4: Six Simple Preventative Tips
Dedication
Index
Isolated bracts on the right; kif on the left; jelly hash in the blue tubes; water hash in the clear containers; and a 100-year-old pipe.
Photo: Samson Daniels
It was Denis Peron who once told me, “There is no such thing as the recreational use of marijuana. It’s all medicinal.” He was right!
It is one of the most profound statements I’ve heard in my thirty-eight years as a cannabis smoker. Whether you use it to alleviate stress or boredom, to relax after a hard day’s work, or to alleviate the symptoms of multiple sclerosis, you are using it as a medicine. Recreational drugs are those such as LSD, MDMA, and the like: drugs that are taken to party with. Not that I would know much about them, as I left that crazy lifestyle behind in my teens. I am fifty-two years old now, and like to think of myself as being somewhat wiser than I was in those days.
Throughout the years, I’ve heard a lot of garbage governmental propaganda about the dangers of marijuana. Way back, when I was in grade school, perhaps eight or nine years old, I was made to sit in an auditorium with my fellow classmates and was force-fed the film Reefer Madness as part of my educational curriculum! It only got worse from there.
Although I live in what I lovingly refer to as Sleepy Hollows, England, I have traveled the world seeking out and tasting the best hash in the world. I’ve been through the tribal areas of Pakistan, to Manali and Manala, to the mountains of Nepal, to the Rif Mountains of Morocco, to West and South Africa. I’ve tasted the best from everywhere. I was even made an official Sadhu at a gathering of Sadhus on Shiva’s birthday at the great Hindu temple of Pashupatinath, just outside of Kathmandu, Nepal. And I do it all for a living. That’s my job! And how cool a job is that? All of my adventure travel, hash-smoking articles were published in England’s Red Eye Magazine.
It was through these articles that I first met K from Trichome Technologies. He had stumbled on a copy of one of the mags and managed to get my number through the international cannabis grapevine. Kind of like an old boy’s network. K and I became really good friends over the next twelve years and I managed to convince him to write some grow articles for Red Eye. As we knew each other so well, I personally worked hand in hand with Kenny on editing and laying out a whole series of the best grow articles that Red Eye ever printed.
I have met all of the greats in the cannabis world, including Sam the Skunk Man, Rob Connell Clarke, Jorge Cervantes, Mel Frank, and Soma, to name a few. K, with his expert knowledge of the cannabis plant, stands out among them all. How else would he have earned the “Best Grow Operation in the Twenty-Five Year History of High Times,” otherwise?
I learned everything I know about growing from K, and I’m now pretty damn good at it, if I do say so myself. Unfortunately, I haven’t mastered the art of not getting busted on a regular basis! “Codswallop to them all, if they can’t take a joke,” that’s what I say.
I’ve been with K through every stage of the writing of this book, and I know that his heart and soul have gone into every page. If it teaches the reader anything near what I have learned from this true master of cannabis growing, then this book will change your life.
I opened this foreword with a profound quote, and I’ll be damned if I’m not going to close with one too. I’d like to quote Steve Gaskin, an aging old hippie like myself, who founded a working commune called “The Farm” in Tennessee along with three hundred and twenty other San Francisco hippies in 1971. The Farm still flourishes today and is one of the most successful communes in the U.S. of A. Steve, while speaking at the High Times Cannabis Cup, said, referring to pot smoking, “If you find yourself confronted by people who don’t understand your lifestyle, don’t ram your lifestyle down their throats and flaunt your joints in their face, you’ll win nothing through confrontation. If you really do want to win the war, just get them to like you for who you are.”
—Zorro, Red Eye Magazine, UK
The author at work. K of Trichome Technologies in a cannabis grow facility.
Cannabis flower laden with trichomes.
Photo: Mel Frank
K, from Trichome Technologies, has long been known in the subculture of Northern California for his thorough professionalism and constant innovation in growing techniques. His determined research toward better understanding all aspects of marijuana growing, including increasing potency and yields, and breeding award-winning cultivars, has earned him high praise, admiration, and well-earned respect from his peers. With his very low public profile, he received little notice for devising a truly practical hashish-making technique for both the home and commercial gardener, first explained in High Times, April 2000. His refined approach became the basic procedure for both American and European hashish-makers.
Here, in his first book, K brings his experience and knowledge to the benefit of the greater marijuana-growing public. Hopefully, his guidance will long serve all of us into the time when our era of Reefer Madness is rightfully relegated to the designated dumpster for legislative lunacy, and marijuana and hemp consumption and growing will once again be legal as it was through our first 161 years as a free nation.
—Mel Frank, Marijuana Grower’s Guide Deluxe and Marijuana Grower’s Insider’s Guide
Some cannabis leaves turn golden at harvest the same as leaves on the trees do in the fall.
Photo: Mel Frank
The purpose of this book, as the title implies, is to teach you the fundamentals of growing medical-grade cannabis without making the process complicated—my aim is to simplify the procedures, step-by-step; elucidate on the methods needed to produce first-class medical-grade cannabis; and outline the creation and construction of a perfect growing environment from the very first attempt. That said, a basic familiarity with terms and systems is assumed. If you are ever mystified by a reference, please turn to the index of this book.
As long as you follow the instructions and stay within (and understand) the parameters stated, you will be guaranteed to produce a bountiful harvest, superior to anything you have ever grown. And, if this is your first time growing, this book enables you to simply produce
