PART 2 - in this Multi-Issue FEATURE

"All you need to know are a few basics. First, there are male and female plants. The substance that gives marijuana its famous psychoactive kick is concentrated in the flowers or buds of the females. So when they’re old enough to tell them apart, kill the males. Two, give your plants plenty of light and not too much water."

~Peter Jennings
ABC’s News Special “Pot of Gold” 1997

Medical Marijuana has been legalized in 14 states, making it legal to grow cannabis for medical needs for yourself or for another (known as a “caregiver”). Each of the 14 states have their own laws in place, mandating the amount of plants you can grow for medical use, and each requires that a medical marijuana card be attained, whether for yourself or as a “caregiver”. As we discussed in “Part I” last month, just because it’s legal in your state, doesn’t mean it’s legal federally. It’s not.

Information about growing weed can be found in books, on videos, and on the Internet. You can muddle your way through all kinds of tips and try to determine what’s best for your health. Because growing is so new to many of you, we’ve tried to give you a concise outlook on what to expect if you find the need to become an indoor gardener. If, on the other hand, you’ve decided to grow these plants in your backyard, it’s very likely that a neighbor or service person will report you to authorities. The laws are still very gray and murky in this area, so check with authorities. SLV sat with two very different individuals in order to give you a clearer picture on how to begin this new adventure.
Meet “Jimmy”. He’s grown a small crop of weed in his basement for years for his own medical use. He’s an easygoing family man who lives in a state that hasn’t approved medical marijuana yet; he remains low key so as to keep under the radar of prosecution. He wishes that he could be aboveboard and grow without fear of repercussions. From his vast knowledge of years of growing, he shares some tips that help us with understanding the whole medical marijuana growing process.

SLV: What is the main difference between growing a huge crop outside, like they’re doing in upstate California, and indoor growing?
JIMMY: When the plants are outside, the male plants can fertilize the female plants for a few hundred feet or more. The female plants never need to be fertilized by the male plants. This can be done with nutrients for the actual plant growth. When the seedpod of a male plant explodes, it sends dust all over the other plants. This seedpod dust will contaminate all the female plants, and in turn, they will start producing seeds. This gives you less yield, less potency, and it generally is just not as good.
SLV: The male plant doesn’t bud?
JIMMY: The male plant will bud to a certain extent, but it will be more seeds than bud. Your yield will be way down. A female plant is the best tasting, the connoisseur grade, and your yield is usually huge with no waste. Some people like to grow males so that they produce seeds to grow in the future.
SLV: So if someone had seeds, they could grow a much more massive area of production, say in a warehouse?
JIMMY: Correct.
SLV: But then you’re going to have male and female plants.
JIMMY: You will. You could order from the seed banks. Amsterdam has the best seed banks in the world, as well as does Vancouver, British Columbia. They have the best people in the business and they have been the best for years. They are genetically enhancing, so they’re actually putting packets of seeds together that are feminized. You will have a better than 90% chance, that all those plants are going to come up female. (Consult your state laws before even considering purchasing seeds. It is still illegal under federal law.)
SLV: How many plants could you grow in a room without a warehouse?
JIMMY: In one room, easily 25 plants.
SLV: So the idea is to have all female plants. What do you do with the male plants?
JIMMY: When you start the crop, whether you start from seed or clones, you’ll go through the vegetative cycle. There are three different growing cycles. There’s the seedling cycle, the vegetative cycle, and the flowering cycle. All these different cycles require different light requirements, as well as nutrients. The vegetative cycle is approximately 6-8 weeks. When you go into the flowering cycle, the last cycle, you have lights on for 12 hours and then dark for 12 hours, to mimic Autumn.
SLV: How diligent do you have to be in making sure they get the 12 hours of light and dark?
JIMMY: Very. This is very important to do during the flowering stage. If someone turns on the light during the 12 hours of dark, it shocks the plants, which is not good. In the vegetative stage, it’s usually 18 hours of light and 6 hours of dark, but I’ve known people who run theirs for 24 hours. They use a wide spectrum florescence that doesn’t use up a lot of power and that don’t get that hot. These bulbs work great for the vegetative stage and it saves money, too. The gaslights use up a lot more juice, especially when you’re in the 1000-watters.
SLV: I was under the impression that when people grow out in nature, this is all taken care of by nature.
JIMMY: Exactly. What you’re trying to do is recreate the seasons a little bit indoors.
SLV: What exactly does all that babying do? Does it make it higher THC, or taste better?
JIMMY: Oh yeah. It all plays into it.
SLV: At what stage can you distinguish the difference between the male and the females?
JIMMY: At the end of the vegetative cycle, going into the flowering cycle, you’ll start to see little seedpods and that’s exactly the time you’ll want to get them out. They just go in the garbage. (Garbage men have also been known to squeal on growers.)
SLV: So it’s approximately 6-8 weeks before you know?
JIMMY: Yes, but you keep an eye on it. You always are constantly checking, because even indoors, you need to watch out for certain pests. You can use a very mild soapy water solution to get rid of spider mites. That’s a very common pest and you don’t want them in your plants. It’s easy to control them, if you’re on top of it. But I’ve seen them even in a very sterile, clean environment.
SLV: Do you think they’re in the soil?
JIMMY: You can use a very high-grade Probex soil by Agway. You can get this from Technaflora Plants Products Ltd. Following their recipe for success was really worth it. It’s very simple to understand.
SLV: What else would you need?
JIMMY: You’re going to need lights for indoors. You’d probably want to go with a 1000-watt metal Halide light or a high-pressure sodium grow light. They both grow great indoor weed.
SLV: How many plants will a 1000-watt light take care of?
JIMMY: I think a 1000-watt with a hood would cover a 10x10 area.
SLV: So you need seeds or clones, lights, soil and nutrients.
JIMMY: There’s a little bit of an investment, just getting a small operation up and running.
SLV: I understand there are two basic kinds of marijuana. One is called Indica and the other, Sativa. Is one kind better than the other?
JIMMY: The Indica seems to have a better taste, but they’re both great.

Meet “The Grow Boss”. He owns and operates The Hydro Store in Las Vegas and gives classes on how to grow heirloom tomatoes and all kinds of plants indoors. He was a paramedic in downtown Vegas, the busiest square mile of Las Vegas, for many years. He told me: “I’m a paramedic and I’d go on busts and there’d always be a confidential informer. There were times we would have to go in a house because the smoke alarm was on and the neighbors would call. Sometimes no one would answer the door; maybe they were on vacation. Sometimes the door would be kicked in and sometimes the locksmith would open it up. So, sometimes we went into the houses without the owners knowing. Many times we would discover marijuana plants growing in their homes. The other guys and myself were doing a service, so we would never have taken their pot. I’ve taken more people in on Oxycontin, unconscious and with respiratory failure: judges’ wives, lawyers, doctors, policemen, even parole officers, in court, passed out on pills. I don’t drink. I don’t take pain pills. The reality is that the above ground demand wouldn’t be so big if the underground demand wasn’t already there with an infrastructure. What you’re seeing is the tip of an iceberg. All you have to do is look at Colorado to see Vegas’ future. Colorado has 300 ‘dispensaries’ and Las Vegas has 30.” (A ‘dispensary’ is a store that dispenses marijuana to card-carrying medical marijuana patients or their caregivers.)

SLV: Tell me about lights for growing plants.
THE GROW BOSS: Yield is directly proportional to lumens. The more light, the more yield. If you continue to raise your light so it covers a larger area, you will have more and more plants, but each one will have less and less yield. It is just as possible to get one large plant to yield as many as 49 plants in the same time frame, because yield is directly proportional to lumens. That’s very important to understand. If you double your nutrients, you’ll kill your crop, but if you double your lumens, you’ll double your yield.
SLV: You have two lights on that one plant over there.
THE GROW BOSS: Instead of having one light above it, you have two on the sides and you grow into the girdle of the plant. This is a mature way to grow. When you count stalks, because you’re on a medical marijuana card, they limit you as to how much you have in your possession, but they only limit you by the number of stalks on the plants you grow. If you choose to grow three plants and stay within your card, you grow enormous plants. But when you chop it down, you have to put it in a black bag and hide it, like you killed your girlfriend. You have to get it out of the house. Once you chop it down, it’s not the same thing as on the stalk.
SLV: I believe you’re referring to the yield of buds. The rules are so vague. This is why I’ve referred to it as the gray murky area.
THE GROW BOSS: This is the gray murky area, because you can’t have it. The other half of the reality is that there are so many gangsters (people who grow and sell illegally), that if you just grow the amount of adult plants that your state allots you, and don’t sell, there will probably never, ever be a problem for the individual.
SLV: Does the amount of light change with the medium you’re growing in?
THE GROW BOSS: In soil, a 1000 watt light will give you a pound and a quarter yield. In hydroponics, a 1000 watt light will give you a pound and a half. In aeroponics, a 1000 watt light will give you two pounds.
SLV: What is aeroponics?
THE GROW BOSS: Just another way of growing. The roots live in the air and they’re misted. They live in a very high oxygen environment. The more oxygen you supply to the roots, the bigger the buds the plant can support.
SLV: Jimmy is using one 1000 watt light to grow his few plants.
THE GROW BOSS: If this guy is using one light, there’s zero gangster about him. The 1000 watt light is meant to be three feet above your garden. If you have one plant, it’s meant to be 1-2 feet.
SLV: Our friend Jimmy seems very happy with his yield.
THE GROW BOSS: He’s the kind of guy I like to see. With a few small tweaks, everything comes out real nice and it’s for his personal stash. They should shut down the liquor stores, they should put Breathalyzers in the cars, they should do something about DUI, before they stop your friend from growing.
SLV: Do the different ways you grow mean more or less work?
THE GROW BOSS: Any of the ways that you grow, merely changes the way you handle the roots. Everything above the surface is the same.
SLV: The way you tend to the upper part of the plant is all the same?
THE GROW BOSS: It’s all about supplying oxygen to the roots. You increase your yield by increasing oxygen to the roots. You can also increase your yield by supplying CO2 to the leaf, because the leaves do not absorb oxygen and the roots do not absorb CO2. You increase your yield by increasing the light, but you merely supply enough nutrients to keep the plant happy.
SLV: Do you recommend the Halide over the Low Sodium lights?
THE GROW BOSS: Just like anything else, there’s no best. Summertime has a nice blue sky, but you’ve seen the harvest moon, right? It’s orange and low. During the seasonal change, the sun hangs low in the sky. If you remember your rainbow, it’s red, orange, yellow, green, blue, lavender, violet. Red/orange is the color of a high pressure sodium bulb, that’s a gas that burns red. At the low end of the rainbow is the red/orange, and that’s the color the light shines when plants flower naturally in winter. The blue is the metal Halide. These are two entirely separate bulbs and you can use either for either, but there’s a tradeoff. If you grow with a red bulb instead of a blue bulb, you get tall lanky plants with lots of space between the buds. If you grow with a blue bulb when you should be flowering, you get small flowers that don’t mature properly. This is the place that you spend your money. My worst bulb is $100 bucks for a 1000 watt, and my best bulb is $130. If you spent $500 on a grow system, always spend $30 extra dollars on the bulb. The big hoods are $100 more, but you get so much more from them. People spend $2500 and then cheap out on the hoods. Remember it’s all about the light. As a paramedic, it’s ABC: airway, breathing, circulation. Airway clear? Are they breathing? Are they circulating? These are very simple things. Is there light? Are you using it effectively? Why are you buying things that don’t put light on the plant, when your yield is directly proportionate to lumens?
SLV: Does one style of growing allow you to go away for a few days?
THE GROW BOSS: If you grow a plant in a big bucket of soil and you water it, it’ll stay moist for 4 or 5 days; there’s nothing for you to do. If you have enough water in your hydroponic reservoir to support the plant for a few days, it’s somewhat similar. If you plan on being away a lot, I would suggest the soil, because the soil isn’t going to leak all the water out.
SLV: How does the hydroponic system clean itself?
THE GROW BOSS: You change the water. There’s stuff you can add to the water that cleans it and you flush the system.
SLV: Tell me about the male plants.
THE GROW BOSS: About 2 weeks into flower, the plants drop what’s called nuts, and they look like grape sacks, just like dried grape sacks hanging from where a bud would start. Once you have 12 hours of darkness, the plants flower. You can give them 18 hours of light, but when you give them 12 hours of darkness sequentially for a few weeks, they flower.
SLV: The smaller the plant, the fewer the buds?
THE GROW BOSS: Not always. But of course, you will not get as much on a 6” plant as a 6’ plant, yet you can grow 3’ plants with many buds.
SLV: Am I correct in assuming that no matter what the roots are growing in, you’ll still encounter the same pests and problems?
THE GROW BOSS: Yes. The problems are similar across the board. Your job as a grower is to recognize them as early as possible. Fliers come from the soil, crawlers come in on your clothes or the wind, mold or mildew can come from the soil or from the wind.
SLV: I’ve read about Bud Candy. What’s that?
THE GROW BOSS: All the nutrients have nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. That’s the basic food group for a plant. There’s lots of tricks and Bud Candy is something special. It’s an additive and it’s meant to be a flavorful additive. They have additives that are meant to increase the size of the buds with high phosphorus and high potassium. Every manufacturer makes a bud swell product. The leaves fall on the ground. Then, as the rain washes through them and they rot, they put the nutrients that were stored in the leaves back in the soil. They tend to store specific things meant for flowering, so when the rains come, that’s how they feed themselves in the winter. It doesn’t really matter what you do in veg, it’s all about the flower. In flower, you’ve got to run them on the edge, just like a race car motor. These aren’t your friends, they’re girls. Treat them like a production level plant and you’ll get a production level yield. Advanced Nutrients is notoriously expensive, and they’re also notoriously aggressive in their marketing and they make a notoriously good product. They’re also touted for growing marijuana, while most of the rest of the nutrients are touted as indoor gardening nutrients and they distance themselves from the use of marijuana.
SLV: Do you teach people how to grow marijuana?
THE GROW BOSS: I’m here as a storeowner. If you come in my store and you bust my balls and you say “marijuana”, and I ask you not to, if you do it a second time, I’ll ask you to go, because I think you’re a problem and I don’t need that problem here with my suppliers.
SLV: What about your Tomatobis-U class?
THE GROW BOSS: My Tomatobis-U class… I know, it’s a joke, but in the class, I don’t teach the growing of marijuana. I just teach you how to grow a plant. Literally, I just teach you the science of a plant and how it works. The reality is that what they’re telling you is: “don’t be gangster,” and I accept that. I choose not to be gangster. I don’t grow. I don’t deal. I sell products for people to grow plants. SLV

WHERE DID THE WORD pot COME FROM?

The origin of pot has nothing to do with pots used as culinary tools. The word came into use in America in the late 1930’s. It is a shortening of the Spanish word potiguaya that came from potación de guaya, a wine or brandy in which marijuana buds have been steeped. It literally means “the drink of grief”.

420

The story goes that 420 originated at San Rafael High School in California. A group of about a dozen pot-smoking guys, who called themselves the “Waldo’s”, made 4:20 their official time of day to smoke pot outside of school, near the campus statue of Louis Pasteur. 420, 4:20 or 4/20 (pronounced four-twenty) refers to the cannabis culture and is referred to as “Weed Day”. Today, April 20th events are international and 4:20 p.m. has become sort of a worldwide “burn time”. Certain college campuses celebrate 4/20 and last year more than 10,000 showed up to smoke pot at University of Colorado, Boulder.

The significance of 420 has been kept underground and is mostly known only among marijuana smokers. Many nonsmokers aren’t aware of the symbolism when they see someone wearing a T-shirt or baseball cap that says 420 across the front. It has made its way into films such as in Fast Times at Ridgemont High (the football game was won 42-0). The film Pulp Fiction is rumored to have had a lot of the clocks throughout the movie set to 4:20. It’s made its way into music with Bob Dylan’s song “Rainy Day Woman # 12 and 35.” You see, 12 multiplied by 35 equals none other than 420. In the same song Dylan chants, “Everybody must get stoned...” over and over again.

420 MYTHS

MYTH: Police dispatch code for smoking pot is 420.
FACT: The number 420 is not police radio code for anything, anywhere.
MYTH: There are approximately 420 active chemicals in marijuana.
FACT: There are about 315 active chemicals in marijuana. This number depends on which plant is used.
MYTH: April 20th is National Pot Smoker’s Day.
FACT: This date in history wasn’t the origin of 420, but it has become popular as of today.
MYTH: April 20th is Hitler’s birthday.
FACT: Yes, it is his birthday, but only a coincidence.
MYTH: The date of the Columbine school shootings.
FACT: This happened after the term was already in use.

Issue 53 featuring: Nevaeh, Scar, Celeste Star and a Celebrity Photo Feature "Outside the Box" part 1