35 minute read
GROWING IN A GREEN HOUSE ››
from 2014 04 UK
by SoftSecrets
Growing in a greenhouse
With spring out of the way and summer slowly cranking into gear, our thoughts turn to the great outdoors and the possibility of some nice bud grown under that free grow light in the sky. Outdoor crops are awesome, it’s almost free weed! However, they do come with their own set of headaches; you have no control over environmental factors like you do indoors, your plants are susceptible to all sorts of pests, disease and, worse still, crop robbers.
By Little Lebowski
Growing in a domestic greenhouse is a great way to utilise the natural light to grow you favourite plants, it offers the grower a level of environmental control and it also negates having to deal with a lot of the problems encountered with guerrilla outdoor grows. Yes, you will still have to fight off pests but they will be of the insect variety rather than rabbits, deers and the local thug’s pit bull!
If you’re growing in a residential area, a
greenhouse provides the ideal opportunity to hide a few cannabis plants amongst your veg and herbs, keeping them shielded from the neighbours view and the smell relatively well contained. If you’re in a rural area then there’s no reason not to be a little braver and do a few more plants, just be prepared for the smell. Remember, a carbon filter isn’t an option in a greenhouse, it will fail due to the high humidity levels. Extracting through an in-line ozone generator will be your only option if the smell gets too much.
There are lots of options when it comes to purchasing a greenhouse, the first thing to do is to pick your style; leanto, free standing or poly tunnel. From experience, we’d recommend against the cheap and cheerful portable greenhouses. They’ll blow away on a windy day and cook your plants on a warm day!
Lean-to greenhouses are assembled against the exterior wall of your house and retain any heat that permeates through the wall. They’re a great option if space is at a premium because they are essentially a ‘half sized’ greenhouse.
Free standing greenhouses are usually apex shaped, like the shape of a house, and can be aluminium or wood framed. One important point to remember is that, the larger the frame, the larger the shadows they will cast over your plants.
Poly tunnels are traditionally used in commercial horticulture but are also avail-
able in domestic sizing. They consist of a curved aluminium frame with polythene sheeting stretched over it to form a solid structure. They’re usually cheaper than
traditional greenhouses, but the sheeting will need replacing every 3-5 years.
Unless you’re very tight on space for your greenhouse, it’s a good idea to buy the next size up from the size you were going to buy. It’s nice to have some space to work and move around in. Plus, you’ll always fill any unused space with equipment and growing media.
Whatever size and style of greenhouse you decide on, it’s best to go for a diffused or semi-diffused coverings or panels, rather than clear panels. Clear panels deliver direct light, which is great for propagating or bringing on young plants, as the direct sun will keep everything warm and prevent seedlings from getting leggy.
However, to grow your plants full cycle you really need to diffuse the light to stop all the plants fighting for the light and also prevent hot spots from forming. Diffused light encourages even growth throughout your full crop and will increase your average yield.
Overheating is one of the main causes of plant failure in greenhouses. A greenhouse must retain warm air during the cooler months, but it’s equally as important to release hot air during the warm months. When choosing a greenhouse, give consideration to ventilation. The glazing must have vents to ensure good growing conditions. The combined area of all the vents when open should be at least a fifth of the
The greenhouse provides a haven for ALL of your favourite plants
A domestic sized poly tunnel
floor area. There should be sufficient allowance for air to enter and exit the structure. Look for vents near the top of the structure and base vents for air intake.
In addition to manually operated vents, it is worth paying for an automatic vent
opener. This contains a cylinder of wax that expands and opens the vent when it’s warm, then closes it again when it’s cooler. This lets you be away from the greenhouse without having to worry about your plants sweltering during the hottest parts of the day. Some greenhouse designs also feature exhaust fans to prevent overheating during spring and summer months.
Once you’ve chosen your greenhouse, it’s time to pick the right spot to set it up in. Ideally, your plants will need 5-7 hours of direct sunlight per day. This will be achieved with a south facing spot. The more direct sunlight the plants get, the better the yields you’ll harvest.
Morning dew will tend to get trapped in buds and may form mould over time, so direct sun from as early in the day as possible will minimise the moisture trapped in the buds and will reduce the risk of bud rot. Of course, this will only work if you have adequate ventilation in your greenhouse.
So, you’ve got your greenhouse sorted, now what are you going to grow? If you’ve got your heart set on a regular photoperiod strain then you should
know that the outdoor growing season lasts from April through to November, with the majority of strains ready to harvest from mid to late October. You will get one crop during this growing period. indoors under a regular propagation light. As you get closer to the date that they will transplanted to your greenhouse, harden them off by taking them outside for a few hours a day; increase the amount of time they spend outside to get them acclimatised to the outside temperatures.
The plants will vegetate through the months of May and June and will be triggered into the flowering photo period after the summer solstice – the longest day of the year – this is when the amount of daylight hours gets progressively shorter and the plants instinct is to put out flowers – buds – in order to reproduce.
Most strains will take between 8 and 12 weeks to finish flowering, meaning that crops will be ready to harvest between the end of September to the start of November.
Be warned that regular photoperiod strains can get HUGE when grown outdoors and it’s very easy to run out of head room in a small greenhouse, so you’ll need to spend time topping and training your plants.
For growing in a domestic sized greenhouse in UK weather conditions, it’s a good idea to look at autoflowering strains. Autoflowers are great for outdoor growing in the UK. For those of you that don’t know, they are a non-photoperiod sensitive variety of Cannabis which - in layman’s terms - means that you don’t have to rely on the days getting shorter in order to get them to flower. They will automatically start to produce bud sites and begin flowering two to three weeks after germination, regardless of the amount of light hours they receive.
This makes them a safe bet for producing some decent greenhouse weed, because you can basically plant them out when the weather is already nice and warm, safe in the knowledge that they’ll be ready to harvest within 60 to 90 days. Yes, it’s true that the plants will be smaller and produce a lesser yield than regular photoperiod sensitive varieties, but at least you’ll be guaranteed an outdoor harvest.
The fact that autos are quicker to finish means that you’ll be able to pull off more outdoor harvests over the year, because autos begin flowering automatically, growing outdoors and starting a crop early in the year (weather permit-
ting) means that you’ll be harvesting in the middle of summer. Overlapping your planting and harvest times by a few weeks or so means that, even in the UK, you could easily pull 3 outdoor harvests in a year! Or keep adding new plants to your greenhouse every few weeks and you’ll be harvesting on a regular basis come the end of the summer. The short growth cycle also allows you to start an outdoor crop later in the year. So, if we have a poor spring you can plant well into the summer months and still pull an outdoor harvest.
Attention northern growers! If you’re situated in Ireland, the North of England or
Scotland you can easily pull off a greenhouse crop. The Cannabis Ruderalis influence in the genetics of auto strains means that they are more resistant to the cold weather, disease and moulds (they grew up in Russia and Siberia after all!). Very handy for UK greenhouse growing.
Just as with regular photoperiod strains,
your plants will need to be started off indoors, but this doesn’t mean you’ll need to splash out on a full grow room set up. You can get everything you need for a few quid. Get yourself a cheap high dome propagator, some light mix soil, some 10cm pots and a single T5 strip light. Sow your seeds in the pots filled with light mix, wait for them to germinate and then bring them on for a few days under the T5 lamp.
Then you’ll need to harden them off for a few days; remove the propagator lid and keep the T5 just above the tops of your babies. Finally, it’s time to get them ready to go into the greenhouse.
One of the big selling points with growing autos in your greenhouse, is that they will
stay small in size. ‘Dwarf’ or ‘Low Ryder’ varieties of auto will reach no more than a foot and a half in height. Most of the auto strains (with the exclusion of the ‘Super Autos’) will remain small. This is perfect for hiding your plants in amongst pots filled with herbs or veg. Even better would be to grow the autos along the centre of the greenhouse and place some vine plants, like tomatoes and cucumbers, up the sides of the greenhouse, this will break up the silhouette of the cannabis plants and keep them hidden from the neighbours.
After you’ve chosen your seeds, the only decision left to make is how you’ll actually cultivate your greenhouse plants. If you decide to hand feed then planting out in large pots of soil or coco will cut down on the watering workload and also ensure that there is plenty of moisture available to the roots during warm days. As the plants are undercover, you are free to choose whichever nutrient schedule you wish, organic or mineral, safe in the knowledge that your expensive nutrients won’t get washed out of the pots by the rain.
It’s tempting to run mains power into your greenhouse to power a hydroponic system but, before you do, take a look at the pos-
sibilities offered by some of the better passive hydroponic systems; they operate without pumps, timers or electricity, and they’ll equal the yields of traditional hydroponics.
For example, Hempy buckets are single plant systems that are very cheap to build and offer great results. Take a look at our guide to building them back in 2014 UK issue 1. The AutoPot systems are modular and can be expanded from a single pot to thousands of pots, they’re used in commercial greenhouses across the world and are well worth a look.
In fact, passive hydro systems can be better suited to greenhouse growing than systems that run on a pump and timer. This is because passive systems make nutrient and water available to the plant at all times, they drink when they need it, and the amount they drink is dependent on the weather. If it’s hot they will drink lots, if it’s cool they’ll drink much less. If you feed your plants on a pump and timer under the same conditions, they may end up under fed when it’s hot and overfed when it’s cold.
There’s still time this year to pick yourself up a greenhouse and get an auto crop on the go, don’t just take our word for it, try it for yourself!
AutoPots are used in commercial greenhouse across the world Dream on!
CBD Redux (again...) Dr Dee
Sometimes one is just so on the ball that it’s quite scary. Here’s an occasion where I’ve actually managed to surprise myself with how totally and completely on the ball I am.
Back in 2010 and again in 2012 I wrote columns for Soft Secrets where I talked about the beneficial properties of CBD. In fact, I ended the 2012 column with the words “High CBD weed: give it a shot and see what you think. One day you’ll thank me for this”.
Jump forward to 2014 and in the last issue of Soft Secrets there’s an article called “The Race for CBD”. I had to smile at this. Seed producers and growers have woken up to this burgeoning market and are now producing specifically high CBD and low THC strains in a bid to address the growing interest and demand and, of course, to exploit what is potentially a big new market. There’s no question that this move towards the provision of “proper” medical marijuana is most definitely something to be welcomed. However, there’s something of a downside to this as well. I’ve looked at a number of websites catering for the toking population at large and have noticed that a number of these have, so to speak, dedicated “Medical Marijuana” areas. Naturally, I took a closer look and noticed that in the main, sellers are actually charging more for the higher content CBD seeds than for high content THC ones which seems to me to be akin to charging more for a bottle of water than for a bottle of wine.
There are a couple of ways of looking at this; on the one hand, you might regard it as monetary exploitation of ill people, but I think that, while this would seem an obvious reason, it’s also quite simplistic and doesn’t really tell the whole story.
The science behind this stuff is quite complex, and obviously there’s an element of financial cost involved to those who actually fiddle about with the content ratios of CBD, THC or whatever. It’s really not a straightforward process that can be done in a kitchen.
Like it or not, the cannabis market, like every other market, is subject to the laws of supply and demand and all the rest of it. As an example, think about, say, plasma flat screen television sets. A few years ago, these were really very expensive commodities, principally because they were a niche market. Nowadays, the same set that might have set you back a thousand quid five or six years ago can be bought for two or three hundred. This isn’t because the prices came down so that more people could afford them: the prices came down because more people bought them. It’s radically cheaper to produce lots of something than it is to produce a few, and the good news is that these savings are passed on to the customer in the form of lower prices.
So while I said earlier that there’s a downside to the CBD market, this will probably be a temporary situation and as more people embrace these strains, the price will start to come down. At some point in the future, this will present the interesting problem of how weed containing little in the way of THC and a lot in the way of CBD will be regarded by the law here in the UK. It’s difficult to say for sure as it’s (yet another!) grey area, but at the moment it looks as if CBD tinctures are legal, or at least, semi legal. How the law will choose to respond to the inevitable cases of cultivation of high CBD weed is a drama that is yet to unfold and one that I’ll be watching closely.
dimethyltryptamine777@hotmail.com
Worm manure contains very valuable nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus that will contribute greatly to an exceptional growth (nitrogen) and flower production (phosphorus).
FIELD OR GREENHOUSE DRYING GOING THAI
In a legal commercial grow do you think that the greenhouse approach would be the most cost effective, that is largest yield per dollar invested, rather than simply increasing acreage and number of plants?
KEN
The costs of hoop greenhouses and workers to maintain light deprivation are relatively small, even as compared with open fields.
However, the quality is so much greater when plants are grown in a controlled environment and are ripened before the vagaries of fall weather and the reduced intensity of light, that the extra cost is easily recouped by the higher sales price commanded by superior product. I cure the buds at between 18 to 20ºC at 50 percent for the first three days. What should I do to dry it at after that?
Raise the temperature a few degrees, no higher than 22ºC, and lower the humidity to 40 to 45 percent. Keep the buds in the drying zone until the tiny sticks in the buds snap. This happens when they have only 10 to 8 percent moisture. Only then are they ready for packaging. Don’t let them get drier or they won’t be suitable for smoking.
LEAKING CO2
I have a system with four 1000-watt lamps over two 110 cm x 220 cm tables. I use air-cooled lights and a ventilation system set to blow air out when the temperature reaches 28ºC.
I read about CO2 so I bought a system that measures the CO2 in the air to regulate the amount of CO2. It used propane to produce the gas. That was a big mistake because it heated the room so much that it would often set the ventilation system off. I replaced this with a tank, which works fairly well in the winter, but by mid-spring the ventilation system is turning on all the time so that I have to replace the tanks several times a week as opposed to once every two weeks in the winter. I’ll use even more during the summer. What should I do?
SOGAR
The solution is to create a closed-loop garden. No air enters or leaves the garden. Instead its CO2 content, temperature and humidity, are controlled and it is filtered for dust, spores, bacteria, and fungi. Since no air is leaving the room the CO2 sticks around until it is used, so tank use won’t spike in warm weather.
Aside from maintaining CO2 levels there are several other reasons why using ventilation to cool the system may not be the best method of maintaining temperature in your garden. For one thing, during warm or hot weather, drawing in ambient temperature air is not very effective at cooling the garden. Then during the winter, ventilation draws in cold air that may chill some plants in its path. Another problem is that ventilation is a vector for infections, pathogens, and disease spores. Closed-loop systems eliminate these problems and free the garden from the vagaries of the outside environment by maintaining a separate environment. How do I cure my herb to be brown like the Thai I smoked in the1970s?
It’s not hard to turn green grass brown.
It happens as one of the results of anaerobic decomposition. As an example, it sometimes occurs when buds are placed in jars or plastic bags before they are fully dried. First the aerobic (oxygen-loving) bacteria start feasting on the moist plant material. In the closed environment these bacteria soon use up the available oxygen and become inactive. Then the anaerobic bacteria, which thrive in an oxygen-free environment, start digesting the tissue, including the chlorophyll, the pigment that gives plants their characteristic green color. As a result the tissue turns brown and loses much of its odor as the terpenes are destroyed.
To “brown” cannabis, place it in a mostly sealed container when it still contains some moisture. The small sticks within the buds should bend rather than snap. Snapping is an indication that cannabis has reached the smokeable stage of dryness. Once it has turned brown make sure to open the sealed container to let the buds air out or they may deteriorate into mush or grow moldy. When the container is first opened, the buds will have an acrid, ammonia odor that quickly dissipates.
Hoop greenhouses offer more protection than row covers and can be used for light deprivation, but the polyethylene plastic is opaque to UV light, so the plants don’t get the sun’s full benefit Using row covers has several advantages. It offers plants protection from inclement or cool weather, so the season is extended, and the covers can be used for light deprivation, hastening ripening
The top of this greenhouse by Forever Flowering opens so the plants can receive direct sunlight including UV light. The structure can be shaded at the touch of a button or by a timer to provide light deprivation
FLUSHING JACK HERER
I am growing Jack Herer indoors. The plants are in flowering now. When should I flush the plants? For how long do I flush? What is the best product to flush with for indoor hydro?
Jack Herer is a long-flowering plant. Some variants take 11 to 12 weeks to mature from flower forcing. Shorter-flowering variants require 9 to 10 weeks. The shorter-flowering plants start maturing at about 6 weeks, and the longer at about 8 weeks. At about 7 weeks the earlierripening plants are maturing rapidly; this happens about a week later, at 8 weeks, in the 11-week plants. Start flushing them about a week later by adding enough water to the planting mix so that about 20 percent of the irrigation water drains from the mix. This removes some of the dissolved nutrients. This can be repeated after a few days.
Flushing is easier and safer when the plants are in a well-drained porous soil. In fine-grained soggy soils the water drains slowly so there is a chance of causing root damage because the roots drown from lack of oxygen. In this situation it may not be advisable to flush.
Cannabis Juice: The Elixir of Health?
Ganja smoothie anyone? Sounds good to me! If you keep an eye on cannabis health and science news you might have heard some of the hype about raw cannabis juice. Its being touted by some as a miracle cure for all sorts of conditions and ailments, but is it really? What does the science say? Does a bud a day keep the doctor away? By The Professor
The media story starts in 2008 with Kristen Courtney, a young adult from the US. She was suffering from multiple conditions; systemic lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, endometriosis, interstitial cystitis, hypoglycaemia, anaemia, chronic sinusitis, chronic bacterial infections and then some. She was taking a lot of pharmaceutical drugs and smoking large amounts of cannabis to deal with her symptoms but when she decided to start juicing pot instead she made a remarkable recovery. Within eight weeks she was well enough to stop taking the forty-odd pharmaceutical pills she was on every day. Now she’s happy, healthy, and beyond all expectations she even got pregnant. She attributes her recovery to the fixing of an “endogenous cannabinoid deficiency order”.
By juicing raw cannabis it is possible to ingest non-psychoactive THCA and CBDA in significant quantities to influence good health. The terpenoids, flavonoids and other plant alkaloids that are lost through decarboxylation (the breaking down of CO2 within the plant) are also kept available. The sum result of all this can mean an increase in cerebral blood flow, enhanced cortical activity, added resistance against respiratory pathogens and it
has a full-system anti-inflammatory effect. As well as that and curing Kristen’s many ailments, this form of consumption can be a great help to sufferers of Parkinsons and Alzheimers, and it is a proven and immediate treatment for chronic nausea. One bud a day is a recommended dose. Not everyone is quite so enthusiastic though. Martin A. Lee points out in his 2013 article that, like THCA and CBDA, THC and CBD are both active in terms of
cancer and tumour reduction and pain relief and they also help regulate immune system and peripheral nerve functions, but they are not the same – THC and CBD are decidedly more potent than their acid (A) forms. He then goes on to explain that decarboxylation is a natural process, it often starts while the plant is still alive and unharvested, in other words, THC
and CBD are perfectly natural end-states for THCA and CBDA. Other critics remind us that raw cannabis can host nasties like salmonella and E. Coli and that to achieve a recommended dose of 600mg – 1000mg of CBDA the patient would have to juice a lot of raw leaves, and just how are you going to measure that dose anyway? Once you start, it can take up to eight weeks of daily use to realise the full benefits of the juice, it is also important to use fresh plants that have been harvested in that small window of time when the trichomes are fully ripe but not yet cloudy. If the trichomes have started to decarboxylate naturally then the THCA will turn to THC, if that happens the ingestant will run the risk of enhanced psychoactivity. Dread the thought!
All things considered, this is a great debate for the cannabis plant. Nobody is doubting the extent of the plant’s medical potential, rather they are debating which might be the best way to use it and which are the best forms of its chemicals to use; its the potency of THC and CBD against the synergistic effects of THCA, CBDA and all the terpenoids, flavonoids, chlorophyll and other plant alkaloids working together. If you want official recognition even the Food and Drug Administration of the US has approved 600mg of CBD as daily ingestive dose!
In the end it’s all going to come down to what exactly it is that the patient needs help with; plenty of passionate scientists and nutritionists are studying all the implications and questions involved so there will be some good knowledge discovered soon as a result. This whole discussion brings to mind something the enigmatic Dr Ben Dlamini of Swaziland said: “I’ve eaten this plant every day since I was a kid and I’ve never been high once! Look at me! I can still move and dance when I feel the rhythm and I’m an old man – 82!” And this is in a country where living to the ripe old age of forty is a privilege. There’s certainly no doubt about the absolutely vast range of medical uses for cannabis, as a treatment, a cure and a preventative, but just how good is it? And what are the best ways to use it? Juicing works for a lot of people. If you’ve got a supply of fresh cannabis leaves or nuggets handy and you want to give it a try its best mixed with other vegetable juices because it has a bitter taste, one part ganja juice to nine parts carrot juice is good starting point, but beware! Some people can suffer an allergic reaction - the plant has natural defences against predators that want to eat it while its still alive – the stems are covered in protective, irritative hairs so it can make your throat swell up. Juicing the plant should help avoid this problem but eating it raw might be a bit much. As for decarboxylated or not, you could always go for the best of both worlds – a nice raw nugget topped up with a bit of heat-treated herb – the synergistic effects of all those CBDAs, THCAs, terpenoids, flavonoids and other such wonders mixed up with the psychoactive potency of weed as we know it. Yeah man! Pass the smoothie ‘pon the left hand side!
Useful sources include:
Without Psychoactivity? Juicing
Raw Cannabis; Martin A. Lee;
O’Shaughnessy’s; Winter/Spring 2013
Work?; Seshata; Sensi Seeds Blog; 10
Feb 2014; http://sensiseeds.com/en/ blog/exactly-cannabis-juice-work/
Benefits of Treating Cannabis Like a
Vegetable; Zach Reichard; Medical
Jane; 19 Jan 2013; http://www.medicaljane.com/2013/01/19/cannabis-thefoundation-of-health/#
What’s the deal with
synthetic cannabis? Dr john dee
At the beginning of June I attended a one day conference dedicated to the subject of New Psychoactive Substances (erroneously AKA “legal highs”). Now, I have to admit here that I really didn’t know very much about these, being more of a traditionalist when it comes to the ways people find to get themselves into an altered state. The little I did know about them was either anecdotal or came from media scare stories.
The day went the usual way of these things: a lot of different speakers representing a lot of different interests all bleating on about how bad the situation is and how something must be done. A number of different substances were described in detail, and a number of horror stories regarding their use were related. The biggie for the day, however, was synthetic cannabis.
The overriding theme was “how do we stop people taking this?” To which, in my view at least, the obvious answer is “we can’t, and we should spend our time on the more profitable pursuit of looking at minimising the chances of these sorts of event occurring in the first place”.
It became clear quite quickly to me that nearly all of the substances discussed were copies, if you like, of existing substances. However, there are a couple of crucial differences between the originals and the copies. Firstly, they’re not the same, chemically speaking, as what they’re copying and therefore the effects won’t necessarily be the same as what they’re copying. Secondly, the majority of the problems reported with these substances seem to stem mainly from the fact that their potency and effects are not known until actually used.
With synthetic cannabis, imagine the most potent weed you’ve ever smoked and then try to imagine that effect doubled or tripled. is both interesting in itself and very relevant to the subject in hand.
In America in the early 1950’s, dope was regarded as something “deviant”. It’s difficult to know with any great authority what sort of numbers of people used dope, but it’s been fairly well documented as to what “types” of people used it, which is to say, predominantly ethnic minority groups. So for example, we have migrant workers from Mexico and Central/South America, Black people (particularly jazz musicians), Native Americans and so forth. But then in the
1940’s this began to change somewhat, and Caucasian/white users started to appear on the map (note: I’d say there were almost certainly white dope smokers a lot earlier than this, but they really were a hidden population). To begin with, white dope smokers were jazz musicians, “Beatniks” and other assorted bohemian arty types, but as is the way with these things, some of the trappings of the subculture were assimilated by “big culture” leading to an upsurge in the curious wanting to try it for themselves.
This, in turn, led to a sharp upsurge in what
To be honest, I left the conference with two thoughts, neither of which was the intended “take home” message of the day: “these things sound great”, and “once everyone using them gets to grips with the rules around use, it’ll all be fine”.
Here’s the thing: these substances don’t come with any sort of instruction regarding how much to use. This isn’t the fault of the producers or vendors: they’re forbidden by law to provide this information. So what happens is that users – these can be complete novices or seasoned dope smokers
– rather than starting with a small amount and working up, go straight for broke and use the same amount as they would of “regular” weed. Now, as I say, for the most part, these are considerably more potent than even the top end weeds, so you’ll see where the problems are going to start.
And there’s nothing actually that new about any of this.
At this point, I’m going to ask you to indulge me on another history lesson. I won’t keep you too long, but this stuff we’d call “adverse reactions” or even “psychotic episodes” as people with absolutely no experience of weed started battering into it (as we say in Scotland).
So in 1953, an American sociologist called Howard Becker published an article called “Becoming a Marihuana User” based on some research he’d conducted. You can find and read this for yourself online, but the essence of it was that there are a set of “rules” to be followed in order to get pleasure from dope, and that pleasurable effects are not a given outcome. In later decades, novice users would be – so to speak – initiated into and shown the rules of dope smoking by their more experienced peers. However, in a situation where there were no experienced peers, the novice user had to work out the rules for themselves. And this was Becker’s point: once the rules are established, the number adverse reactions will begin to fall.
Just to reinforce the point, in 1967 Becker predicted pretty much the same thing about LSD. I don’t want to spend much time on this, but in a nutshell, acid hit “big culture” in a big way and as with dope, was accompanied by a wave of “adverse effects”, “psychotic reactions”, hospitalisations and all the rest of it. Becker’s case was that this was a relatively new substance and nobody really knew what the rules around use were, therefore once the rules had been established, the number of bad trips would fall. And so it was.
And so it is with synthetic cannabis. Just as the rule book (how to use, when to use, where to use, and crucially, how much to use) for old school dope had to be “rewritten” for high potency weed strains, so the rule book for dope as we know it will need to be rewritten to accommodate the synthetic materials. Things will ultimately calm down.
One final point here: one of the speakers at the conference said that synthetic cannabis is a “huge” problem in the U.S. at which point yours truly asked if this was the case in Colorado. After some evasion and obfuscation, I got the answer that no, it’s not a problem in Colorado. Similarly, it’s not an issue in Holland either. So I’m going to leave you with a question: “what might this tell us?”
7 Things about CBD
Cannabidiol, or CBD, is one of many cannabinoids which occur naturally in the cannabis plant. In recent years Dutch Passion have been busy researching and breeding with different CBD-rich cultivars. Here are 7 things we have learned about CBD along the way: By Tony, from Dutch Passion Seedbank, Amsterdam
CBD Skunk Haze
1People report different effects For some people CBD gives extra mental clarity and a complete removal of anxiety. Other people report that it is great for helping sleep when taken in slightly higher amounts. Many MS patients say it has significantly improved their ability to cope with their symptoms. We hear from people with
various medical issues who find CBD has reduced pain and/or made their medical conditions easier to cope with.
2
more difficult than breeding tradi-
tional varieties. Analytical testing on the cannabinoids is required every step of the way during the breeding process. Selection of parents is done not just on the basis of yield, aroma, robustness and stability but also on the lab analysis done of the cannabinoid profile. Its seriously hard and slow work which is made more difficult by the ethical responsibility to ensure that the seeds we sell can be relied on by the medical growers. 3 -
ple purely for the anti-anxiety effects.
Although many people with physical medical conditions use CBD successfully for pain/ inflammation, we have been surprised how many people say that CBD is the best antianxiety relief that they can find. Initially this was thought to be a pleasant bonus for a small percentage of CBD users, but it is now
clear that this is one of the main cerebral effects. What makes this particularly surprising is that much of the CBD breeding work was done with the aim of aiding relief from physical conditions, yet we see a surprising number of people using CBD-rich cannabis just for the mental clarity, focus and anxiety relief which it brings. It is no coincidence that the Israelis and the USA both use CBD for post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) e.g. in battle-scarred former military personnel. One clear finding is that CBD offers benefits for both the mind and the body. ply nothing better. We get great feedback from many medical growers, but mixed feedback from recreational CBD growers. Some recreational growers love the clearheaded effects of CBD, they feel ‘medicated’ but they are able to function. Some recreational CBD growers like the postsmoke satisfaction that comes from it, but they are able to work, think and function
far better than they could with a THC rich variety. This can be useful for those wanting an enjoyable and satisfying daytime smoke. But some recreational users don’t appreciate CBD, there is not the same initial cerebral head high, if you are waiting to get really stoned and high then maybe CBD is not for you. CBD is subtle yet satisfying, but not a first choice for those wanting a heavy experience. It’s a strange thing to report, but a lot of CBD users say that they become unusually talkative after taking CBD
4ties, some people wonder what all the fuss is about while others say that there is sim5 -
ing properties of cannabis to a new
level. For many people with physical problems CBD takes pain relief to a new level beyond traditional THC-rich varieties. In situations where THC does a good job of pain relief we find that CBD can do a fantastic job. Some CBD users will enjoy the effects of the CBD so much that they will refuse to smoke a THC rich variety for a few hours after they have had their CBD, this is to stop the effects of THC overwhelming the initial effects of the CBD.
6You can get used to feeling
Experienced CBD users can quickly get a feel for how much THC and CBD are in the plant which they are vaporizing/smoking. Varieties that are almost exclusively CBD, such as Charlottes Web, will not get you remotely high even if you smoke a lot, and even if you try some oil. The ‘Charlottes Web’ style of varieties are often 15%+ CBD with just 1% or less THC. The “1:1” varieties offer a 1:1 ratio of THC:CBD. If you try one of these 1:1 varieties you will notice a mental ‘tickle’ from the THC, but you may not get too ‘high’ from it unless you take quite a lot. The experienced CBD homegrower can even distinguish between different phenotypes of the CBD varieties, being able to sense which plants have more THC simply from the effect. Perhaps the strangest thing about smoking a CBDrich variety (i.e. > 4% CBD) for the first time is that you sit there waiting for an initial THC-high which really never arrives.
7THC is still as important as ever
for medical growers. Despite the growing mainstream media interest in CBD it is clear that for many people THC still remains hugely important for medical users. Its important that people do not start assuming that CBD is the only medical aspect of cannabis. For some people and for some applications THC is important either on its own or in a 1:1 ratio with CBD.
Dutch Passion’s involvement in CBD has been a voyage of discovery. Initially we didn’t know exactly what the benefits would be for medical growers, nor did we anticipate how significant those benefits would be. Many medical marijuana users are prepared to speak to the doctor about the use of pot and we would encourage that. Often doctors will be sympathetic about the use of cannabis. We do not advise anyone to give up their traditional medical treatment in favour of pot, the preferred approach is dialogue between doctor and patient. Doctors are becoming more knowledgeable about cannabis and there are an increasing number of formal studies into the properties of cannabis.
CBD-rich pot is now firmly established as a new member of the Cannabis family alongside auto flowering varieties and traditional varieties. And in the meantime we are working hard behind the scenes to see how other cannabinoids can be selectively increased and what benefits they will bring. It’s going to be an interesting few years ahead.
