[mofeta]

Originally Posted by Madjag

Yep, and don’t forget to mention that most of the weed available in Jerome, Clifton, and Globe was from Hispanic family members, Mexican relatives, and friends of friends and was surprisingly potent and not yet widespread in the rest of the USA. Read Jerry Kamstra’s book, Weed, for a detailed glimpse (with great photos) into this world.

Yeah that's what I'm talking about. All those little mining towns had killer Mexican weed, and a real permissive attitude towards it. A lot of those towns were like a little slice of Mexico. You mention Globe and I think of the green chile at Guayao's (the one in Miami). YUM!

I'm interested in the book you mentioned, how much of it is about AZ? Is the guy a friend of yours?

Originally Posted by Madjag

I spent many a fine evening in Jerome....Verde Valley

There were some guys (NOT the Jerome guys) growing SoCal genetics on the Prescott side of Mingus in the late '70s early '80s by the church camp up there. It was killer.

Originally Posted by Madjag

Unfortunately bragging and drunken expose engendered the massive busts of the 1970’s in Jerome, Centerville, and Sycamore Flats and brought continuous paranoia and scrutiny upon the Valley’s weed aficionados in the form of narc trainees as well as undercover snitches. The peaceful rule of hippies was threatened and advancing growers like ourselves had to be even more removed from the parties and social life that involved most of the alternate lifestyle folks. It got lonely, so we spent more time in the remote corners of the Mogollon Rim where we felt at peace. We were masters of our terrain and few, few ever ventured near.

Yeah we stayed away from those clowns. There were some "good" hippies there, peace and love and weed types, but there were a lot of "bad" hippies too- fucking speedfreak scum. Their lack of morals and disrespect of Catholicism made them persona non grata with most of the people I knew. I didn't know them personally, but I was told that there were locals from Cottonwood that had been growing since the '60s along the Verde, and were very pissed at the new guys with big mouths. I think if the Jerome guys hadn't been busted, bad things may have happened to them. (EDIT: I was referring to a certain bad element there in Jerome, I hope you aren't offended. I'm sure your guys were cool)

Originally Posted by Madjag

It’s strange that so many large movers of herb, peyote, real mescaline, and even LSD had a common bond through myself and Gerardo, AKA, Colombo Johnnie. It was Kevin Baconism before the Six Degrees of Separation were yet imagined. The Verde Valley was Arizona’s equivalent of northern California’s “Emerald Triangle” at that time and even then, oddly enough, we had deep ties to northern California’s chemists, smugglers, and cultivators in Redway, Shelter Cove, and Briceland in addition to New York’s Colombian network.

From what I saw it was the bikers that connected everything up. They were like a human internet back then. They traveled all over, and had a knack for finding the goods wherever they went, and spreading them to other places.

[Madjag]

My friend's upcoming eBook available on Amazon for kindle (PDF too?) is all about this journey. Partly fiction to disguise the guilty. He is a Wizard.

[billycw]

Really interesting to hear about the sub history of the area. Little before my time but have been to many of the places discussed. Always loved the area around verde hot springs would of loved to have seen it in its prime, jerome always has a great vibe everytime I've been and the box canyons around rye always caught my eye. Surprised flag hasn't come up yet, seems it has the most layed back feel in central to northern parts and a little more out of small town looky lou's. Cant wait to hear more, thanks for sharing.

[Madjag]

Originally Posted by billycw

Really interesting to hear about the sub history of the area. Little before my time but have been to many of the places discussed. Always loved the area around verde hot springs would of loved to have seen it in its prime, jerome always has a great vibe everytime I've been and the box canyons around rye always caught my eye. Surprised flag hasn't come up yet, seems it has the most layed back feel in central to northern parts and a little more out of small town looky lou's. Cant wait to hear more, thanks for sharing.

Flag was, and is, very laid-back. Partly the large student population and partly the weather.

In the 1970's Flag was more of the peyote and hash capitol than know for homegrown. The Native American Church, God bless their souls, kept close ties with a few of my buddies and I would venture to say that any cactus available back then was from one of two guys I know. Ditto for the world of hash - only two or three men were responsible for 90%.
Does the name "The Herbmaster" ring a bell?

Today Flag is a bustling, bad-traffic town, still at the edge of the Native Am world and probably much more of a homegrown town than it appears. The days of Mexi import have dwindled.

[Madjag]

During the mid 1970’s a number of enterprising young lads decided to grow their own smoke. They were tired of the typical mid-grade Mexi brick and moved to action because of the difficulty of finding a reliable connection for higher quality sativa. The hit or miss quality typical for the times just didn’t fly for those who liked to get high.

A close friend of mine had a contact he called “The Postman”. This guy was a retired postman (for real!) and would go down to the Mexican lake district below Douglas and Agua Prieta (AP) on fishing trips. He towed a trailer with a small outboard motorboat, the type most single fishermen used back then; it was aluminum, 15-22 feet long, with a trusty Evinrude strapped on the back end and a red-padded seat for the captain. The Postman had a bit fancier version in that it sported a hard aluminum covered front end, maybe only 3-4 feet of coverage, that was open to the inside of the boat yet offered a convenient stash area for extra gas, a cooler, and perhaps a trolling motor and battery. Typically if you looked in a boat like this you’d see some life vests and maybe a spare gas tank under this covered prow.

Every so often, in addition to his catch, the Postman would have roughly 40-80 pounds of primo herb, lightly pressed, stashed in this compartment. He didn’t hide it except to put his usual items in front of this cargo and drove through customs like he hadn’t a care in the world. The AP crossing back then and the American Douglas side gatekeepers all knew the guy and for at least 6-7 years he was my friend’s secret weapon, a totally reliable source of top-tier Michoacan, Guerroran, and Oaxacan herb.

Most of the Mexican weed was slowly but surely trending toward seedless over the advancing years. The smuggler/transporters from south to north in Mexico learned that it made a lot more money to move less quantity and higher quality. Later they’d do both and make a double-killing! Local Mexican growers with old-time knowledge, techniques like cultivating only seedless weed, sensimilla, in remote areas and distant mountain slopes, far enough from neighboring grower’s plots so the genetics could keep reliable potency, taste, and production, had unique strains that were often the basis for the first generation of southwestern American growers’ seed stock in the 1960’s through the 1970’s. The postman specialized in this kind of stash, my friend dealt it from Tempe, and I grew it in a remote canyon along the Mogollon Rim.

Roberto, my dealer friend, collected a magnificent selection of his favorite weed seeds from the many shipments he middled over a 3-4 year period. His dream was to eventually grow it himself and let go of the need to deal with the uncertainty of relying upon such a dangerous and fragile import scheme, even though his fisherman friend seemed bulletproof. The border was just starting to gear up over the immense amount of weed hitting the fence and the exponentially increasing numbers of gringos involved in the smuggling business. It took the border protectors by surprise and for awhile it seemed that the gates were open. Time was good to the Postman, as well, and he ultimately retired without a single bust or problem, probably a fairly rich man. Lucky for me that I was blessed to obtain some of the strains Roberto collected and that these initial seeds were top-tier. Luckier still was the fact that the resulting smoke we grew kicked ass and no amount we could provide would ever meet the demand.

California’s Emerald Triangle, north of the S.F. Bay, encompasses deep redwood forests, rolling green hills, year-round streams, lots of remote land with few towns, and a blessed year-round climate. Lots of hippies with time on their hands helped create the plantation boom as many, many moved away from big cities and homesteaded these hills. In 1973, coastal towns like Mendocino, Garberville, and other hamlets boomed with this influx. Guerrilla growing in this new Emerald Triangle of northern Cali coastal counties like Mendocino, Trinity, and Humboldt became a lifestyle for many and inspired others across the US to do the same. Articles on growing techniques, camouflage grow sites, water sourcing, and other related topics filled the pages of High Times magazine and reached tens of thousands of hungry teens, dropouts, and entrepreneurial spirits in the finest fashion of capitalism.

I was one of these young homesteaders. I chose Arizona instead of Cali. At the time I really didn’t know what I wanted to do as a “career” and was totally drawn to the adventure of being a mountain-canyon bandito, growing knock-out weed in the hidden realms of the labyrinthine canyons of Arizona’s Rim country. I had spent several years prior exploring the state, hiking and camping in dozens of remote wilderness canyons that were accessible by foot only, places that even very few hunters ever travelled in those days. I was mesmerized by the austere, rugged beauty that filled these places and the endless possibilities for exploration that were present as one canyon tied into another and then another. I had found my new home, my new profession, and my new love all in one big package. Little did I know that I would become one of the first few to begin a strange, exciting tradition in an area to become known as Arizona’s Emerald Triangle.

I had heard stories that there were a few hippies growing in rough-cut patches, mostly on remote private land, throughout the state. More still were planting in tucked-away properties in the rural areas of Cottonwood, Prescott, Arivaca, Aravaipa, Jerome, Payson, Centerville, Camp Verde, Sedona, Leupp, and Young. I didn’t have land of my own and even if I had, it seemed like a bad idea to grow there. No, for me it was National Forest, difficult to reach areas with little if any public lands ranching. I had done my homework and researched areas that might fit the bill.

One special canyon stood out. A long, long hike would be involved with every visit to the proposed growing site, however its remoteness and inaccessibility made it ideal. Could I really put in the effort and sustain the weekly energy required to make it happen? How could I fashion a lifestyle friendly to such an endeavor? Would my wife call me an idiot and tell me to split? At 24 years old I was full of determination and had plenty of time on my unemployed hands. Keeping enough cash to keep going and see me through daily life would become the most difficult part of my plan and not the actual guerrilla work program I had embarked upon. Paying everyday bills required a steady job and I had just signed up for a brand new one that only paid 8 months later at harvest…and then some!

Somehow my partner and I made it happen. We both worked funky jobs and became weedmen on the weekends. The plan was to quit our jobs at harvest so we could bring in the goods and reap the benefits. Balancing a daily job just wouldn’t fly so we had to get ready for the chance of success.

Northern Arizona has an outrageous number of canyons that are suitable for guerrilla growing. Names like Red Metal Canyon, Wet Bottom Creek, Haigler Creek, Black River, Fossil Creek, Sycamore Canyon (there’s at least 5 on the state map), Gordon Canyon, East Verde River, Houston Creek, and dozens more pepper the map along the Mogollon Rim, the huge 200 mile-wide escarpment that runs northwest to southeast across the middle of the state and delineates the southernmost edge of the massive Colorado Plateau. With an average elevation of 6500-7500 feet above sea level, the plateau has ample time and distance as it drops off into the myriad of canyons cut into its southern edge to facilitate either getting lost, being hidden, or providing for other ingenious ideas. And we sure had some of the latter.

The Emerald Triangle of Arizona is the rough area that ranges from Sycamore Canyon on the western edge of the Verde Valley to Payson and its many stream-filled canyonettes on the east and south down to the East Verde River at the north end of the Mazatzal Wilderness and following the Verde River proper west. This acreage spans across several counties and sums up an area about the size of the state of Massachusetts and Connecticut combined….roughly. If you include Mingus Mountain and Jerome as well as Prescott and its environs you could quote larger.

Few growers knew each other even though they might be working the canyon right next door, and in some cases growers were discovered to be planting patches in the same canyon many miles apart with entirely different access points. Busts eventually ensued because of loose lips and big egos, but our canyon and several more never had a hitch. One grower I knew had a small group from a Sedona hiking club pass right through his garden. Though taken by surprise, he sat them down and told them what he was doing and why. They promised not to spill the beans and he continued, amazingly to all of us who would have canned it, to finish his season and bring in the harvest. He had some serious Mojo and he was crazy to boot. Hats off to him.

To be continued….

[woolybear]

Awesome story mate, can't wait for the next segment. Subscribed!

[Madjag]

While the late 1960’s gave birth to a small and secretive guerrilla herb growing scene in Arizona, the 1970’s matured into a dependable connoisseur market of high-quality homegrown. Additionally several strong alternative plant scenes came to fruition as well, including the fast growing market for Peyote cacti and psilocybin mushrooms. Old School Arizona at its finest.

Strangely enough, the two young guys who were responsible for almost every Peyote button sold in the US, hell, for that matter in the world, were friends of mine who lived in the Verde Valley. Not to say that you couldn’t go up to the Navajo Res and meet someone in The Native American Church and score your own. You could if you felt lucky and had the time to hang out and be patient. However the many, many 1,000, 5,000, or 10,000 button orders during those years from every state in the union were filled from the 100,000, 150,000, and 250,000 button orders these guys received from Sam and his clan.

Sam was a peaceful man who led countless sweats, supposedly had built over 1,000 lodges in his life, and was a Road Chief in the Church. He had the Church’s Federal Import license in hand when he went down to Texas and either purchased there or crossed over into Old Mexico for the larger quantities the Church was increasingly needing thanks to the exploratory hearts and souls of a million young hippies hungry for the Peyote Road and whatever it might hold for them. Mescaline, and I mean real mescaline, not light LSD powders capped and renamed, was extremely rare, but again, the volumes needed for its production came solely from the Princes and their deep ties to the Res.

Can you imagine what 100,000 fresh buttons looks like, how much it weighs, and how much space that equates? It’s certainly a large pickup truck with its bed overloaded. One fine spring day I walked over to the younger of the two Prince’s house hoping to get in on an upcoming shipment that was soon to be in town. I shuffled through his crowded porch and knocked on the door, hoping to be one of the first to catch a glimpse of what was reputed to be “a huge lot” of buttons. No one answered, so I turned to go. As I did I noticed the many burlap bags that I had moved around so unconsciously to get across his porch in the first place. The bags were fat and tied with loose ropes, some of which had fallen off the bags and exposed their cargo. Yep, Peyote. Yep, 20 or more bags larger than you could comfortably hold or get your arms around, like big color TV size bags. Yep, I was buzzing and looked all around to see who was watching.

The Navajos had come by and merely dropped off their cargo since no one was home. Later I discovered that this sort of delivery was not at all unexpected and allowed the delivery clan to keep their own schedules, schedules that did not resemble our timelines and certainly had a different energy involved. Right about then my energy was a bit different as well as I looked into a bag with sheer wonder and picked up a few cacti for examination. Though an absolutely brilliant emerald green on the inside, the buttons had a dusty outer skin from their recent removal from their southern high-desert habitat and from their warm, long distance ride to reach Cottonwood, their white tufts holding even more dust and dirt as well.

I had eaten Peyote before and remembered the difficult price of admission required of anyone wanting to journey this way. The totally alkaline taste and repulsive swallow-and-return-to-mouth echo of each bit you swallowed, the bright green juice that was more bitter than wormwood, and the dread that accompanied every bite as you saw how much you still had ahead. The Church tended to use tea and its concentrated Peyote extract as their selected method of ingestion. It allowed one to at least get a journey’s worth in your body before it tried to get out. Others I knew engaged in secret ceremonies like Peyote enemas, bypassing the gut and eliminating any vomit response. Not bad overall from what I heard and certainly easier to engage; just questionable for the new initiate wanting to know why they had to stick it up their butt to have their journey. Still others took dried buttons and ground them into powder, encapsulating that green-brown magic dust into horse caps (AAA size) and then having a swallow party.

Fresh buttons were the toughest to take in. Cutting a big, fat button into say, eight pieces, and then swallowing one after another with fast swigs of water was a plan seldom accomplished, or at least seldom accomplished without serious gastric reflux. Needless to say, I don’t know many folks that can honestly admit that they have eaten a nice journey’s amount, a typical 10 fresh buttons, without resorting to Cheezits, peanut butter, or some other element for masking the taste. This method, of course, was fraught with even more stomach issues in the long run. Seeing pulpy, green juice leave your inner gut like Old Faithful is one thing; seeing and getting cheese or P.B. in the mix slows the purification process and extends these unpleasant moments for what can seem to be an eternity.

Later I saw Lindy and asked him about the delivery. He seemed totally mellow with the concept of having 100,000 buttons on his porch even though he lived two blocks from the local police station. Events like these were expected when dealing with the clan. They lived without any fear attached to Peyote worship and use and if you were going to deal with them, you had to meet them on their level…at least a little bit. Your neurosis amplified in the face of their simple peace. You learned about what mattered in a new way. Life with the teacher Peyote would set you straight if you allowed it to.

And we did. The Princes moved millions of buttons to anxious hands and minds over the course of 10 years and the full extent of this distribution across the world is difficult to evaluate. If you were around then and shared in this bounty even once, you know that Peyote’s price of admission makes the experience all the more handsome once you reached that first Aha! moment and the trail to get there mattered no longer.

Peyote stories abounded among my peers in the Valley. In 1973 the cost of 100 buttons from one of the Princes or their close friends was a mere 25 cents per button or $25.00. A thousand buttons would drop to 10 cents a button or $100.00. My Prince friend Lindy paid somewhere in the fluctuating range of 3-5 cents per button in large lots like the porch drop. Two amigos of mine had a chemist client in Oakland that would purchase 50,000-75,000 buttons a pop on a bi-monthly basis. They’d pack their old Toyota pickup camper to the brim and drive non-stop all night to reach his house the next day. His gig was producing the rare and authentic pure mescaline sulfate, skinny, ¼” – ¾’ long crystalline spears that resembled the thin spikes used in the game “Pick Up Sticks” when you dumped out a dose onto a flat surface. I remember $3.00 hits of chocolate mescaline in 1970 Boulder but I now realize based upon its effects that it wasn’t real Mescaline but most likely a light dose of brown-colored acid capped in clear gelatin so you could marvel at its color. High-quality mesc, just like coke, is semi-translucent or clear, and costs a lot per dose, 10 times more than street hits of strong acid. Quality coke did it with thin sheets of shimmering flakes or tiny rock crystals, whereas real mescaline came in the pure form of transparent crystalline spikes and spears.

Tip: if you did what you think was Mescaline back in the day and your dose cost less than $15-$20, you didn’t do actual mescaline sulfate. The authentica was primarily visual in its effects and even at friendly wholesale prices, it cost way, way more than its lysergic cousins LSD or dried psilocybin powders. I once spent somewhere in the neighborhood of 8 hours laying on big flat boulders next to Aravaipa Creek near Klondyke, watching the water flow by, up close and personal like 15 inches away. The color refractions from spray mist and the bubbling water reflections kept me within a 100 foot square area for the whole day, alternating my gazing into the narrow, rocky creek with lying on my back and watching the rich, green riparian shrubs and trees, surrounded by 200 foot vertical cliffs, topped with ascending layers of even steeper rock walls.

It’s all so subjective of course, however if I had to summarize Mescaline I’d say it was like Peyote without the Teacher. It contained you with your senses, but it didn’t speak to you with a clearly individual voice like buttons.

Medicine, as my Navajo friends referred to it, had a voice and it often sounds like yourself thinking out loud. But wait, it also sees everything in its naked state. The voice points this out. It’s not just you projecting, there’s something else. And when you sleep next after your journey you awaken the next day to a state that is even clearer than the day before you ate the Medicine.

Fill in the blanks if you truly know. And thank the Princes for their passion.

[Hash Zeppelin]

^ Very cool story Madjag. thanks for sharing.

Originally Posted by mofeta

Hi Phillthy
If it was a while back it was probably from Mexico. Not many people are aware of it, but a lot of the good weed they were smoking around the country was from Mexico, coming through Arizona.

Most people in the midwest and east thought of the brick schwag that comes through Texas when they thought of Mexican weed. What they didn't know is that really fine herb from Mexico came through Arizona. A lot of weed sold in the US as being from Callifornia in those days was really from Mexico.

oh the brick shwag. I am from Texas originally, and boy did we get the brick. When they call it dirt weed they aint kidding. we would have to make hash out of some of it some times because it was so damn dirty.

However there was some very very nice mexican weed they would give us only like a pound at a time, that we would keep for personal stash and friends. we even got a purple batch a few times. The good stuff was always frosty and smelled spicy and had under tones of paprika and red peppers. I kept any seeds I founds and grew them out over the course of a decade in various closets and back yards. Those bitches were sativa for sure. They got huge, had super skinny fingered leaves, and the buds were fox tail, super bright green, and orange hairs. they never got dark red. Also they loved coffee grounds in there compost.

[Madjag]

Originally Posted by Hash Zeppelin

^ Very cool story Madjag. thanks for sharing.




oh the brick shwag. I am from Texas originally, and boy did we get the brick. When they call it dirt weed they aint kidding. we would have to make hash out of some of it some times because it was so damn dirty.

However there was some very very nice mexican weed they would give us only like a pound at a time, that we would keep for personal stash and friends. we even got a purple batch a few times. The good stuff was always frosty and smelled spicy and had under tones of paprika and red peppers. I kept any seeds I founds and grew them out over the course of a decade in various closets and back yards. Those bitches were sativa for sure. They got huge, had super skinny fingered leaves, and the buds were fox tail, super bright green, and orange hairs. they never got dark red. Also they loved coffee grounds in there compost.

Friends of mine once received a load that was destined for someone else. It had interesting labels on every 25 lb cellophane wrapped bundle. Either it was a mistake or they were pissed at the guys who were supposed to get the load and sent it to someone else on purpose. My friends laughed all the way to the bank: it was high-quality sensi, way beyond the usual OK but not great brickweed they were getting.

Odd mixes of herb started circulating in those days, 1979-1985. One load would be Holy Grail Michoacan or Oaxacan while the next would be average Joe, though sensi it lacked any depth or power.

My friend's saying went like this: "Never take everything they send you because once you accept a load and specific quality, they'll send you the lowest quality that they know you'll accept."

[Madjag]

On the Gas-Powered Pump thread I posted a few of our methods used over the years while guerrilla growing in Madjag Canyon. I'll probably develop it a bit more and post it here.

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=50389&page=10 #post4994231