Steven

Argentina is (almost) legalizing.

Published on 13 novembre 202013 novembre 2020

Today marks the beginning of the end of prohibition in Argentina.
At midnight on Thursday, the Argentine government published a set of changes to bill 27.350, the nation’s heavily criticized medical cannabis law.

Patients registered under RECANN, the national cannabis patients registry, now have the right to cultivate their own medicine, either individually or as part of a group or collective, or buy cannabis oils, tinctures, or topicals at pharmacies.
Moreover, the new legislation also broadens the qualifying conditions for medical cannabis treatments in Argentina.
Up until now, bill 27.350 restricted the use of medical cannabis only to public health trials including patients with refractory epilepsy.
The new legislation, however, gives any patient with a doctor’s prescription for cannabis (or its derivatives) the right to either cultivate their own medicine or buy it from a licensed pharmacy. The state even promises free access to cannabis therapies for people without health insurance.
For thousands of patients, caretakers, parents, and children, this is the day they’ve long been waiting for.
Up until now, anyone found in possession of cannabis seeds or plants ran the risk of being trialed under the nation’s drug law and faced up to 15 years in prison.
These new regulations promise an end to this injustice.
“Finally! Our right is law!” reads the latest post by Mamá Cultiva Argentina (MCA), the nation’s most recognized cannabis activist group.
“This right, won after many years of struggle by organizations across the country, not only brings with it the peace of mind of not being criminalized for exercising our autonomy by cultivating our own medicine. It might also be a solution for many of the socioeconomic problems brought on by the neoliberalism [of the previous government] and the global pandemic,” the post reads.

“This new era of bill 27.350 will begin to repair the injustice of the persecution and stigmatization of the plant that’s brought quality of life to many people. For this reason, we celebrate a State that accompanies us, that guarantees us access to the substance by the means we choose, that doesn’t punish us or paternalize us. This regulation demonstrates that the knowledge gained through our popular experience is of value when it comes to building our future.”
“Before us lies a long road of implementation. But we’re convinced that the construction [of the legal framework behind bill 27.350) will be rich and prosperous and that we have public interlocutors in place who demonstrate their priority in finding consensus,” the post continues.

Mamá Cultiva Argentina was founded in 2016 by Valeria Salech and a group of other mothers, many of whom have been cultivating cannabis illegally for years either for themselves or for members of their families.
Roughly 4 months ago, Valeria Salech and the rest of MCA were eager that change might come to bill 27.350 as the Argentine Health Ministry announced the first draft of the new regulations it signed off today.
“I’m not ashamed to tell you that every morning I wake up and the first thing I do is check the boletin oficial [the gazette where the Argentine state publishes its legal norms],” Valeria told us in an interview in July.

Seems like that habit might die off tomorrow.

L’Argentine légalise le cannabis (thérapeutique).

Published on 13 novembre 202019 novembre 2020

Argentine/News/Non classifié(e)/Société/THC

Aujourd’hui marque le début de la fin de la prohibition en Argentine.
Jeudi à minuit, le gouvernement argentin a publié une série de modifications au projet de loi 27.350, la loi nationale sur le cannabis médical très critiquée, pour le plus grand bonnheur des malades comme enthousiastes de la weed.

Les patients enregistrés sous RECANN, le registre national des patients atteints de cannabis, auront désormais le droit de cultiver leur propre médicament, soit individuellement, soit dans le cadre d’un groupe ou collectif, ainsi que d’acheter des huiles, teintures ou topiques de cannabis dans les pharmacies.
En outre, la nouvelle législation élargit considérablement les conditions d’admissibilité aux traitements au cannabis médical en Argentine.
Jusqu’à présent, le projet de loi 27.350 limitait l’utilisation du cannabis médical aux seuls essais de santé publique incluant des patients atteints d’épilepsie réfractaire.
Dorénavant, la nouvelle législation donne à tout patient ayant une prescription médicale pour le cannabis (ou ses dérivés) le droit de cultiver son propre de l’herbe ou de l’acheter dans une pharmacie agréée.
L’État promet même un accès gratuit aux thérapies au cannabis pour les personnes sans assurance maladie!
Pour des milliers de patients, de gardiens de parents et d’enfants, c’est le jour qu’ils auront attendus depuis longtemps.
Jusqu’à présent, toute personne trouvée en possession de graines ou de plantes de cannabis encourait jusqu’à 15 ans de prison.
Ces nouvelles réglementations mettent un point final à ces lois ante-séculaires.
“Finalement! Notre droit est la loi“! est-il écrit dans le dernier article de Mamá Cultiva Argentina (MCA), le groupe de militants du cannabis le plus reconnu du pays.
«Ce droit, acquis après de nombreuses années de lutte par des organisations à travers le pays, apporte non seulement la tranquillité d’esprit de ne pas être criminalisé pour avoir exercé notre autonomie en cultivant notre propre médecine. Cela pourrait également être une solution à de nombreux problèmes socio-économiques provoqués par le néolibéralisme [du gouvernement précédent] et la pandémie mondiale », peut-on aussi y lire.

“Cette nouvelle ère du projet de loi 27.350 commencera à réparer l’injustice de la persécution et de la stigmatisation d’une plante qui a apporté une qualité de vie à de nombreuses personnes. Pour cette raison, nous célébrons un État qui nous accompagne, qui nous garantit l’accès à la substance par les moyens que nous choisissons, qui ne nous punit pas et ni ne nous infentilise. Cette réglementation démontre aussi que les connaissances acquises grâce à notre expérience populaire sont précieuses pour bâtir notre avenir”.
«Devant nous , il y a encore un long chemin de mise en œuvre pratique. Mais nous sommes convaincus que la construction [du cadre juridique derrière le projet de loi 27.350) sera riche et prospère et que nous avons des interlocuteurs publics en place qui démontrent leur priorité dans la recherche d’un consensus ”, poursuit le post.

Mamá Cultiva Argentina a été fondée en 2016 par Valeria Salech et un groupe d’autres mères, dont beaucoup cultivent illégalement du cannabis depuis des années pour elles-mêmes ou pour les membres de leur famille.
Il y a environ 4 mois, Valeria Salech et le reste du MCA s’étaient impatientés de ne voir aucun changement de la loi 27.350 alors que le ministère argentin de la Santé annonçait le premier projet de nouveau règlement qu’il a signé aujourd’hui.
«Je n’ai pas honte de vous dire que chaque matin je me réveille et que la première chose que je fais est de vérifier le boletin oficial [la gazette où l’État argentin publie ses normes juridiques]», nous avait déclaré Valeria dans une interview en juillet.
Une habitude qui pourrait bien disparaître demain.

This Australian Cannabis Company Is Developing A Cannabinoid-rich Feed For Horses.

Published on 3 novembre 20203 novembre 2020

Australie/News/Santé

Medicinal Organic Cannabis Australia, or MOCA, is leading the way in the cannabis industry Downunder, partnering with one of Europe’s largest livestock feed producers to launch a new line of cannabinoid-rich feed for high-value horses.

“We’ve just finished harvesting,” Alessandro smiles into the camera. “We’re very hands-on. We think that’s important.”
Alessandro Sorbello is the CEO of Medicinal Organic Cannabis Australia (MOCA), the country’s first organic medical cannabis company.
He took my video call from MOCAs new 18,000m2 organic cannabis farm, tucked away in an agricultural district of Sardinia, Italy.
“Our land and the land surrounding it are organic and have been for years,” says Alessandro.
Together with his business partner, Emanuela Ispani, Alessandro started MOCA in 2017, only months after the Australian Parliament legalized the cultivation of cannabis for medicinal and scientific purposes.

Prior to that, neither Alessandro nor Emanuela knew much about cannabis.
“I just thought it was a plant, something you got in a little plastic bag from a guy at the pub,” Alessandro laughs.
For 11 years, he worked as a Cultural Attache to the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, helping to establish trade between Australia and Italy.
Emanuela, on the other hand, has a degree in robotics engineering and worked with the Queensland State Government’s Department of Science, IT, and Technology.
“It was time for a change,” says Alessandro. “When cannabis came along, it got very interesting very quickly.”
As soon as legislation changed in Australia, Alessandro and Emanuela started researching what they needed to do in order to get licensed to work with cannabis Downunder.
They also traveled to places where cannabis was already legal and reached out to experts like Raphael Mechoulam and Arno Hazekamp to learn more about the cannabis plant and the industry being built around it.

“When we learned and figured how the endocannabinoid system really works, that was the key. We then realized this was a product that everyone could benefit from and that would grow exponentially,” says Alessandro.
Unfortunately, the two quickly learned that cultivating cannabis in Australia wasn’t going to be easy, given the infancy of the industry, the country’s tight regulations, and high costs.
“From the beginning, we’ve been set on bringing down the costs of medical cannabis to make it more accessible. We didn’t want to produce a top-end medicine only available to those who could afford it,” says Alessandro.
That’s when Alessandro and Emanuela decided to look to their home country.
“In Italy, cannabis is treated essentially like any other agricultural crop. Italy was also the second-largest hemp producer in Europe up until the 1940s, so even though several generations have since passed, there’s still a strong connection with hemp here” explains Alessandro.

MOCA’s Greenhouse, quite a surface to grow in…

By setting up their cultivation facility in Sardinia, Alessandro and Emanuela got the chance to work hands-on with local farmers to produce a product that meets their high standards.
“Organics is at the core of our business. Any chemicals, dust, or other toxic compounds that come into contact with the cannabis flower end up in the final product, the medicine,” says Alessandro.
“We believe there’s no place for chemicals (from pollution or pesticides) in herbal medicine. Given the importance of the endocannabinoid system for health, if you deliver toxic compounds into the body via the ECS, there’s a lot of risk to do more harm than good,”.

Today, MOCA has a range of over 20 products approved by the AustralianTherapeutic Goods administration.
The company also just finished it’s first run of crowdfunding to help kickstart its manufacturing and, to top things off, is celebrating a new partnership with Sarda Sementi, one of Europe’s largest livestock feed producers.
Together, Sarda Sementi and MOCA have developed a brand-new line of cannabinoid-rich feed for high-value horses.
“We’ve been working with animals for the last 12 months and seen some remarkable results,” says Alessandro.
In one of MOCAs trials, a participant started giving CBD oil to her 18-year-old dog who suffered from heart tremors and epilepsy. Both the owner and her vet couldn’t believe how effective the oil was in treating both the dog’s seizures and reducing its heart tremors.

“We’re extremely encouraged by these kinds of examples and other research into CBD for animals. Studies have shown, for example, that cannabis is a very effective appetite stimulant, and we believe that could revolutionize the livestock industry, giving farmers a natural alternative to steroids and hormones to help their animals grow faster,” says Alessandro.But besides cannabis’ unique potential as a medicine, supplement, and food, Alessandro is also motivated by something a lot more personal.
His father suffered severe head trauma at a young age due to a motorcycle accident that left him in a coma for a week.
“When you’d meet my father, you’d never imagined he’d had an accident.,” explains Alessandro.
As he got older, however, the damage from the accident became much more visible.
“After seeing the damage to my Dad’s brain from a brain scan, I asked his specialist what we could do. He answered ‘just enjoy him’.”

Years after his father’s death, Alessandro learned that the US government has patented the use of cannabinoids as neuroprotectants.
“It’s very sad to see someone go through the loss of their mental acuity, and I would have loved to see whether cannabis could have helped my Dad, because I believe it could have,” says Alessandro.
But without focusing too long on the what-if’s and should-have’s, Alessandro considers himself lucky to be in a position to drive change in how we see and use cannabis.
“We’re proud to be part of the change to make cannabis more affordable and more accessible,” he says.
“Because we believe cannabis essentially could be for everyone and has the potential to heal people, animals, and the plant.”

What is Rosin and how to make it

Published on 25 août 202026 août 2020

Conso/English Version/News/THC/Weed info

Extracts or “dabs” are revolutionizing the way we think about and experience cannabis. Not only do they offer higher potencies, but their high concentration of terpenes also brings new flavors and aromas to the table that surprise even veteran weed lovers.
Unfortunately, cannabis extracts like wax and shatter can be hard to access outside of the world’s few legal cannabis markets and are far from safe to make at home. Rosin, however, is an exceptional extract that you can easily make without burning down the neighborhood.

What is Rosin?

Rosin is like BHO’s chemical-free, DIY-friendly cousin. It’s made using a combination of heat and pressure that extracts terpenes and cannabinoids from dried cannabis, hash, or kief. The result is a golden, translucent, and sap-like extract with a rich flavor and roughly 50-70% THC.

Rosin produced from professional, licensed extractors is made using specialized rosin presses. These machines cost anywhere between $1,000 and $10,000 and use either pneumatic or electric pumps that are able to deliver tons of pressing power. These professional presses also have precise heating elements to maximize their yield potential and are able to press large amounts of flower or kief at a time.

Pure Pressure’s Long’s Peak, for example, is a pneumatic rosin press designed specifically for commercial rosin production. It is capable of generating 8 tons of pressure and pressing up to 35 grams of flower or 70 grams of kief or hash at a time.

What’s the cool thing about it?

Similar to other extracts, rosin boasts a different high to what you’d normally expect from flower. Based on my experience, I’d describe it as more of a clear, mental rush, but this can obviously vary depending on what cannabis strain your rosin is made from.

In the US and Canada, considered by some to be the frontiers of cannabis legalization, rosin is a huge hit. And it’s not hard to see why; unlike BHO (Butane Hash Oil), which usually has to undergo a long, slow purge to remove any residual butane prior to extraction, rosin is a 100% solventless extract. It is made using only heat and pressure and is completely chemical-free.

Best of all, you don’t have to have to go to a dispensary or risk burning your house down to get your hands on some delicious rosin.

How to make your own Rosin. Easily.

Some manufacturers sell small rosin presses designed for personal use. The MyPress, for example, is a popular manual rosin press that can exert up to 6 tons of pressure and is capable of pressing about 1 to 1.5 grams of flower at a time. According to some reviews, the MyPress can produce yields of 20-25%, which is very good for such a small press.

At $420 USD, however, the MyPress can be a pricey investment for the recreational cannabis user. But then again, you don’t really want to be pinching pennies when buying a rosin press, either. You’ll want a machine capable of delivering plenty of pressure and just the right temperatures in order to maximize your rosin yields.

Luckily, if you don’t want to fork out $420 for a personal rosin press, you don’t have to. You can make your own rosin safely at home with a good hair straightener, some parchment or baking paper, some kind of makeshift dab tool (a clean, sharp pocket knife works quite well), and heat-resistant gloves. Here’s how:

Break up roughly 0.5g of cannabis flower, kief, or ice water hash and stick it between 2 pieces of parchment or baking paper. Fold in each side of the paper to create a kind of envelope.
Preheat your hair straightener to its lowest setting.
Place your wrapped flower in between the heated plates of the hair straightener and press down very firmly for at least 3-7 seconds. Once you hear a sizzle, relieve the pressure and remove the parchment paper from the straightener.
Remove the sticky sap from the parchment paper using your pocket knife and put it in a container for storage or load it directly into a bowl or joint and enjoy!

OPTIONAL: If you’re pressing flower, consider pressing it twice for a better yield.

Keep in mind that this is by far the best way to press rosin. It is, however, effective enough if you want to make small batches of this delicious concentrate at home without investing in a proper press.
If you’re serious about making your own rosin and want to maximize your yields, however, you’ll need to dig deep into your pockets and invest in something like the MyPress.

A Personal Guide To Getting High And Having Great Sex

Published on 24 août 20202 octobre 2020

English Version/News/Sex/THC

– AVERTISSEMENT –

Whether you like it rough, gentle, kinky, vanilla, gay, straight or over the phone, we all have one thing in common; we want our sex to be AMAZING. And if you use cannabis, you’ve likely already experimented with it between the sheets.

Unfortunately, getting high and getting laid isn’t always as great as it sounds. For some people, cannabis can produce side effects that definitely don’t belong in the bedroom (paranoid penetration, anyone?).
However, there are also many ways in which cannabis can enhance sex. In this article, I’m going to walk you through my tips on using weed in the bedroom, most of which I’ve learned the hard way.

Disclaimer: I’m not a sex therapist nor a doctor. I’m just a guy who enjoys weed and sex.

Know Your Body

Cannabis is a really complex plant that affects all of us differently. In my years of smoking, vaping, and eating weed, I’ve found that the golden rule to getting high and having a good time (both in and out of the bedroom) is knowing my own body. Many people find cannabis helps them relieve stress and anxiety, for example. I’m the complete opposite; if I’m particularly stressed or anxious, getting high will only amplify those feelings. If I’m in a good state of mind, however, weed can boost my mood, calm me down, and help me relax.

Hence, I already know that weed won’t magically make me horny if I’ve got a lot on my mind. However, I also know that when I’m in the mood, cannabis can intensify my feelings of pleasure and get me more in tune with myself and my partner. If you want to get high and have great sex, it’s key you understand how weed affects your body first.

Know Your Partner

It takes 2 people (or more) to have sex. So, while it’s important to understand how weed affects your sexuality, it’s just as important to know how it affects your sexual partner/s. For some people, weed is a great ice-breaker, helping them let down their guard and leave behind some of their inhibitions. For others, it might raise those inhibitions when they’re with someone new but intensify the way they connect with someone they’re familiar with.

Communication is really key here (and anytime you’re trying to have great sex). If you want to bring weed into the bedroom, communicate with your partner/s about it first to ensure an enjoyable experience for everyone.

Know Your Weed

Weed can vary really dramatically, especially if you live in an area where it is still illegal and unregulated. Hence, whenever you plan on getting high and having sex, make sure you know what you’re toking on before bringing it into bed. In general, I enjoy balanced cannabis strains that aren’t too cerebral or overly physical. A super intense cerebral high can sometimes kick my mind into overdrive, while a hard-hitting body stone is more likely to send me to sleep than get me hard.

If you’re lucky enough to live in an area where cannabis is sold legally, talk to a budtender to find a strain that delivers the effects you’re looking for. If weed is still illegal where you live, always try a new strain on its own before trying to pair it with sex.

Know Your Dose

I’m a one-hit-wonder kind of guy; one or two tokes from a joint is just enough to help me feel relaxed, focused, and positive. If you want to get high and have great sex, know your dose and stick to it.

Don’t Get Hung Up On Smoking

The way we use and enjoy cannabis is changing drastically. Today, there are many different ways you can introduce cannabis into your sex life without smoking. “It doesn’t have to be psychoactive,” explains Ashley Manta, a sex educator and “cannasexual,” in an interview with VICE. “THC is a vasodilator, which means it brings more blood flow to the area,” she says. THC lubricants, therefore, can help both men and women stimulate arousal, increase physical sensation, and increase natural lubrication.

Edibles can be another great way to enjoy cannabis in the bedroom, offering a slower, more gradual onset and longer-lasting effects than a joint or vape. Unfortunately, due to cannabis policies and the extremely subjective nature of sex, there’s hardly any decent scientific research into how the 2 overlap. Hence, it’s really up to you to experiment with cannabis in its many different forms and find something that works best for you and your partner/s.

This Is Tony Greenhand, The Guy Who Rolls Thousand-Dollar Joints

Published on 20 août 202025 août 2020

Culte/English Version/News/Société/USA

Tony Greenhand makes smokable art in the shape of Pokemon, comic figures, life-size gold necklaces, and guns. With almost 400k followers on Instagram and his own TV show, Tony is a real-life weed celebrity. But his joints haven’t always been so elaborate.

“The first joint I ever rolled was a disgrace. It was all wet and goopy. So I bought an ounce of weed and rolled for an entire weekend at a house party until I got good at it.”
That was over 15 years ago.
Today, Tony Greenhand rolls the most intricate and detailed joints on the planet.
Tony’s artwork can take the shape of a 24k smokable necklace or a 2-ounce Samurai with sheathing swords; there’s almost no task too big, challenging, or outright crazy for Tony to handle.
“I once tried to roll a 42-pound Statue of Liberty joint,” he recalls. “It was 9ft tall and stood on a custom metal frame with a fan at the base.”
Unfortunately, Tony never made it to the festival he’d built the joint for and ended up taking it apart and turning the flower into oil.
“I couldn’t find another venue that would let me smoke out a crowd with a 42-pound joint. People debated that it was a fire hazard or might be enough to kill someone,” he laughs.
There’s something about Tony’s big, hearty laugh that immediately makes you drop your guard. Although we’d never met, I felt like I was having a conversation with one of my high-school smoking buddies.

In 2016, Tony created his infamous world-record-winning 4.2-pound watermelon joint..

“I can’t remember that entire year due to that thing,” Tony laughs again. “We roasted marshmallows over it, which to this day is probably one of my favorite joint experiences,” he says.
Some of his other most recognized pieces include Mike Tyson, The Kraken, and an AK47. One of his latest creations is a Bulbasaur which, complete with flower-covered vine whips and concealable wooden crutch, looks more like a prized collector’s figurine than a joint.

But behind each Greenhand creation is a special design process that’s aimed at maximizing airflow to create a fluid smoking experience.
However, Tony is humble enough to admit that his joints don’t always burn as evenly as he’d like.
“When you roll something that’s complex like this, there are gonna be some mistakes, just because of the way that heat moves, how people handle the joint, and the way they hit it,” he says.
“And people usually want to hit the shit out of a joint like this. So they let out all their air and Snoop Dogg puff it into oblivion. A lot of people have lead fingers, too. I don’t know why, but they crab claw everything when they should be handling this shit like a baby,” he laughs.

There’s a lot more to Tony than his joints; he’s acted in films and on TV, runs his own seed company, and has been breeding and growing cannabis for over 10 years in Washington and Oregon.
Together with his girlfriend Courtney (who he met through an Instagram contest giving away one of his custom joints), Tony is living proof that the stoner-cliche is complete horseshit.

In 2017, he was cast for Gus Van Sant’s Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot.
With no acting experience, Tony suddenly found himself sharing the set with Joaquin Phoenix, Jonah Hill, Rooney Mara, Kim Gordon, and Jack Black.
“I took the experience a lot like when I roll one of my joints, and I just didn’ think too much about it,” Tony says.
“I didn’t think of the other actors as who they were, I just thought of who they were on the show. So I was a complete dick to Jonah Hill just because my character didn’t like him,” he laughs.
Two years after shooting for Gus Van Sant, Tony received an offer to film a TV show for Quibi titled Let’s Roll with Tony Greenhand in which he designs elaborate joints for celebrity weed lovers like Hannibal Burress, Nikki Glaser, and Blake Anderson.

Right now, he’s in lockdown in his home in San Bernardino County, in the middle of the Mojave Desert.
“It’s absolute hell. I walk outside and it’s 112 degrees (44°C); I might step on a fucking scorpion; I might get a radiation warning on my phone; there might be an earthquake; there might be a sandstorm; there could be a fucking Black Widow in my shoe in the morning. I could literally go on for an hour about all the weird, terrible shit that’s out here,” he laughs again.
“On top of that, everybody looks like they’ve just come out of a methadone clinic, all burnt to a crisp like the last chip in a bag with no will to live. Everyone’s a fucking zombie out here.”

But it’s not only the weather, scorpions, and zombies that Tony’s having trouble adjusting to.
“Hollywood is so fake. And I end up telling everyone ‘cause I’m stoned and I don’t have a filter. I don’t really mesh with the people out here; they are too worried about what people think and not worried enough about how they are.” This time, his laugh has a little nervous edge to it.
It seems that his brutal honesty is exactly what’s brought Tony so far, despite the fact that he still hasn’t managed to come to terms with selling his artwork.

“I don’t even care about my business. I just do it for me. And for me, making joints and giving them to people, and creating that moment for them is invaluable. A few hundred dollars doesn’t make it more valuable for me, it just kinda fucks up the whole vibe.” Just do it, Tony.

And although the current COVID-19 pandemic has brought Tony’s joint-rolling and TV show to a standstill, he’s happy for the downtime to be at home with Courtney, his dogs, and his garden.
“I’m just trying to chill for a minute and focus on my genetics. I might also go back to working on my movie script, which I haven’t worked on for some time”.
So next time you see Tony’s name in the credits, it might be for more than just acting and rolling.

Valeria Salech, Argentina’s cannabis pasionaria

Published on 31 juillet 202020 août 2020

Argentine/News/Société/THC

Meet Valeria, the woman fighting for legal weed in Argentina. Not because it’s cool and hype, but because her son’s life depends on it. Portrait of a Mama warrior.

In 2014, Valeria Salech and her husband gave their 8-year-old son, Emiliano, cannabis for the first time.
Valeria recalls that afternoon like the day she first really met her son.
“About 30 minutes after taking the resin, Emi started looking me in the eyes and smiling. He had a look I’d never seen before,” says Valeria. “That day changed our lives forever.”
Today, Valeria stands at the frontlines of the battle to legalize cannabis as the founder of Mamá Cultiva Argentina (Mother Grows), the nation’s most recognized cannabis activist group with a proud feminist agenda.

Coming To Life With Cannabis

“Have you ever seen the look of someone doped out on anxiolytics?”
I froze as Valeria’s question shot out of the loudspeaker on my phone.
“My son has had that look since the day he was born,” she says.
“Seeing that look go away thanks to a grain of rice of cannabis resin, I knew then and there that I would keep giving the resin to Emi, even if it just meant he could look me in the eyes and smile.”
That was 6 years ago. Back then, Emi (who suffers from epilepsy and severe autism) saw the world through a daze of pharmaceuticals and still used diapers and a bib.
I ask Valeria to recall the changes to Emiliano’s condition and behaviour over the years since he started using cannabis, and she sighs.
“That’s hard, because it requires me to think back to a boy that no longer exists,” she says.
“The same month he started using cannabis, Emiliano stopped using his bib,” Valeria recalls. A few months later, he started learning to eat with a fork, and after about 1 year, Emiliano stopped using diapers.
“Step by step, Emi has been gaining independence and the ability to show himself the way he really is,” says Valeria.
Seeing the way cannabis changed Emiliano’s life, Valeria didn’t hesitate to take it upon herself to fight for the rights of every other mom in Argentina who’s children or family could benefit from cannabis.

2016: The Birth of Mamá Cultiva Argentina

On the 22nd of March 2016, 2 years after first trying cannabis with Emi, Valeria sat in on the presentation of a draft bill aiming to decriminalize the medical use of marijuana in Argentina.
Looking around the room, she noticed the overwhelming number of women, in particular mothers, at the presentation.
“I said to the woman sitting beside me, ‘we need an organization to represent the women here,” Valeria recalls.

A little over 2 weeks later, on April 7th, 2016, she founded Mamá Cultiva Argentina (MCA).
Valeria laughs as she remembers the early days of the organization, storming congress with other moms to intercept deputies in the hallways and hand out their homemade brochures.
I ask her to tell me about her life outside of her activism.
“I can’t,” she says. “I was born an activist. This is my life. In kindergarten, I was the one who spoke up to the teacher to make sure all the students got the same amount of biscuits,” she laughs.
Since day one, MCA had a very clear mission:
“To demand a legal framework through which the Argentine state recognizes the therapeutic properties of cannabis and the right for individuals to cultivate it in order to secure a safe treatment for our children or whoever needs it,” says Valeria.
But besides its clear stance on cannabis, Mamá Cultiva Argentina also has a proud feminist agenda alligned with Argentina’s Ni Una Menos (“Not One Woman Less”) movement.
“I was inside the congress with the other moms handing out brochures and intercepting deputies when I heard the screams of the women outside,” says Valeria, thinking back to 2016 when she found herself inside the walls of congress during one of Argentina’s biggest feminist marches.
“We were being told how to live and being judged on whether or not we were good mothers. We were being told to heed to doctors and the police,” says Valeria.
“Once we realized that we were in the same fight as the women outside, we didn’t hesitate to join them on the street. It was an awakening, and from there on out we started to reveal all the violence we’ve suffered. And all the violence we’ve suffered comes from this capitalist and patriarchal system that oppresses us.”
In October 2016, Valeria travelled to Rosario for that year’s Encuentro Nacional de Mujeres (National Women’s Meeting). In one of the meeting rooms, there was a group of women talking about cannabis.
“I walked into the meeting and the entire room stopped to applaud me,” says Valeria. “I cried because the recognition of my peers, of women who like me had been battered by this completely patriarchal system, to this day means more to me than if I were to be applauded at the United Nations.”

The Times They Are A-Changin’

Today, the right to grow cannabis, the plant that’s changed Valeria’s life and the lives of countless other Argentines, seems closer than ever before.
On Wednesday, July 15th 2020, 6 years after Valeria first gave cannabis to Emi, the Argentine Health Ministry announced a draft of new reglementary changes to bill 27.350, the law that restricts the use of medical cannabis to public health trials on patients with epilepsy.
The draft makes big promises; the right for registered patients to cultivate their own medicine, the public production and sale of medical cannabis products at pharmacies, and free access to cannabis therapies for patients without health assurance.
And while it’s only a draft, Valeria’s gut tells her that change is on the horizon.
Since January, Mamá Cultiva Argentina has been part of an advisory council working together with other activist groups, doctors, universities, and institutions like CONICET [the Argentine National Scientific and Technical Research Council] to prepare its own draft reglementations of bill 27.350.
“When someone invites you to work with institutions like CONICET and the Health Ministry on a bill that actually plans to implement the change you’ve been fighting for, you tend to trust that,” says Valeria.
And while there’s still no news of when these new reglementations will come into effect, Valeria is confident it’ll be soon.
“If it’s not today, it’ll be tomorrow or after that. But I’m not ashamed to tell you that every morning I wake up and the first thing I do is check the boletin oficial**,” she laughs.

**boletin oficial – the gazette where the Argentine state publishes its legal norms.

The man that kept a legendary cannabis strain alive for 20 years.

Published on 6 juillet 202026 août 2020

English Version/News/USA/Weed info

“Call Jim. He has questions for you.”
I quickly grabbed my phone and dialed the number in the email.
A quiet, gravelly voice answered. It sounded just like the one from the documentary.

It was Jim Ross.

Jim is 59 years old and lives in Wasilla, Alaska.
“How are you doing Jim?” I ask.
“Oh you know, I’m hanging in there,” he replies.
In 2001, Jim was diagnosed with myositis, a rare, incurable condition that causes chronic inflammation and degradation of the muscles.
“I was meant to be gone 2 years ago, but I’m still kicking and walking,” Jim laughs as he tells me about how the disease has attacked every joint and muscle in his body.
“I’m just nothing but skin and bone. In the last two and a half years I’ve dropped 60 pounds. I’m on my last leg. But I make a medicine out of this MTF and my doctor says ‘keep doing what you’re doing. Do not stop!’”
He laughs again and starts explaining how he makes his medicine.
“I take 2 ounces of ground-up bud and one 5th of 100-proof vodka, put it in a canning jar, shake it, and after 3 months I strain it with cheesecloth and take little doses a couple of times a day,” says Jim.

The MTF he uses to make his medicine is Matanuska Thunder Fuck, a mysterious cannabis strain bred in the 1980s in Trapper Creek, on the foothills of the Alaska Range.
Jim first smoked MTF when he moved from Oregon to Alaska in 1987.
“I came up here on vacation, went fishing, and never left. It’s so beautiful, and I swear to god it’s the best fishing in the world,” he says.
Back then, MTF was originally known as the Trapper Creek Hash Plant to Jim and his buddies. It was bred by a guy known only as Tiny.
In 1988, Tiny suspected he was going to be raided by the cops. He abandoned his grow and asked his friend Jeff Payton to rescue his plants once the coast was clear.
In 1997, Jeff passed the strain to Jim, who has been keeping it alive ever since.

A Strain Like No Other

“What’s MTF like in the grow room?” I ask Jim.
“It’s just an unbelievable strain,” he replies.
Even over a crackly phone line 13,000km away, I can hear the excitement build in his voice.
“It’s just completely different. It has fangs that grow out of the fan leaves. And the fan leaves are bigger than your hand. I counted 13 fingers on a fan leaf once and a triple-fanged leaf growing out of that,” Jim says.
“Oh, and one time,” he goes on, barely giving me time to type out my notes, “I even got a stem growing out of one of my fan leaves!”

Since 1997, Jim has been growing his prized strain at home, always using clones taken either from a mother or healthy vegging plants. “I’ve never grown from seed. This is essentially the same plant since 1987,” he says.
Ever since he first got MTF from Jeff Payton, Jim has been passing clones around to his closest friends.
“I even ended up giving the strain back to Tiny and Jeff, who had stopped growing it for a while,” he says.
Jim even gave the strain back to Cameron van Ryn, a licensed grower frm Wasilla, who originally got the strain from Tiny but lost it to some spider mites.
Unfortunately, Tiny passed away recently. But thanks to Jim and his friends, the legendary Trapper Creek Hash Plant lives on.

Storm Chasers – The Search For Real Matanuska Thunder

In 2017, Ron Bass, a licensed grower from Houston, published an article in the Anchorage Daily claiming he’d struck gold and found Alaska’s fabled strain.
“I took one look at those plants in the pictures in the paper and knew it wasn’t MTF,” says Jim. “I can be in a room with 100 different strains and tell you exactly which one is MTF.”
And he was right; Ron’s plant turned out to be an MTF cross.
Jim eventually gave his strain to Ron, who promised to grow and process it for medicinal purposes.
“I didn’t want any money, I didn’t want any of the fame or glory. I told Ron that if he could save somebody or make a cure with it, I’d be satisfied. Because that’s what it’s been for me,” says Jim.
Over a period of 18 months, Jim gave Ron a total of 40 rooted clones of his prized plant. Ron has since trademarked MTF and commercialized the strain, even making it the theme of a rap song with Afroman.
Cameron Van Ryn is also growing it commercially and supplies Jim’s MTF to dispensaries in Alaska.
“They get a pound from him and it’s gone in a week. He can’t keep up with the demand,” Jim chuckles.

But Jim prefers to lay low. He’s in the middle of selling his house and moving to one of the 4 corner states with his wife.
“As you get older, the winters get harder,” he says. For the first time in our hour-long call, I hear Jim sigh.
“I can’t go snowmobiling or four-wheeling or skiing anymore. But, you know, it is what it is.”
I ask him about his wife, Teena, and Jim’s voice immediately picks back up.
“Oh, we’ve been married for 25 years. I met her in Alaska, and she’s from Oregon too,” he laughs again. “We were just friends for the longest time. Then, when we both became single, things started happening.”
“Some would call that fate,” I tell Jim.
“Yeah!” he replies. “And it’s been great ever since.”

Uruguay: A Hidden Seed Treasure?

Published on 25 juin 202020 août 2020

English Version/News/Société/Uruguay/Weed info

For decades, The Netherlands has dominated the market for cannabis genetics. Whether you’re growing a few plants in your closet or you own a legal cannabis farm in North America, chances are you’re getting your seeds from a Dutch seed bank.

But over 11,000km away, Uruguayan cannabis breeders are slowly, and very timidly, breaking into the market for cannabis seeds. Could Uruguay be home to a new wave of seedbanks and exotic genetics?

River Grown Genetics

It’s 4:30pm and overcast. I break up a sticky, dense, dark green bud with beautiful purple hues. As I light up and inhale, a thick, sweet smoke fills the room and I settle down to write.
I’m smoking a Blueberry Automatic from that my friend grew on his terrace under the strong Argentine sun last summer. The seeds, to the surprise of many, came from Del Plata Genetics in Uruguay.

In 2013, the small Latin American nation became the first country to fully legalize cannabis. If you’re a Uruguayan resident, you can now buy weed at a pharmacy or cannabis club or grow your own.
You can spark up anywhere it’s legal to smoke a cigarette, and you can even ask a police officer for a light.
But since legalizing weed almost a decade ago, the growth of the cannabis industry in Uruguay has been very, very slow.
If the US cannabis industry were a Walmart, Uruguay’s weed industry (if you can even call it that) is like a farmers market.
And while it doesn’t look like that will change any time soon, the industry is making some advances.
As of 2020, Uruguay is officially home to a handful of boutique-ish seedbanks.

Mystery Grower

Alberto Huergo’s 25+ cannabis awards. Image: Silver River Seeds

Silver River Seeds, based in Montevideo, has an extremely impressive catalog of over 20 different feminized and automatic varieties with exotic names like Despink, Sourflash, River Haze, Apple Cookies, and more.
These strains are the work of Alberto Huergo, a mysterious cultivator and author of Sativa: Cultivo Interior (Indoor Cultivation).
Alberto claims to have 30 years of experience growing cannabis and has spent the last 2 decades breeding, preserving and crossing some of Latin America’s most prized strains.
He is the man behind Dutch Passion’s Desfran, winner of Argentina’s 2011 Copa Del Mar and Brazil’s 2012 Copa De Rio Janeiro, among many other awards.
His book, published in 2008, is a 600-page bible that covers everything there is to know about cultivating cannabis indoors, from the basics of the cannabis lifecycle to specifics on how to identify and treat nutrient deficiencies, prevent pest infestations, harvest and cure buds, and much more.
Alberto is also the head of Haze, a cannabis culture magazine published in Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil.

Unfortunately, after eagerly awaiting a response from Silver River for an interview with Alberto, I got this message:
“Thanks Steve for your interest and proposal. We prefer to keep flying low to avoid detecting the presence of uncomfortable radars. It is legal to cultivate in Uruguay or to own a cannabis club and make your own seeds. However, it’s not too clear whether it is legal to advertise or sell them. If I knew that it was legal, I would go on TV and would give you several interviews. But unfortunately, this is a grey area, and not even IRCA [Uruguay’s Institute for the Regulation and Control of Cannabis) knows what to tell you [about the legality of marketing and sellings seeds].
This lack of detailed regulation is a recurring problem in Uruguay’s approach to dealing with cannabis.

Regulation: Uruguay’s Weak Point.

Uruguay’s laws make it so that there’s still a budding black market for weed aimed at tourists (who can’t legally buy cannabis in the country), and some of its borders are very poorly controlled, making it easy for cannabis to be smuggled into neighboring countries.
The northern city of Rivera, for example, shares a street with the Brazilian city Santana do Livramento.
Crossing from Uruguay into Brazil here is literally a matter of crossing a street which, in the 3 days I spent in Rivera in 2019, was never patrolled neither by Uruguayan nor Brazilian authorities.
Unfortunately, this lack of regulation doesn’t just make room for criminal activity, but it also affects people trying to run honest, above-board businesses with cannabis.
People like Alberto, for example, who strive to turn their experience with and passion for cannabis into a living.
But despite its many shortcomings, Uruguay still has something going for it; it was one of the first countries to officially stop arresting cannabis users for consuming or growing their own weed.
And for anyone living in a country that still criminalizes the use of cannabis, that’s worth a ton.
Hopefully, as the market and the industry around cannabis expands in Uruguay, there’ll be more clarity around legal grey areas (like the sale of seeds), giving people like Alberto room to expand their roots and further grow their businesses.

Thunderstruck – Alaska’s Infamous MTF is Back, And This Time It’s Here To Stay

Published on 16 juin 202020 août 2020

Culture/English Version/News/Société/USA

Matanuska Thunderfuck, or MTF, is a cult cannabis strain born in the Matanuska Valley in the 1970s. It’s like the Pulp Fiction of weed; those lucky enough to have tried it swear that there’s no other strain like it.

For years, MTF’s genetics were thought to be lost along with the generation that brought the strain into existence. But now, almost 50 years after MTF first hit the streets, cultivator and dispensary owner Ron Bass from Calm N Collective in Houston, Alaska, claims he’s found the real Matanuska Thunderfuck

Chasing Thunder

I was in the kitchen making a cup of coffee when the phone rang.
I ran to my desk, fumbled for my headset, and took the call.
“Hey, this is Ron Bass from Alaska,” said the friendly voice on the other end of the line.
I’d been waiting for over a week to hear back from Ron after reading his name in a 2017 article from the Anchorage Daily.
Back then, Ron and a group of old-time smokers thought they’d found the real MTF.
But it turned out they were barking up the wrong bush.

“The stories surrounding that plant didn’t add up, and I also got it tested and it’s genetics didn’t match those of real MTF,” said Ron.
Matanuska Thunderfuck is rumored to be a cross of two landrace strains from Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Most importantly, says Ron, it’s a grafted plant; while cannabis strains are typically the product of cross-pollination, MTF was created by combining the roots of one plant (known as the rootstock) with the top of another plant (known as the scion).

1975 – The Birth Of A Legend

High Times 1st Anniversary Edition (1975)

In 1975, following the Supreme Court decision Ravin vs. State, Alaska became the first and only US state to claim that it’s residents, under their constitutional privacy rights, had the right to possess and use small amounts of cannabis.
That same year, High Times writer Blair Sachs-Benedict traveled to Alaska to cover the landmark decision and, together with her mysterious source Nordhoff, birthed the MTF legend with these paragraphs:

“Nordhoff carefully cleans out the bowl of a fossilized walrus tusk pipe and fills it with green leaf. The buds are huge, the size of a Malemute’s paw. He carefully picks one apart and crumbles it. ‘Matanuska Thunderfuck’ he declares, firing it up. ‘The finest pot grown in the 50 states.’
‘This weed is so strong it grows through the snow to find the sun,’ Nordhoff said. ‘Farmers in the Valley plant it alongside patches of cabbage so big it takes two men to carry them, tomatoes so big you have to cut them off with a chainsaw.’”

As is the norm with cannabis strains, the exact origins of MTF are shrouded in mystery.
Rumor has it that the grower who created this iconic strain went down in a drug bust in the late 1980s and that a handful of growers kept the strain alive for years to come.
After appearing in the Anchorage Daily, Ron Bass got a call from Jim Ross, one of these low-key growers.
“I got the strain in 1997 or 1998 from a friend,” said Jim in a 2018 documentary. “I just grew enough of it to keep me going.”
For the last 20 years, Jim had been growing MTF in his closet.
He would take large amounts of clones, preserve the strongest one as a mother plant, and cull the rest. He’d repeat this process roughly every 2 years.
It’s this process, says Ron, that has helped turn MTF into the powerhouse strain it is.

“MTF grows really weird. It can grow both really tall or short and bushy, so you need to know what you’re doing. It develops massive leaves with up to 8 fingers. Sometimes it’ll grow 2 or 3 leaves right on top of each other, and it’s done in roughly 7-8 weeks,” says Ron. “It smells like dank cat piss and cheese:”

Jim Ross passed his MTF strain on to Ron Bass and Cameron Van Ryn of Van Geer Enterprises, another cannabis cultivation facility in Wasilla, Alaska.
Together, they submitted their samples for genetic testing to Phylos Bioscience in Portland, Oregon, creators of the largest digital 3D database of cannabis genetics.

So far, they are the only MTF samples on that database, and Ron is working hard to milk that competitive advantage; he’s trademarked MTF in all of Alaska and even dropped a music video and rap song with Afroman titled “Thunderfuck.”
And Ron has his own unique of dealing with anyone who doesn’t think he’s MTF is the real deal:
“I’ve had people talk shit, and I always tell them the same thing; bring me the oldest dude you can find and I’ll let them smell my shit in the dispensary. Their fucking face will melt off,” he laughs.