ICE WARS: OR WHO INVENTED THE BOMB!
Xmas 2004 was especially nice when one of my gifts contained copies of Cannabible 1&2. The pictures were wonderful and it showed how the US grows some of the best marijuana in the world. The chapter on Water Hash is really where my story and investigation began. I took exception to Jason King, the author of the Cannabible giving credit to Sadhu Sam and Neville for inventing the water hash technique in the early 1980’s!
For larger view click on the images below:
I first saw Water hash in 1968, when two loads came into New York City! The first load had come back by VW camper overland to Europe, then shipped back to the US. It was moldy and had a mottled look and was more like putty than resin hashish. It had been packed still a little wet before shipping. The second water hash load came in airfreight from Kabul and was fresh and pressed and packed correctly. Again it was more like soft putty and excellent quality.
I first saw the exact water hashish technique that Robert Connell Clarke describes in his book Hashish in Peshawar Pakistan around 1973. While leaving a message for my connection at the Kyber Hotel I ran into some Danish smuggler friends from Kathmandu and they invited me up for a chillum. They were using the exact technique to clean up the local pollen for their smoking stash. The water separation technique can be traced back thousands of years to the industrious Chinese who used the plant for food, medicine clothing. sails, tents, rope, ect! They were the first to practice sensimilla techniques, they separated the males because the stalks grew stronger, and the females produced more medicine. They were the first to make medical hashish and used it as an anesthetic during surgery as well as for pain afterwards before opium was introduced. The Chinese have been using medical cannabis for five thousand years. Medical hashish was still available in pharmacies in early twentieth century European countries as well as in the US. Water separation has always been the best technique for making hashish that was only practiced by master hashish makers! That’s why in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s in the Trans High Quotation section in High Times Magazine water hash was quoted as being available in Kabul at three times the price of the local hashish. It fetched the same prices as the fabled Mazar I Sharif hashish! The Danes no doubt learned this technique from Afghan Hash masters! We can thank the Chinese who grew opium in Mexico from 1900 to 1930 for teaching the cannabis sensimilla technique to the Mexican farmers who in turn passed it on to us in North America!
February 24th, 1997 the inventor applied for a U.S. patent on his new technique for making hashish and called it ice water extraction. He developed the machine that is now the Xtractor 1000, but in the beginning it was called the Xtractor 420. The difference between separation and extraction is this, in separation you first sieve the pollen and then use water to separate the plant matter from the trichomes, but you can also take marijuana grind it up and then use water to separate the trichomes from the plant matter. The Ice Water Method processes the whole plant, dried or fresh and removes the trichomes fiber free for a purer extract. You really do not want to damage your bud or leaf, which sieving and grinding does! The ice water does the trick: it makes the resin brittle and non-sticky for removal while leafs still flex. A big leap from shaking second grade powder in mason jars and waiting for fall out. This “shaking” procedure sure could not and did not lead to what we call “bubble” now! Ed Rosenthal wrote an article about hash making in1996 in High Times and did not mention water extraction even though he sold Sadu Sam’s recipe years earlier! The smartest thing the inventor ever did was to apply for a US Patent before he exposed his process, which produces the purest hashish possible! I owned a pollinator and when I got my xtractor, I sold my pollinator the next day. The tumbling effect of the pollinator damages the trichomes and breaks everything up so you get a lot of plant matter in your hashish! Don’t believe turn your trash to stash crap your extract will only be as good as the material you put in!
A month before the 1997 Cannabis cup the inventor went to Amsterdam and met with Mila of the Pollinator Company, he demonstrated the machine and process and signed a contract with Mila to distribute the Xtractor 420. It was then shown at the Cannabis cup as well as workshop demonstrations during the cup. In a May 1998 High Times there is an article on the Xtractor 420 which states Mila’s company Pollinator as the distributor. It extols the efficiency of the process as well as the major advancement in the field of making the finest hashish.
July of 1998 Mila introduces her new invention the Ice O Later a direct rip off of the inventor’s genius! The Dutch even used the inventor’s original diagrams in their own advertisements! I met Mila recently at the Cannatrade show in Bern and she was worried about her reputation after a conversation I had with Grow Magazine. Mila was never part of the Smuggling scene on the Hippie trail, she was a hippie chick in India, believe you me she wasn’t in the Tribal Zone or in Blakh scoring hashish! It was Moslem Asia! In fact when the Hippie buses crossed Torkham Kyber into Pakistan normally they would continue to India and cross the Lahore border in the same afternoon. The Hippie Ladies couldn’t wait to get to India after traveling thru the Middle East. The scene was the beaches of India and the mountains of Nepal. It wasn’t until 1993 that she invented the Pollinator and that was an idea given to her as well. The pollinator is really a step backward in making hashish it’s more of a gimmick than a useful tool and she realized that after the Xtractor 420 demonstration made her pollinator obsolete! She marketed her Ice O Later around the globe in direct violation of the contractual agreements she made with the inventor and all he could do is wait for his patent to be issued and it was on 12/12/2000, patents for the Netherlands and Canada are soon to come on line as well. Mila will be forced by law to honor her contract and pay 10% of her business to the inventor! In hindsight she should have formed a close relationship with the inventor who is an Einstein of Hashish. Instead it sent the industry in a backward spiral because Mila’s rip off lead to other’s copying her as well. Today you have several companies selling Bubblebags, Shwag Bags, Kabulbaba Bags, Bubble Sacs,direct copies of the Ice O Lator. Rumor has it that Mila dressed down the Bubbleman in Canada for ripping her idea off! Funny eh! The Bubbleman took the Ice O Lator, added a bag renamed it Bubblebags and marketed them around the globe and was more successful than Mila, which led to the jealous encounter in Canada! Reality being that both Mila and Bubbleman don’t add up to the inventor’s genius and the Bubbleman’s grand contribution is the addition of a five bag kit as well as an eight bag kit and all that does is further break your back as well as the trichomes! The inventor’s system uses only one 150 Micron stainless steel filter, the addition of more filters just leads to more work and are not necessary for the process to work efficiently! So instead of the industry moving forward it went backwards. Mila’s reputation is kaput! All the other people who ripped off the Ice O Lator system may have to pay the inventor as well and let’s hope so! Imagine if the inventor would have been supported instead of robbed, who knows what amazing new concepts he could have come up with!
To me it’s amazing that Mila would put herself in this situation, but plagiarism is rampant in the Cannabis Industry and she had help! The Xtractor 420 produced such unbelievable hashish that it made people act crazy with greed and envy! The November 1998 Cannabis Cup not only brought the introduction of the Ice O Lator but also the book on Hashish by Robert Connell Clarke. In fact they were marketed together! Both Clarke and his editor Mel Frank knew Mila was ripping the inventor’s genius but went ahead with their marketing plan of both products promoting each other and both sold well! The High Times article of May 1998, clearly explained the Ice Water Extraction technique and shows the Xtractor 420, and names Mila as the distributor! One thing on Clark’s book it was researched many years too late and some of the sources he uses were some of the biggest loser’s in Southeast Asia!
In the 1960’s and 1970’s the Counter Culture feared the legalization of marijuana and the take over of the marijuana industry by big Tobacco. In fact Tobacco Corporations copyrighted the brand names such as Acapulco Gold, Panama Red, and Thai Stick. Today we have that corporate greed in the Cannabis Industry! To be continued.
(If one wants to do his own investigation about: “Where do the bubbles come from” there is an Icecold Files CD with more than two hundred pages of documents available from
www.icecold.org)
Page # 4 (patent)
Page # 11(contract)
Page #17(Xtractor 420)
Page # 29(High Times article)
Page # 33(Ice O Lator)
Page # 34(diagrams original Inventor Diagram vs Dutch Rip-off)
