Big Weed (17 page)

For now, our T-shirts featured the face of the Green Man—a spirit of nature from ancient pagan lore. High as I was, as I stood there in the hall watching cannabis fans get higher still around me, I thought it was a question worth pondering: Was it possible to make my brand as recognizable as that black dog or that swoosh or that smiling Boston patriot brandishing a tankard of beer?

I didn't know it then, but I was about to be handed one tool to hasten that brand recognition. Our first order of business, even before setting up our booth, was to drop off our 40-gram samples for the cannabis competition. Over the course of ten days, the judges would be smoking the entrants' weed, and the winners would be announced on the last night of the show.

We didn't overthink our entry that year. We were justifiably proud of our SkunkBerry strain because we were the first company to produce it commercially. Brandon, my second grower, introduced us to it, and the strain was flourishing in Corey's care.

It's an interesting little bud. SkunkBerry has a very potent odor of skunk, which is mellowed by a very real fragrance of blueberry pie. The two flavors temper each other. The skunk never gets angry; it's just tangy. The blueberry is sweet, not cloying. And in the background, if you wait for it, you'll detect a pleasing sharp, astringent odor that also comes through in the taste of the smoke. It is very distinctive.

This strain does well in our shops, but we didn't really know how the judges would take to it. When you're smoking SkunkBerry, you know it. There's nothing subtle about it. The flavors are so clearly different from what you just smoked or are about to smoke. Would the judges enjoy that palate shift, or not?

Come Sunday, the exhibitors closed up shop and cleared the floor. Attendees packed in to hear the announcements. Typically, the smaller awards are read off first, but today, for some reason, the judges started at the top and worked their way down.

Corey had convinced me that his “lucky spot” was standing in the back of the room. So we had all congregated together far from the stage. Just as things got started, I heard the judges say, “Green Man Cannabis!”

“Hey, they called out our name!” I said to one of my employees. “What was that for?”

“I think it was for the Cannabis Cup for Hybrid!”

This is the highest award in the industry, given for general excellence. The Best Picture Oscar for Marijuana, you might say. Because our industry is small, those who win the Cannabis Cup are roundly accorded bragging rights for the rest of their lives.

I didn't think it was probable.

“No,” I told the employee. “It can't be. They must be starting from the third prize and working their way up.”

“No, you won!” someone said. “Go! Go get your prize!”

I felt the shove of a half dozen hands, pushing me toward the stage.

We were so far in the back of the room that the judges had assumed we were no longer present. Someone else had leaped forward to accept the prize on my behalf. But then, just as he was walking away, I popped up on stage followed by my partners and employees.

“Oh, wait,” someone said. “Green Man is here.”

I was stunned. My hands were trembling, I couldn't believe what had just happened. I'd started this business three years ago, and now
our company and its employees had taken an award known throughout the world for cannabis excellence.

Tell me: In what other industry in corporate America could a young company achieve such an award in so short a time?

I was so grateful. I could not have done it without our team, especially our grower Corey. He now had three Cannabis Cup wins under his belt.

The actual cup is an underwhelming trophy. An acquaintance of mine once showed me the trophy he had won for mixed doubles at Wimbledon, and I was surprised how small it was. I suppose I had expected something along the lines of the 25-pound Heisman Trophy. The Cannabis Cup was nothing like that: it was only 7 inches tall from its base to the top of the cup, and the caduceus—the snakes-and-staff symbol that signifies the medical field—served as the stem, morphing into two iconic-looking marijuana leaves that held up a golden bowl.

I took the cup and waved it over my head.

The audience went wild.

11

Marijuana's Mecca

In the world of cannabis, there is one name that stands out when you begin talking about growing marijuana: Ed Rosenthal. The
New York Times
once described him as “the pothead's answer to Ann Landers, Judge Judy, Martha Stewart and the Burpee Garden Wizard all in one.” The latest edition of Ed's book is dedicated to Pete Seeger. The foreword is written by Tommy Chong, the activist and actor of Cheech and Chong fame.

Though he's not formally trained as a horticulturist, Ed traveled the world studying marijuana cultivation, back when it was still illegal and unpopular to do so in the United States. He churned out a number of books that patiently taught two generations of underground growers how it's done. If you ask professional growers today what reference book they recommend you read before setting up a grow, they will all recommend
Ed Rosenthal's Marijuana Grower's Handbook.

In October 2011, the autumn before our 2012 Cannabis Cup win, I got a call one afternoon from Dr. Paul Bregman, a former radiologist in Denver who is now a major figure in the cannabis movement and has testified as an expert witness before the state legislature on medical marijuana issues. Paul said that Ed Rosenthal was visiting
Colorado. He was in Denver
that night.
Did I have time to join a group of them for dinner with Ed?

At first I thought it was one of these events where fifty people sat in an audience while Ed spoke. That type of thing didn't interest me. But Paul insisted this would be different. He had scored Ed's phone number and called him a few days ago. Ed had agreed to meet Paul for dinner one night while in Denver; he didn't have other plans. It was to be only four or five people, plus Ed. I couldn't pass up the opportunity.

“Hell, yeah,” I told Paul on the phone. “I'll see you there.”

We were all meeting at the Imperial Chinese restaurant on Broadway. I went—but not before visiting our dispensary and picking up some choice buds of a strain known as the Ed Rosenthal Super Bud. It's a fascinating hybrid of both sativa and indica that results in freakishly huge buds. Some people say it has a flavor profile not unlike pineapple punch; others describe it as having a citrusy, earthy, minty flavor.

The fact that we could even talk about these flavors was due to the man I was about to meet. Among other things, Ed had made a careful study of terpenes, the aromatic essential oils that were found in cannabis resin and that gave all plants—not just marijuana—their powerful scents. When I read Ed's books, I was reminded again of Nature's resourcefulness. When Nature found a scent that worked well—the smell of lemons, for example—she didn't just put them in lemons. Nature injects that odor in the form of limonene in herbs such as lemon balm and marijuana plants. This antibacterial, antifungal, and anticancer terpene protects those plants from predators. As Ed has pointed out in his books over the years, the reason Nature endowed cannabis with THC-secreting glands is to help the plant ward off animals that would be moved to eat it. But ingeniously, that very same defense mechanism helped the plant attract the only animals that could ensure the plant's success throughout the world: human beings.

I got to the restaurant. Everyone was still standing, shaking hands with this gnomelike fellow with outrageously unkempt hair. He was small, thin, and somewhere in his sixties.

Out came the soup.

As the waiters were doing their thing, I pulled the bag from my pocket and quietly announced that I had brought some Ed Rosenthal Super Bud for Ed to check out. I handed the bag to the guy on my right, who lovingly inspected it before passing it down the table to the next guy, and the next, until it finally reached Ed.

The conversation at the table turned briefly to how Super Bud came to be named after Ed. The owner of Sensi Seed, a good friend of Ed's, had named two strains in honor of two men who had done so much for marijuana—one strain after the late activist Jack Herer and another strain after Ed. I could tell Ed was not overly excited to be presented with his own bud, but he was pleased to be recognized and liked that our bud was really well grown.

The night wore on. At the end of our dinner, Ed pulled me aside. He looked at the bag of Super Bud. “Thank you so much for showing these to me. They're beautiful. So . . . do you want to go smoke them?”

You can guess what my answer was. When you have the opportunity to smoke weed with one of the great figures of the industry—and that opportunity involves smoking a strain named after him—the answer is not yes but
“Hell, yes!”

Ed and I and all the others from dinner went out to where I'd parked my Chevy Tahoe and climbed inside. I packed a bowl in a glass pipe, which I had brought just in case, and offered it up to Ed. After one puff, Ed started talking about the qualities of the bud in that bowl with the discernment of a true connoisseur. His description of the look, smell, taste, and high was so specific, so on the nose, that I knew I was in the presence of a master and still had much to learn.

I can't believe this, I thought. I'm smoking Ed Rosenthal Super Bud in my car with Ed Rosenthal himself.

We got to talking. Ed struck me as intensely knowledgeable. You couldn't just ask him a question about marijuana and expect to get a quick yes-or-no answer. “Yes,” he would say, “but there are four parts to that answer. Do you want to hear them all?”

Before the night was over, I asked him if he'd like to come by and check out our grows. He said he'd be happy to. He just needed to check his schedule. Okay, I thought, that's his way of letting me down. He's busy seeing a lot of other people in Colorado while he's here.

But sure enough, the next day, Ed showed up, eager to check out what we'd been up to. All the growers who worked for me were astonished and perhaps a little bit nervous. “Oh, Mr. Rosenthal,” they would say as they came up to him, “I have your book!”

After that, Ed and I became friends and started working on a business opportunity together. One that involved me going to Amsterdam with him at some point to meet some people who needed to find a business home in the United States.

Well, the night we won the Cannabis Cup, Ed was there. And he was one of the first to throw his arms around me and give me a huge hug of congratulations.

“It's time we go to Amsterdam,” he said. “You ready for this?” Considering I'd spent two exhausting days exhibiting at the Cannabis Cup and was still high from winning the top award, it was a reasonable question.

I had never been to Amsterdam. I'm pretty well traveled, but I somehow missed the college marijuana excursion to Amsterdam, where you got to pose as a world traveler when really all you did in Europe was get baked in a marijuana café. Ed and I had talked previously about what we would need to accomplish while there. I knew I would be meeting a lot of people who had worked in the Dutch marijuana industry for decades. I was going to Mount Olympus to meet the Gods of Weed.

I told myself it was a smart thing to do for the business. We weren't just a bunch of start-up newbies anymore. We had won the Cannabis Cup, for heaven's sake. Ed and I had booked the trip earlier, so my calendar was clear. I packed my bags, bade my wife and daughters good-bye, and headed to Amsterdam in the company of the biggest name in weed. Our Cannabis Cup win was only forty-eight hours old by the time we touched down in the great city of the Dutch.

Amsterdam lived up to its reputation as a beautiful, progressive city. On our first day, Ed wanted to initiate me by taking me to one of the city's best marijuana cafés. He rushed along the sidewalk, traipsing past the canals and bridges that define Amsterdam, passing one café after another. We were not far from the famous Herengracht, the historic “Gentleman's Canal,” where Amsterdam's elite had lived in centuries past. I tagged along after him, peering into the windows of one inviting café after another. I saw bars and comfortable seats and fetching artwork on the walls.

“What about this one?” I said. “Or this one? Or this one?”

“No,” he snapped without turning around. “It's not the best. I know it's right up here somewhere.”

I don't know, I thought. The ones we're passing look pretty nice to me.

And of course, when he finally spotted the café he was looking for, it was a closet with a window. We crammed ourselves inside the legendary Grey Area, its walls covered with bumper stickers and decals in tons of different languages. There were only a few tables, and people were known to sit, half in, half out, in the café's front windows. The clerk presented us with a couple of menus. One listed soft drinks. The other was divided into
weed
and
hash
options. Incredible.

While we studied our choices, the clerk stared at Ed for a while, then stepped away. When he came back, Ed gave him our order. The
café offered a range of rolling papers so we could roll our own and smoke right at the bar.

You don't just read a menu when you're with Ed. Reviewing the list of options sparked a monologue. He held forth on each of the strains, spelling out for me who had bred each, when it was first presented to the public, what awards each had won, and which other strains used this particular one as a successful breeding pair.

“How much do we owe you?” Ed said offhandedly to the clerk.

“Nothing, Mr. Rosenthal,” the clerk said. “We're very happy to see you again.”

“Thank you, it's nice to be back.” Ed said.

“I can't charge you,” the clerk said. “I just phoned the owner that you were here in person, and those are his instructions. He's coming over right now to meet you.”

We would get the same reaction everywhere else we went. Everyone seemed to recognize Ed. Ed explained that some years ago, he had become one of the most visible faces in the Netherlands during a court case regarding marijuana. That, and the fact that his cultivation handbooks had sold more than a million copies worldwide, ensured that he was likely to be recognized anywhere he went in the kingdom of marijuana.

I can't tell you how many of those cafés we visited that week. At a certain point they all melded into a wondrous blur. I was falling in love with the city. It was liberating to be able to sit in a café and watch people come in, sip a bottle of mineral water or an espresso coffee, all the while enjoying a joint or a bowl from a glass pipe, then get up and go on their merry way. There was no shame to it. It seemed sophisticated, urbane, and freeing.

Sometimes Ed would introduce me as the recent American winner of the Cannabis Cup, a fact that engendered a lot of curiosity from Amsterdammers and others. They were fascinated at the notion that cannabis was slowly becoming legal in America, and they had lots of questions. I was beginning to realize that, even in such a
progressive place as Amsterdam, what was happening in the United States was nothing short of revolutionary.

It is not obvious to tourists, but cannabis laws in the Netherlands are quite strict. You could still get busted if you smoked weed or hash outdoors in public, beyond the safety of a private café. It is still illegal to grow cannabis in the Netherlands. Growers were routinely busted when discovered. Cafés, I was told, were permitted to keep only 100 grams—a mere 3.5 ounces—on the premises at any given time. By contrast, my Colorado dispensaries routinely kept 20
pounds
of buds on site at all times to meet demand. Amsterdam's strict regulations begged the question: How did all these marijuana cafés keep from running out?

One day I learned the truth. As soon as a café depleted its stock, a courier on a bicycle mysteriously appeared at the door with a fresh, 100-gram infusion of weed and hash. I assumed someone in the café had made a surreptitious phone call, but it happened so seamlessly that if you didn't know to watch for it, you'd never notice it at all.

One day as we wound our way through Ed's whirlwind cannabis tour, we encountered a thin man whose dreadlocks seemed to run all the way down to the ground. He stopped short and greeted Ed warmly. They chatted briefly before Ed introduced us.

“Chris, this is Soma.”

No fucking way, I thought.

Soma was the founder of Soma Seeds, which sold cannabis seeds to growers all over the world. Soma's past is somewhat shrouded in mystery. On his website he tells how he first smoked marijuana back in 1967, when he was working as a mail clerk at an IBM office in New York City. Back then, he was a straight shooter who went off to work each morning clad in a three-piece suit and tie. But the first puff of marijuana changed his life. He ended up devoting his life to marijuana when it was still illegal throughout the United States. At one point he was growing in Vermont, presumably trying to stay one step ahead of the law. By the time he fled to Amsterdam and started
going by the name Soma, he had come to regard marijuana as a sacred, versatile plant. He wore clothes fashioned of hemp and smoked regularly. Today, like Ed, he is another international legend in the world of cannabis.

He invited Ed and me to visit with him at his apartment, and a short time later we found ourselves in the most bohemian flat I had ever seen in my entire life. Those tall windows that grace so many of Amsterdam's historic buildings imbued the living room with sunlight. I learned that every time friends visited Soma, they brought him rocks from their homeland. The floor was covered with rocks of every type of size, color, and origin. Interspersed among them were bright pillows. That's how he entertained us: We sat on the floor amid the pillows and rocks, smoked our weed, and talked about our common business.

I suppose if anyone had seen us, they would have been struck by the juxtaposition of a best-selling author, a dreadlocked outlaw, and an American businessman enjoying each other's company. Ed and Soma were undoubtedly the more courageous; they had taken risks that had made their lives difficult over the years, all in service to the herb.