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What is Colombian Gold 🟡 to you?

Lugo

Well-known member
Veteran
I have numerous articles and dates photos saved that would answer this question. “R the Dope Connoisseur wrote numerous articles about the subject.

I have been lucky enough to try a few amazing sativa strains that were reportedly Colombian Gold genetics. Great stuff. All of them were. However they are way out of my range of nostalgia.

Guijira Gold, and Santa Marta. Those two names ring out and help differentiate true Gold from Fools Gold. Fools Gold is worth talking about too. Once upon a time anything that was gold sold at a much higher price than standard weed. (Anyone remember the Purple Rush of the 00’s?)

Fools Gold ended up ruining the reputation of real Gold. There was a small percentage of real deal Colombian Gold that was sold, and then the massive multi ton shipments that came in the following years were of a much lower quality.

Unfortunately very few old timers left who really smoked the true Colombian connoisseur shipments.

 

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Lugo

Well-known member
Veteran
That photo is from High Times in the 70's. Probably sun dried, goinggrey. Marketing tactics, I'm sure. It really stood out when you saw it
Marketing tactics jaja are you serious? If you've ever grown outdoors you'd realize how normal gold is in drying and more so back then. The marketing tactics are WAAAAY more prevalent now than before! Google Colombian Gold or even look up Panama Red, all you really get is the name
 

Rembetis

Active member
Yes, I am serious. Whatever they could do to jack up the price, they did it. Its not a new tactic. If the demand in the States was for gold then thats what they sent. Growers got paid regardless of the quality. Whats so hard to understand about that?

Yesum I dont think there are many of us on here that were around in those days. I remember guys breaking up bricks and letting them fluff up before weighing them so we did get buds like in the photos. The bricks we got werent always mashed down hard. The ones that were had mold and didnt bring much. Thats what we'd get when the droughts hit and weed was scarce.

Hello Funkyhorse. Been a long time since we have talked. I cant say that someone wasnt growing Colombian or fake Colombian. Most people didnt have the knowledge about the plant to grow back in those days. Plenty of people threw bagseed out hoping for something to happen but the climate in most parts of the states isnt right. We had no idea about differences between Sativa and Indica. In my part of the country no one had heard if Indica. We hadnt seen the hybrids yet. All we knew was names we were told by the dealers. We didnt have grow lights other than old flourecent bulbs so it was not at all like it is today. I moved out west in 81 and was exposed to "indica" for the first time and not long after the hybrids showed up.

Another thing about growing in the States. California may have had plenty but in my area we would have droughts every so often where weed was unavailable until a load or even the latest harvest got thru. We could go months without it and the price would sky rocket if you could find it. $100 1/4 oz. Outrageous money for back then. But then again, the guys running the stuff around the country paid a heavy price for getting caught
 

Mtn. Nectar

Well-known member
Veteran
smoked a lot of in 70’s…one of the best highs …..always got one in a positive mood with non-stop laughter……and yes it had a distinct gold color to it…..
grew seeds out in Santa Cruz Mtn’s….could never get the quality of high though…..
ganj on…..
 

Lugo

Well-known member
Veteran
Back in the days Colombian could be Mexican.
From High Times 1979, article about Colombia.

View attachment 18817898
Well I don't know what that little snippet is supposed to mean lol but common sense tells you that theres a very big difference between how you handle, pack and ship a product for crossing an overland border and transporting that same product over land and sea by boat or by plane. My guess it took them (authorities) a while to figure out that the marijuana coming in (possibly through the gulf of mexico) was actually Colombian and not Mexican.

(Colombian Indica? 😅)

"Colombian could be Mexican"? More likely its the other way around. I'll bet (and i've seen) that most of the traditional looking 'sativas' from some parts of Mexico are in fact Colombian. Just like the larger population of Jamaican 'sativas' were found out to be in a not too old University study by a Jamaican University.


It seems to me that some folks are dead set on rewriting history and shoving an 'Indica' past into Colombian Cannabis history and ignoring the 'sativa' influence upstream into everything else.

If Colombian Cannabis had a passport how many stamps and portķs of entry would it have 🤔?

✌️😉
 

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yesum

Well-known member
ICMag Donor
Veteran
To confuse things further, there were central and south american countries exporting pot. Most of them I think. If you were a farmer you could earn several times more money for growing pot, and seeds were not hard to come by in those days. hehe In each bag you bought.

The Colombian I had was a distinctive incense smell and taste. No Mexican was like that or any other kind. I suppose you could take Colombian seed and grow it in Mexico. Different latitudes but maybe do ok.

Hawaiian was another where people thought Mexican was being sold as Hawaiian.

Lebanese got mixed into Mexico early seventies. I recall one guy on the net wishing he had some buds from Ecuador or some other place like that. Highest quality he ever had.
 

Maggotbrain

Active member
There is a book out called "Marijuana Boom" by a historian named Lina Britto. She is originally from Colombia and has relatives in the Santa Marta area. She did many interviews with people who were in the business and local officials and she laid it out like this. Colombia didn't have much of a a marijuana culture to speak of. Marijuana was brought to Colombia from Jamaica in the 20's by United Fruit banana plantation workers and it's use didn't really spread to the Colombian population because middle class Colombians looked down on it. Nonetheless the plant did take root and by the 60's there were about five different distinct varieties including a gold variety. In the early 70's American smugglers brought Mexican and Hawaiian seeds and "agronomists" to Colombia and they crossed them with the local gold and began marketing them as Colombian Gold in the US. The original gold variety was had an outstanding high before the breeding but they wanted to increase the yield with the Sonora Mexican genetics and improve the taste with the Hawaiian. The outcome was commercial Colombian in the late 70's / early 80's and it had a great high. It was like being wrapped in a warm comfy blanket of happy. I smoke it from '76 through the 80's and like Yesum said it had a very distinct taste and smell. People have described it as "sandalwood". The CIA estimated that 85% of the weed coming into the US around 1980 was Colombian. Later on things came from many different Central American and Caribbean countries. By the mid 80's they said Belize was the fourth largest supplier to the US behind Mexico, Colombia and Jamaica. But I never heard anyone offering fine Belize Breeze back then. I was just in Belize a couple of months ago and you can still get a fine locally grown sativa that was compressed and cured the old way. At least it smelled and tasted similar to the old stuff. I grew bagseed outdoors for a decade or so before I switched over to growing hybrids in the late 80's. I always missed that great Colombian high and a couple of years ago I came across a guy who had collected seed in the 60's 70's and 80's and I bought what he had. He was in the business and helped dealer friends break up their loads from bales, so he had access to a huge variety of weed. Of the first 72 seeds I sprouted only a couple were duplicate varieties. One is very special to me. It is one of the old commercial Colombian varieties and has the same taste and high as the old stuff. That sandalwood flavor is not from the cure, it's in the genetics.
 

motaco

Old School Cottonmouth
Veteran
According to the Saltwater Cowboy he said on a podcast that in the early years he would unload unload smushed weed, but not bricked. A few years later they were using 50lb bales. He was under the impression that a new consumer item called the trash compactor had made the same uniform sized blocks. He said the first loads were much smaller, then with the bricked weed they did multi ton loads on the same ships. Compacting it allowed for much larger loads.
 

mexcurandero420

See the world through a puff of smoke
Veteran
Well I don't know what that little snippet is supposed to mean lol but common sense tells you that theres a very big difference between how you handle, pack and ship a product for crossing an overland border and transporting that same product over land and sea by boat or by plane. My guess it took them (authorities) a while to figure out that the marijuana coming in (possibly through the gulf of mexico) was actually Colombian and not Mexican.

(Colombian Indica? 😅)

"Colombian could be Mexican"? More likely its the other way around. I'll bet (and i've seen) that most of the traditional looking 'sativas' from some parts of Mexico are in fact Colombian. Just like the larger population of Jamaican 'sativas' were found out to be in a not too old University study by a Jamaican University.


It seems to me that some folks are dead set on rewriting history and shoving an 'Indica' past into Colombian Cannabis history and ignoring the 'sativa' influence upstream into everything else.

If Colombian Cannabis had a passport how many stamps and portķs of entry would it have 🤔?

✌️😉
The word indica does not mean broad-leaf in this case, but in the term from India.
Colombia got big in production later in the 1970s, mainly to the Paraquat campaign of Mexican forces with help of the USA in the 70s.

Field in Colombia in 1978
user65088_pic204742_1256701610.jpg


One of the main reason of the start of the prohibition of Cannabis in the US in 1937 was to stop the flood of Mexicans into the US and most of the Mexicans were also smoking marijuana.Anslinger was asked by States like California to do something about it.In NY there was no problem with marihuana at all.

Probably Portuguese traders and Jesuit priests who were interested in the medical value of Cannabis brought Cannabis to Mexico.Portuguese traders were responsible for the introduction of the red pepper to India.
 

Loc Dog

Hobbies include "drinkin', smokin' weed, and all k
Veteran
According to the Saltwater Cowboy he said on a podcast that in the early years he would unload unload smushed weed, but not bricked. A few years later they were using 50lb bales. He was under the impression that a new consumer item called the trash compactor had made the same uniform sized blocks. He said the first loads were much smaller, then with the bricked weed they did multi ton loads on the same ships. Compacting it allowed for much larger loads.
A lot of the bricked had cracked seeds which ruined the taste.
 

yesum

Well-known member
ICMag Donor
Veteran
I was going to mention the same on the M1 carbine. hehe I used to have a carbine but not modified like that. That barrel has been shortened as well.

I am assuming the pot you mentioned with cracked seeds was during the seventies or later Loc Dog? Salt water cowboy, that was another book I read. Drowning of the cows did bother me, otherwise a great read.

Super interesting maggotbrain. Thanks for the info. It sounds legit. The taste being in the genetics is something I did not know. redrider who is in Colombia now, thought the curing process was the answer to that smell and taste.

The Colombian '72 from USC is I think, very legit. However, it does not have that heavy incense smell at all. Lots of blending of strains over time and evolving situations make it difficult to exactly figure it all out. Along with secrecy due to illegality.

I never heard from anybody with Belize,Paraguayan etc. weed either back then. Just Mexican and Colombian from central or south america. I have no doubt the other countries did import some though.
 
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Loc Dog

Hobbies include "drinkin', smokin' weed, and all k
Veteran
I was going to mention the same on the M1 carbine. hehe I used to have a carbine but not modified like that. That barrel has been shortened as well.

I am assuming the pot you mentioned with cracked seeds was during the seventies or later Loc Dog? Salt water cowboy, that was another book I read. Drowning of the cows did bother me, otherwise a great read.

Super interesting maggotbrain. Thanks for the info. It sounds legit. The taste being in the genetics is something I did not know. redrider who is in Colombia now, thought the curing process was the answer to that smell and taste.

The Colombian '72 from USC is I think, very legit. However, it does not have that heavy incense smell at all. Lots of blending of strains over time and evolving situations make it difficult to exactly figure it all out. Along with secrecy due to illegality.

I never heard from anybody with Belize,Paraguayan etc. weed either back then. Just Mexican and Colombian from central or south america. I have no doubt the other countries did import some though.
You are right about barrel. most pictures it is at least 8" beyond stock. Mine looks like halfway between the two. It is Winchester model, while Universal made more. As far as I know never fired. My father said he bought when leaving Army from surplus never needed.
 

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