EMERALD SPIRIT BOTANICALS

STORY & PHOTOS by NATE WILLIAMS @NATEW415/CALIFORNIA LEAF

PHOTO BY DORIT THIES RIVER, KATIE JEANE, CATHERINE & JOSEPH ARE A TIGHT-KNIT TEAM.

COURTESY EMERALD SPIRIT BOTANICALS

COURTESY EMERALD SPIRIT BOTANICALS HEADING INTO the steep wooded hills west of Willits, we eventually crested a ridge and began descending the backside of a small range on our way to one of Mendocino’s most renowned medicine makers – Emerald Spirit Botanicals. We arrived after a brief encounter with a four-wheel-drive only road, and after sorting ourselves out a bit, our hosts Joseph and Katie Jeane greeted us warmly.

are second generation farmers and herbalists, working alongside their mother, Katie Jeane. Both born and raised in Mendocino County, growing food and medicine has always been a way of life – sources of nourishment and health for themselves and their community long before Emerald Spirit Botanicals ever existed as a brand.

Their hillside sanctuary faces west and sits roughly 20 miles from the Pacific Ocean as the crow flies. The garden is the clear star of the show and sits squarely at the center of the property.

The back-to-the-land movement that brought many to the area goes hand-in-hand with sustainability, and the team at Emerald Spirit Botanicals incorporate a number of footprint-reducing elements in order to cultivate their Cannabis with minimal impact to their environment. The farm has a rain catchment pond that feeds the plants and minimizes their need for grid-sourced water. And instead of buying bottled nutrients, Joseph and Katie Jeane create compost on site and use it to amend and enrich their soil, as well as many of the other inputs grown on the property. What’s not grown on site is locally sourced.

But beyond tangible inputs, Emerald Spirit Botanicals imparts a spiritual component that’s woven into the fabric of the land and the plants that are grown there.

The team at Emerald Spirit Botanicals grows rare and medicinally-focused, balanced-ratio Cannabis cultivars that are increasingly hard to find in today’s market. Most of their housebred plants have a significant CBD content – but their recent all-star is high in THCV.

These are not the cultivars that 20-somethings are clamoring for and that rappers are shouting out. These special plants are the ones you’re going to give to your mother if she’s looking to get off pharmaceuticals and use Cannabis instead.

“There’s a deeper level of plant spirit communication that guides a lot of the work that’s happening here on the farm,” Joseph explains. “These plants were asking for these cannabinoids to be brought to life.”

Katie Jeane confirms this notion with a thoughtful head nod, then brightens and offers to show us the garden.

The garden itself is both Sun and Earth and CCOF (California Certified Organic Farmers) certified. This season, Emerald Spirit Botanicals is cultivating four different medicinally-focused offerings: Pink Boost Goddess, Harmony Rose, 4 Directions and Rose Queen, while also hunting through new crosses for the 2023 season. Pink Boost Goddess is their recent all-star that’s high in THCV, and the others offer ratios ranging from 1:1 to 1:20 (THC:CBD). Of late, their work has landed them an impressive amount of hardware from The Emerald Cup, the California State Fair and Weedcon. In particular, the Pink Boost Goddess took home First Place LOCATION Willits, Ca at Weedcon in January 2022 for Certified Sungrown Flower, Most Unique Cannabinoid Profile and

CANOPY SIZE Exotic Terpene Profile in May 5,000 square feet 2022 at The Emerald Cup, and

PLANT COUNT most recently was recognized by 150 the California State Fair for Most TEAM Unique Flower this July. 1 full-time 2 part-time LOOKING AHEAD California’s rapidly evolving

KNOWN FOR Pink Boost Goddess Cannabis scene has created a Four Directions rocky landscape that increasHarmony Rose ingly caters to recreational Rose Queen consumers, and it seems that MANTRA Emerald Spirit Botanicals has “Unique cannabinoids from made the conscious choice the heart of nature.” to go left when everyone else has chosen to go right. Nearly every producer in the industry is shouting their latest strain’s THC percentage from the rooftop, while Emerald Spirit Botanicals quietly works to bring forth some of the most medicinally-beneficial strains in existence with little to no fanfare. It’s refreshing to encounter those whose passion for the plant is so clearly tied to creating clean, healthy products that are cultivated with intention. It’s the diametric opposite of many Cannabis businesses in existence today and is something that needs to not only be preserved, but pointed to as an example of how to do things in a sustainable and organic fashion.

@EMERALDSPIRITBOTANICALS

From day one, Phinest Cannabis has been all about genetics. Brought to life in 2016, Phinest Cannabis began as a breeding project with Colorado’s Cannarado Seeds – who is one of the most respected and renowned breeders in the world of modern Cannabis genetics. The business quickly evolved to providing finished flower for the burgeoning adult-use market, which at the time had a nearly insatiable appetite.

In 2018, they partnered with Rapid Clones, a Cannabis tissue culture company with roots in the fruit and nut tree world, to begin providing tissue culture genetics to licensed cultivators across the state. And recently, the two brands doubled down and made a significant investment to level up and prepare for what they believe to be the future of the industry – building out a massive state-of-theart tissue culture facility in Sacramento. The facility, which the teams at Phinest and Rapid Clones began planning for in 2019 and began building out in 2021, covers roughly 40,000 square feet. This makes it “the largest in North America, and maybe the world,” per Phinest’s COO Matthew Wich.

Much like with cultivation, with tissue culture there are innumerable ways to go about achieving the same end result. Phinest utilizes what’s known as the Axillary Bud Proliferation method, which they say has been proven to be the most stable way to produce clones using tissue culture.

Each and every strain that’s brought in by the Phinest team is tested for a panel of 14 different pathogens, including Hop Latent Viroid, which is the most common issue cultivators are dealing with today. From there, the team can identify the necessary next steps to “clean up” the strain and ready it for replication and distribution to growers all over the state.

Phinest has an intensive R&D program where they are constantly looking for ways to improve and streamline the tissue culture process. Each strain is grown in agar that’s been uniquely developed for that particular cultivar, and contains hormones and nutrients custom tailored to suit its needs. To date, the team has tested over 400 different media formulations, and is continually developing new formulations for new strains (as well as testing these new formulations with current strains).

The Phinest team was sure to note that their clones are created without the use of PPMs, or plant preservative mixtures. PPMs can speed up the process but can also stimulate issues in the plants, creating a less stable clone than those made without PPMs. All clones are generation zero, so they are not taken from a mother plant and are about as “square one” as you can get in terms of starting with unadulterated, clean genetics. All clones are guaranteed free of pathogens and disease, which the company is able to do thanks to their stringent cleanliness and QC standards.

Cleanliness is such an important factor at Phinest that it’s shaped the entire design of the facility. There are four separate entrances – one for each of the four different teams dedicated to handling a different step in the process. Workers stick to their specific region within the facility and do not enter the other zones, in order to eliminate the chance of cross contamination. On average, roughly 25% of each staff member’s eight-hour shift is spent cleaning and sanitizing.

THE PHUTURE

Phinest’s new tissue culture facility is capable of producing an astounding 18 million clones annually, which effectively sets them up to be one of the largest suppliers of clones in the state (and likely country) when running at full capacity. With the infrastructure to scale now in place, the

brand can focus on building relationships with breeders and cultivators, and on educating the community at large about the benefits of tissue culture. Before graduating to their new facility, Phinest operated out of a smaller location in another area of Sacramento. This V1 facility is now being used in “PHINEST HAS AN INTENSIVE part for research R&D PROGRAM WHERE THEY and development, ARE CONSTANTLY LOOKING but also for small FOR WAYS TO IMPROVE AND batch production STREAMLINE THE TISSUE runs to create CULTURE PROCESS.” limited quantities of finished flower for the market as well. Maintaining this production element of their business is significant – offering consumable examples of their genetics to the market not only acts as a testament to the company’s belief in the strains they’re creating and proliferating, it differs them from the majority of nurseries and clone companies in the space. It’s been an uphill battle to convert cultivators from traditional techniques to tissue culture, but the Phinest and Rapid Clones teams see the tech as integral. This is why they are stepping up to provide the industry with clean genetics on a scale consistent with demand for California flavors upon federal legalization. One day, and maybe one day soon, this shift will happen. When it does, the work Phinest and Rapid Clones are putting in now will PHINEST likely yield them pole position CANNABIS as one of the biggest suppliers PHINESTCANNABIS.COM in the industry nationwide. @PHINESTCANNABIS

PLANTING THE SEEDS Born in the Bronx on December 2, 1944, Edward Rosenthal had a “very unhappy” childhood growing up in a “typical dysfunctional family of the ‘50s era.” As an escape, he developed a passion for horticulture that would later become his life’s work.

Though he doesn’t specifically recall the first time he smoked marijuana, he knows he was around 21.

“I first started in 1966,” he said in a 1984 interview with High Times. “I bought a lid and smoked it with my college roommate … and I remember thinking, ‘This is the greatest thing that’s ever happened in my life.’”

Soon after, he bought some fluorescent lights, planted a few seeds he found in some Mexican weed, and started growing his own smoke in a spare room of his apartment.

THE YIPPIES In 1967, Rosenthal dropped out of college and moved to the East Village to become a hippie and immerse himself in the city’s thriving counterculture.

“I went to a ‘Be-In’ in Central Park, and Abbie Hoffman was onstage. He jumped down, started handing out acid. He put a tab on my tongue, and I swallowed it and went through a really powerful, horrible experience,” Rosenthal recounted to HT. “After that, I never suffered from serious dysfunctional depression again.”

Around the same time, he fatefully encountered another soon-to-be Yippie activist icon.

“One day, I walked out of my apartment and noticed there was a march going on. I said, ‘What’s it about?’ And they said, ‘This guy has been arrested for selling acid and taken to the federal building.’ I thought, ‘Well, that’s a good thing to march for.’”

The person who’d been arrested was Dana Beal. After his release, Beal befriended Rosenthal and recruited him into the Yippies. It was through Dana and the Yippies that Rosenthal met pot smuggler Tom Forcade in 1971. The two quickly sparked a friendship, and one day while getting high together, they came up with a brilliant idea. “Tom, a fellow by the name of Ron Lichty and myself were all living in a collective down on 11th Street,” he recounts. “We were all part of the Underground Press Syndicate, and we had a bit of money in that organization, so we decided to start a magazine, and that magazine became High Times.” Unfortunately though, Rosenthal was never credited as a cofounder, because shortly after coming up with the idea, a questionable acquaintance convinced Forcade to threaten Rosenthal and throw him out.

“There was a friend of Tom’s that was working undercover for the government,” Ed alleges. “He tried to destroy the magazine, and he’s the one who split us apart.”

THE GROWERS GUIDE Thankfully, Rosenthal didn’t need HT to establish himself as an expert in Cannabis cultivation. In 1971, he began building and selling small greenhouses, and in an attempt to get free promotion an attempt to get free promotion in their “New York Flyer” supplement, pitched Rolling Stone an article about growing pot. As it happens, another cultivator As it happens, another cultivator named Mel Frank had beat him to the punch. After Rolling Stones’ to the punch. After Rolling Stones’ editors arranged a meeting with Frank, Rosenthal suggested that they collaborate on a book. Though reluctant at first, Rosenthal’s persistence eventually Rosenthal’s persistence eventually persuaded Frank.

As part of their research, they met with Dr. Carlton Turner of the University of Mississippi’s Marijuana Research Project – the Marijuana Research Project – the only legally-sanctioned Cannabis farm in America. Turner provided them access to recently-published scientific papers on pot, which they then used – along with their own knowledge of horticulture – to produce the first comprehensive textbook on Cannabis cultivation: “The Marijuana Growers’ Guide.”

The first edition of their groundbreaking grow manual was published in 1974, and by 1978 an updated edition of the book was reviewed by the New York Times. Thanks to that review, the book sold over 1 million copies – informing and inspiring a generation of ganja growers, and establishing Frank and Rosenthal as America’s leading authorities on Cannabis cultivation.

HIGH TIMES That same year, Rosenthal That same year, Rosenthal helped organize and judge helped organize and judge the first-ever Cannabis the first-ever Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam. After Cup in Amsterdam. After Forcade’s suicide in 1978, Forcade’s suicide in 1978, Rosenthal had been Rosenthal had been welcomed back into the welcomed back into the HT family as a regular HT family as a regular contributor. In 1983, he contributor. In 1983, he premiered his monthly premiered his monthly grow advice column “Ask grow advice column “Ask Ed,” which became the longest-running column Ed,” which became the longest-running column in the magazine’s history – that is, until 2000, in the magazine’s history – that is, until 2000, when it was discontinued due to a legal dispute when it was discontinued due to a legal dispute between Rosenthal and the magazine’s owners.

The trust Forcade had set up to fund the magazine stipulated that in the year 2000, ownership of the magazine would be passed to “loyal employees” who’d been with the company for 10 years or more (Rosenthal claims it was five years, but other accounts say 10). Rosenthal believed he qualified to receive shares in the company, but the trustees disagreed – claiming that he was merely a freelancer, rather than an employee. As a result, he filed a lawsuit against the company to obtain the shares he felt he was owed—a suit which he ultimately lost.

MARIJUANA MUSEUM In 1985, Rosenthal flew out to Amsterdam to connect with other leading breeders and growers – including Wernard Bruining, Old Ed Holloway, Skunkman Sam and Nevil Schoenmakers. While there, he was contracted by two coffeeshop-owning Dutch brothers to curate the first international Cannabis museum.

“They’d put together this whole museum – it was only missing one thing: the exhibits. They needed somebody who could fill it in three weeks, so I put together a team, worked 16 hours a day, and got it done.”

In 1987, Rosenthal’s friend Ben Dronkers purchased that project, rebranding it as Sensi Seeds’ Hash, Marijuana, and Hemp Museum. (A few years later, Dronkers also bought the Holland Seed Bank from Schoenmakers, who Rosenthal had introduced him to.) UNITED STATES v. ROSENTHAL Unfortunately, Rosenthal would end up back in court a couple of years later: like many other Cannabis cultivators and activists, he found himself in the crosshairs of the DEA when, on February 12, 2002, federal agents raided his home and nursery in Oakland.

“It was six in the morning, and there was banging at the door. Since I sleep naked, I went down naked to see what was happening … so they knew I was unarmed,” he jokes.

Rosenthal was charged with the cultivation of over 100 plants, but the irony was that the city had legally permitted his garden; in 1999, he’d been appointed an “Officer of the City of Oakland” – deputized to grow those plants for various medical marijuana clubs around the Bay Area. Although it was a nonprofit grow that had the blessing of the city and was legal under Prop 215, his lawyers were prohibited from presenting any of that information to the jury because the case was federal – and therefore state law didn’t apply.

Recognizing that the trial was a farce, Ed employed classic Yippie theatrics by wearing a “wizard of weed” costume into court. These tactics helped draw national media attention and sway public opinion about medical marijuana. Nevertheless, without a viable medical defense, he was convicted in 2003. After the trial, when the jurors learned about the mitigating circumstances, most of them recanted their verdict and begged for his forgiveness.

“They felt terrible,” Rosenthal says. “At my sentencing, 10 of the jurors gave a news conference saying that they were duped by the judge. That was the first time in American history that ever happened, to my knowledge.”

Capitulating to social pressure, Judge Charles Breyer sentenced Rosenthal to just one day in jail, time served. Three years later, after the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned his conviction on a technicality, the U.S. Attorney’s office decided to re-indict him – instigating a second trial in May 2007, presided over by the same judge. Once again, he was prohibited from mounting a medical defense and was convicted.

“I was found guilty again, but I had already done my time, so after the verdict I just walked out. They’d given me a day, and I had done 36 hours, so they still owe me 12 hours,” he jokes.

GIVING BACK At age 77, Rosenthal is at the peak of his prestige. He’s won numerous lifetime achievement awards and continues to make appearances at Cannabis events around the world. His latest project is the Million Marijuana Seed Giveaway – doling out free seeds of different cultivars he and his friends have bred in an effort to encourage his fans to become pheno hunters. Some of those free seeds are Prepping some seeds to include in one of his Prisoner of Weed book bundles. included in the “Prisoners of Weed” book packs for sale on his website, with 10 percent of the proceeds going to the Last Prisoner Project. So far, the packs have raised over $6,000 for pot POWs. “I didn’t have to do time after I was raided … but there are still people out there doing time for a plant many are profiting on now, and that’s wrong,” Rosenthal recently told HT. “We need to change that – yesterday.” To read the full, unabridged version of this story and listen to the interview on our podcast, visit worldofcannabis.museum/cannthropology. PHOTOS COURTESY OF ED ROSENTHAL

THE MOMENT YOUR AUTOMOBILE DOORS are shut with the driveshaft engaged, the contest is underway. Regardless of who is behind the wheel of other vehicles competing for space on the road, your primary objective is to circumvent them to save precious minutes while en route to your destination. And although the unidentified drivers against whom you jockey for position are often good people in your own neighborhood, they have now become faceless adversaries crowding the track.

Like the butts of cigarettes, courtesies are flicked out the window.

And there’s no surprise that this daily race causes tension. Because traffic is a drain on your fragile psyche. And you are not proud of who you become in these moments of frustration when it turns you into a triggered bitch.

You see, we all have a threshold of tolerance that, when crossed, causes a discomforting level of anxiety and stress – fueling the impatience and adding to life’s pressures. And because there is no immediate resolve, you learn to live with the strangulation while building a resentment that weighs on you like an addict’s regret.

You blame the other drivers. “Oh, if only those idiots hadn’t dug themselves into that inescapable cavern of debt like I did.” There’s the mortgage, the auto loan, the kids, the boob job – all the shit you have on autopay that prevents you from turning right out of the driveway instead of left. It’s the right turn that leaves the city toward a tropical paradise … far, far away from the giant magnet that tugs you into the grind.

Fortunately, Cannabis improves your perception. One small toke from a vape pen makes the speakers speak, the seat heaters glow, and the engine vibrate comfortably for the most optimal enjoyment during your relaxed commute.

You are quite aware that it is against the law to drive stoned.

Thank God for Visine.