[soundman]

I miss the road kill skunk and thai bud from the early to mid eighties.

The real deal red leb and black afgan hash too.

[Ignor_Amus]

Wow. This thread really took me back for a trip down memory lane. Thanks Guys!

Southern Cal scene:
Early to mid 70's the baseline was 3,4, or 5 finger lids. $10-$12, or $15 for "the good stuff" All nasty by today's standards. Brown compressed Mexican commercial stuff filled with seeds and stems. Probably some grasshoppers too. Tasted like the field workers pee'd on it and maybe wiped their ass with it too? The "good old days" indeed!

Oaxacan weed showed up, which was better. Much better.

Columbian, both regular brown, and sometimes gold or red started to show up later, retailing for maybe $20-$30 per ounce. Pretty good stuff. But then....

But then, one day a friend shows up with a small bag of fluffy green leafy buds. Something called Sensimilla Seedless. Grown right here in California. OMFG. What a revelation. What a flavor. What a high! And no seeds? WTF? It was like it came from a different planet. And it was out of this world expensive too. IIRC it was $40-$50 per ounce. But worth every penny.

Then the Thai sticks came. Whoa! First the little sticks, then the big ones. Didn't matter the size, it was simply outstanding. Knock you on your ass, and you wouldn't get up. Couldn't get up.

And hash? Yeah, blonde Lebanese, red Leb, some greenish yellow powdery stuff from who knows where, but then came the black Nepalese finger hash. Another OMFG! The flavor was out of this world - nothing like it before, and nothing like it since. Rumors of teenage Nepalese girls running naked through the fields collecting the gooey trichomes on their skin and rubbing it off into those dense little logs of hash. Sounds like bullshit, but it was good marketing at the time. But the truth is the product spoke for itself - no "marketing" needed. Oh, and sometimes there was opiated black hash available. Another "wow". A very different wow.

Early black hash oils were pretty awesome too. Tasty, and it would practically make your lungs explode like a bad sci-fi movie. The golden hash oils that came later were a bit more refined, both literally and figuratively.

Then came Paraquat contaminated crap. Enough said about that. But those anti-weed efforts during the early 80's were paying off, and there was a drought so bad that even the most well-connected people COULD NOT get ANYTHING! That's when I first started growing, using an early hydrofarms setup using a bunch of rubbermaid busing trays and a "sun circle" with 3 parabolic reflectors.

I got seeds through the mail from a place simply called "The Seed Bank". IIRC it was in the Netherlands? I was scared shitless about getting them mailed to me, but I did get them. A few different varieties. I remember some of them: "Pure Afghani" was one, and some Northern Lights. There were some others, including a sativa, and another one from some god-awful northern latitude that was supposed to start budding on it's own no matter what the light cycle was. But I don't remember the names.

I also cross-bred a lot of those and some came up with some amazing results, even though I didn't know what the fuck I was doing. I just kept logs of growth characteristics, yields, and quality. All those genetics were lost though, because I stopped growing around 1992 or so.

So that's my little trip down memory lane. And now I'm back. I haven't been involved in this "hobby" for a long, looooong time, except I engineered a 20-light grow for a friend about 10 years ago. Did such a good job that a canine cop could have come up to the place, sniff around, and the only thing it would do is maybe pee on the building and then walk away. Stealth. Total Stealth.

It's a different world now I guess. Still can't wrap my head around it being legal or quasi-legal. I went to a hydro store to look at stuff for the first time in over a decade, and I still parked 3 blocks away. Old habits and paranoia die hard I guess.

Thanks for letting me ramble....

[Ignor_Amus]

Jeez - I forgot to mention the first Skunk weeds. At first, some people hated it because it was almost impossible to hide it. Funny.

And I also had a line on true Hawaiian top-grade sativa in the late 70s to early 80's even though I was on the mainland. A friend of one of my older friends was an airline pilot. He brought a pound at a time, inside his pilot's bags. Seriously. No bull. Can you imagine that in today's environment? So maybe those WERE the good old days!

[Soulrebel239]

My favorites from back in the day were thai sticks and panama red. The first time I seen the thai sticks I did'nt even know how to smoke them lol. You know they had that string around it on those pop sickle sticks. Those 2 and some Tampa nugget blunts.

[yesum]

Originally Posted by Ignor_Amus

Wow. This thread really took me back for a trip down memory lane. Thanks Guys!

Southern Cal scene:


Oaxacan weed showed up, which was better. Much better.

and there was a drought so bad that even the most well-connected people COULD NOT get ANYTHING!

I was around mid seventies on. So was the Oaxacan as good as Colombian, not so much in strength but quality of stone? I never got the Oaxacan and am trying to make up for lost time. The Colombian was good and the sensimilla or redhair was good but not better than good Colombian imo.

That drought you mentioned must have been in 86. I could get pot then and had some but yeah, choices were limited. I remember Reagan was happy about the shortage and credited himself and his stupid 'war on drugs'.

I should say I did get Oaxacan in 86 but it was not the real trippy stuff, just good quality up high. The real deal was back in the 70's from what I hear. Also got real Hawaiian back in 86, trippy but too hyper for me to keep it. How I scored hard to get strains during one of the worst droughts is I knew someone that was connected to several dealers. Meth too but I wisely passed that by.

[Ignor_Amus]

Yesum, IIRC, the Oaxacan was just cleaner overall, with a very up buzz to it. Really quite nice, as it allowed you to keep your day going, but just put a little zing into it. Sort of the opposite of couch-lock weed. Tasted a lot better than the lower end Colombo's too. Spicy & a bit fruity.

Again, IIRC the big drought was '85-86. I exaggerated by saying there was nothing available. There was some stuff, but most of it was so bad that it was almost not worth smoking. That's what initially sent me into growing my own.

Before I started growing, the only reason I got anything decent during that Reagan drought was due to knowing some people with some Colombian connections. I don't know why they were still bringing in weed at the same time they were bringing in more profitable "products", but I'm glad they did! It was the mid-80's, if you know what I mean.

That was also the timeframe when the airline pilot was bringing in elbows from Hawaii. Still cracks me up to this day, the idea of a plane full of passengers having no idea what's in the pilot's "maps" bags. And no, he didn't toke up before flying. At least that's what I was told.

I'm completely out of touch with today's breeds and varieties. I just wish that I still had some of the genetics from those early "Seed Bank" seeds. But then again, I guess that all these years of breeding has produced some remarkable stuff. But even if I had a road map of what's what, how much can someone trust that your legitimately getting whatever strain your wanting? How much marketing hype is there versus real and tangible differences? Are there any sources of truly legitimate "heirloom" varieties?

[yesum]

On the heirloom strains I think there are legit sources. I got some good Oaxacan and Jalisco seeds from E$kobar, you can look him up. These were collected a few years back so not really heirlooms. Bodhi has what appears to be legit Acapulco Gold, which I am finishing right now. Looks just like old time weed ( loose leafy buds with thin leaves) and turns gold really easy.

ACE and Cannabiogen carry a lot of heirlooms. Punto rojo and Mangobiche, 2 Colombians as well as Central American and some Mexican crosses and others too numerous to mention. Underground Seed Company carries Colombian Gold 1972 and other heirlooms. Real Seed Company has some good ones.

Go over to the Landrace section here and take a look there. 'Marijuana strains and breeding' has a landrace section. Yea, I think most of these are legit old strains.

Jarilla from Cannabiogen was a prize. Old Mexican strain, took me back to the good old days. Trippy enough, fun, no paranoia and clean come down.

Chimera has a Highland Mexican 1972 x Blueberry that I just ran. Have not smoked yet but know the origins are real. Smells out of this world, hehe Trimmed and jarred it last night.

Use a white light if possible with these old sativas, not a yellow hps or colored LED. My opinion.

[yesum]

Skunkman by way of Chimera(look in his section) has old time skunk seeds and other old lines. These go back to the 70's I think. I remember that Seed Bank ad in High Times and almost got some back then but never did. Thought the DEA would be arresting me or something.

There are more breeders with good heirlooms, but some are not good, you will find the better ones by reading here.

[D3pthCharg3]

Awesome thread...everyone's contributions rock! Thanks from a nineties teen, boy do I remember the first time getting "Kind" bud...

[Jellyfish]

Thai stick
Redbud
Acapulco Gold