is not for novice growers, as it needs close attention and a finely tuned feeding regimen to finish to its full potential. When feeding programs are dialed in, high yields of some of the best Sour can be achieved. This strain has a very pungent smell and needs good filtration — or the whole neighborhood will enjoy the sour, gassy smell that fills the grow room. The effect of the Karma Sour D is a strong head high and slight body effect. It provides a long-lasting high, with an effect that never gets boring. If you’re a connoisseur of the oldskool sour terps, this may be your holy grail. This isn’t a ECSD BX, isn’t a Original Diesel BX, isn’t none of the above… this is Karma Sour Diesel, a isolated genotype of my personal selection. A true third-eye opener.
TASTE (BURNED AND UNBURNED): A strong Gas Sour that stays same till the Tip, it’s got that mouth coating that stays after smoking. SCENT (BURNED/ UNBURNED): Its extreme strong on the scent and that is one of the things that made it to what it is today, Strong smells of Gas Sour and a tropical twist. FLAVOR: Greasy, and sticky, Lime green to deep green. SPEED OF HIGH ONSET: Direct. DURATION OF HIGH: Long-lasting around 3 to 4 hours. QUALITY/TYPE OF HIGH: Mostly Heady and slight body relaxation, very creative.. MEDICINAL QUALITIES: Depression, and overall happy feeling, still got a appetite strengthen
effect.
CHILE VERDE from HBK Genetics
My Instagram @gold_country_cannabis Photographer: nstagram @douglas_p_cooper_images
CHILE VERDE is a combination of (Key Lime Pie x Lavander) which e first made Chilein 2013 in but which is just recently gaining serious recognition as she was crowned 1st place in the personal cultivation division recently at the 2018 Emerald Cup (Chile Verde 1st place grown by Jd Lee yuba county) It’s a fruity spicy gas flower. Depending on location and climate and what the growers are feeding it, the pheno expressions can range from limecinnamon-vanilla-gas to a fermented grapes and gas to spicy lemon lime gas with slightly cheesey overtones
Full sun, Chiles can pull mid range to large harvests. She has a dense flower structure and attains beautiful fall purples with temperature drops. She is however very powdery mildew resistant and can thrive in cooler temperate areas but is extremely heat tolerant at the same time. Mildly cerebral with a definite body high the Chile puts most people in the perfect place—not to much indica down, yet not to much sativa high. Tastes are OG gas with a fruity grape vanilla cinnamon lime behind it.
NAME: Chile Verde (aka Chile Verde OG) NATIONALITY: HBK Genetics AGE: 60 - 65 days
Nor Cal full sun late Oct early Nov RACE: Hybrid
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LOUD BERRY Photo credit: Will Johnson from Media Phi
from Loud Berry Farms
LOUD BERRY is the 2nd place High Times Cannabis Cup winning phenotype of the Loud Seeds strain Original Loud which is an F2 hybrid of AJs Sour Diesel x Spicy Jack. Loud Berry was discovered by Midnight Ryder from Hippie Hill Genetics who discovered the pheno in a 10 pack of seeds. It is the most unique and stable phenotypes from over 3000 that we’re hunted by Loud Seeds. It has a unique recessive berry flavor that comes through in the smell and taste that is unmistakable and extremely rare. Loud Berry stacks nicely and flourishes under intense light. It is currently available in the California and Washington high-end boutique markets and fetches a premium. James Loud and partners plan on releasing a feminized line of Loud Berry crosses available in select California nurseries summer
NAME: Loud Berry BREEDER: James Loud RACE: Sativa HEIGHT: 60” AGE: 63 days CULTIVATED: Garden House farms
TASTE: Long finish with mouth coating flavor of fresh berries and gas with a hint of pine. SCENT: Berries and diesel fuel. WHAT THE DRIED BUD/CRUMBLED BUD LOOKS LIKE: Perfect structure, greasy, medium internode spacing. SPEED OF HIGH ONSET: Fast. DURATION OF HIGH: 2+ hours. QUALITY/TYPE OF HIGH: Functional yet strong high that keeps you going. MEDICINAL QUALITIES: Stress, pain, and
depression.
GROWING PASSION AND LUMPSTATUS originally dubbed The Lime ‘Lemon Cooler’ due to its origins and the vibe created. Now infamous ‘The Lime’ can be found grown by ‘Lemonade’ Brand and available at Cookies Store locations. Its genetic makeup is; Lemonade X Cactus Cooler. Lemonade was originally known as Lemon Tree, which was renamed Lemonade by the Cookies family. Lemon Tree is rumored to be Lemon Skunk X Sour Diesel also known as ‘Lemon Serious D’. Cactus Cooler is a unique pheno of Tahoe OG X Dago Walker found in LA. Upon opening up a fresh jar, I am greeted with the overwhelmingly potent smell of acrid and piercing lime peels and fresh floral pine trees. After collecting myself from the stunningly strong scent, I’m able to pry some of the sticky and chunky nugs out of the perfectly sized clear glass jar. Five properly manicured, tight structured bright “lime green” colored, small calyx covered, sharp leaved, full healthy buds lacking any prominent stems or stalks are revealed. Easily crushed up in the palm of my hand as I stroll the San Francisco Coastline, the sticky, yet slightly velvet-like feeling bud has hardened off smaller trichome heads, which are noted in the gritty and sandy feel in your fingers after breaking up for a spliff. Once rolled up, the second the lighter hits the end of the spliff and I inhale that first pull, the top of my mouth, tongue and saliva glands all get blasted with limonene first via the pure taste and smell of lime peels followed by slight after notes of pinene representing pine trees and soapy (in a good way) wood cleaner. This lime peel and soapy cleaner taste lasts right up until the crutch. The one downside to smoking, rather than extracting a super citrusy strain such as The Lime, is its extremely high content of non air volatile terpene oil, resulting in the often times uneven burn or darker colored ash you find in citrus leaning strains such as Lemon Tree, Lemon G, and other Lemonade crosses hitting the market. This particular round was one of the most clean burning examples of a lemon or lime rind tasting flower I’ve had the pleasure of trying. Light grey to white colored even burning ash with a smooth, yet poignant, thick smoke flowing to the back of the throat is observed. The high on this phenotype is extremely unique to match the piercing sought after flavor. Generally speaking, a lot of the sativa leaning hybrids we encounter in the US and even more abundant in Europe tend to have Haze in them, and therefore often times come with feelings of anxiety, hyper activity or tenseness. The Lime, however, is definitely uplifting in affect, but muscles remain relaxed and clear thought ensues without any feelings of pending doom or anxiety. This is a definite go-to strain for someone looking for an uplifting mellow daytime sativa with an amazing citrus terpenoid profile.
THE LIME from Growing Passion alongside LumpStatus NAME: The Lime NATIONALITY: Growing Passion
alongside LumpStatus WEIGHT: 1.5-2 Pounds per light AGE: 56 days RACE: Although I don’t highly believe in these types of labels, we will call this a Sativa Leaning Hybrid. 60% Sativa 40% Indica
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HAZY GIRL
HAZY GIRL is a beautiful strain that crosses a Platinum GSC female by a Hazy Kush (Golden Pineapple x ((Trainwreck x Purple Affie) x (OG Kush x Sage))) male. Her bud structure is very tight and compact, similar to the mothering Platinum GSC. The heavy trichome coverage is the first thing to catch the eye, followed by the beautiful alternating purple and green bracts that cover the plant. The terpene profile is comprised of sweet lemon & lime on the front end, accompanied by sweet gas and fuel on the tail end. Breaking up the nug significantly increases these two wonderful aromas. As the user begins smoking the lemon and lime flavor is first to greet the tongue, followed by a sweet and light rosy floral flavor. Hazy Girl’s high begins nearly immediately by sending a swirl of haze straight to the head and eyes, providing a nice mental relaxation. After a few moments, the high felt in the head is slowly accompanied by a nice body high, providing the user with a full body experience. This type of relaxation provided by Hazy Girl makes it a great candidate for people looking to relieve anxiety, or even those looking to turn off their brain after a challenging day.
NAME: Hazy Girl (PGSC x Hazy Kush) NATIONALITY: Green Bodhi HEIGHT: 4 - 5 Feet WEIGHT: 4 - 6 oz AGE: 63 - 67 days RACE: Hybrid
TASTE: Lemon & lime to start followed by sweet and rosey floral SCENT: Scent unburned: Sweet lemon & lime candy (think Skittles) mixed with some underlying fuel and gas. WHAT THE DRIED BUD/ CRUMBLED BUD LOOKS LIKE:
Dried bud: High trichome density, bright orange pistils, with a beautiful blend of green and purples leaves. Very dense and tight buds, very similar to the parenting Platinum GSC. SPEED OF HIGH: Nearly immediately DURATION OF HIGH: ~ 1.5 - 2 hours QUALITY AND TYPE OF HIGH: Heavy head high to start that transitions to a full head and body high. Very relaxing. MEDICINAL QUALITIES: Stress and anxiety relief, appetite stimulant
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Hunting for
Unicorns WORDS JOHANNA SILVER
IT’S CALLED BREEDER’S NOSE. It’s the dark brown sticky spot that collects on the tip of your beak after shoving it in enough cannabis flowers. It’s a bit hard to take people seriously when they have dots of resinous goo on the tips of their noses, but this cast of characters deserves me looking past it.
I’m on a pheno-hunt with the founders of Humboldt Seed Company and Dark Heart Nursery. First, some background—what the hell’s a pheno-hunt? Cannabis has a large amount of phenotypic variation, meaning that when you sprout a seed, observable trains—like size, smell, and color—
can be all over the map. An upside of that diversity is the possibility of stumbling upon a so-called unicorn—a unique seedling that solves a problem, fills a niche, or otherwise impresses. The downside to all that diversity is that once you find your winner, it’s challenging to reproduce
the same traits from seed. While the folks at Humboldt Seed will take on that challenge, it requires three or four generations of breeding. Speeding up that timeline is where Dark Heart Nursery takes center stage. As one of the largest clone companies in California, they use state-of-the-art technologies to bring healthy, exact replicas of those unicorns into instant production. As part of the hunt we visit several farms, including Nat Pennington’s property in Eastern Humboldt, where he founded Humboldt Seed Company in 2001. Cannabis wasn’t his first foray into genetics. As a fisheries biologist, he helped find the genetic difference in the local salmon population of his region, helping win the effort to restore the Klamath River, the largest dam removal in the world. He sat in many a meeting with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown, all while secretly breeding weed back at home. Clandestine no more, he’s shoving cannabis colas into his face and mine, asking me if I smell the pineapple upside-down cake here (I do!) and the blueberry muffin there (I really do!). Our noses get a break when we run flower samples through Orange Photonic’s Lightlab Cannabis Analyzer, a bright orange, briefcasesized lab that reads terpene and cannabinoid levels in seven minutes flat. Co-founder Dylan Wilks is a third generation spectroscopist (a scientist who uses light to measure chemical composition). Historically, his family’s businesses analyzed pharmaceuticals and waste water. Now he’s analyzing weed and assisting farmers with real-time quality control. A recent trip to Humboldt taught me the significance of farmers being able to tell their stories openly in a post-prohibition world. This phenohunt adds a new dimension to my understanding of this moment in time. No longer illegal, science and technology can also play catchup,
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HUNTING FOR UNICORNS
greatly advancing our study and application of cannabis. It’s about time—weed is likely the oldest plant under human cultivation. I find my unicorn—the one that’s irresistible to a nerdy gardener like me. The foliage is dark green and especially dense and lacy. Simply put: it’s beautiful and I want to grow it. It’s a cross between Sweet Annie, a cultivar named for a wild herb that grows along the rivers in Humboldt, and Willie G’s Lebanese, a cultivar from Lebanon, high in medicinal CBD. It’s favored by the real Willie G, a 23-year-old local celebrity with Cerebral Palsy. The buds smell floral, like roses smashed with berries. Seven minutes later, the chromatograph reveals a promising 1:1 THC:CBD ratio with high terpene content. I’m giddy. As a writer who recently stepped into cannabis territory, I try to hold myself at arm’s length from all this weed. You are a gardener, I repeat to myself, not a stoner. But here I am, shoving my face into cannabis flowers for hours on end. It doesn’t get more intimate than that. Chalk it up to extreme aromatherapy but huffing all of those terpenes gets me high (on life). I don’t think I’ve ever spent this long captivated by plant after plant of the same species, infatuated with all variation. Dahlias, maybe, are a close second. When I sneak into the bathroom, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, surprised at my own nose capped with a sticky brown dot. I realize that try as I might, this foray into cannabis is going to be more than a dip. I want to grow all of the flowers. I want to smell all of their smells. Who knows—maybe one day I’ll experiment with feeling all of their feels. Take me as I am, world, sticky nose and all.
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My buddy Matt Riot over at Riot Seed Co. made this cross using a male Deep Chunk originally acquired by me about a decade ago from Tom Hill via Moonshine Man. I have inbred this line several times thus far and gave some of my latest seeds to mi amigo, Matt Riot. He crossed them to his Banana OG and created this gooey beast! Enjoy this edition of Rev’s Rave, the Chunky Monkey—take it away Matt…
CHUNKY MONKEY (AKA Platinum Banana Chunk)
THE RUNDOWN NAME: Chunky Monkey NATIONALITY Riot Seed Co., Tom Hill, and KOS HEIGHT: Medium WEIGHT: Decent (2 oz. per Plant) AGE: 65 – 74 Days RACE: 75% Indica & 25% Sativa LINEAGE: Deep Chunk x Platinum Banana OG F1 Hybrid
THE PLATINUM BANANA CHUNK AKA Chunky Monkey from @RiotSeedCo is a frost boss. I popped this pack looking for something with amazing bag appeal but that also had more potency than the run of the mill cookie crosses. The chunky monkey did not disappoint. Germination rates were 100%, and very importantly, there were zero intersex issues. The plants all stayed short and grew vigorously in my synthetically fed, soil based, Sea of Green brain bucket hydroponic system. The plants exhibited amazing trichome production all the way out to the large fan leaves and my “keeper” phenotype displayed a gorgeous combination of lavender purple and green calyxes with dark purple foliage. The terpene profile was musty over ripe bananas and papayas wrapped in a fermented fruit type of gassiness. This translated to the smoke very nicely, where it was fruity and funky on the inhale and included a slight Skunk on the exhale. The high was euphoric and was felt immediately between the eyes and then settled into a deep and mellow body stone that lasted the for a good 3-4 hours. Which is considerable considering the amount of weed I’ve been smoking for the last 25 years. All in all, the Chunky Monkey checks all the boxes for what I was looking for: great potency and visual presentation, above average yield, and was very easy to grow.
TOKER’S TAKE FLAVORS/SMELLS: Overripe Bananas and Papayas BAG APPEAL: High to Very High ONSET TIME: Fast LENGTH OF EFFECTS: 3 or 4 Hours MEDICAL PROPERTIES: Unknown
AVAILABILITY: Riot Seed Co. (riotseeds.nl)
RED SKY
THE RUNDOWN NAME: Red Sky NATIONALITY: KOS’ Own HEIGHT: Healthy Hearty Beefy; Large WEIGHT: Large AGE: 10 Weeks Indoors RACE: Around 40/60 Sativa/Indica Respectively LINEAGE: Cherry Hemmingway x Skyanchor
TOKER’S TAKE FLAVORS/SMELLS: Fuel, Diesel, Honey Oil; Very Sharp w/Cat Pissy Background BAG APPEAL: Large Dense SugarCoated Buds That Will Stink Up a Small Pub ONSET TIME: 10-15 Minutes LENGTH OF EFFECTS: 2+ Hours Very Strong MEDICAL PROPERTIES: Unknown
THE (PATERNAL P1) FATHER is the legendary Cherry Hemmingway male. A hybrid of a landrace Bhutan, and Rez Dog’s Firecracker (Williams Wonder x NYC Diesel). This is where the beefy Red Sky yields come from, along with longer legs (length of effects;) and the Cat Piss terpenes also originate from these genes. The Bhutanese I used here came from the base of the Tibetan mountains from a village/ town called something like “Gasilia” and since the Bhutan reeked bigtime of fuel/diesel, I affectionately called the selected female Bhutanese, (Butane Gas). Other, rarer, flavor/smell variations are present in some Red Sky phenotypes, with vanilla/cream soda/ cherry facets to them. The (maternal P1) mother is KOS’s own, Skyanchor (Bogglegum x PSI); a cross using a prime selected male of BOG’s Bogglegum. A bad ass oldschool hybrid made using a Northern Lights #5 (real deal) crossed to a Bubblegum (real deal). The female used to make the Skyanchor was my clone only PSI (Purple Salem Indica) that I was given by my good friend Keith, in Salem, OR, USA. Some kind of crazy old Purple Kush variant; potency is not only severe with this baby, but supernaturally stupefying. Most phenotypes here will get very purple with some exposure to cooler temps the last few days of flowering.
GROWING INFO These plants are super easy to grow, and medium heavy feeders. I can tell these plants would get BIG outdoors in the ground or in raised beds. These really pay off, yield-wise, when flowered topped, leaving 4 to 8 “mains” and simply using a slightly larger container size. Untopped she gets really fat-tastic up top, and produces a huge apical bud. These would also work very well in a SOG situation, in my opinion. She does not handle any photoperiod related problems well, so absolute darkness must be maintained during flowering with consistent photoperiod durations.
SMOKE REPORT The Red Sky is a very complex, and potent ride—this variety definitely falls under the category of what I affectionally call, “Stupid-Weeds,” and it is in no way a clear, or soaring resin profile (regarding high-type). You’re pretty much in the “Mr. Magoo Zone” and not a good choice if you need to multitask with high competence; ya know what I mean? Yeah, she’s like that. I do find the Red Sky to be very creative, not so much of the inner-dialog type, and not sleepy-weeds for sure, as she does have a tad bit of an edginess to her ride, but not enough of an edge to get anyone extra paranoid or anything, just enough to keep you, up. Surprisingly I even find her to be really good socially, and she doesn’t give me any anti-social tendencies; no hard-core munchies either. The flavors are more along the lines of acrid/ kingdomorganicseeds.com (KOS) sharp, with a background of Haze/Cat-Piss in some variants, in most phenotypes.
AVAILABILITY:
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T H I S TO K I N ’ F E M A L E I S D E D I C AT E D TO . . .
MARIE MILLS WORDS PEBBLES TRIPPET CANNABIS CULTURE goes back thousands of years as a sacrament in most of the world’s major religions—Hinduism, Buddhism, Rastafarianism, Sufi Moslem; as a medicine from Traditional Chinese Medicine to the US Pharmacopeia for over a hundred different conditions; as a creative spark in cultural upheavals, i.e., Harlem Renaissance, 60s counter culture, 70s-80s-90s back to the land movement — underground herb strongholds, defying a century of prohibition and repression of the plant and those associated with it. Marie stems from the generations who learned the ways of Nature as stewards and forest protectors, not exploiters and extractors, who built their own homes as they saw fit, fought red tags on their septic systems with acquittals at jury trials, and grew marijuana to fund their way of life. They were the hippies with staying power who outlasted the laws against them through small sustainable economies, which served as anchors of the cannabis community, as well as hundreds of small businesses and the county itself. (Read ‘Chronic Freedom’ about the 40 year long “insurgency,” 1000 pages of art and activism by Scott Holmquist and Douglas Fir). Unable to get a single criminal conviction in four jury trials for unpermitted outhouses, the County conceded victory to United Stand, Barry Vogel and the alternate culture. Owner builders were grandfathered in with their unique homes, outhouses and marijuana gardens intact. Having been forced into outlaw status by their noncompliant homes and unconventional lifestyle, sentiment began to change and consensus was that owner-builders prevailed and were to be left alone
The underground cannabis culture that grew out of this web woven in the shadows is at the heart of this interview. Marie Mills, long time hemp trailblazer and hempreneur came to the area in 1980 in search of a home, camped out in the Siskiyone Wilderness, settled deep in the woods for years and began to grow marijuana. In 1990, she opened Hemp Connection in Garberville CA, the 1st hemp store in the country serving the public, followed by Ohio Hempery six months later. Marie’s journey from cannabis to hemp began in the wilderness where she learned to live on the land in all the proverbial ways--hiking through miles of forestland filled with deserted logjams with no access/no public interest; walking six miles down steep
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TOKIN’ FEMALE : MARIE MILLS “MARIE MILLS IS A P ILL A R O F THE HEMP MOVEMENT AND OF HER COMMUNITY. HER FL AGSHIP STORE THE HEMP CONNECTION IN GARBERVILLE HAS ENLIGHTENED THOUSANDS OF CUSTOMERS FROM AROUND THE WORLD WHO TRAVEL TO THE AREA TO SEE THE REDWOOD FOREST AND THE CANNABIS CULTURE THAT IS SO PREVALENT IN THAT BEAUTIFUL AREA OF HUMBOLDT COUNTY. HAPPILY, SHE STOOD HER GROU ND WHEN LOCAL OFFICIALS TRIED TO FORCE HER TO REMOVE HER ICONIC HEMP CONNECTION SIGN WITH ITS BIG POT LEAF, WITHOUT WHICH THE TOWN JUST WOULDN’T BE TH E SA ME. MARIE HAS LONG BEEN ACTIVE IN ENVIRONMENTAL CAUSES AND THE HEMP INDUSTRIES ASSOCIATION AS WELL AS THE CIVIL LIBERTIES MONITORING PROJECT ( CLMP), WHICH FOUGHT BACK AGAINST OVERREACH BY POLIC E WHO WERE RUNNING RAMPANT IN THE HILLS OF HUMBOLDT WITH HELICOPTERS AND WARRANTLESS SEARCHES OF MARIJUANA GARDENS. CLMP AND CAL NORML WON A SU IT T H AT BACKED THE HELICOPTERS OFF, AND CLMP HAS CONTINUED TO EDUCATE AND ACTIVATE LOCALS ON A VARIETY OF CIVIL LIBERTIES ISSUES THROUGH ITS RADIO SHOW ON KMUD, PUBLIC FORUMS, AND OTHER ACTIVITIES. MARIE IS A CALM VO ICE O F REASON AND MATURITY IN AN OFTEN STRIDENT AND CHILDISH POLITICAL CLIMATE, AND HER CONTRIBUTIONS ARE TOO NUMEROUS TO COUNT, MUCH LESS MENTION. THANKS TO MARIE, I WAS LUCKY ENOUGH TO WORK AT THE HEMP CONNECTION AND AT CLMP, AND TO LIVE IN T H E AWESOME HILLS OF HUMBOLDT.” ELLEN KOMP DEPUTY DIRECTOR, CALIFORNIA NORML
slopes to abandoned logging sites where she lived in a ‘plastic igloo’ under bent branches covered with plastic in dead of winter; eventually upgrading to a tipi in the wild, fashioned by sewing pieces of fabric together. She ‘finally found home’. What emerges is the big picture—a 40-year-long ‘marijuana insurgency,’ a living alternative culture created in the shadows over decades under conditions of prohibition and criminality associated with the marijuana plant at the center of their way of life: schools, community centers, fire departments, radio stations, trade fairs, publications, raid oversight organizations, festivals, family farms, small businesses. MARIE MILLS, YOU HAVE EXPERIENCED ALL THIS CULTURAL GROWTH WITH MANY PERSONAL HARDSHIPS OVER A PROLONGED PERIOD TO PURSUE YOUR DREAM. THERE WERE MANY SETBACKS. YOU EVENTUALLY UNGRADED TO A CABIN IN WHALE GULCH WHICH CAUGHT FIRE AND ALONG WITH YOUR LIFE SAVINGS INTENDED TO BUY LAND OF YOUR OWN. HOW DID THAT UNFOLD?
I wasn’t home when the cabin caught fire and burned to the ground. I had money in a can, which I couldn’t find after the fire. When I finally found it and opened it, the money was still there, then suddenly, within seconds, it went poof, up in smoke, some kind of chemical reaction. But over the years I was determined to live here. I grew marijuana out in the woods hidden away in wild country land under helicopters, hovering without warrants. I never abused the environment. I saved money and was able to buy into a remote 40 acre piece surrounded by BLM land which I exchanged for the 40 acre piece I’m on now. It took two years to make the exchange legal, involving two counties and thousands for surveyors and lawyers. I built my house off the grid with no phones for 10 years. Finally, I found home. AT DIFFERENT TIMES, YOU’VE DESCRIBED CREATING YOUR OWN INSTITUTIONS: PRIVATE SCHOOLS, TEACHERS, COMMUNITY CENTERS, TRADE FAIRS, FIRE DEPT, RADIO STATION, CITIZEN MONITORING GROUP, SMALL BUSINESSES TO ACCOMMODATE THE NEEDS OF THE ALTERNATIVE CULTURE BUILT AROUND CANNABIS. HOW IMPORTANT WAS THIS WAY OF LIFE TO YOUR DEVELOPMENT AS A PERSON?
This way of life has been very important in supporting the development of who I am today. Prior to living in this alternative community, I was part of an art/craft cooperative in San Francisco and prior to that part of a commune in Reno Nevada. So the alternative community I now live in reinforces my belief in the importance of communities of people working together for the common good of all involved. PT: CAN YOU BREAK DOWN ASPECTS OF COMMUNITY BUILDING THAT MADE IT POSSIBLE?
We built our own schools and got our own teachers in Mendocino County rather than parents having to drive kids 52 miles to Leggett. Ray Raphael, author of “Cash Crop”, was one of our teachers and we got funding from the County for him and others. It was a private school, qualified to become a public school. We took responsibility and paid rent because
we were protecting what we had built. We had a dozen kids to begin with, now there are 52 with two elementary classrooms, junior high and two high schools. Now we get regular funding. We started with a yurt type building made of canvas for 2-3 years. Now we’re up to code with three buildings, built with marijuana money. Everyone in Whale Gulch -- 75 families in all -- contributed and everyone grew, with three exceptions. All told, we had a school, fire department, community center and two trade fairs a year. Our way of paying taxes was to put our money into building community. At one point, our community center burned down. We got another piece of land rather than take up the meadow space where we hold trade fairs twice a year. Four years ago, we started engaging in the permit process on the building. We never had gone through the County’s legal permit procedures. Restrictions are harsh. Fees are hard to meet. Dirt roads have steeper requirements than county roads regarding blind curves, fire truck pullouts, double lanes, many protocols they don’t even follow themselves. Additionally, it’s harder financially under new regulations that disfavor small mom and pop grows. WAS THE NEIGHBORHOOD ECONOMY YOU WERE ABLE TO BUILD ADEQUATE FOR THE NEEDS OF THE PEOPLE IT SERVED?
Yes, the community adequately supported the people it served with the income from cannabis for individual personal needs, such as housing, food, transportation, etc. YOU SAID YOU HOPE THE CURRENT GENERATION FINDS WAYS TO SURVIVE, KEEPING THE LIFESTYLE ALIVE. WHAT SUGGESTIONS DO YOU HAVE?
Some will keep the culture alive by growing legal or illegal cannabis, especially if they have learned to make a processed product from the plant that they can sell. Also, if they have developed other skills for income, such as mechanics, childcare, older people care, gardening, food preparation, building skills, etc. IF YOU’RE ABLE TO GET A PERMIT TO GROW HEMP ON YOUR STORE PATIO, HOW WOULD YOU USE YOUR CROP FOR THE GOOD OF THE COMMUNITY? WOULD YOU THRESH YOUR CROP TO MAKE CLOTHING? WOULD YOU HOPE TO SERVE AS A MODEL SHOWING OTHERS HOW TO DO IT?
I hope to grow 3 hemp plants and 3 cannabis plants on our store patio to educate people on how they are grown and used. I would not thresh the crop for clothing as it would take too much energy. I’d show people how to harvest a small crop and explain how various parts of the plant are used and the different uses of hemp and marijuana. I would remove any hemp plant before it went to seed.
“HAVING BEEN A FRIEND & NEIGHBOR OF MARIE MILLS FOR OV ER 40 YEARS, I HAV E COME TO KNOW HOW DEDICATED SHE IS TO EDUCATING PEOPLE ABOUT THE MANY BENEFITS OF THE HEMP PL ANT. SHE BEGAN HER STORE BY IMPORTING BOLTS OF HEMP FABRIC FROM CHINA, AS NO HEMP CLOTH WAS READILY AVAIL ABLE IN THE US, AND SHE SEWED HEMP CLOTHING PIECEBY-PIECE ON HER SEWING MACHINE. TIMES HAVE CHANGED, BUT SHE CONTINUES TO EDUCATE CUSTOMERS AT HER POPUL AR STORE.” NANCY PEREGRINE
OF THE 20,000+ INDUSTRIAL HEMP PRODUCTS ASSOCIATED WITH USES OF THE PLANT, WHICH WOULD YOU CONSIDER THE MOST FEASIBLE FOR YOUR PURPOSES?
Body products and food products would be the most feasible for me. They could be made by hand on a small scale, whereas other hemp products will be made on an industrial scale. HOW CAN TRIMMIGRANTS BE INCORPORATED INTO THE NEW ECONOMY?
Trimmigrants need an organization to help them connect with growers who are hiring, where they’d fill out a job application stating skills and experience. Those hiring could also fill out an app stating skills they are looking for, work conditions, wages, length of time of job, etc. The organization would connect the two. HOW DID HEMP CONNECTION GET STARTED, INCLUDING YOUR HANDS-ON BUSINESS APPROACH?
I started with rope and twine in 1990. In 1992, the first hemp fabric became available. I invested $2000 into fabric to make all the clothes we sold in the store. The first product I made for the store was hand made paper from marijuana stalks (many were donated). The stalk and root of the marijuana plant were not illegal. I used an industrial sewing machine, environmental dyes and my home washing machine to pre-shrink and dye all hemp clothing and fabric products before making them available in the store. We started a cottage industry We wanted people to become aware of the many uses of hemp, cousin of the marijuana plant. My main interest was in getting the clothing and the information out there.
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TOKIN’ FEMALE : MARIE MILLS “MARIE MILLS WAS OUR INTRODUCTION TO HUMBOLDT COUNTY AND THE EMERALD TRIANGLE WHEN WE MET IN THE EARLY 1990S. SHE HAS PROVIDED AN INCREDIBLE RESOURCE CENTER FOR ALL THINGS HEMP WITH EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS, A VARIETY OF HEMP PRODUCTS, AND AN EXAMPLE OF THE POTENTIAL OF THESE INDUSTRIES WITH ONE OF THE FIRST HEMP STORES IN THE COUNTRY, THE BEAUTIFUL HEMP CONNECTION. IN THIS WAY, SHE HAS BEEN AN AMBASSADOR OF HEMP AND ECOLOGY TO THOUSANDS OF TOURISTS WHO HAVE PASSED THROUGH GARBERVILLE — AS WELL AS LOCALS WHO NEEDED EDUCATION. SHE WAS ALWAYS GENEROUS WITH HER TASTY HUMBOLDT CANNABIS AND SUPPORTIVE OF OUR WORK TO BRING ABOUT LEGAL REFORM. WE HONOR OUR FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE WITH HIGH HONOR.” — CHRIS CONRAD AND MIKKI NORRIS, THELEAFONLINE. COM, YOUR TRUSTED NEWS SOURCE ABOUT CANNABIS.
YOUR STORE STANDS OUT FROM ALL THE OTHERS, SPORTING THE TALLEST SIGN IN THE REGION WITH THE WORDS ‘HEMP CONNECTION’ STANDING 30 FEET OR SO STRAIGHT UP, TOWERING OVER GARBERVILLE IN THE HEART OF THE EMERALD TRIANGLE. THE BUILDING OWNER RECEIVED NUMEROUS COMPLAINTS ABOUT THE SIGN FROM LOCAL BUSINESS OWNERS, OFFENDED BY THE PROMINENT LEAF PAINTED ON THE SIGN, WHAT’S THE BACKGROUND ON THAT?
A self-appointed Design Review committee called a town meeting to discuss the sign and pressure me to remove it. My landlord threatened me with eviction. But Planning and Building had the ultimate say. They said if I hadn’t changed the structure of the sign, they were not concerned with what I put on the face of it. This decision satisfied the landlord and I was not evicted. Ed Denson succeeded in getting the Design Review committee disbanded, as a self-appointed group is not authorized to make those kinds of planning decisions. The background is that Garberville was an old logging town. A split developed between the marijuana people, the hippies, and old time loggers. Over the years they’ve intermarried, in fact many of the loggers now grow. But some of those local businesses were from those old time logging families. The sign remains intact above the store and the landlord’s attitude has changed. He commented to the owner of the building across the street, the Eel River Cafe, “You used to have the most photographed sign in town but now Marie has the most photographed sign.”
Marie’s iconic sign of the times HEMP CONNECTION promotes connection, the opposite of prohibition, With the passage of the federal Farm Bill last year, hemp prohibition explicitly ended, signalling a green renaissance potential ahead, which Marie helped usher in. In this way, hemp is separated from cannabis which is still federally illegal under the 1970 Controlled Substances Act but hemp is exempt. Marie and her daughter Teresa are now partners in Hemp Connection, developing their cannabis-friendly, communitybased, family-run small business, originally financed by outlaw marijuana cultivation. They survive and thrive off of good business practices, good deeds and good will from locals as well as tens of thousands of international travelers who’ve made hemp connection a “destination”. It offers all manner of hemp clothing, hats, jackets, socks, shirts, pants, three-hole pipes, O’Shaughnessy’s Cannabis Journal, SKUNK Magazine—all the basics--with a natural courtyard outside the store and informational library inside, as befits a meeting space connecting people on the global cannabis trail. There will come a time when it is once again fully legal to grow hemp and society is transformed from the results. We will look back and universally honor Marie Mills as the woman who blazed the first hemp trail, the back-to-the-land pioneer who first introduced hemp to the American public in 1990. 28 years later, the federal Farm Bill was passed, the hemp ban was lifted, the baby was born healthy and the Mother was happy.
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SENSI SERMONS SENSI SERMONS
WITH WITH THE THE REV REV
CHOCOLATES recipe Howdy good peeps! Ya know how perfect a peanut butter & jelly sandwich tastes? The flavors just work together perfectly. Today’s recipe for making hash chocolates is my all-time favorite—I’m not a big edible fan myself, but I do eat these from time to time; they are not only very effective, but super delicious too. I wanted to make sure you guys with the hardcopy SKUNK Magazines, had this recipe you could keep handy. I know a lot of edible fans, and they all really love these chocolates hard core; try ‘em you’ll like ‘em! Without further ado, let’s check it out.
First step is to screen some hash
I am very diy and sift hash using a shaker can and dry ice Your basic one gallon metal kitchen container and large tray
Your basic one-gallon metal kitchen container and large tray
NEEdful THINgs WHEN MakINg HasH CHoColaTEs This article is really more of a recipe of what to do with some freshly shaken (screened) hash, and not an article about how to screen your hash; with that being said, always have some insulated gloves, a metal shaker is always best I think, a large tray, and don’t screen more than an ounce of cannabis at a time in a shaker like I use in the photo. You can use nylon pantyhose as a screen, but if doing that I recommend you go with smaller amounts, like ½ oz of cannabis at a time in the shaker can, and you can use a smaller can size as well—also, make sure to smash down your dry ice to ‘crushed’ consistency if using pantyhose, so larger dry ice chunks won’t stretch out the pantyhose
“screening size”. I make this using 18 ounces of chocolate and 12-14 grams of dry sift hash. This makes perfectly awesome and powerful chocolates; however, you can certainly feel free to up the hash ratios or lessen them as you see fit for your own needs. First time edibles adventurers should use about ½ the hashish called for in this recipe; this recipe makes powerful chocolates and one chocolate bakes me well. Super hard-core edibles veterans may want to go with 20 grams of hash— you can have a lot of hash in this recipe due to the flavors working perfectly with the flavor of the hash—delicious!
The main ingredients of the chocolates besides the hashish This is what i add to a half ounce of dry sifted hashish
You have your screened hash
Step One
DecarbOxylate (ActivAte) yOur Sift Sifted trichomes do not store well, so sift the day you make the chocolates, or freeze your buds until the day you sift and make chocolates. Okay, now that you have your sifted hash, even it out a bit like in the photo, and place into an oven, on a parchment paper covered cookie sheet, preheated to 240 degrees. Go ahead and just bake the sift for 60 minutes at that temperature, then remove from oven. Place hash sift on to parchment paper covered cookie sheet
Step two
Melt chOcOlate, with the Orange extract, anD cOcOnut Oil in the oven, get yourself a double boiler (like in the photo) add water and put on medium heat. Add 12 ounces of dark semisweet chocolate, and 6 ounces of milk chocolate, along with 1 tablespoon of orange extract and 1 tablespoon of coconut oil to the double boiler, allow it to fully melt before adding the hashish; and basically, continuously stir slowly. You will want to continue stirring for about 10-15 minutes making sure no hash-lumps exist. Hash lumps can make for some seriously scary chocolates—LoL!
Standard double boiler
Bake sift at 240 degrees for 60 minutes
Add chocolate and other ingredients to double boiler
Continuously stir slowly
Step three
SpOOn MelteD chOcOlate intO MOlDS You can use silicone molds like I do, or you can use standard ice cube trays as well, partially filling them with the chocolate for your preferred size of each chocolate. First thing you will want to do is coat your silicone molds or ice cube trays with some coconut oil; you can either manually do it with a paper towel, coating all the chocolate molds, or you can use a spray can with coconut oil. Warning—ice cube tray sized chocolates will be crazy strong, and in my silicone molds my average chocolate size is 6 grams each when done. I have 4g, 6g, and 8g chocolates from my silicone molds.
Silicone molds for candy making
Fill all your molds with melted-hash-infused chocolate
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Rev’s Cannabis Crossword
Salutations SKUNKers. Do a couple of hits of your favorite cannabis and then tackle my crossword puzzle, if you dare! It’s mostly all cannabis all the time, but there are some pop culture things that go back to the 70’s up to the present. You’ll have fun solving it for sure, and you may even learn stuff, you never know. The answers to this crossword will appear in the very next issue of SKUNK 1 along with another new crossword to solve. So, without further ado—let’s roll baybee…
Place hash sift on to parchment paper covered cookie sheet
I like to use a spoon to fill the molds with using the melted chocolate, this makes it much easier and faster in my experience. After all the molds have been filled you want to place them in the freezer for about 20 minutes. After that, remove them from the freezer and pop out all the chocolates. Now that you have your “tub full of hash chocolates” you can “clean them up” by removing the excess chocolate from the edges—save all this trimmed chocolate and I love this in my coffee actually. Okay then, now as I said these taste amazing, seriously amazing and the hash flavors work perfectly with the orange and the semi-sweet chocolate—yummy! Here’s a little table of events for quick reference…
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1. Screen hash just before making the chocolates. Store your buds or trim in the freezer until you plan to make the chocolates, I use zip-loc freezer bags for freezer 4 life” storage. Screened hash has a very poor “shelf when exposed to light and air and heat, so store the buds not the screened hash; if need be. 2. Decarboxylate your screened hash5in the oven at 240 degrees for 1 hour, then remove the hash from the oven. Just place your hash on parchment paper on a cookie sheet to bake it in the oven. 3. Melt 12 oz semi-sweet and 6 oz of milk chocolate in a double boiler on medium 6heat. Add 1 tablespoon each of orange extract and coconut oil, continuously stirring. Once fully melted add in the hashish and continue stirring for about 15-20 minutes until smooth. 4. Pour (or spoon) melted chocolate into molds coated with coconut oil and place into the freezer for 20 minutes. 5. Pop out the hard chocolates, place them into a container and place/keep in refrigerator—ENJOY! 7
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9 Rev's Canna Crossword 8
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Across 2 Felix the Cat enemy; The Master ________ Across 4 Slang for cannabis; Felix Jane the Cat enemy; The 2 ____ Across Master the________ Catorenemy; 26 Felix Somewhat, slightlyThe under Master ________ Slang for cannabis; 4 the influence ____ Jane for cannabis; 47 Slang Leafstalk connecting stem Jane or slightly under Somewhat, 6 ____ to leaf the influenceor slightly under 6 Somewhat, influence Leafstalk connecting stem 7 the to leaf connecting stem 7 Leafstalk leafname did3 the old What 9 to school Northern Lights #2 go by
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9 What name did the old school Northern Lights #2 go by 9 What name did the old Down schoolname Northern Lights did the old #2 go 9 What What I Northern (Rev) call Lights microbial 1 school by #2 go life; slang by Down 3 Ecto's opposite; mycorrhizal I (Rev) call microbial 15 What Down The best cannabis magazine life; slang I (Rev) 1 What on the planetcall microbial life; slang Ecto's opposite; mycorrhizal for Earthworm 83 Abbreviation opposite; mycorrhizal 35 Ecto's Castings; acronym The best cannabis magazine on the planet best cannabis magazine 5 The on the planet
Rev's Canna Crossword Rev's Canna Crossword
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THE WHolE PRoCEss sIMPlIfIEd
I always want to throw up a little warning for those of you not really experienced with edibles. I have seen several peeps end up hating cannabis due to an initial experience with it—choosing edibles the first time 9 they try cannabis—and overdosing badly. Overdosing on edibles is like being uber sea sick while spinning out drunk; not good. Always start out small and make sure you wait for 2 hours after consumption before judging how high you are—words of wisdom Lloyd … Words of wisdom. Catch ya all next 2 time here at Across SKUNK. L8r G8rs
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Are Cannabinoids What Make Superfoods Super? WORDS MAYA ELISABETH
FOR OVER A DECADE NOW, I have said that Cannabis is a superfood and it is beautiful to see this truth catch on. A superfood is a food that is extremely nutrient dense and usually, all parts are of value. From the seeds, leaves, and buds, to the terpenes and roots, Cannabis is that Lady that can simply do everything. She is effective from the inside out and the outside in, bringing with her an abundant list of desirable side effects. But what makes Cannabis such a great cure-all superfood? It’s a synergy of many compounds such as terpenes, antioxidants, and cannabinoids along with other active components all working together as a whole. Alkaloids are plant compounds that alter the human environment when they are consumed. Many of the alkaloids or compounds that give our bodies positive benefits are in fact cannabinoids or cannabimimetic (cannabinoid mimicking) compounds that imitate the “lock and key” effect, just like Cannabis. Although cannabimimetics are not the same as cannabinoids they interact with the same receptors and can, therefore, cause similar lock and key effects in the body. It turns out that lots of herbs, spices, and a few foods contain Cannabinoids and cannabimimetic compounds but Cannabis contains the most, hence the name. Many
of these cannabis containing foods and herbs are considered superfoods already. Cultures that consume large amounts of these herbs, spices, and cannabimimetic foods reflect longevity, less illness, and overall improved quality of life. Coincidence? Phytocannabinoids are found in plants while endocannabinoids are created in the body which is why we have receptors for them all over. Interactions with CB1 & CB2 receptors create different effects in the body because of the “lock and key” synergy or when the cannabinoids reach and make contact with receptors. Since the ECS (endocannabinoid receptor system) is responsible for most of our vital human functions this can have some serious impacts on a person’s wellbeing. The ECS governs appetite, mood, memory, cognitive function, immune system, reproduction, sleep, digestion, etc... The ECS governs our survival and wherever there is a receptor, Cannabis can help. There are also lots of ways to stimulate the ECS without consuming cannabis. Eating essential fatty acids found in chocolate, herbs, other fatty foods and spices are one way. Exercise, socialization, playtime, meditation, yoga, massage, acupuncture, breathing exercises, and other enjoyable activities also stimulate the ECS. Many people walk this world
tragically deficient of cannabinoids. People with deprived or depleted endocannabinoid receptor systems usually have large bags under their eyes, low energy levels, suffer from depression, decreased health and vitality, and lack in overall wellbeing. It is through unprocessed, living foods that we find vitality longevity and energy. Organic foods that contain naturally bright vibrant colors that crisp and crunch when we bite into them, foods that that come straight from the earth. A natural Rainbow on every plate means we are giving our body the proper nutrients it needs. All of these different living foods bring us energy and health through beneficial alkaloids like vitamins, minerals, flavonoids, terpenes, cannabinoids, and cannabimimmicing compounds. Better to count chemicals, not calories and live a balanced and active life. Food comes from the earth and chemicals come from laboratories. We are learning more and more about cannabinoids and the ECS as Cannabis comes into the light and more research is permitted. The list of plants, spices, and foods that contain cannabinoids are some of the doctors, healers, chefs, and herbalists favorite allies. Some of them have evoked worldwide trade, economies, and even wars.
HERBS, SPICES, & FOODS THAT CONTAIN CANNABINOIDS Electric Daisy: Electric Daisy is a healing herb with analgesic properties. It contains cannabinoid mimicking compounds, particularly one called N-isobutylamides which also interacts with the CB2 receptors and can help with pain, inflammation, and helps support blood, liver, and kidney health. Helichrysum: Helichrysum is known as the Immortal Flower, a truly miraculous plant ally. It is a family of the Daisy and it is indigenous to South Africa. This flower contains a similar compound to CBG or cannabigerol. CBG is anti-inflammatory and also known to kill cancer. The Immortal Flowers is wonderful for the skin and may also be ingested. It has been known to relieve respiratory conditions, psoriasis, arthritis, and skin problems like eczema dermatitis, scars, and burns, just like cannabis. Liverwort: This herb contains cannabinoids as well as perrottetinenic acid which mimics THC and interacts with the CB1 receptor. It’s commonly used to treat bladder infections and bronchial infections and is native to New Zealand. Black Pepper: Black Pepper is another strong anti-inflammatory spice that contains cannabinoids and may be effective in killing cancer. It is good for digestion, extremely rich in antioxidants and minerals, and also a powerful antiinflammatory.
Chinese Rhododendrum: This is a powerful herb that is used in traditional Chinese Medicine. Its extract can kill anything from staph infections to cancer cells. A study in 2011 by Nihon University of Japan found that the folic acid‘s in the Chinese Rhododendrum acted very much like cannabinoids. Kava: This drink is made from leaves native to the Pacific Islanders. This medicine is mildly sedative and is helpful for anxiety and chronic pain. One of the compounds binds to the CB1 receptor and is full of compounds called kavalactones. Kavalactones bind in the brain in similar locations as cannabinoids. They bind with the specific cannabinoids in areas of the brain associated with addiction and craving. Hops: Hops and Cannabis are cousins; the aroma is similar to hoppy beers, very skunky, like a Saint Pauly girl or a Heineken. It smells like dank and that is not a coincidence! Hops have been known to be helpful for a variety of things from anxiety and nervousness to inflammation and hair strength. They are very high in antioxidants which means they cancel free radicals and are also beneficial for the skin. Rosemary: Rosemary (and black pepper) both share a compound called BCP or beta-caryophyllene which acts like a cannabinoid and is peppery in flavor. It is a powerful anti-inflammatory and can even aid in memory and cognitive function.
erectile dysfunction, enhance mood and memory, cancel free radicals, reduce inflammation, boost energy, and lower blood pressure. Some other herbs that contain cannabinoids are cloves, oregano, cinnamon, and lemon balm. Flax Seeds: Flax seeds are already a very popular superfood. They have similar compounds to CBD that enter receptors. Rich in omega fatty acids, protein, fiber, and antioxidants they have been known to lower cholesterol, lower blood pressure, suppress the appetite, moderate blood sugar levels, and kill cancer. Cacao: The word itself means ‘gift from the Gods’. Cacao is chocolate in raw form. Before cacao is processed, it is one of the most nutrient-dense foods on the planet. Rich in many minerals, it is also the food with the most magnesium and antioxidants in the world. Cacaos phytocannabinoids interact with our receptors to help enhance our mood, give us energy, and make us feel good. Cacao also contains cannabinoid mimicking compounds like Theobromine, tryptophan, phenylethylamine, and anandamide that create a ‘lock and key’ effect just like Cannabis. Cacao also contains a chemical called FAAH which interacts with the ECS. FAAH breaks down Anandamide, which is known as the bliss molecule, named after the pleasure God
Maca: Maca contains compounds that emulate CBD giving a boost to your overall system, including mood. Maca has been shown to boost fertility and sex drive in both men and women, help with JU N E 2 0 1 9
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ARE CANNABINOIDS WHAT MAKE SUPERFOODS SUPER? Ananda. Chocolate and Cannabis are a match made in heaven. It seems to be the perfect vehicle for cannabinoids as it evokes many of our ‘feel good’ neurotransmitters with consumption. Many people experience mood upliftment, heart opening, mild euphoria, and positive energy increases when they eat cacao. Only the elite Mayan rulers were allowed to drink the bitter and spicy Cacao drink and it comprised a huge amount of their diet. Virgins were offered the sacred drink only upon being sacrificed to the Gods. Chocolate has driven worldwide trade for centuries. There are even entire schools devoted to the art of chocolate. Truly a food people go crazy for! It will be exciting to see what future findings reveal about the cannabinoid and cacao connection. Black Truffles: Black truffles or Tuber Melanosporum is one of the most sought after and coveted culinary items known. It is truly the height of luxury tasting these divine flavor bombs. Pigs and dogs are trained to find truffles, which grow just below the soil. They are so fragrant and flavorful (terps) that they almost accompany a palpable sensation in the throat and on the tongue. Robust is an understatement. Scientists in Italy and France have studied how truffles use their fragrance to attract animals to their fruiting bodies so that their spores may be spread out and reproduced, as they must be broken open to release spores. Pigs, meerkats, grizzly bears, chacma baboons, and potoroos all eat truffles. There are black and white truffles. A black truffle, known as the Péregord truffle, is the second most commercially
valuable species after Italy’s white truffle. Research has shown that truffles can invoke forgetfulness, relaxation, and laziness in animals. Some scientists attribute this to Anandamide or the bliss molecule found in truffles. More mature truffles contain more Anandamide. Anandamide affects mood, appetite, memory, pain, depression, and fertility. The same neurotransmitters that regulate mood and pain perception have evolved over more than 50 million years. Could the Truffle be so intelligent as to adapt in ways that make it one of the most coveted fungi in the world? Our interpretation of the facts is, yes. Nic Flemming puts it perfectly in his BBC article: “A highly prized fungi with a compound that triggers the release of mood-enhancing chemicals in the brain and does so using the same biological mechanism as THC the chemical responsible for mindbending effects of marijuana.” Truffles rely on being unearthed by animals so that their spores are spread in their dung. By evolving into one of the most terpene rich foods in the world, it has not just survived but thrived in transport and trade. It is a powerful flavor and if you enjoy it, chances are you will REALLY enjoy it.
Are cannabinoids what makes these medicinal herbs medicinal and superfoods super? Our bodies crave these nourishing compounds which are rich in nutrients and good for us. By looking at the history of medicine, we recognize that these medicinal herbs have been in doctors toolkits for centuries. All of these superfoods have a few things in common, aside from containing compounds that mimic endocannabinoids and interact with the ECS. The foods that contain cannabinoids are terpene rich foods making them abundant in flavor and smell. They create a lock and key effect similar to Cannabis and evoke similar effects as Cannabis. They are also all associated with longevity and health. Let us start to view Cannabis as a superfood or better yet let us view cannabinoids as superfoods. Cannabinoids may hopefully be viewed and consumed as preventative medicine or supplements, things we strive to get in and on our body every day.
I. (2011). New cannabinoid-like chromane and chromene derivatives from Rhododendron anthopogonoides. Chem Pharm Bull (Tokyo).Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ pubmed/22041081. Fleming, N. (2014, December 18). Earth - Truffles contain ‘bliss’ molecule. Retrieved from h ttp://www.bbc.com/ earth/story/20141221-truffles-containbliss-molecule Home. (n.d.). Retrieved from https:// www.royalqueenseeds.com/blog-plantsother-than-cannabis-that-producecann abinoids-n714
KITCHEN
GANJA
CAPERS by JESSICA CATALANO
ELUSIVE AND RARE, palatable edibles can be a real nightmare to find, forget ones that taste delicious and make you excited at the prospect of medicating with ganja-filled treats. Colorado-based Jessica Catalano, author of Ganja Kitchen Revolution and former SKUNK Tokin’ Female, is on a mission to change all that, however. Serving up some of the best medicated food in the country, Catalano uses fresh bud to create mouthwatering dishes and is best known for her revolutionary strain specific cooking methods. In other words, she doesn’t just use whatever strains are available and throw a bunch of stuff together. No, she takes the time to choose the appropriate strain for the appropriate flavoring to create an enhanced gastronomic experience. We recommend everyone pick up her book and check out her new recipe column for us every month to get plenty of yummy ideas from the Queen of Cannabis Cooking herself.
CARNIVAL BAKED SWEET POTATO FRIES* SWEET POTATO FRIES are a popular form of sweet potato that is common in North America. In some parts of North America these fries are served with melted butter and honey on top of them. Growing up this was one of my favorite treats to enjoy during the spring and summer months down by the boat harbor. The sugary tart lemon and hints of mixed citrus with haze in the Carnival strain really make the dipping sauce in this dish pop thus creating the perfect accompaniment to the fries. In parts of Canada and the United States, sweet potatoes are incorrectly called “yams” or even used interchangeably. However, these two tubers grow in very different parts of the world in dissimilar climates. You say, po-tay-to, I say, po-tah-to. Whatever you want to call it, these delicious sweet orange fleshy tubers taste great in a variety of different sweet and savory dishes. And did you know that sweet potatoes were the first transgenic food? Studies have shown that the sweet potato genome evolved over 1,000 years before eventually being domesticated. Then farmers took advantage of the natural genetic modifications to get us the potatoes that we see today in markets. Carnival is a Satvia dominant strain that produces an intense soaring cerebral high that can become a bit overwhelming for first time consumers. But for those who are used to the strains effects or whose chemistry vibes well, this strain will yield a beautiful euphoric and social high. It also relives intense neck and shoulder pain, migraines, and the ocular pressure of glaucoma in patients. It is a highly medicinal and psychoactive strain and should be met with the proper respect. But when respected correctly, this strain is sure to please the senses!
SERVINGS 4 servings MISE EN PLACE 4 sweet potatoes or 2 extra-large sweet potatoes 1 cup raw honey 4 teaspoons cinnamon 4 tablespoons room temperature Basic Clarified Carnival Cannabutter 2-3 tablespoons olive oil Sea salt and pepper to taste DIRECTIONS STEP 1: Preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Cut your sweet potatoes into fries by hand or with a French fry cutter. You can choose the thickness of the fry to your own personal liking. But if you end up making steak fries make sure to increase the cooking time. STEP 2: Add the olive oil to a bowl and toss your sweet potato fries until evenly coated. Lay your fries onto a baking sheet then bake for 20 minutes or until browned and crisp.
STEP 3: While your fries are baking divide the raw honey into 4 servings or ¼ cup each. To each serving of honey add 1 tablespoon Basic Clarified Carnival Cannabutter and 1 teaspoon cinnamon in a ramekin. Combine all ingredients by stirring fast until fully incorporated. STEP 4: Once your sweet potato fries are done baking pull from the oven to season with sea salt and pepper. Plate your fries with the cinnamon honey cannabutter dipping sauce and serve. You can also make this a low dose appetizer in case you plan to follow up with another medicated dish. To do this simply choose whether you want to do ½, ¼, 1/8, of a tablespoon per serving.
DOSAGE If one gram of Carnival tests at 23% THC, twenty-three percent of 1,000mg would be 230mg. So if you added 1 gram of this strain into the total recipe at 23% THC, it would contain 230mg total or 57.5mg per serving. Sub the number of your THC percentage and do the math to figure out your dosing. If you want a smaller dose, cut the cannabis down to a smaller amount so that it will be a micro dose. If you want a higher dose, add more Carnival flower to your cannabutter recipe. STRAIN SUGGESTIONS I would recommend strains that possess fruity tart terpenes that would pair well with the flavors of the Carnival strain. The following strains would be ideal if you didn’t have Carnival: Super Lemon Haze, Lemon Drop, Lemon Haze, Tangie, and Agent Orange. If you cannot find these strains don’t panic, just follow your nose and taste buds to finds strains that would complement the dish. Have fun with it! *Adapted from: The Ganja Kitchen Revolution: The Bible of Cannabis Cuisine by Jessica Catalano Photo Credit: Tyler Kittock
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SELECTIVE ENFORCEMENT
by Deanna Jean Ryther BOD Member and Minnesota Team Leader Lets talk about selective enforcement in the cannabis industry. Many of us have been pulled over and found to be in possession of cannabis. The trained officer that just pulled you over has two choices; Book you for
possession, possibly incarcerating you, or to avoid the paperwork, maybe he/she just makes you dump it out onto the ground a move along. Relatively innocuous incident whether you find yourself in the position of receiving a citation or not, right? But what about selective enforcement when it comes to Federal or
State statutes? The stakes become much higher and in this no win situation, and merely grinding your bag into the asphalt looks pale in comparison. In December of 2017 Sweet Leaf locations in Colorado were raided by local drug enforcement officers. 17 Budtender were charged with distribution of cannabis (their job description) for a practice coined “looping”. The newly coined term referred to individuals coming into the store, purchasing an ounce of cannabis, leaving the store, presumably placing it in their car, and returning for another ounce of cannabis over and over again until they had illegal amounts in their possession. At the time of arrests the state law provided wording that stores could only sell one ounce per “transaction”. Essentially Sweet Leaf stores were following the law through purchasing limits even though the individuals may have been in possession of too much cannabis constitutionally. You are only allowed to possess one ounce of cannabis on the streets in Colorado. Additional constitutional protections under Amendment 64 explicitly state that dispensary owners and employees are legitimate businessmen in Colorado and not criminal enterprises. Despite the protections afforded under the constitution the budtenders faced distribution charges for selling legal cannabis, in legal amounts over a legal counter and scale. Many of which had never been charged with a criminal offense and were your average ordinary law abiding citizen that had scored an entry level job at Sweet Leaf. All 17 were found not guilty and charges were dismissed….with a community service promise…. The managers of Sweet Leaf; Ashley Goldstein and Nichole West were not so lucky. They too were charged
with distribution. However their options for dealing with the situation was not the same as the budtenders. Faced with the additional criminal charges, Sweet Leaf owners filed suit against the Marijunana Enforcement Division, the City of Denver and the State of Colorado. That suit was to uphold constitutional protections for legitimate marijuana business owners in Colorado. To protect them from criminal charges stemming from the looping cases. Faced with a constitutional violation of individual and business rights in Colorado, the State of Colorado, Denver, and the Marijuana Enforcement Division took a different approach. Backed by Robert Troyer, US District Attorney, the defendants were offered two paths. Sweet Leaf drops all civil suits against the State, Marijuana Enforcement, and the City of Denver; Take the criminal plea deal the State of Colorado has offered you, a felony with 30 days jail time. Or face Federal prosecution of cannabis distribution which could net you a 45 year-life sentence in a Federal Detention Facility These are a violation of a citizens rights in Colorado. All by enforcing Federal Law, which offers no protections, by a US District attorney that is anything but friendly to cannabis industry. It’s already inconceivable that the State of Colorado actively participates in raids against unlicensed, “constitutionally protected”, cannabis growers in Colorado. They literally ride around in cop cars with the Feds kicking in doors and arresting citizens for cultivation. You might be asking yourself what is so unusual about that? Nothing really, considering the long history of prohibition. However in Colorado a constitutional amendment was passed to eliminate prohibition. The citizens even demanded that a tax base be included for “legitimate” tax paying business owners. The state passed excise taxes on cannabis and have collected over $900
million in taxes. Taxes being paid by legitimate business men in Colorado but who are also mere criminal drug dealers under Federal Statutes. See here is exactly where the slippery slope is in selective enforcement. The State Officials, that collects $900 million in illegal schedule 1 drug sales monies are not being indicted under Federal Drug Charges or RICO Statutes. Apparently those officials are above Federal Law. Even tho they are coconspirators selling schedule 1 drugs (cannabis) in Colorado and collecting revenue, over $900 million. The State and Fed agents routinely rout out large scale cannabis grows in Colorado that don’t pay taxes and label them as cartel grows. The Feds are able to seize all the assets while the State of Colorado eliminates another non tax contributing grow. These are merely MOB tactics executing selective enforcement of State or Federal law. And you might still be asking yourself what is unusual about that? The States Constitutional Amendment A64 was passed to protect Colorado Citizens from criminal prosecutions stemming from cannabis and place in in the hands of legitimate business men. But when analyzing the selective enforcement in the Sweet Leaf case it becomes apparent that your constitutional rights are null and void when the State works with the Feds to prosecute you for cannabis in Colorado. Licensed or not. If the Sweet Leaf owners, managers, and employees continued to defend their constitutional rights under State Law in Colorado which in all likelihood would prevail. They would be doing so from a Federal Prison after the Federal Criminal Case and Bob Troyer had convicted them of distribution. In all likelihood a slam dunk for the FEDS with undeniable METRC records of all the cannabis the centers had ever sold. Information demanded by the State of Colorado to be
documented in order to hold a license to distribute cannabis in Colorado. While local officials including lawmakers that pass statutes that violate the states constitution remain above the law in their actions of collecting schedule 1 tax dollars and continuing the war on cannabis in Colorado. They collect and spend at will tax dollars generated by growing cannabis with impunity while tax paying business men and women at Sweet Leaf catch cases by way of selective enforcement for showing up and executing their jobs. Today, January 25th 2018, the owners of Sweet Leaf go to court to hear their options and presumably to take a state plea deal under the threat of being prosecuted by the Feds. Edited: just got word they took a one year in jail plea deal to add to their 21 million in asset forfeiture. #taxedNOTlegal Bob Troyer opinion:
https://www.denverpost.com/2018/09/28/ colorado-marijuana-commercialization/ https://www.westword.com/marijuana/ sweet-leaf-budtenders-in-looping-case-seecharges-dismissed-10427677 https://www.westword.com/marijuana/ sweet-leaf-execs-now-in-denver-jailfor-roles-in-marijuana-looping-scandal-11035055 https://www.westword.com/marijuana/ sweet-leaf-owners-accept-plea-over-looping-charges-get-one-year-in-jail-11199046
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By Mother Shabubu ARIES
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It’s time you start exercising and looking after your health. Your energy levels are at an all-time low and frankly you ain’t getting any younger. Get off your ass.
If you put it into action, there’s a good chance you will success at whatever you attempt. Get over the procrastination and take a chance. Some fame and fortune might be coming your way but use it wisely. Windfalls like this don’t happen everyday. It’s up to you to take advantage of it and have a better future.
Tonight is a night to go out as your social allure couldn’t be shinier. If asked to go out, whether a meeting, a date or a party—by all means, do.
Lately things have been looking a little drab and it’s time for a drastic makeover. Whether it’s your own upkeep, or that of your house or room—it’s time to spruce things up.
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It’s time to start believing in yourself Scorpio. You didn’t get all these talents just to wonder what could have been. It’s time you found out. You’ve been looking at things the wrong way and risk losing many opportunities you didn’t think were even there. Nobody will be surprised if you succeed in a big way.
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Confidence and energy are sky high—nothing seems impossible and you’re right. But, it’s also important to not allow this newfound invincibility to get in the way of relationships.
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THE CANNABIS TRAIL
a column celebrating the cannabis legacy of northern California
WORDS BRIAN APPLEGARTH
W
here I grew up, pot was as common as beer. It’s embedded in the culture. I am fourth generation northern Californian, and smoked my first joint when I was 13 years old. By the time I turned eighteen, I was traveling and studying abroad whenever possible. After earning my BA in International Studies at UC Irvine in 2002, I worked overseas and wandered. I became addicted to cultural discovery, it became a lifestyle. I have spent much of life abroad, exploring the corners of the globe, seeking out the most immersive and unique experiences. On my journey, cannabis naturally folded into some of my fondest of memories. It continues to do so. I moved back home to northern California in 2013. Through a series of trips up to the north Coast, I fell in love with west Sonoma county and Mendocino. The culture, the bohemian-leaning lifestyle, the close connection to nature, the small tightknit communities, the fluidity of time, the lack of cell phone reception, the redwoods and rivers, and of course the cannabis. It was also at this time, that I began dreaming of the evolution of cannabis travel and tourism. On my path, I met Pebbles Trippet, a legendary activist and cannabis pioneer. She introduced me to Dennis Peron, The Father of Medical Marijuana and author of Prop 215: The Compassionate Use Act. In my time with both Pebbles and Dennis, may he rest in peace, I have grown fond of the extraordinary cannabis history and rich cannabis culture of northern California. It is a story steeped in activism and compassion. It a story of margin-
alized groups, life under prohibition, and human rights. It is a story that includes power struggles, raids, communal living, and strategic court battles. It is an important story that deserves to be remembered and celebrated. The Cannabis Trail column is dedicated to sharing the cannabis legacy of
northern California. From Santa Cruz, to San Francisco, to San Rafael, to Willits, to Weaverville, we will virtually travel The Cannabis Heritage Trail, remembering and celebrating the important events, stories, and cannabis pioneers that fought for cannabis legalization we enjoy today.
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