Questions for Sam the Skunkman on Hindu Kush Indicas

[Bluebeard]

Ngakpa, I believe the reference to hand rubbed charas from Chitral was perhaps a reference to charas made by westerners and imported by westerners from chitral to the west. I don't recall him stating that it was a traditional product. Its been a while since I last saw the book and perhaps I am thinking of a different part.

Perhaps I am wrong, and perhaps Sam should clarify, but I don't think he was suggesting that Yunnan was the original home of the species, but the original home of the Indica and Thai types. Still interesting but not quite as drastically original of a concept as it being the original home of the entire species.

 

[Dignan]

Isn't California where the species originated? You'd think so by the way folks out here talk. LOL

 

[Guest]

No, but California is where the modern era of cannabis began. Up until the 60s, hardly anyone in western society smoked cannabis, for half a century before that it had been creeping in from the fringes, but it was alcohol that dominated as the intoxicant of choice. Lots of elements of other cultures entered western culture around the same time as westerners began to travel and absorb other cultures - e.g. vegitarianism.

California was the first place folks began growing lots of different varieties of cannabis side-by-side and it is where all the modern varieties stem from (with the odd exception).

Americans tend to forget that smoking herbal cannabis really didn't take off in Europe until the 80s, before that it was a hashish smoking culture, herbal cannabis tended to be lower quality imported (usually from Jamaican or Africa in the Uk at least). Like Howard Marks says, one of the big reasons he startled smuggling quality weed into the Uk was that 'people, quite simply, were smoking shite'.

In holland, before Sam introduced US genes and cloning techniques they only grew two types of herbal cannabis - a purple type that had been in Holland for a very long time was low potency and tasted bad, and a lemony green type that was also low quality. Hashish was far more popular than weed in Europe, weed was imported types from places like Thailand, South Africa and Nigeria, sometimes very good but more often crap. This was why guys like Neville and Ben Dronkers went on seed collecting expeditions - they hadn't got any good quality seeds! Then a guy called Sam from California landed and along with a few other like Old ED, changed cannabis (for the better) in Europe for good. Shame the quality of hashish has fallen over the years though, I suppose as demand has increased, and the producers knwo they can sell us crap, they did exactly that - made a lot of crap hash rather than a small amount fo great hash. They actually make special, really low grades of hashish in Morocco just for us Brits, the Moroccans can't believe we will buy this shit, but they are quite happy to sell it to us. Then you have Afghanistan and Central Asia, all the hash from those regions has to travel through Russia to get to Europe, and nowadays the Russian criminal gangs are fucking with the hash en route, cutting it with other shit. It's actually getting very common in Holland to see adulterated hash on sale, and if it's common in Holland, you can bet that 90-odd percent of the hash in the rest of Europe has also been fucked with at some point.

The situation won't change as long as hash is illegal, I think you can attribute the fall in the quality of hash to the 'war on drugs' to a large extent. The only reason I can say I have actually smoked pure hashish is because I've made my own and know exactly what went into it! Don't get me wrong, I've bought some wonderful ieces of hash in the past, but I reckon a fair proportion of it was adulterated in some way.

 

[Guest]

Dignan, SSSHHH! Don't say anything to piss them California boys off yet. I haven't even begun to collect their goodies. lol

 

[Pops]

Dignan, you are correct. Cali is the natural home of cannabis. In fact,it is so common here that I even have it growing in my garage and master bedroom closet. The stuff is damn hard to eradicate. It seems the more I smoke it, the more it somehow reproduces itself and winds up in different parts of my house.

 

[Guest]

Lol @ pops

 

[Pops]

The Dutch have been mixing cannabis with their tobacco for a few centuries now, as cannabis was cheaper than the tobacco. Wonder just how strong the cannabis was back then. I imagine that the early hemp strains had far more THC than the heavily regulated hemp strains today.

 

[guineapig]

Here is a brief description of Cannabis taken from the 1936 edition of "The New Garden Encyclopedia"......not so new anymore, but i thought i would re-type the article in honor of Sam the Skunkman!!!!

"CANNABIS (kan-ah-bis): A genus of annual Asiatic herbs cultivated for centuries and in all parts of the world for their fiber, hemp. In the Far East they are also cultivated as a source of the narcotic drug, hashish; and in this country small patches are sometimes grown, surreptitiously and illegally, for the same purpose, under the name 'mariahuana' or 'mariahuana-weed.' The single species (C. sativa) has numerous forms that have been given different names. Some of these are occasionally grown in gardens as ornamental screen or background plants. Requiring no special care or soil conditions, beyond a good supply of humus and moisture, they are raised from seed sown in the spring outdoors or, earlier, in flats. The most comon type, known as C. gigantea, may attain 10 ft. or more."

The more things change, the more they stay the same!!!!

kind regards from guineapig

 

[Pops]

Never heard it called C. gigantea before . The tallest I have grown indoors were 6'5" and were hitting the rafters. Glad I didn't try a 10 footer.

 

[Guest]

Dignan, you are correct. Cali is the natural home of cannabis. In fact,it is so common here that I even have it growing in my garage and master bedroom closet. The stuff is damn hard to eradicate. It seems the more I smoke it, the more it somehow reproduces itself and winds up in different parts of my house.

superb

 

[Guest]

The Dutch have been mixing cannabis with their tobacco for a few centuries now, as cannabis was cheaper than the tobacco. Wonder just how strong the cannabis was back then. I imagine that the early hemp strains had far more THC than the heavily regulated hemp strains today.

Yup, they used the two strains I mentioned, the use of this local weed was greatest during WWII due to the scarsity of tobacco.

 

[Sam_Skunkman]

Purple is Paars in Dutch and that is what the Dutch outdoor variety was called in the 70's, but I grew it and smoked it and it was crap. I could smoke one joint and feel a little, but that was it, waste of time to smoke any more, it did not do any more.

-SamS

 

[ngakpa]

I'd fucking love to visit California again, and get to see all my cousins in Oregon after all these years... I don't think many of us Europeans have any appreciation at all for just what a diverse and out there place the US is... my one visit (business in LA) completely blew my mind... there was an atmosphere about the place that was totally unique - the sky seemed massive, and the pacific sunsets were something else too

still, just to balance things out, I bet you don't find much of this on the West Coast

Northern Afghan garda and charas - Sheberghan



... I suspect I've tried a few of those crap Dutch purple strains - kind of like a light migraine-esque effect, but not as eventful as an actual headache

 

[Guest]

This is where I got the info about the two Dutch strains from, I've read it other places too:

I could listen for hours, when Eddie Reekeder, founder and owner of the Dutch seed company The Flying Dutchmen, tells about the early days of the Dutch cannabis boom in the mid 80's, in which he himself played an essential role. Apart from the above introduced Australian Nevil, founder of the legendary Dutch Seed Bank, and Ben Dronkers (Sensi Seeds), Eddie was one of the famous three skunk pioneers who obtained a collection of superb true breeding strains in 1984 from an American guy called The Skunk Man. Amongst them the ground breaking Skunk#1, Early California, Haze, Thai, Mexican, Afghan and South African. At first, I rejected the skunk man`s offer, because he demanded extraordinarily high prices for his seeds, and we in Holland were not used to this. Until then, we had cultivated mainly The Purple and The Green Lemon in Greenhouses, and were fairly proud of these own Dutch creations. However, we did not have the slightest idea of the fact that the potency of our Nederwiet was worlds apart from the super strong US strains, Eddie reports. But The Skunk Man gave Eddie some free Skunk seeds, so that he could convince himself. After having grown the seeds, Eddie was not only convinced, but totally overwhelmed by the results of his first Skunk crop: It was immediately clear to me that these seeds would radically change the whole Dutch marijuana scene. These huge and extremely resinous Skunk buds were sensational, and their THC content and amazing aroma catapulted us into new dimensions. In addition to that, the plants ripened very early and showed great uniformity.

I'm not 100% sure, but I think all those pretty poor, vile tasting Dutch outdoor purple strains like Purple Power, Twilight etc. are the result of crossing their existing purple variety to other more potent and tasty varieties, I suppose it's a logical step to make a better hybrid that will grow locally - cross the new blood to the existing locally acclimated variety. I've grown a few Dutch outdoor purple strains, most recently Female Seed's Purple Power, and I couldn't smoke the PP at all due to it's awful taste - a mixture of week old dog shit, burning tyres and creosote, marginal potency too, just awful crap.

 

[ngakpa]

Ngakpa, I believe the reference to hand rubbed charas from Chitral was perhaps a reference to charas made by westerners and imported by westerners from chitral to the west. I don't recall him stating that it was a traditional product. Its been a while since I last saw the book and perhaps I am thinking of a different part.

Perhaps I am wrong, and perhaps Sam should clarify, but I don't think he was suggesting that Yunnan was the original home of the species, but the original home of the Indica and Thai types. Still interesting but not quite as drastically original of a concept as it being the original home of the entire species.

hey Bluebeard... (am I right in thinking that is you Hothouse?)... I don't have the book here, but I doubt very much that is what it meant... it would be very odd to bother hand-rubbing plants there when there are kilos of sieved hash about

I always thought the rank purple strains actually tasted like ink - fountain pen ink - maybe that was a mental association influencing the sensory experience, I am not sure, but that's what my memory says

bloody diskdrive is broken on this PC otherwise I would post a few crappy snaps of the Yunnan/N. Lao 'indica' buds

ah Bluebeard, here is what Sam wrote, first sentence of his reply to you when you posited the Hindu Kush as the likely geographic origin of the species:

"I don't agree but what the hell, I am pretty sure Indicas were developed from Southern China varieties in the last five hundred years, then moved to Afghanistan."

 

[Dalaihempy]

No, but California is where the modern era of cannabis began. Up until the 60s, hardly anyone in western society smoked cannabis, for half a century before that it had been creeping in from the fringes, but it was alcohol that dominated as the intoxicant of choice. Lots of elements of other cultures entered western culture around the same time as westerners began to travel and absorb other cultures - e.g. vegitarianism.


No offence but cali was 1 place there were many places cannabis was used and in western colture australia being one.

Marijuana or Indian Hemp?

To understand Cumpston’s complacency in the face of this Reefer Madness hysteria,
you have to understand that drugs policy in Australia in 1938 was based on the
British model and was firmly in the hands of the medical profession. In 1926, the
report of the Rolleston Committee in Britain had addressed the problems of opiate
addiction and drugs policy. Dominated by doctors, it opted for the medical definition
of addiction. Addicts were defined, not as the ‘dope fiends’ of the popular press, but
as ’a person who, not requiring the continued use of the drug for relief of the
symptoms of organic disease, has acquired, as a result of repeated administration, an
overpowering desire for its continuance, and in whom withdrawal of the drug leads
to definite symptoms of mental or physical distress or disorder.’ Addiction was
clearly seen as a disease — not as a vicious, criminal indulgence — and was treated
as such. As a result, up until 1953, doctors in Australia legally prescribed heroin to
addicts. As an adherent of this ‘medical model’, Dr Cumpston no doubt regarded
‘the evil sex drug’ hysteria with suitable disdain.1
While the word ‘marijuana’ was unknown in Australia before 1938, drug
cannabis was very well known. In the pharmacopoeias of the time drug cannabis was
listed as Cannabis indica. The name means Indian hemp, and the drug comes from
the leaves and flowers of a plant that had been cultivated in India for millennia and
which the Indians called ganja or bhang. Originally an Indian plant, its use spread,
first around the Indian Ocean, and then, at a later stage, around the Mediterranean,
becoming widely known in Europe only in the nineteenth century.
In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Cannabis indica was a well
known and widely used medicine in Australia; the drug that police would later vilify
as a ‘Killer Drug’ and an ‘evil Sex Drug’ was a popular medicine in Britain and its
Empire, and was even prescribed to Queen Victoria by the Royal Physician.
Although the police would later claim that cannabis had no known medical uses, it
was one of the most important medicines of the time, and was used for a wide
variety of illnesses.
The first major European work on the medical properties of the Indian hemp plant
was Dr W. B. O’Shaughnessy’s On The Preparation of Indian Hemp Cannabis
Indica in 1839. The Fifth Edition of the United States Dispensatory (1843)


The Reefer Madness Campaign
of 1938

In April 1938, the rather cluttered front page of the Australian newspaper, Smith’s
Weekly, was dominated by a headline that shrieked ‘New Drug That Maddens
Victims’. The article was subtitled ‘WARNING FROM AMERICA’ (a clue to its
author) and informed readers (in capital letters) that the ‘PLANT GROWS WILD IN
QUEENSLAND’. The plant in question was cannabis sativa; the drug, of course,
was marijuana. This article marked the start of an American-inspired Reefer
Madness campaign in Australia. It began:
A MEXICAN drug that drives men and women to the wildest sexual excesses
has made its first appearance in Australia.
It distorts moral values and leads to degrading sexual extravagances.
It is called marihuana.
Marihuana is obtained from a plant (Cannabis sativa) that has been
discovered growing wild in many of the coastal parts of Queensland.1
Although the article was attributed to Smith’s Hawaiian correspondent, a few
familiar examples from the Anslinger Gore Files indicate that the hand behind this
was the US Bureau of Narcotics, a fact subsequent stories confirmed. According to
the article, Cannabis sativa was growing wild in Queensland. Indeed there were
‘acres of it’.
There are places on the Queensland coast, some of them within a few miles
of Brisbane, where the long-leafed plant, Cannabis sativa, is to be seen
growing freely and in the districts further north it literally flourishes in many
places.
Not far from Flying Fish Point, six miles from Innisfail, and situated at the
mouth of the Johnstone River, is a patch of it which covers five or six acres.
Farther along the coast, near Babinda, it is to be seen in plenty - also around
Trinity Bay and near Port Douglas.
Much farther south, around Montville, it grows with more or less freedom, its
deadly qualities completely unsuspected by those who see it every day and
know it by one or the other of the vernacular names it possesses. Its
occurrence has been reported from Caloundra, lately become one of
Brisbane’s most fashionable holiday resorts, and it grows in profusion in parts
of Moreton and Stradbroke Islands.2
This article introduced the word ‘marijuana’ into the Australian language.
According to the article, cannabis sativa (marijuana) was a new kind of superweed
with the potency attributed to skunk in our era. The article stated:




Heres some intresting reading on the Australian cannabis sean.

http://adt.library.qut.edu.au/adt-qut/uploads/approved/adt-QUT20050512.091536/public/02whole.pdf

 

[Sam_Skunkman]

The difference between California and Australia was simple, Calif had Cannabis seeds from the world over, Australia did not, until the seeds started being sold internationaly after the 80"s. Also in 1970 the population of Australia was 12.5 million while the population of just Calif was 20 million. How many Australians were growing seeds from Columbia, Mexico, Central or South America? Africa? Middle East? Asian seeds yes, great Thais yes, but not from everywhere in the world, because importers took the best products to where the makets were biggest and the prices highest. That was California or the East coast. How much Mexican, Columbian, etc were imported into Australia in a year? About the amount that gets imported into Calif every day.
I don't live in California any more but I have no doubt where it started for many, California.

-SamS

 

[Dalaihempy]

Sam
The difference between California and Australia was simple, Calif had Cannabis seeds from the world over, Australia did notuntil the seeds started being sold internationaly after the 80"s.,

hiya sam infact we did have seed and from all over the world cali were not the only ones to have seeds mate.

The seed lines that came in like you sed from breeders like your self in the later part of the 80s but we had things here all ready plus comeing in by ship also mostly in ow dry sesons wich was from asia / africa and many more places i rember things from 78 up untill say the mid 80s when a lot of the large ship loads seam to slow up and stop.

From reading sam a lot of the thia cali got infact came there via australia and a lot of cannabis was grown here and shipet to the us also to take advantage of the large us market some saw and took advantage of here.




Sam
How many Australians were growing seeds from Columbia, Mexico, Central or South America? Africa? Middle East? Asian seeds yes, great Thais yes, but not from everywhere in the world, because importers took the best products to where the makets were biggest and the prices highest. That was California or the East coast. How much Mexican, Columbian, etc were imported into Australia in a year? About the amount that gets imported into Calif every day.
I don't live in California any more but I have no doubt where it started for many, California.

-SamS


Sam i personaly saw south american being grown in the 70s i saw acupolco gold as it was called grown i saw many diffrent types of cannabis grown here not just thia mate and that was before any seeds started to arive from urope i saw personaly lots of imported cannabis from jamaica / africa/ south america / hawiia and things i had no idear were they were from just new it was imported like i sed we had a lot of imported cannabis come in mostly threw ow dry times to cater for the domestic use wich was big when you think of the size of ow population we also got in lots of hash threw the dry spell also in short there was smoke avaluble all year round later part of the 80s it completly stopet to many started to get cought think it was becouse of the stronger boarder control put in place to stop the ilegals comeing in threw indonisia the hash was from asia and we also got a lot from lebanon and im betting moroco to.

Pot in Sixties Australia

Although prohibitionists like to claim that today’s hydroponic pot is twenty times
stronger than the ‘gentle’ pot of the 1960s, the truth is that the sixties were the
Golden Age for smuggling, and exotic pot like Buddha sticks, Sumatran Red,Durban Poison, Maui Wowie and Lebanese hash were common. Police and customs
were unfamiliar with pot, and there were many surfies, hippies and ethnic
businessmen willing to give smuggling a go.


One Lebanese man related how he smuggled a kilo of hash into Australia
wrapped in Alfoil. He was searched by Customs, his suitcase opened, and the
package unwrapped. ‘What’s this?’ the Customs man asked. ‘It’s Lebanese food,’
said the young smuggler. ‘We eat it all the time back home! Would you like to try
some?’ Disgusted by the powerful smell of this ‘Lebanese food’, the Customs officer
quickly rewrapped the hash and shut the suitcase!

In the sixties, the regime of prohibition in Australia was low and the pot scene
was devoid of the criminal element that would become pervasive after 1976. It was
run by amateurs, young people who were drug enthusiasts themselves.

Back in the ‘good old days of the counter-culture’, marijuana dealers were
regarded by most smokers as Robin Hood types, romantic urban outlaws
bringing the good stuff to the people. Some money was made by these
dealers but we assumed the prime motivating force was the spirit of a new
consciousness, not merely the carrot of fiscal reward.

Much of sixties drug-taking was purely ‘experimental’ and ‘safe’. For sixties
counter-cultural youth, addictive drugs like heroin and speed were ‘uncool’ and the
‘hippie dealers’ would not touch heroin; providing an effective border against heroin
expansion, which the criminal takeover needed to smash. The good sense of this
drug taking was encouraged by the underground press, which published many wellinformed
articles, including interviews with leading drug researchers like Timothy
Leary. Under current censorship laws, much of this content would be illegal today.

 

[Sam_Skunkman]

I really did not mean that no Australians had seeds from elsewhere but lets be honest, the amount that was imported from places, beside Asia, into Australia in a year was being imported into Calif every day. We are talking ships with hundreds of tons offloading to smaller fast ships that brought it into US waters.
Why would anyone from Australia go to S America or Mexico or Africa when cheaper stronger Thai stick and hash was so close to Australia? I mean that other Cannabis products were more expensive and a hell of a lot further away by boat. Don't make sense to me. That aside I knew hundreds of growers from Australia and they almost all told me they were growing Thai or Asian strains in the 70's I smoked some of them they were great! I am not saying that no one had any other seeds but most did not, while in America Mexican & Colombian were the mainstays, tons of seeds were shipped in each load every month for years and they were available to virtualy every grower in the USA, in the 60's that is what was grown, Mexican or later Colombian until Thai came around in the 70's. In the 70's every kind was grown in Calif. I had seeds from 100 countries most of which I collected myself or from good buddies that collected for me.
By 1978 USA growers had been growing seeds from dozens of countries for over a decade. And remember that the USA poulation is 10X Australia's.
Anyway it is all history now.

-SamS

 

[joaquin386]

Hi SamS,

I have two questions I don't know if it will be possible to answer them.

1- Your method to create your dry sift.
2- With the GC machine what do you put into the machine to analyse the males. Stems, Leafs, Resin, .........

Thanks