Growing up in Missouri my first experience with cannabis was schwag, dirt or ditch and the popular brick weed. I remember a lot of my bags would have flat black seeds in them . Sometimes I would think that I was going to roll the biggest joint or blunt to then find out my bud was seed bomb! We would spend time separating the seeds to fill up our dug outs or whatever we had to put our broken up buds into. Then in the 90’s , we would start to get kind bud and hydro and it was a game changer. We loved to smells and the flavors and the appearance , and the strains had names ! Personally I was captured by the whole idea and needed to know more. Skunk , Kush, Tsu, Afghan , Acapulco gold, Maui Wowie, where do they come from , how do they effect us? Instead of breaking up buds to remove seeds , we would just stuff a bud into the bowl and roast it because in was sin semilla (sinsemilla). A whole new world opened up to me.
People started caring more about their cannabis, we wanted to keep it glass jars and smoke out of glass pipes , anything to keep it good because we didn’t want that dirt anymore. We wanted terpenes ! We liked the way strains tasted and smelled . We wanted to smell that jar and know just how it would sit on our lips after a hit . It became about knowing which strain worked best for you. Instead of getting mystery bags for something to just smoke on we were searching for the strain that helped us feel right for whichever ailment we were experiencing . We had choices now , I remember people would have 3 or 4 strains to pick from.
We wanted to know more. How much THC? We started finding out potency levels as well as how those levels worked with your aromas and flavors described as the entourage effect . Validating the importance of preservation and proper care for our medicine and why we liked to keep medicine in a glass jar with a good lid and why it feels better when it smells and taste good. Learning about this plant was everything , I would read and discuss with fellow cannabis community members as much as I could . I wanted to know everything, I wanted to know about medicine , I wanted to know about rope and cloths and why is this plant so important to us , I wanted to grow…..
I wasn’t the only one. Friends of mine are getting into building basement grows with hideaway walls after hearing legends of our parents and their friends doing such things . Such a risky thing to do back then , however people need their medicine and are willing to run that risk especially when it comes to well being. I totally agreed with that and I sprouted my first seed. I cleared out a small closet and set something up. It was small, no air flow, light leaks . It also had white walls a decent grow lamp and a seedling going. I will always remember the day why a special friend stopped by and noticed the light leaking from the door and chuckled, he opened the door chuckled again and said something like, ” Oh you want to grow? I know someone that can help you.”
My world changes. This not the first time that my life would be impacted majorly and this would be a great time to explain why growing my own medicine is important to me personally. In 1999 I experienced a hand injury described as a crushing injury / partial amputation . My left hand was crushed and partially served in a rebar bending machine. Due to the severity of the injury I was prescribed opioids for my pain management . My healing process for my hand was going to be two years before I could lift anything and the opioids had me feeling ill and at that time there was an opioid pandemic going on where everyone around me was either getting hooked on pills or dying from them or both. I did not like any of it and fortunately I knew about cannabis and was able to ditch that first prescription and never went back as i had cannabis to help manage my pain and increase healing benefits that would lead me into learning of our Endocannabinoid system and how it works with the Phytocannabinoids in the plant.
I met a Legend. Not for the first time either, turns out I knew this cat from gig we used to work at together and smoke weed on our breaks and stuff and now its no wonder why the homie always had the best smoke. I was shown what it was like to have a real set up , how to get real strains grow them harvest them extract and preserve them as medicine . It did not stop there. a bigger adventure awaited me and it started with a dream and a journey . To Colorado.
