10 Odd Realities (With Pictures) About Growing Cannabis Plants

by Nebula Haze

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Table of Contents

1. Tri-Leaf Seedlings
2. Two-Toned Leaves
3. Buds Growing from Center of Leaf
4. THC-Filled Trichomes Can Grow Just About Anywhere
5. Some Buds Make “Fox Tails”
6. This is What Cannabis Roots Look Like
7. Some Cannabis Seeds Carry “Twins”
8. Vegetating Cannabis Plants Have an Amazing Ability to Heal
9. Bright Light Can Bleach Plants White
10. Cannabis Can Make “Sap”

• Bonus: Uncommon mutation – Plant naturally topped itself

Did You Know? – 5 More Fun Facts For Cannabis Growers

• Cannabis Plants Are Always Moving
• Cannabis Plants Can “See”
• No One Knows How Cannabis Plants Determine Gender
• Cannabis Can Grow Taller Than a Tree in Just One Summer
• Cannabis Seeds Can Germinate Almost Anywhere Warm and Wet

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Weird or What?

1.) Tri-Leaf Seedlings

Nearly all cannabis seedlings, no matter how the seeds are sprouted, will start with just two leaves per set, like the following:

Normal cannabis seedling (2 leaves per set)

Every once in a while, growers will run into a “trileaf” seedling. This is a relatively common mutation, and you’re likely to run into it if you germinate a lot of cannabis seeds. 3-leaf cannabis seedlings should generally be treated like any other seedling.

They will grow about 1/3 more side branches than regular seedlings, so a 3-leaf seedling might be a good candidate for cannabis plant training or a ScrOG setup.

Tri-leaf cannabis seedlings (3 leaves per set)

2.) Two-Toned Leaves

Two-toned leaves usually have split coloring in a relatively straight line. This mutation often affects just one or two leaves on the whole plant, though sometimes you’ll get a whole stem or part of the plant that displays this characteristic.

The two-toned leaves don’t seem to have much effect on anything, but it’s kinda cool looking!

I believe this happens due to a type of “variegation” (wikipedia link) and may be due to “sectorial chimera”. Other plants besides cannabis plants can have this happen, too!

Not to be confused with a nutrient deficiency, this mutation usually affects just one or two leaves on the plant. Nothing to worry about! Sometimes half of the leaf will turn purple….

More commonly, half of the leaf will turn light yellow or even white.

3.) Buds Growing From Center of Leaf

Here’s a normal cannabis leaf. Unfortunately, as beautiful as these leaves are, they normally contain no THC.

Normal Cannabis Leaf
(no buds growing from the base)

Cannabis leaves that are growing buds
(these cannabis plants have THC-encrusted buds growing from center of leaves)

This is a mutation I’d love to see on my plants one day 🙂 Though strangely placed, these buds are like any other buds found on the plant. You just get a couple extra buds encrusted with THC & trichomes!

The following leaf-bud has grown a single calyx with a few pistils

Here’s another amazing plant – imagine what you could do with all the trim!

The following nug is almost 1/2 gram – Talk about a bonus!

4.) THC-Filled Trichomes Can Grow Just About Anywhere on a Budding Cannabis Plant

Growers are breeding strains that produce more and more trichomes all over the plant.

Trichomes are small, glandular stalked resin glands that carry the majority of cannabinoids and THC produced by the cannabis plant.

A bud covered in trichomes will have an almost “sparkly” or “glittery” appearance. Cannabis breeders are selecting cannabis plants which produce more of these sparkly trichomes not just on buds, but on leaves and stems close to buds This is done with the purpose of getting more potency with the same amount of time, effort and space.

Crazy trichome closeup, thanks to Koma Trichome (find Koma on Facebook)

5.) Some Buds Make “Fox Tails”

Bud with little foxtailing – common with Indica-based strains
(buds are rounded out, sometimes one foxtail visable near top)

Massive foxtailing can be a genetic trait, and certain strains will tend to produce foxtails all over their buds no matter what. This seems to happen most commonly with Haze and Sativa-based strains.

This way that buds can grow is named after “fox tails” because the buds tend to grow in a rounded shape with the fluffy hair-like pistils coming from the end.

Example of healthy foxtailing based on genetics
(notice how there are fox tails all over the bud, instead of just at the top)

However, massive foxtailing is often the result of heat or stress. You know that’s likely the case when the foxtailing seems to be happening most in the parts of the plant that are close to a heat or light source.

When a single foxtail keeps growing longer and longer, it is almost always a sign of some sort of major stress to the buds, most often heat.

This massively long foxtail was caused by heat
(it’s basically a very long and thin bud, and will likely never fill out)

Here’s another foxtail that was triggered by too much heat

The following bud erupted with foxtails after a heatwave
(the plant also suffered from nutrient stress, which can trigger foxtailing on its own)

 

6.) This Is What Cannabis Roots Look Like

This incredible roots picture was taken by grower Ramon. The plant was first grown in hydro (with the roots grown directly in water), then transferred to soil.

 

7.) Cannabis Seeds Can Carry “Twins”

Twin tap roots can sometimes emerge from one cannabis seed. This is sort of like your seed having twins, because each new root has the potential to form into a separate plant.

“I had one of those on my first grow. Plant it, and once it sprouts up, you can GENTLY and CAREFULLY seperate the 2 plants and transplant one to a new pot. If you leave them both together, the stronger one will “starve” the weaker one, so to speak. When I split mine apart, they both grew nice and big :D”

~ J_Justice

From the grower, “When I got the seed it looked really deformed.”

“[Twin seeds are] fairly common. I’ve had some seedbatches that had ’round 30% ‘twins’. However, what I haven’t seen yet* is a set of twins that come out one male and one female. It’s odd, because the twins usually differ in various traits, they’re not really clones of each other. If one were to get a M/F pair of twins, an apomictic (wiki apomixis) cross could be made between the two, which would (in theory) produce a strain with stable traits in just one generation. “

~ duggreen

*yet has been 46 years so far….

 

8.) Vegetating Cannabis Plants Have an Amazing Ability to Heal

“This is a white widow a couple of weeks into flower, quite nice, but look to the bottom of the stem and you see a big ‘knuckle’.”

“This lady was snapped mid veg by accident. She was completely on her side and connected to the main stem by a few fibers and a sliver of ‘skin’. The ‘connected’ tissue was around 1mm, (around the thickness of a credit card).

“She was roughly taped upright with some very haphazard wrapping with electrical tape and forgotten about. Not only is she looking pretty good, (for a small pot and relatively modest light), she’s not at all delayed or less healthy than her sisters. I guess the message is never give up…”

~ DrWeedington

 

9.) It’s Possible to Bleach Plants With Too-Bright Light

Light Bleaching – most common with high-power LEDs, but can also happen poorly ventilated HPS lights that are kept too close to the tops of the plants. Basically, this is what happens when plants get too much light, kinda like how hair on top of your head can turn lighter if you spend a lot of time in the sun.

Buds which have been bleached tend to be low potency or even have no potency (no available THC or other cannabinoids). Therefore you should avoid light-bleaching your plants at all costs!

Sometimes light-bleached cannabis will get mis-labeled as “albino cannabis” or “white cannabis” but the truth is that the white color is not healthy, so this is not a desirable trait (even if it looks pretty cool).

10.) Flowering Cannabis Plants Can Make “Sap”

Sap – there’s lots of speculation about what it is. No one knows for sure. Many growers who have run into this agree that the type of sap produced is sweet and doesn’t contain much (if any) THC. It is mostly made of sugar and water and so is not smokable. Seems to be related to the plant over-producing sugars, and sap productions is more common when

• Using sugar supplements like molasses, Botanicare Sweet, Sugar Daddy, etc.

• Big temperature difference between night and day, especially if it gets cold at night

• Certain strains or individual plants seem more likely to produce sap

“Strain: Kosher Kush. Flowered her for 70 days and she was covered in trichs. When we harvested her we noticed about a dozen of these sap like globes. They range in color from clear to amber.”

~ DC514

“The plants had already been flushed properly – I let the soil dry completely and fed the plants 2TBSP/gallon of molasses, let them eat and then flushed them out again and waited 2-3 days before harvest. Both plants started producing excretions all over. I’ve seen this before, sap leaking from the stem of plants, however personally I’ve never seen it on the buds themselves. What I believe happened is the pores of the plants either get clogged and therefore “pop” for lack of a better word. Or, the plant liked the molasses better than it’s natural sugars and forced some of those out. Either way I’m going to try this on another plant and see what happens. Is there a benefit to it? Probably not, but I’m going to get the substance tested. I’ve ingested all of the little sap pockets I’ve found and while it tastes like canna, it doesn’t seem physchoactive. Who knows, it could be loaded with CBD or something else.”

~ SeriousSports

Stem Sap (more common) – often appears to seep out of injured parts of the stem, but not always! Sometimes sap seems to ooze out of uninjured parts of the stem.

 

Bonus: Uncommon mutation – Plant naturally topped itself

What’s interesting about this case is that the plant naturally did something that the grower would normally have to do themselves. Cannabis plants normally grow in a triangle tree shape, and growers often must cut or train the plant in order to grow more low and bushy.

Growers sometimes accomplish a low and bushy growth pattern with a plant training technique known as “topping.” Learn more about topping

Here’s two normal young cannabis plants, each with a regular growth tip (set of leaves) at the top:

Normal cannabis plants

So to get rid of this top growth node, a grower would normally cut it off, like this

Now the following plant had a strange mutation…

This plant randomly grew a leaf instead of a growth node, so it naturally topped itself, take a look!

View more pictures of this unique plant: http://imgur.com/a/PqpTu

 

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Check It Out!

Fact: Certain Strains Are Easier to Grow Than Others

3 Recommended strains for beginners

• Motavation – hardy and short strain that produces – even if you run into problems, she’ll bounce back quickly.

• Aurora Indica – potent indica that is easy to grow.

• BlackJack – get the effects of a Sativa or Haze with a plant that is actually suited to indoor growth, short and easy to train. BlackJack produces a potent soaring effect that hits hard, fast and is long-lasting – unbelievable number of trichomes on the buds and leaves. Suitable for medicinal purposes.

Beginners – Avoid these strains!

The following strains are considered “advanced” and while they produce amazing buds, thy tend to be difficult to grow and/or finicky

• Durban Poison –  Tends to grow tall and shows a variety of unusual phenotypes, can be tough to clone. You don’t know what to expect when growing a Durban Poison seed. This strain originates from Africa and buds produce a unique “up” effect. Buds tend to be incredibly potent though not often “pretty” in the conventional sense with longer sugar leaves. Unusually quick to harvest, especially for a Sativa-leaning strain.

• Jack Herer – Famous medicinal strain that is great for anti-anxiety, you cannot get the original Jack Herer strain as a feminized seed so you will need to buy regular (unfeminized) seeds and manually pick out all the male plants. Yields are on the smaller side but the quality of the buds produced are exceptional.

• Liberty Haze – Genetics are not completely stable and many growers report different growth types with this strain. Can stretch tall in the initial stages of flowering, though does seem to respond well to supercropping. Unique flowery scent with citrus lime undertones. Unlike what breeder specs state, this strain needs about 10-12 weeks in flowering before she’ll be ready for harvest. When grown right, this strain produces thick dense colas with THC levels above 25%.

 

Ready to Start Growing for the New Year?

Get Your Stuff!

First, choose your grow type…

• Ultra Small, Cheap & Stealthy: DIY Space Bucket
  Setup Cost: ~ $100
• Easy First Grow: Coco Coir & CFL Grow Lights
  Setup Cost: ~ $300
• Go Pro with HIDs: MH/HPS Grow Lights
  Setup Cost: ~ $400- $1000+
• Mad Scientist: LED Grow Lights 
  Setup Cost: ~ $400-1300+

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Did You Know? – 5 More Fun Facts For Cannabis Growers

Cannabis plants are always moving

This constant movement is something that all plants do, and is known as “Circumnutational Movement” (wikipedia link).

Nothing can really show you as well as watching a time-lapse video:

This video shows several incredible time-lapse videos of growing cannabis plants, set to music

View 10 more time-lapse videos of growing cannabis plants

Cannabis plants can “see”

Think about this: plants see you.

In fact , plants monitor their visible environment all the time. Plants see if you come near them; they know when you stand over them. They even know if you’re wearing a blue or a red shirt. They know if you’ve painted your house or if you’ve moved their pots from one side of the living room to the other.

Of course plants don’t “see” in pictures as you or I do. Plants can’t discern between a slightly balding middle-aged man with glasses and a smiling little girl with brown curls.

But they do see light in many ways and colors that we can only imagine. Plants see the same ultraviolet light that gives us sunburns and infrared light that heats us up. Plants can tell when there’s very little light, like from a candle, or when it’s the middle of the day, or when the sun is about to set into the horizon.

Plants know if the light is coming from the left, the right, or from above. They know if another plant has grown over them, blocking their light. And they know how long the lights have been on.

This is an except from What a Plant Knows: A Field Guide to the Senses by Daniel Chamovitz. I highly recommend this book if you want to learn more about plants and exactly how they perceive the world!

Read reviews about some of the better cannabis growing books available today

 

No one knows exactly how cannabis plants determine gender

Environmental sex determination is known to occur with cannabis plants. Many researchers have suggested that sex in Cannabis is determined or at least strongly influenced by environmental factors. Ainsworth reviews that treatment with auxin and ethylene have feminizing effects, and that treatment with cytokinins and gibberellins have masculinizing effects. It has been reported that sex can be reversed in Cannabis using chemical treatment.

Learn more about cannabis sex determination on wikipedia.

Learn how to use these unique properties to make your own feminized cannabis seeds at home

 

A cannabis plant can grow taller than a tree in just one summer

Here’s an cannabis plant that produced 11 pounds 3 ounces worth of bud – grown in a 400 pound smart pot and filled with Vermisoil.

Look at the base of a cannabis plant this size, it looks just like a tree trunk with bark!

 

Cannabis seeds can germinate almost anywhere warm and wet

Life Finds A Way

“My friend accidentally grew this in her sink. How is this even possible?”

Seedlings have enough energy (“food”) stored in the seed to make their first set of leaves. After that, they need light and nutrients to grow further. Unfortunately, this seedling won’t make it unless transplanted to a more suitable growing environment.

Learn how to germinate cannabis seeds right here

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Bonus pic: Closeup look at cannabis trichomes – some of these ones are touched with purple

http://www.growweedeasy.com/weird-or-what

Sex sells, Smoking hot

When the world was introduced to the act of smoking, Sex was one major selling point.

You’d find cigs being marketed all the way into the waters of marine biologists & ruff n tumble cowboys alike.

Then there were the handsome, slick haired debonair types that were sure to steal your heart through a few ‘oh shaped’ smoke rings. Alluding, “Come on baby, be sexy with me, let’s smoke.”

 

Today sex is used to sell anything and everything everywhere & still especially in smoking culture. So much so that we are now attempting to find the relation between many products of Cannabis industry & them having any association with sex what so ever.

It’s a beautiful thang when the sexually inhibited break out of the bonds of sensual mental slavery. Congratulations!

Sex, sexy, sexual, steamy, hot, desire…go ahead, own it!

Although sex has sold many cigarettes….the HIGH is what sells actual Cannabis.

The question has been raised, “With all the bong humping hotties all over the internet, How will Ganja Vibes separate itself from the rest while marketing sex toys in Canna culture?”

How will people know that Ganja Vibes IS IN FACT an adult novelty company which manufactures injection molded toys, some with electronics for your pleasure & having nothing to do with consuming the actual herb itself?

Some people ask, “Can you smoke out of any of the toys?” The answer- NO- UNSANITARY! THE ONLY REASON WE WANT OUR WEED WHITE IS FROM THC!

We understand how the concept of combining sex and weed with regard to novelty products may be confusing at first. This is a brand new niche market we have created. There’s no denying the correlation between the drug and sex cultures. It’s only natural that these two ‘no no spots’ combine to blow your mind. Or at least encourage you to get into the groove of blowing somethin.

Ganja Vibes takes you to your highest highs, with sex toys you can relate to. Love yourself, love each other, love Cannabis!

If you do happen to partake… a phone call or drive to procure your herbs is the usual jump off and the rest, the rest…

Images of Ganja Vibes toys coming soon, products available for purchase by this Holiday season!

Happy Saturday!

That face you make after you take a fresh tasty dab.

Baking Bad: A Potted History of ‘High Times’

The editors of the nation’s most popular pot magazine on its four decades-long fight to end cannabis prohibition.

Atossa Araxia Abrahamian

October 30, 2013   |    This article appeared in the November 18, 2013 edition of The Nation.

The High Times staff, circa 2005 (Steven Sunshine)

High Times was conceived in classic outlaw fashion. Founded by a successful pot smuggler and radical ’60s activist named Thomas King Forçade, it was intended as a one-time parody of Playboy, complete with centerfolds of exotic, voluptuous cannabis plants. But that first issue was a runaway hit, selling more than half a million copies and paving the way for what has become a stoner-American institution. In addition to the requisite grow-scene surveys, pot-price appraisals and joint-rolling tips, High Times has published writers like Hunter Thompson, William Burroughs, Charles Bukowski, Allen Ginsberg and Truman Capote. It also advocated an end to pot prohibiton at a time when marijuana users were being sentenced to years, even decades, in jail.Forty years later, the magazine has much to celebrate. It has survived the untimely death of its founder, the graying of the counterculture and the dawn of the Internet age, and even some of the laws that created the need for a pro-pot magazine in the first place. It has weathered various government investigations and attacks; founded its annual Cannabis Cup competition in Amsterdam and, more recently, additional Cups in a number of US states, which rank among the biggest marijuana festivals in the world; and published a series of books on everything from cooking with weed to cannabis spirituality. Most importantly, its vision of a day when pot is accepted, even legal, is now proving to be much more than a pipe dream.

We caught up with some of the current and former editors of the self-styled “most dangerous magazine in America” to talk about their role in the long, hard fight for legalization—and their hopes for a cannabis-infused future.

Rick Cusick (associate publisher): High Times was founded by Thomas King Forçade, the number-one East Coast marijuana smuggler in the late ’60s–early ’70s. He was a true revolutionary. He came up with the idea of High Times in 1974.

Michael Kennedy (general counsel): At the time, I was practicing at an office in a town house that a lawyer and I owned together on East 78th Street. Tom would come in virtually daily and talk about one adventure or another. Tom’s primary activity was flying pot from Jamaica into South Florida, sometimes into Georgia or Alabama. And he was successful at it. It’s why one of the original High Times logos is an airplane—it’s a mock-up of a DC-3, because that’s what he would fly, loaded to the gills with marijuana. When he founded High Times, he founded it with that cash—because at the time, you could take cash to the bank and open up a bank account. So Tom started this magazine with dope money.

Rick Cusick: Tom died in 1978. He killed himself, and the memorial was attended by lawyers, pot dealers, rock stars and more lawyers. They wanted to have a special memorial, so they rented the top floor of the World Trade Center so they could be as high as they possibly could. They went to the top of the World Trade Center, and the editors of High Times and Keith Stroup from NORML approached the family and got a small amount of Tom’s ashes. And they took the ashes from the founder of High Times and mixed it in with an ounce of marijuana, and they smoked it on the roof of the World Trade Center. And they took a little bit and tossed it off. So I work for a company that smoked its founder. That’s culture.

Michael Kennedy: We were trying to decide how best to subvert the anti-marijuana laws. And one of the ways Tom came up with—and it’s really the seed of genius of High Times—is teaching people how to grow marijuana. Because if, in fact, you can teach people how to grow, and there’s a First Amendment right to teach, they can start growing under any imaginable circumstances—from your aunt’s sewing basket to a drawer in your college dorm. All you need is a paper towel and a little bit of water, and nature will take care of the rest. If everybody who wants to grow can learn how to grow, then there’s no way the government can possibly withstand that subversion.

Steve Hager (former editor in chief): After Tom died, Michael Kennedy stepped in and saved the company. I came in several years later.… You can imagine that the magazine, for years, had just been people doing drugs all day long. People would come in for photographs, and the art director would do lines of coke in the art room, and people would be smoking in every corner. It was nitrous balloons; it was… talk about fog. It just couldn’t run like that. I wanted it to be a magazine that changed the perspective people had on pot, because at that time, people thought it was the same as cocaine. And I wanted to draw a line and say, “No, no, no—coke is on this line.” It immediately took off and went from teetering on the verge of collapse to selling the best it ever sold.

Michael Kennedy: We started the Cannabis Cup in 1987. Steve Hager went to a half-dozen growers in the Netherlands—we called them “the Dutch Masters”—and said, “We’ll sponsor a Cup here in Amsterdam. Why don’t you bring your very best seeds, your very best buds?” We weren’t too interested in hash or oils back then. Certainly, there were no real edibles or lotions at the time.

Steve Hager: At first, we were just sending little skeleton crews of three people, and the company didn’t want to invest money in it, so I didn’t turn it into a public event until the fifth year. And I had this concept that we were going to base all of our ceremonies around 420, which is something nobody had ever heard of. What had happened was, I’d been sitting outside the office in the stairwell—the only place we could smoke a joint at that time; now we probably can’t smoke at all—and my news editor, Steve Bloom, was carrying a flier he’d picked up at a Grateful Dead show in Oakland. It said, “Come to Mount Tamalpais on April 20th at 4:20.” So I’m looking at this paper, and it says that people are going to meet at 4:20 on April 20 at the top of Mount Tamalpais to smoke pot together. And I think this was anemanation, a manifestation of the spiritual powers of cannabis. Calling its tribe to its Passover, to its Sermon on the Mount—it’s our baby infant religion, and it’s forming before our eyes.

Michael Kennedy: Today the Cannabis Cup is good branding, quite simply. It allows us to meet the new generation, the young growers. They’re really young and vibrant, God bless ’em. And there’s an entirely new breed of growers who studied agronomy, and studied botany and chemistry, and they are true, scientific twenty-first-century farmers. And they’re developing some of the finest weed imaginable.

Steve Hager: It’s a different event now. It’s a corporate event, and it’s not like what I was trying to do. I was trying to do a real spiritual thing, and when you bought your ticket, you were buying into something that charged your spiritual battery, if you were into that. Most people didn’t ever connect to it on that level—but the ones that did, we connected. We had a fun time, and we manifested a lot of incredible magic through that.

Michael Kennedy: In the 1990s, we also developed, for a time, a [quarterly] magazine calledHemp Times. We were quite successful with that in terms of selling the magazine, and we even opened a store called Planet Hemp near the East Village. Our problem was that we were too early, because it was almost impossible to get hemp products then.

Dan Skye (executive editor): We were there trying to push this hemp thing along. We did Hemp Times for four years; we did eighteen issues total. All of us back then thought hemp was really going to open the door and make weed legal, and everything would fall like dominoes. Unfortunately, it didn’t—and what really has done it is medical marijuana.

Michael Kennedy: Tom and I talked a lot before he died about what we imagined the future of marijuana would be, but neither one of us caught on early to the real inroad—that would be the medical properties of marijuana. The research had not been done. So what we knew was that it had a high recreational value, and that we loved it and that many people loved it—but we never imagined anything beyond that. So if today, Tom came back from a desert island and saw the Sanjay Gupta show, he’d say, “Wow… that’s my dream.”

David Bienenstock (feature writer): For about three years, starting in 2010, we had a stand-alone publication about medical marijuana. Legalization is a huge story, but what we’re finding out about the true medical potential of cannabis is a huge, huge story.

Dan Skye: We used to be the bible of marijuana news. You came to High Times to find out about drug war news. And now we have a very successful website. We’ve got a new website director; we got 1 million unique web clicks last month alone. And people want to come to a marijuana festival. The fact that it’s legal for medical use in California, that it’s legal for recreational use in Colorado and Washington—we’ve had these tremendously successful events, the Cannabis Cups. There are Medical Cannabis Cups in places like California and Michigan, and US Cannabis Cups in Colorado and Washington. And I don’t think there’s a trade-off at all. Our magazine’s getting stronger—we’re adding pages. That’s unheard of in this time.

Mary McEvoy (publisher): I was just talking to our printer about the next issue. We got an additional sixteen pages. And after that one, we have our bong special, and we’re thinking about going up in pages for that. So I talked to him, and he said, “You’re the only publisher that I’ve talked to in years that is looking for additional paper to put in the magazine.” We’re not hurting advertisement-wise at this point. The whole media world out there is crying in their booze right now, but we’ve been very lucky. Our readers are very loyal, and our advertisers sure get a response from them.

Danny Danko (senior cultivation editor): Tons of companies are coming in to advertise. A lot of the vapor-pen companies, a lot of the hydroponics companies that sort of shied away from us years ago because they didn’t want that connection to marijuana, have come around because they’re just not afraid of the stigma anymore. That’s one of the things I think High Times has done a good job of—just removing the stigma of the “lazy stoner.” Instead, we try to show that whether it’s in the entertainment business or sports or wherever, we are everywhere. We are doctors and lawyers; we are throughout society and in every part of it. And I think High Times is one of the things that have reinforced the truth rather than the cliché.

Michael Kennedy: The key to High Times’s survival is that I’ve never let High Times break the law. Our clients have broken the law, and our business partners have broken the law, I suppose, and even our advertising people. High Times has survived a lot of grand juries and a lot of inquiries and a lot of attacks from the IRS and what-have-you, but the thing that almost brought us to our knees was in 1989, when the DEA advanced Operation Green Merchant to go after the hydroponics people. All of those advertisers, they were our advertising base. [Federal law enforcement agencies] also kept subpoenaing our subscriber list, and we refused to give it to them. We were threatened with contempt several times. But when they attacked our advertisers and took them out of business—that was the nadir of our existence. And it was really hard to come back.

Around that time, the joke around here was that law enforcement was keeping us in business. Every sheriff in the South had a subscription to High Times. The DEA had I don’t know how many hundreds, the FBI… so there were all these subscriptions.

Chris Simunek (editor in chief): Are they still spying on us? Well, if you’ve read the headlines recently, they are probably spying on all of us. I tell you, when those headlines broke recently and everyone was so shocked that the government was reading our e-mails, I looked at the whole thing and was like, “I always believed that they were doing this.” So I have always gone forward as if the government is reading everything.

Jen Bernstein (managing editor): Are we scared? I think there is always a fear. We went to Detroit and followed every rule in the book. We were at Bert’s Warehouse, which is in downtown Detroit. We were holding a Medical Cannabis Cup, in which we have vendors, and an expo, and seminars, and we provide an open-air smoking area for medical patients in the state of Michigan to come and medicate. The cops came and essentially shut down the smoking area outside. Allowed the expo to continue—they just didn’t want people openly smoking marijuana. And these are legit patients. So, yes, there is a fear, and it’s a fear of us not being able to protect the patients of Michigan. Michigan is not a legal state, so until we have complete legalization, there’s always a risk—because, federally, we are not protected.

Chris Simunek: At the beginning, I was working basically with criminals, trying to get them to do pieces for us. Now that’s gotten easier as the laws have changed. But we’re still dependent on a criminal element to get the job done. We don’t consider them criminals—the laws of America make them criminals. So we work hand in hand. And I would say that’s a pretty big difference between us and Forbes, although I guess Forbes probably works with a lot of criminals, too.

Dan Skye: You’ll see a lot of hypocrisy in the media world. We don’t get access, even though we’re members of the press like anyone else…. Publicists like to get their clients into High Times, but they don’t want their clients to be seen with marijuana, or don’t want them to talk about marijuana. Especially celebrities—we have to deal with that all the time. I’ve interviewed countless celebrities: Bryan Cranston, Alanis Morissette… I did Oliver Stone a few years back. And very seldom will you get somebody to pose with pot. Woody Harrelson wouldn’t even pose with pot! Alanis Morissette was the first really mainstream person who posed in a pot garden. So that’s a real problem—getting people into our ballpark. We like celebrities, but unless they’re on the cover with pot, like Oliver Stone was, we don’t do it.

Chris Simunek: There are some great stars out there that are very pro-pot who have yet to be on the cover. I mean, Rihanna is always Instagramming herself smoking a joint. Zach Galifianakis is pretty cool and forward about it. Those are two I would be interested in…. And I guess you know that Snoop Dogg is still pretty much on top as far as pot-smoking celebrities are concerned. He has managed to maintain his profile for so long and diversify everything he does—products, reality show, pornography, everything from movies to music. His business model, whatever it is, is pretty astounding. He’s a guy that even my dad has heard of, and my dad also knows that he smokes pot.

Bobby Black (senior editor): It used to be, back in the day, it was always rock—psychedelic rock in the ’60s and ’70s—that was the music associated with pot. Then hip-hop came out—well, and reggae, of course, because of the Rasta culture—and they embraced pot in a big way. The thing that’s changed now is that I’m noticing pop stars like Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber really embracing pot. And it’s not that pop stars never smoked weed before; it’s just that now they’re out about it and don’t really care. It’s become so accepted that the new generation is just like, “So what?”

Dan Skye: Jennifer Aniston! I think she would sell, because we know that she smokes pot—we’ve heard about it for years. We tried; we got no response. And Miley Cyrus is great. We did a poll a few months back: “What celebrity would you most like to smoke with?” And she scored higher than Bill Maher, which we thought was really kind of funny.

Bobby Black: When the magazine started, all throughout the ’70s, sex was an integral part of it. We had beautiful women on the cover. We walk a fine line with it, because we don’t want to be exploiting women. On the other hand, those covers were sexy—and there is nothing wrong with sex. I’ve always stressed this: High Times is about hedonism. But it isn’t about irresponsible, over-the-top hedonism—it’s about enjoying everything life has to offer, and sex is part of that. But the reason we don’t put [former porn star] Jenna Jameson in her bathing suit on the cover anymore is because the sales just weren’t there. Our readers would rather stare at centerfolds of plants—and that’s just the facts we have learned over the years.

David Bienenstock: We’ve never promised a cover to anyone, but if a currently pot-smoking prominent politician is interested in the cover, they should definitely get in touch and talk to us about an exclusive.

Chris Simunek: What I’ve really wanted for High Times is to have more journalism in general. It could be hard-hitting journalism; it could be gonzo journalism. I just want the magazine to have a good read in every single issue—because, if left unchecked, it will by nature fill up with pot pictures and grow stories and stuff like that. It’s almost like I’m the mom at the head of the table saying, “Everybody’s got to eat their vegetables!” I want to maintain the tradition that we’ve always had of having quality journalism in the magazine.

Steve Hager: Have you looked at any of the issues I put out? Because they’re filled with conspiracy stories of deep political events, and incredible forays in counterculture history… and now the magazine just promotes marijuana: “Grow it and smoke it and, now, dab it! And wake up at 7:10 and do some bong hits.” It’s a balls-to-the-wall, marijuana-everythingmagazine. And that’s just making money off marijuana—I don’t think anybody would argue with that statement…. But make money—go, go, go. I’m not anti-capitalist and I’m not anti–big business. That’s not where I’m going to go, but I’m not going to try and stop you. I’m happy with my little magic show here.

Chris Simunek: We do have the High Times haters up there. We just did a cover on dabs. “Dabs” is concentrated hash oil, which is created by a volatile chemical process, similar to the way you would create perfume or rosemary oil. It’s controversial because a lot of kids—I don’t know if they are kids—a lot of idiots who don’t know what they’re doing are renting hotel rooms and cooking this stuff up and blowing themselves up the way meth labs used to blow up. It’s a highly controversial new element to the marijuana world. We are covering it, and we’ve told people how to make dabs safely, but there’s an element that thinks we should be the morality police of the marijuana world. And there’s also this whole crunchy-granola aspect of the marijuana subculture which doesn’t want anything to do with that, and so they’re like: “How dare you? Dabs is like hard drugs! Dabs is this, dabs is that.” Then there’s another element that says we should not tell anybody what to do. So we’re never gonna please everybody at the same time, and I think that’s fine.

Steve Hager: My generation just smoked joints. The next generation went to bong hits. If you grow up smoking bong hits, you can’t smoke joints, because you need that power. And now it’s dabs. Dabbing’s perfectly cool—dab away. But when the sirens are calling, are you going to be able to pull back, or are you going to crash on the rocks? Because if you crash on the rocks… just be advised.

Do I wish my cannabis rituals and other things were still going on? Yeah, but you know what? They are going on. I passed these things down, and people picked up on them, and you see little elements of my rituals all over the cannabis movement. At 4/20, people will be lighting the seven candles of peace. All magic is the same. It doesn’t matter—you can call it religion or whatever you want, but it’s all based on bell, book and candle. These are the elements that are used to manifest prayer and meditation.

David Bienenstock: The biggest change in the ten years I’ve been with High Times—not that long ago in political years—is that, back then, people would say, “Why are you working on pot legalization? That’s never going to happen.” And now people say, “Oh, you’re working on pot legalization? That’s inevitable.” So that’s been the huge change. And I think what’s exciting is that the world is coming around to where High Times was at its founding—long before I was involved, or even alive.

Chris Simunek: We used to change people’s identities a lot. Back then, when you’re talking to a guy breaking a federal law which is going to land him in jail for quite a few years, I didn’t have any journalistic qualms about saying he came from Alabama when he came from Ohio, you know? I remember being blindfolded in the back of a car and being brought to some growroom in the basement of a guy’s house… that’s how paranoid he was. Now I get people e-mailing me with their full name and address saying, “I want you to come to my 5,000-square-foot house in Colorado—and bring your photographers.” I just think the access has changed, and people aren’t afraid anymore.

Jen Bernstein: When I took my job at High Times, I spoke with my parents and explained to them what I was joining. My dad knew what it was and my mom didn’t. But they feel like if it’s meant to be, it will be. And now my dad came with me to the Cannabis Cup and was a worker and got a High Times hoodie. My dad is in Charlotte, North Carolina, and he wears this hoodie that says “Cannabis Cup,” and people stop him and are like, “Oh, did you go to the Cup?” And he’s like, “Yeah, I did. I worked there.” So I think they’re proud of me now, and all their friends know what it is even though they may not smoke pot themselves…. How would your parents take it?

Danny Danko: When I started off in the cultivation department, I had to ride in the trunk of a car to go and see some of these growrooms. People were so scared to show me regular-size—well, what I would consider fairly average-size—grows. Now you go and see thesemassive operations in California, Colorado—all over, really—and I never thought I would see the day that people would be walking me on tours of huge, indoor pot-growing facilities that are perfectly legal under state law. It is kind of mind-blowing… but once the dominoes start to fall, they fall so fast it’s hard to keep up.

Elise McDonough (West Coast design and production director): After the medical marijuana laws started to pass, especially on the West Coast, more and more people got into making edibles and distributing them through collectives and dispensaries. We’re in an era where people go way beyond the pot brownie. Now you see cannabis in savory sauces, drink mixes, candy bars. You’re just getting better and better edibles, and the thing that’s advancing the industry is lab testing. Before, you couldn’t tell how much THC you’d get in a dose—but now you can test and know exactly how much you’re going to ingest. It’s especially helpful for people who are insomniacs or chronic-pain patients. The difference between smoking and eating pot is that you have a body effect that lasts longer, so if you have back pain, you can get relief for six to eight hours.

The first story in High Times about edibles was called “Eat It,” in 1978. That was a story written by a guy who worked as a sailor and traveled around the world and tried edible marijuana in Turkey and Greece. He had a hash candy called majoun, which is hash sautéed in butter with mixed dates and nuts and spices rolled into a ball. It’s like a baklava without filo dough.

We also had Chef Ra’s “Psychedelic Kitchen” column, which started in the ’80s. Chef Ra, sadly, passed away several years ago, but we’ve continued the recipe column with different contributing chefs along the way. We do recipes online, and there’s also a recipe in the magazine every month.

Bobby Black: I wouldn’t say I consider us “the most dangerous magazine in America.” The most notorious, maybe, but not dangerous. We’ve represented an outlaw and counterculture ethos for so long that, like you say, it’s becoming mainstream now. But what I would also like to say is that we haven’t come to the mainstream; the mainstream has come to us. The same thing is true with civil rights, the revolution in the ’60s, the sexual revolution.

Danny Danko: I think that with the Internet, the distinction between mainstream culture and the counterculture is fading. I don’t think there is any one counterculture. That’s always sort of been associated with the hippie movement, which is a part of our culture—but it’s not all of our culture. We reach out to all. Marijuana users are everybody, and we try to reach out to all of them.

Rick Cusick: Every year, I go to the Boston Freedom Rally and give a speech. We’re sponsors of the rally. It’s been going on for twenty-four years, and there were over 30,000 people there last year. I was there in 2007 with Keith Stroup from NORML. It was kind of rainy, and Keith said, “You want to smoke a joint?” And I said sure. Then this kid came up to us. We thought he wanted a hit, but he was an undercover cop. He had no idea who we were. So he took us to a tent where they arraigned people. They said, “Step up—what’s your name?” I said, “Rick Cusick.” They said, “Where do you live?” Told ’em. “What’s your Social Security number?” Told ’em. “What do you do?” I said—this was at the time—“I’m the co-editor ofHigh Times magazine.” And the cop looked up and said, “You’re kidding.” I said, “Wait, it gets better!” I slapped Keith on the back and said, “This is Keith Stroup, the founder of NORML and my attorney. And everything we say is on the record.” And they said, “You’re going to write about this?” And I said, “Oh, yeah!”

So we got arrested for a joint, and they arrested sixty people that day. Every year, they arrested a quota of about sixty kids under 25—except this year they got a couple of old guys, and it was early in the game. So we went in there, and of the sixty they arrested, fifty-eight settled and paid their fine. We said no. And so what happened was, we got a NORML lawyer, and Dr. Lester Grinspoon of Harvard University—Keith’s friend; I didn’t known him at that point—got involved in what we were doing and started a defense fund that contributed a very good amount of money for us to travel back and forth. And then he got Dr. Charles Nesson of the Harvard Law School, who worked on the Pentagon Papers case, to be our defense counsel.

After that happened, we had the dream team of American jurisprudence going after a third of a joint. And it took two and a half years. First, the jury found us guilty, because we were. Then we appealed it. The appeal went all the way to the Appeals Court, which was an incredible experience—very high-flown legal stuff. Everybody came in; it was covered in the papers a bit. Then the Appeals Court upheld the lower court, so we went to the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, and they refused to hear the case and sent it back down for sentencing. But in the meantime, Massachusetts had decriminalized marijuana—so Keith and I were the last two people sentenced under the old law. And they tried to throw the book at us. The prosecutor said, “I want a six-month suspended sentence, two years’ probation, a $500 fine and fifty hours of community service cleaning up the Boston Common.” And I swear to God, he also asked the judge to prohibit us from entering the Boston Common for two years—“which should keep them from making speeches.” That’s an exact quote. And we looked at each other and said, “Did this guy go to law school?” That’s the First Amendment; it’s the Boston Common! They bled there for the First Amendment, and you’re asking that we be excluded from the fucking Boston Common? And the judge said, “Normally, this is where I go back to my chamber and think about this, but I don’t have to think about this. Everybody stand up. You’re sentenced to jail for one day—equal to the amount of time you were in the custody of the Boston police.” And then it was all over.

Michael Kennedy: Things have changed dramatically since we started the magazine. But I, personally, can never feel a sense of vindication, primarily because I am so steeped in the laws inflicted on people. I know that Tom would be buoyant and feel vindicated immediately. But then he would say, “Our job isn’t finished until we get every person who’s in prison under any form of marijuana conviction out.” It’s one of the reasons that High Times hired me. I’m their lawyer, and now I ended up being one of the principals. I’m still basically their lawyer. I’ve done marijuana cases for as long as I can remember, and there are still people who have done twenty years in prison or have life sentences for no violence—just pot. They got life in prison with no possibility of parole. Now that’s very hard to believe.

David Bienenstock: I feel great about the changes in the pot world, provided we learn the right lessons. You look at the mainstream and the corporate press, there’s this idea and this rash of stories that now that Wall Street is getting involved, marijuana is legitimate. The idea that the marijuana industry needs to take its ethics lessons from Wall Street is ridiculous. And second of all, it’s really offensive to people who have not just spent their time and energy making this happen, but in many, many cases risked their freedom quite literally. So to see the issue hitting the mainstream is fantastic, but I think we need to learn the right lesson—which is that the counterculture was right about this. Not that Wall Street and big business are going to legitimize it. I think that’s exactly the wrong lesson.

THANK YOU!

What a week this has been. For starters, as we were putting to bed our February 2013 issue (we work way in advance) featuring the2013 Hydro Report, Hurricane Sandy hit, and those of us here on the eastern seaboard were suddenly confronted with more water than any of us had ever seen before. Ironic? Poetic? Prophetic? While we were telling you folks how to grow pot in water-based systems, Sandy’s wind and rain took out lower Manhattan, as well as large parts of Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens, Long Island, and the Jersey Shore. It also took out the HIGH TIMES office for a week.

We learned our own lesson about water – that it has a will of its own and that too much or too little can be lethal for you or your plants.  After a lot of last minute scrambling, we had the issue ready to go.

But stop the presses!

On November 6, something bordering on the miraculous happened. Marijuana was legalized for recreational use in the states of Colorado and Washington,Massachusetts became the 18th state to legalize pot for medicinal use, and folks in Detroit, Flint, Grand Rapids, and Ypsilanti, Michigan voted to decriminalize.

The Feds must be shaking – and it’s not due to all that coffee they drink on those stakeouts. This is a real coup, and those who worked on these initiatives should roll up a fat victory joint, sit back, and contemplate their place in the history books.

A special congratulations should be offered to a few of the many hard working people behind Colorado and Washington’s successful legalization initiatives.

Mason Tvert, a long-time marijuana law reformer and HIGH TIMES 2012 Freedom Fighter of the Year, is the co-director of the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, which made history by legalizing up to an ounce of cannabis in Colorado this Election Day.

Not to be out done, Washington’s I 502 legalized pot as well. Alison Holcomb’s tireless work as the initiative’s campaign director and primary architect should be recognized, as should Rick Steves’. The PBS travel host, NORML board member, and marijuana advocate lent his name and time to help the initiative pass – including a multi-city I 502 educational tour.

Those who worked for the initiatives in Oregon and Arkansas that didn’t pass should be proud of themselves too, because they stood and they fought. The Forces of Darkness must not be allowed to succeed unto victory unchallenged. Those in possession of the Light must make a stand. And when Light gets trampled underfoot, it must rise again, because Light, weak as it may be at times, is immortal and will get stronger with every battle it fights. People have a will of their own, too, when they choose to use it.

So say a prayer for those still suffering in Staten Island, Coney Island, Long Beach, the Rockaways, Atlantic City … The list goes on and on. And really, this is where the Feds should be concentrating their efforts anyway – on helping people in need.

But, man, I cannot wait to see the expression on their faces when we start making the case for amnesty for marijuana prisoners. Because if they don’t send the National Guard in to stop the implementation of these voter initiatives in Washington and Colorado, the federal government is de facto accepting legalization for recreational use, which will set a precedent that defense attorneys can have a lot of fun with.

The fight continues. More updates to come on hightimes.com.

Peace,

Chris Simunek

 

 

http://hightimes.com/lounge/csimunek/8012

 

Pot: Almost legal – Editorials – The Charleston Gazette – West Virginia News and Sports –

Pot: Almost legal  – Editorials – The Charleston Gazette – West Virginia News and Sports –.

Uruguay’s Plan to Legalize Marijuana Sales Irks U.S. | World | TIME.com

Uruguay’s Plan to Legalize Marijuana Sales Irks U.S. | World | TIME.com.

Sandra Bullock reminisces…

http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:cms:video:thedailyshow.com:83816

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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By JEREMY D. MAYER | 3/29/09 7:25 AM EDT

Smoking pot doesn’t cause schizophrenia, but marijuana as an issue sure gives our political system the symptoms. We have just elected our third president in a row who at least tried marijuana in early adulthood, yet it remains illegal.

As we discovered again this week, President Obama, like his two predecessors, supports imprisoning people for making the same choices he made.

Beyond imprisonment, one of my policy students, who was honest on a security clearance about her one time use of pot, could lose her job for doing what Clinton, Bush and Obama did.

On television, leading comedian Jon Stewart and America’s sweetheart, Sandra Bullock, swap pot smoking stories with lighthearted abandon, laughing along with their audience, who, like most Americans, end up voting for politicians who support draconian punishments for pot users and dealers.

Year after year, major Hollywood films like Pineapple Express show potsmoking in a positive light, yet legalization remains unmentionable to both our political parties. And America’s most popular Olympian, Michael Phelps, like the majority of people his age, has tried pot, but loses millions in sponsorship when it is revealed that he has done what most of his fans have done.

Several states have legalized medical marijuana, and a few are contemplating decriminalization, and yet, other states are about to prevent those whose urine tests positive for marijuana from receiving desperately needed benefits to which they would otherwise be legally entitled.

At least eight states, including Kansas, Oklahoma, and West Virginia, are actively considering making drug tests mandatory for food stamps, welfare, or unemployment. In a classic demonstration of how America has always had one drug law for the rich and one for the poor, no one has suggested drug testing recipients of billions in bailout cash. We could probably save a lot of money by testing Wall Street financiers for pot (or cocaine, for that matter).

Perhaps these accumulated paradoxes have finally become large enough for the nation to begin reconsidering its position on pot. For an issue that has been in stasis for decades, marijuana is suddenly hot, one might even say, smoking.

By jamming up the White House’s “Open for Questions” website with votes for questions about their favorite substance, advocates for the legalization of marijuana managed to force President Obama to address the issue.

This is success in Washington, even when the president chuckled derisively and came down against legalization. Of the thousands of issues in the competitive policy environment, only a few get this kind of attention.

Some think the economic crisis will help the legalization cause.

California state legislator Tom Ammiano argues that marijuana, by far the most lucrative crop with an estimated $14 billion in sales, could provide over a billion dollars of tax revenue in California alone.

There are, however, a few problems with these numbers. First, it is always tough to estimate what total sales are for any illegal substance. Good data just doesn’t exist in this area. Second, even if $14 billion is accurate, that’s the California sales total when pot is illegal. When a pothead scores a dimebag in Los Angeles, the high price is mostly a function of the illegality. He’s paying for the risks taken by the grower, the importers, and the dealers at each step of the marijuana process.

Currently, dealers risk not only jail, confiscation of property, and the burden of a criminal record, but they also face violence from other rival dealers. That’s why the markup on pot is so extreme.

Legalize pot, and perhaps 80% of its price vanishes. And since marijuana requires very little processing, unlike cocaine or heroin, the supply of pot could skyrocket if it were legalized, further driving the price down. Why pay for it when you can grow your own, tax-free?

It is also possible, though, that legalization would result in a surge in demand, since potential users who avoided it due to fear of incarceration or its high price might now indulge.

Advocates of decriminalization or legalization have reason to take cheer from many recent developments. Tax revenues, although not as high as some dreamers would wish, would certainly be substantial, and would replace the billions spent interdicting and confiscating marijuana, as well as imprisoning users and small time dealers. Legalizing marijuana would immediately remove millions of dollars in income from the international drug cartels that are making life hell in Mexico.

The tide of public opinion is slowly moving towards decriminalization. As polling expert Nate Silver recently pointed out, only 10% supported legalization in 1969, while at least 40% do so today. The younger you are, the more likely you are to have tried marijuana, and to support its legalization. NORML doesn’t have to persuade anyone to win; if they just wait for the anti-pot geezers to die, most Americans will favor legalization within a decade.

Or, they could wait for Obama to go back to the position he had when he was an obscure Illinois state legislator, just four years ago. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQr9ezr8UeA

I don’t use pot, but I do believe that the tide of history is moving against our ridiculous and counterproductive ban on this relatively harmless substance. The question is not will we decriminalize, but when?

Jeremy D. Mayer is the author of “American Media Politics in Transition” (McGraw Hill, 2007) and an associate professor and director of the master’s program in public policy at George Mason University in Arlington, Va.

Gallup Poll

Polling Matters by Frank Newport: Occupy Wall Street, Obama, Marijuana, and Facebook

Thursday, October 20, 2011

What percent of those aged 65 years and older say marijuana should be legalized?

The answer to that question is 31%. That contrasts, of course to the overall average of 50% for all adults, and 62% among those aged 18-29 years who support legalizing pot. Perhaps some of those aged 65 and older are aging hippies who fondly remember the Flower Power days of the 1960s.

Gallup.Com – Polling Matters by Frank Newport: Occupy Wall Street, Obama, Marijuana, and Facebook.<

Family Guy supports Marijuana legalization

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Legalize It!

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