I’m curious about some of the smaller seed companies and coffeeshops who enter. What’s the level of diversity among the various strains that get entered in the Cannabis Cup? Aaron offered some insight.
“We’re friends with some of the High Times staff and after the competition’s over, they’ll come by the shop and show us all the entries. We get to sift through every single one.”
Is there a trend that stands out?
Aaron shook his head.
“You can see how much crap is really entered. There’s not so much weed where I’d go, ‘That’s good’ or ‘That’s interesting’ or ‘I want to smoke a joint of that.’ I don’t know if it’s because I only smoke resin now or just because a lot of the entries just aren’t so special. Because when they’re really special, you don’t see them because they got all smoked up.”
Most European countries allow their citizens to purchase and import cannabis seeds. For example, in Germany you’re allowed to keep them as “souvenirs,” but it’s against the law to germinate them.
Dutch law doesn’t make it easy for legitimate businesses like DNA Genetics or Green House Seeds. They used to be allowed to produce their own seeds in greenhouses and grow rooms in Holland, but the laws have changed. Now, while it’s perfectly legal to sell and export seeds, and the Dutch government is happy to take the tax revenues that the sales generate, it’s no longer legal to produce cannabis seeds in Holland.
Aaron explained how DNA produces their seeds.
“I don’t make all our seeds. I contract people to make them. I got friends in Switzerland and Spain who do it for us. I can’t legally do it myself, so I gotta have people do it for me. I gotta have a team.”
This change in the law is not without risk for companies who don’t have patent or copyright protection on the strains they develop. And even with patent protections it’s hard to imagine a major pharmaceutical company like Merck trusting another company to produce their formulas.
“I give them the genetics and then I pray that they don’t sell our seeds to other fucking companies like Barney’s.”
Aaron’s not just paranoid. This is exactly what happened to DNA a few years ago when one of their growers sold seeds of L.A. Confidential to their competitors. According to Aaron, that version of L.A. Confidential went on to win a Cannabis Cup for Kiwiseeds.
“It was scandalous. They called it Mt. Cook. But that ain’t no Mt. Cook. It’s Mt. Crook. They should be fucking disqualified for entering it.” He sighed. “But it happens all the time.”
He was clearly angry but didn’t blame his competitors as much as he blamed the grower who sold him out. “In California, you don’t do that kind of shit to people …”
Aaron caught himself.
“A lot of bad things went through my head, but out here, it’s changed my mentality, you know, and I was just like, let’s just let karma take care of this motherfucker.”
To be honest, I’m surprised that there isn’t more corruption in the seed business. It’s a relatively small world and there is so much money at stake. Aaron doesn’t see it that way.
“I don’t think we should be against each other. We’re all in the same fucking boat.”
There have, over the years, been accusations of vote fixing and influence peddling among some of the bigger coffeeshop–seed company conglomerates. In 1999, at the Twelfth Annual Cannabis Cup, Arjan and Green House were accused—along with two other coffeeshops, Rokerij and Het Kruydenhuys—of voting irregularities and were stripped of their awards in the Hash category. Steven Hager defended the competitors, claiming that because there were no written rules about how ballots should be filled out, it wasn’t cheating so much as “confusion about what was proper and improper.”
From my experience at the Cup I can honestly say that I didn’t see any vote rigging. What I did see was similar to the campaigns run by Hollywood studios during Academy Awards season in Los Angeles. There were advertisements everywhere that screamed “for your consideration,” private parties and VIP events where guests were handed liberally stuffed goodie bags, and, of course, lots of free samples. After all, an Oscar or a Cannabis Cup is worth its weight in gold.
I asked Jon Foster about the accusations that have dogged the Cup.
“A lot of people mention in the past that the Cup is bought, or the Cup is a hoax, but I think to put it in those words is too simplistic for what goes on. For me, the critical side is High Times provides the venue and puts in some impetus. But without what I call the corporate sponsors it would be a lesser event. They make it a really good time for the judges, and those are the people that it’s about. For us, winning or losing is not really important.”
“But it’s better to win, right?”
Jon shook his head. “What’s important is that the event continues and has a good name to it. It should just be a party for the people.”
Chapter Ten
Strain Hunters
I liked Super Lemon Haze. I mean, seriously, what’s not to like? It had been the people’s choice, the overall favorite, the big winner the past two years in a row. I liked it, I really did. But—and this will ring a bell with many of the women I’ve dated in the past—I liked it; I didn’t love it. For me it didn’t have that other dimension, that hard-to-define quality that the John Sinclair, Sleestak, Zeta—or even the Special Sweet Skunk—strains had. But then when everybody was raving about California chardonnay I was more interested in drinking New Zealand sauvignon blanc and Italian arneis, so it could be that I’m suffering from some sort of hipster syndrome—you know, that affliction that keeps the cool cats from liking anything that’s popular. I liked Super Lemon Haze, but why didn’t I love it? Everybody else did.
It made me wonder what, exactly, makes a strain a Cup winner. I can’t imagine three thousand stoners agreeing on much of anything, let alone deciding which pot is the best. It can’t all be advertising and goodie bags. There has to be some intrinsic quality to the herb that makes it stand out in a crowd.
With the exception of the indica-dominant Vanilla Kush from Barney’s that finished behind Super Lemon Haze in 2009, most of the top three finishers in the last five Cannabis Cups have been sativa or sativa-dominant varietals, usually with some Haze genetics, or at least the word “Haze” in the name.
In recent years flavors seem to be popular. Besides the citrus appeal of Super Lemon Haze, popular strains have had notes of vanilla or other essences; for example, the pungent minty sage of Arjan’s Ultra Haze #1, the fruity spice of G-13 Haze, and the subtle chocolate scent of Chocolope.
But I wonder, seriously, if anyone could taste the nuance of flavor after sampling five or six or seventeen strains in a day. I’ve heard from some people that that’s exactly why Super Lemon Haze keeps winning—because the flavor and high is able to cut through the other weed.
Or could it be some meteorological bias toward sativas? Maybe they tend to win because the Cup is held in November when the Amsterdam days are short, wet, and gray. Perhaps if the Cup were held in the summer and people could sit outside in the late-evening sunlight with a cold beer, they’d want that relaxed body-stone of an indica.
Of course, you can still get cold, wet, shitty weather in May in Amsterdam. The first two weeks I was there it was freezing cold and constantly drizzling. Everyone, and by that I mean everyone who’s Dutch, apologized about the weather. I would walk into the local coffeehouse to buy a café latte and the barista would shake his head sadly and tell me how sorry he was about the rain. I ate one of the ever-present broodjes at a café and the waitress lamented my misfortune at being there during such awful weather. They say it as if the weather took some strange turn, like it’s not always cold and wet, like that’s not the norm.
But it was as cold in May as it was when I was there in November. Perhaps even colder. For sure it was wetter. And what comes between November and May? Winter.
One morning I bumped into my landlord. He gave me a grim look and said, “I’m sorry but it’s o
nly going to be seven degrees today.” He seemed genuinely sad about it.
To be honest, at the time, I didn’t mind the weather. In fact, I was happy it was cold. It kept the garbage from stinking. The fifth greenest city in Europe was heading into week two of a citywide garbage strike.
There were mountains of trash everywhere. Some piles were seven or eight feet high, blotting out views of the canals. In the Rembrandtplein—a large square lined with bars and bistros—they’d put up an eight-foot-high fence to hide the trash. Tourists, mistaking it for some kind of avant-garde art installation, would stop and pose for pictures in front of it. I was tempted to point out that it was just a giant pile of garbage behind a fence, but then I stopped myself. Who am I to say it isn’t art? My landlord told me to put my garbage in a pile on the street with other people’s garbage. The next day there was a sign on the trash that read: “Keep your garbage off the street until the strike ends.” I know it was directed at me and I’m not being paranoid: It was in English.
The cold weather had an interesting side effect. It forced me to buy a scarf. In Amsterdam most everyone wears a scarf. Men, women, little kids. They wear scarves on their bikes, on the streets, on the public transport. They wear them in bars and restaurants. They probably wear them in their homes. The scarves are stylish, to be sure, but I don’t think it’s only a sartorial affectation; I think the Dutch wear scarves to keep their necks warm. They’re very pragmatic that way.
What’s funny to me is that with a scarf knotted around my neck, the perception of who I was suddenly changed. Before, when I entered an establishment, I was greeted in English, but now, with the scarf, I got lots of hearty greetings in Dutch. Strangers would nod and say “Morgen” or “Middag.” And it wasn’t just in the restaurants and bars. Dutch people would approach me on the street and start talking to me in that indecipherable, vowel-filled language of theirs. I’m almost tall enough to be Dutch and definitely pale enough, but the scarf sealed the deal. The scarf turned me into an Amsterdammer. And, in a practical Dutch kind of way, it kept my neck warm.
While the crappy weather might be one factor driving the dominance of sativa-winning strains, I think the real reason is Haze. The mysterious, mythological genetics of Haze add a kind of wild card to the experience of smoking. Some early seed catalogs warned that the effects of Haze were “not recommended for inexperienced smokers—too trippy, too profound” and that Haze was “known for an extreme, almost psychedelic spaciness.”
Is Haze the key to dankness? Is it that simple?
The other thing that excites Cup judges—and honestly, pot smokers around the world—is novelty. They like new tastes, new smells, new sensations. Right now there’s a fad for strains that are purple. The Purps, Purple Urkel, Purple Kush, and other dark-colored strains are all the rage. As Franco says, “At the moment in California, anything that is Kush and purple is very popular, that’s what’s trending. So it’s been trending here. I think that very soon there’s going to be a comeback to true, true sativa flavors. California has been on the indica side for a long time and I think that’s gonna change.”
Of course, the purple-colored pot isn’t necessarily genetic. You can shock a plant into turning purple by exposing it to the cold, icing the roots, and other botanical tricks. For a real breeder, the way to find something new—and maybe get an edge over the competition—is to go back to original landrace genetics and build something unique from that.
Arjan and Franco of Green House Seeds are producing a series of documentaries called Strain Hunters. Professionally filmed with production values that exceed most documentaries, the films follow Arjan, Franco, and a dreadlocked Australian with a somewhat philosophical bent named Simon as they tromp around third-world backwaters looking for unadulterated, un-hybridized strains of landrace cannabis. Although the films are geared toward people with an interest in cannabis, they are surprisingly entertaining and informative. Arjan and Franco are good-humored and intelligent hosts, and their obvious concern for the environment and the people struggling to eke out a living in a harsh world make the films more than just stoner movies. So far they’ve made Strain Hunters Africa: Malawi Expedition, Strain Hunters: India Expedition, and Strain Hunters: Morocco Expedition.
I asked Franco what they were looking for when they went on these trips. He typically gets a bit fervid when he talks about cannabis, but he was especially animated when discussing this project.
“When we go out, we are looking for a lot. The purpose of strain hunting is to find landraces, to find new cannabis genetics that have been isolated for a long time in various remote places on the planet and that are necessary for finding new cannabinoid profiles and new terpene profiles.”
For those of us, like me, who haven’t taken a botany class in, oh, ever, here’s a brief definition: Terpenes are the essential oils and resins produced by plants. In the case of cannabis, terpenes give a strain its flavor. Cannabinoids are the chemical compounds that give the plant its various medicinal and psychoactive properties. There are, at least, sixty-six distinct cannabinoids found in the cannabis plant, and their concentrations, combinations, and the way they interact with receptors in the brain change from strain to strain.
“It’s not only an activity that improves our gene pool for breeding new strains,” said Franco, “but it also preserves these genetics for the future and prevents these plants from extinction. It’s also an activity that may help find new medicines. At the moment no one is really organizing, collecting, or keeping these genetics, so we try to do that. We can see that every once in a while you need to refresh the gene pool—to keep making new strains, new flavors.”
The films are also a brilliant marketing ploy, increasing brand loyalty by showing Green House’s commitment to discovering and developing new strains of cannabis, while giving the armchair stoner an educational adventure.
But for all the effort these strain hunters put into their genetics and landraces and breeding programs, they all agree with Grey Area’s Jon Foster. At the end of the day it’s the plant that matters. If you don’t grow it with love and care, it will never be dank.
I realized I needed to talk to some farmers.
Although Holland has a lot of great indoor cannabis growers, there really is no place like California when it comes to farming. It’s blessed with rich soil and a perfect climate for growing things. The Golden State has more than twenty-five million acres of farmland and is the number one producer of plums, almonds, pistachios, lettuce, grapes, kiwifruit, asparagus, broccoli, celery, garlic, and just about every other fruit or vegetable you can name, including cannabis. According to Paul F. Starrs and Peter Goin’s Field Guide to California Agriculture, published by the University of California Press, “Marijuana in California is big business, likely the largest value crop (by far) in the state’s lineup, and it is perhaps the single largest commodity produced in California, including tourism.”
California is where I would find some serious outlaw farmers.
Chapter Eleven
California Über Alles
It was a covert op. It had to be. It was dangerous enough that I was going to an illicit Mexican cartel grow site in the Sequoia National Park, but to go there with the biggest pot grower in Tulare County could attract the attention of both federal law enforcement and the Mexican mafia if we weren’t careful. The DEA and La Eme are notoriously humorless organizations, and it was important to avoid any interaction with them if possible. The best approach would be a stealthy one. So we were going in commando style—which is not to say that I wasn’t wearing underwear.
I rendezvoused with E, my contact’s right-hand man, at a roadside café high up in the Sierras. He got in his car and I followed him, driving through the backcountry along deeply rutted dirt roads for miles, until we reached a small cabin nestled in the woods. The cabin was some kind of old hunting lodge that had been moved—wall by wall—from the national park to this secluded spot. A rotted out RV sat under an oak tree, the words “Hun
ting on a Budget” crudely spray painted on the side.
The interior of the cabin was rustic and cozy, well kept and comfortable, the walls lined with knotty pine and pictures of hunting scenes. An ashtray the size of an overturned Frisbee sat on the table overflowing with cigarette butts. Maybe it was a Frisbee.
E isn’t much of a talker—at least not around people he’s just met—and has a distinctly languid, somewhat bleary-eyed disposition; he doesn’t seem bothered by much of anything, happy to take a seat on the threadbare sofa, stroke the rectangle of blond beard that juts off his chin, and wait for whatever. It’s a countrified style of patience, and helps explain why he’s such an avid duck hunter.
E turned on the TV to make sure his DVR was recording. He wasn’t going to let our covert op make him miss his favorite shows. I watched as the menu flashed on the screen. He had about a dozen shows he recorded regularly. They were all duck hunting or deer hunting or fishing shows. Who knew there was so many hours of programming dedicated to annihilating wildlife?
But E had more than an enthusiast’s interest in the shows.
“I wanna make a TV show.”
“A hunting show?”
He nodded. “Huntin’ on a Budget.”
I pointed out the window, toward the dilapidated RV in the yard.
“With that?”
He lit a cigarette. “No fancy trailers, no ATV four-wheelers, we don’t even use fancy guns. It’s just …” He paused for dramatic effect. “Huntin’ on a Budget.”
I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know anything about hunting shows or their demographics, but there’s a certain white trash winsomeness to the idea that I thought might actually make good viewing. “You know, that just might work,” I said.
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