Is there really such a massive difference between the effects of modern weed and real old-school landraces? Yes! Five decades of mindlessly breeding for THC % has ended up with the dreary, boring, flat effect typical of generic Dutch–American cannabis….
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‘Ganja plant ready for cutting, some of the dead leaves still adhering, Naogaon.’ – Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893-1894 *** The two high-end traditional cannabis drug products are ganja (sinsemilla or ‘semi-sensi’) and charas (resin, either hand-rubbed…
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The colonisation of Central Asia by the Tsarist and Soviet Empires from the 1860s to 1930s saw a sudden collapse of cannabis cultivation around historic charas-producing centres such as Bukhara and Xinjiang, the latter under Governor Sheng Shicai, a Soviet-backed…
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To go with the new chat with Aussie Gunja Man here’s a great painting of stoned yogis from 1780s Rajasthan. Satirical paintings of ascetics (Hindu or Muslim) in states of extreme wastedness were a long-running theme in Indian art by…
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First, just to clear up that freebie seeds with all orders at The Real Seed Company and Kwik Seeds are currently Kumaoni (12 seeds) and Nepali Highland #3 (5 seeds). Kumaoni is a Himalayan multipurpose landrace cultivated for use as…
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This is a great introduction by Will Self to a ‘practice’ or ‘discipline’ with deep roots in cannabis culture: psychogeography. Those roots are so deep that they ultimately reach far back into the phenomenon of the band — both the hunter–gatherer band…
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For fans of old-school Sativa landraces, here’s a classic morlam track from 1977: ‘Bong Ja Bong!’ – ‘Bong, Oh Bong!’ The singer, Dao Bandon, celebrates the pleasures of what westerners of the day called ‘Thai stick’ and folks from Laos…
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The great origin story or foundation myth of cannabis and counterculture is that of Hassan-i-Sabbah and his Order of Assassins. A fusion of fact and Orientalist fiction, the Assassin Legends are rooted in the era of the Crusades. Popularised in…
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The plant hunter Frank Meyer is shown in China in this photo from 1910, while working for the US Department of Agriculture. In December of this year, after a gruelling trek through the winter desert and mountains of southern Xinjiang,…
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The 1970s – not the ’60s – is when cannabis really took off in the US. ‘Marijuana’ skyrocketed in popularity between 1969 and 1979, by which time American college students who’d never got stoned were a dwindling minority and around…
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