My Journey Into Cannabis -Part 4: Get Your Grow On
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Art By Rebekah Jenks
After getting arrested twice in 2 years over my fondness for The Herb, I was forced to take a timeout and regroup. It felt awkward to be treated like a common criminal for the love of a plant. Being put on probation and submitting to regular drug testing will do that to you.
While I didn’t feel like my cannabis usage was a criminal activity, selling it to pay for my habit clearly was; something had to change. I spent a year and a half on probation and then got permission to move to Oregon, so I packed up and left the East Coast in the summer of 1996 and headed west.
Best road trip ever!
I witnessed some epic music events that summer on my journey: 4 nights of Phish at Red Rocks Amphitheater and their Inaugural weekend festival the Clifford Ball in upstate NY; the legendary Medeski Martin & Wood show at the U of W in Madison, WI. I visited Yellowstone National Park for the first time. I camped out on the Colorado River for a couple of nights in Moab UT. I took LSD in the desert and somehow ended up in Salt Lake City. I saw some of the craziest, most intense rain, hail, and lightning storms I have ever seen.
Photo Courtesy of Jason Bird
I was doing my best impression of Jack Kerouac and living out my own version of On The Road...
Photo Courtesy of Jason Bird
At the tail end of the adventure and concert psychedelia, I picked up 2 friends in Ft. Collins, CO, drove one to Bozeman, MT, and finished the drive to Oregon with the other one via the ultra-scenic Lewis & Clark highway through Lewiston Idaho, into eastern Washington, and down to Portland. I had moved almost 3,000 miles to Oregon to begin my adventures in cultivation. I enrolled in a 2 year Horticulture Degree program and began taking classes in the campus greenhouse. After transferring my probation, I was released from active supervision after 3 months.
Not long after that I started growing my first cannabis plants indoors. It was a strain called The Cough. My roommate / passenger had hidden a clone of it in a small softside cooler in his backpack on the drive from Ft. Collins. It was the original Northern Lights #5 x Haze.
What. A. Strain. It has one of the most unique terpene profiles of any strain I've EVER smoked. It would expand in your lungs and force a mild to severe hacking cough. With habitual consumption, it would burn a sore spot in your throat from the coughing and terpene irritation.
This strain is also known to cause anxiety after consumption. There is just something about that particular terpene profile, it's a little hard to handle. It's both iconic and exotic. Big plants with big fat buds. 11 weeks in flower (75 days) to perfection. That is an eternity in the life of an indoor cultivator. Not many growers had the patience to wait that long early on. Connoisseurs will. Generally speaking, for production purposes, you want a good indoor crop to turn over every 50-60 days if possible.
Oregon has been pretty progressive in its approach to cannabis, becoming the first state to decriminalize possession of an ounce or less in 1972 (my birth year). In 1998, Oregon became the second state to allow medical use of cannabis with the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program (OMMP), after California passed Prop. 215 in 1996. Oregon's medical program has been a model of success, seeing exponential growth year over year. This has propelled the skill level of indoor cultivation in the Willamette Valley to world-class levels, among the best on the planet.
Props to all the people who perfected their craft in the dank, smelly, humid basements of Portland! And all up and down the west coast, from LA to Seattle. Challenging conditions make better cultivators. I consider that era from 1996, at the beginning of the medical marijuana movement, to 2015, to be a Renaissance Era of cultivation. Technique, technology, and tenacity had all converged to make it happen.
—“Great cannabis cultivation is truly an art form, like a lover's dance. The convergence of the plant's energy with the cultivators, each pushing the other to new heights, to a state of bliss”—.
It's this dance that keeps me coming back. Cultivation is my connection to the earth and I sink my roots down deep to sustain myself with the vibration of life that lies below the surface. That connection with the earth and with the past feels like it’s been slipping away from us in this modern world. The art of cultivation is composting and converting the past, keeping us rooted in the present and growing a vision of the future.
In 2006, I was severely injured in an accident that fractured my skull and almost killed me. Surgeons used a kind of putty made from extracted coral to patch the fractured portion of my skull. I became a steward of medical cannabis and a patient advocate after using cannabis to replace the pain medication I was given after I left the hospital.
I continue to advocate for medical cannabis today on a nationwide scale, and to help legacy operators adapt to the changing business environment. Evolving indoor cultivation and CEA to a sustainable, net-zero carbon footprint through lighting and solar technology is a challenge I am actively working on with new sustainability partners and conscious operators. Providing access to capital and credit services for cannabis & non-cannabis business owners is the other.
Not everyone is getting a fair shake in the current cannabis economy. It's important to make your voice heard and to fight for a system that gives equal opportunity to those who want to participate. If you want to connect with me and learn more about my current industry adventures or start a conversation, reach out to me on Linkedin here, or on instagram @innernodegardens
