The history of weed growing in Canada (especially BC) in the 80s and 90s?

Just my 2cents here. When I go to the states, I have always come across Canadian import, and it is just like the Bud I get in Ontario, well grown hydro not super stink, but covered in crystal, almost always dense buds/nugs.
But, the herb that is grown in the USA is fireeee like 100 times better then the Canadian bud. I got banned from the IC Mag for telling BC growers that they do not their strains. They are good growers and once in a blue you will see a BC guy with top notch gear, but most is just mediocre.

-The NYC Haze aka the PIFF some of the best weed I ever had ever, from what I know it is controlled by Dominican Gangs and grown in hoop houses in south Florida.

-ECSD again top notch herb some of the best, for years it was only found in NYC but you can now get it in all the hot spots in the states, It originated in Upstate NY/Boston Mass/PA.

-OG Kush (the real OG, NOT the bud from BC called OG) This shit is super dank, it is on par with the ECSD some people say it is the same strain, but I will say that I had 2 bags from one of the best growers in Mass state, he Gave me a half zip of OG the cut came off a plane right from LA, and he gave me a half zip of the ECSD both grown side by side and I can say even tho they are very similar they are also slightly different, maybe like different phenos of the same parents.

-Girl Scout Cookies (Not the BC Fookies, and not from seed from cali connect)
Clone only from the bay area VIA a guy named Pie Guy and his boy Kenny Powers, the rapper berner made it a household name by supplying it to other rappers and getting them to rap about it, I got a full zip from Berners dispensary in the Bay Area, got it in 2012 a good friend of mine who is now deceased (RIP) took me to get the bag from Berner, This weed was top notch as well, but nothing like the Cookies I have come across from a million different people, it was smooth, not super pungent, but a nice piney/minty smell. tight nugs, sticky and covered in sugar. Left a minty after taste almost like a cool burn.

All of the strains I just mentioned are not in Canada at all, when I said that on IC mag all the guys who are selling the bootlegs versions of this shit in BC got hella mad at me. Not only are those strains not here, but they all originated in the states.

Now I am not saying Canada did not make major shipments to the states of Cannabis for years, but what you have to understand is that Canada is like 1 state compared to the "States" in size we are close to the state of Cali. My point is you have like endless markets in the states, think about it, the cartels send bales of Cannabis by the ton for years and it all sells, then you have Canada sending down "Hockey bags" (Get it?lol) by the ton but yet you still had gangs growing in Florida, Kentucky, NY state, Mass, Co, Cali, and the PNW, that is a hell of a lot of weed, so yes Canada did play a part in the industry in the States it was just a blip compared to what they had going on.

To be honest the weed market in Canada but specifically BC is boring compared to the States, I have come across wayyyyyyy more EXO weed in the states. BC only blew up with the growing in the last 15 years. I remember when the suburbs of Toronto it was estimated 1 in every 5 homes was a grow. The fact is a lot of the hardcore indoor growers left Ontario in the late 90's early 2000's and they took the big grows with them, prior to that a shit ton was done right here in Ontario. Even your buddy Emery is from Ontario. All I am saying is on wall street all that Sour getting sold and all that Haze not one bag of it was grown in Canada, and that is a massive market (NYC), what other place in the world can you name that had 1000$ ZIPS? only NYC. The sour was always fluffy and it came in tiny plastic square jars, the shit looked like it was still on the plant, all Canadian bud looked like it was squished in airtight bags(because it was). Guys were not going to be paying 1000$ USD for a zip of that squished bud.

But I will say that BC growers know how to crank out that mid to slightly higher then mid grade by the boat load, but they did not invent the wheel.

The Hippy said:

Funny thing is it's the ugliest weed I've ever seen. Not brick weed ugly...butt ugly and stinky dank. Loaded with frost usually. Low rot type taste. Zero hair color and army green......eh Gb ?

Click to expand...

uglier than ugly, an ugly duckling of sorts
good things come in small packages though

looks like the blue cheese sorta..
the cheese is a UK Skunk Cross! It just doesnt smell like a skunk...it just reeks..

torontomeds said:

Just my 2cents here. When I go to the states, I have always come across Canadian import, and it is just like the Bud I get in Ontario, well grown hydro not super stink, but covered in crystal, almost always dense buds/nugs.
But, the herb that is grown in the USA is fireeee like 100 times better then the Canadian bud. I got banned from the IC Mag for telling BC growers that they do not their strains. They are good growers and once in a blue you will see a BC guy with top notch gear, but most is just mediocre.

-The NYC Haze aka the PIFF some of the best weed I ever had ever, from what I know it is controlled by Dominican Gangs and grown in hoop houses in south Florida.

-ECSD again top notch herb some of the best, for years it was only found in NYC but you can now get it in all the hot spots in the states, It originated in Upstate NY/Boston Mass/PA.

-OG Kush (the real OG, NOT the bud from BC called OG) This shit is super dank, it is on par with the ECSD some people say it is the same strain, but I will say that I had 2 bags from one of the best growers in Mass state, he Gave me a half zip of OG the cut came off a plane right from LA, and he gave me a half zip of the ECSD both grown side by side and I can say even tho they are very similar they are also slightly different, maybe like different phenos of the same parents.

-Girl Scout Cookies (Not the BC Fookies, and not from seed from cali connect)
Clone only from the bay area VIA a guy named Pie Guy and his boy Kenny Powers, the rapper berner made it a household name by supplying it to other rappers and getting them to rap about it, I got a full zip from Berners dispensary in the Bay Area, got it in 2012 a good friend of mine who is now deceased (RIP) took me to get the bag from Berner, This weed was top notch as well, but nothing like the Cookies I have come across from a million different people, it was smooth, not super pungent, but a nice piney/minty smell. tight nugs, sticky and covered in sugar. Left a minty after taste almost like a cool burn.

All of the strains I just mentioned are not in Canada at all, when I said that on IC mag all the guys who are selling the bootlegs versions of this shit in BC got hella mad at me. Not only are those strains not here, but they all originated in the states.

Now I am not saying Canada did not make major shipments to the states of Cannabis for years, but what you have to understand is that Canada is like 1 state compared to the "States" in size we are close to the state of Cali. My point is you have like endless markets in the states, think about it, the cartels send bales of Cannabis by the ton for years and it all sells, then you have Canada sending down "Hockey bags" (Get it?lol) by the ton but yet you still had gangs growing in Florida, Kentucky, NY state, Mass, Co, Cali, and the PNW, that is a hell of a lot of weed, so yes Canada did play a part in the industry in the States it was just a blip compared to what they had going on.

To be honest the weed market in Canada but specifically BC is boring compared to the States, I have come across wayyyyyyy more EXO weed in the states. BC only blew up with the growing in the last 15 years. I remember when the suburbs of Toronto it was estimated 1 in every 5 homes was a grow. The fact is a lot of the hardcore indoor growers left Ontario in the late 90's early 2000's and they took the big grows with them, prior to that a shit ton was done right here in Ontario. Even your buddy Emery is from Ontario. All I am saying is on wall street all that Sour getting sold and all that Haze not one bag of it was grown in Canada, and that is a massive market (NYC), what other place in the world can you name that had 1000$ ZIPS? only NYC. The sour was always fluffy and it came in tiny plastic square jars, the shit looked like it was still on the plant, all Canadian bud looked like it was squished in airtight bags(because it was). Guys were not going to be paying 1000$ USD for a zip of that squished bud.

But I will say that BC growers know how to crank out that mid to slightly higher then mid grade by the boat load, but they did not invent the wheel.

Click to expand...

Actually....

Yes. BC and, to some extent, Ont and Quebec did invent the wheel.

Im not arguing about quality or quantitiy. Canada, ten times less the population than the US, never exported more weed to the US than the Mexicans or Asians. What i am saying is that BC (and to a lesser extent Ont and Que) pioneered indoor growing on this continent and took it to a mass scale. And it spread to the states from there. Thats all. And AT THAT TIME it was some of the finest weed in the world (as decreed by the experts in indoor growing in Amsterdam).

Cali and Col have taken that to higher levels now. But MAKE NO MISTAKE, the pioneers in BC still grow some of the finest weed in the world.

Do you think what was grown and shipped on a mass scale was the best they did? Fuck no. Like everywhere else...the good stuff was kept at home and the shit was shipped out. But even that "shit" was world class...

torontomeds said:

Just my 2cents here. When I go to the states, I have always come across Canadian import, and it is just like the Bud I get in Ontario, well grown hydro not super stink, but covered in crystal, almost always dense buds/nugs.
But, the herb that is grown in the USA is fireeee like 100 times better then the Canadian bud. I got banned from the IC Mag for telling BC growers that they do not their strains. They are good growers and once in a blue you will see a BC guy with top notch gear, but most is just mediocre.

.

Click to expand...

A Canadian Parlimentary report on drug trends from 1980-2001

http://www.parl.gc.ca/Content/SEN/Committee/371/ille/library/DrugTrends-e.htm

The bit below is relevant to weed. What it depicts is the timeline of indoor growing. Show me official government/police data about grow-ops that pre-dates what is below....

If you follow the numbers, you'll see that in the mid-90s grow op busts in Wash St, were still minimal in comparison but started to rise. Same with Oregon in the late 90s and Northern Cal. Colorado follows that. They're late comers to the indoor grow party, but they moved the fastest.



C. Cannabis

1. Trends between 1980-1985
In 1985, the RCMP reported that Canada was supplying about 10% of the marijuana on the Canadian market especially since as many as three crops can be harvested in the indoor and hydroponic growing stations rather than simply one harvest from areas abroad due to weather changes. Authorities throughout Canada reported increases in users cultivating marijuana for personal consumption in both rural and urban areas.

The modest importation of marijuana that authorities did observe in 1985 was occurring primarily by land transportation rather than sea or air transportation. This may have been due to trafficking organizations closer to Canada, such as Jamaica, Mexico and the United States, trying to take over Colombia's share of the Canadian cannabis market, since Colombia was being bombarded with enforcement programmes to prevent cannabis and coca cultivation.




2. Trends between 1986-1990



The number of persons charged with cultivation offences in Canada in the late 1980s continued to rise. The RCMP reported in the latter half of the 1980s that there were huge increases in seizures of domestically grown cannabis. By 1987 domestic cultivation was estimated to hold 20% of the total Canadian market, a substantial increase from the previous 10% share. Hydroponic and indoor cultivation became the popular method to produce domestic varieties of marijuana since three to four crops per year could be produced and plants were less detectable than marijuana grown outdoors. In 1986 and 1987 large numbers of indoor and hydroponic cultivation sites were dismantled in British Columbia.



Overall, while source countries remained prominent in the Canadian cannabis market, domestically grown cannabis products were on the rise during the latter part of the 1980s. Canadian hydroponic and indoor cultivators developed increasingly sophisticated techniques that assisted in providing higher potencies of marijuana that could compete with foreign grown marijuana. In addition, more liquid hashish production sites were discovered. Canadian cannabis providers were gaining much more control of the cannabis market in Canada, and thus little disruption in availability to the Canadian market was being experienced when the supply from traditional source countries was disrupted.

3. Trends Between 1991-2000


As indicated by the high numbers of persons charged with marijuana cultivation offences, in the 1990s marijuana production become increasingly sophisticated, and much more abundant. In 1991 alone over 100 indoor growing operations were dismantled in Canada, mostly located in British Columbia. Not all of these were simply operations for personal use; some were actually 500 plant operations showing an income of $35,000 every two months. In 1991, the RCMP began to see that some of these large grow operations were producing marijuana not only for the Canadian market but for the U.S. as well.

Additionally, in 1992 the RCMP discovered that some marijuana plant operations were financed and owned by certain individuals, but worked and managed by others. Other types of specialization were also noticed in 1992 when several seizures were made of operations solely cloning plants and selling the seedlings to other growers.

By 1993, more than 30% of Canada's marijuana supply was grown in Canada (an increase from 20% in the late 1980s), with more than 1,200 marijuana cultivation operations uncovered during this year alone. While in 1991 the RCMP only had indications that organized crime groups were involved in the cultivation and importation of marijuana, by 1993 the RCMP reported evidence that organized criminal groups were indeed involved in both the cultivation and the importation of cannabis products even at the kilogram level. "Outlaw motorcycle gang members or associates were linked to many marijuana cultivation operations uncovered during the year." The RCMP also suggested that cooperation between organized crime groups was essential in order for the large quantities of cannabis to be imported by mothership or by shipping containers.

The RCMP Drug Intelligence Estimates through the mid-1990s indicate that the Canadian marijuana user population was increasingly controlling the Canadian marijuana market and trying to expand it further. In 1994 the RCMP reported further evidence that Canadian grown marijuana was increasingly exported to the United States where one pound could be sold for $6,000 Canadian rather than the regular $3,000 Canadian that could be received in British Columbia.

Indoor cultivation facilities were also reported by the RCMP in 1996 to have become increasingly sophisticated and had reached unprecedented levels. A single seizure of a warehouse in Montreal found 11,000 plants in full bloom. The RCMP traced this facility to the Rockers, an outlaw motorcycle gang aligned with the Hells Angels.

RCMP increasingly discovered the high-scale involvement of organized criminal groups in the production of marijuana in the mid-1990s. However in 1997 the RCMP reported that they were not the only groups running cultivation of marijuana in Canada. Rather, police in Quebec uncovered marijuana "sweat shops" where labourers were brought to secret locations to package marijuana buds and hash oil for market, and to prepare the marijuana residue for processing into hash oil.

As reflected in the number of marijuana cultivation charges, which steeply increased in 1997 and reached unprecedented levels by 1999, Canada's own share of the marijuana market had increased to 50% by 1998. The RCMP reported in the late 1990s that drug intelligence sources were regularly discovering indoor cultivation sites that could grow more than 3,000 plants. However it was difficult to attack the source managing the operation as the practice of using "crop sitters," which had initially been seen in the early 1990s, was quite common by 1999.

Thus, in each of its reports between 1998-2000 the RCMP estimated around 800 tonnes of marijuana was being produced per year, representing a harvest of 4.7 million plants per year, given that a mature plant yields on average 170 grams of marketable substance (flowering tops). While the RCMP admit this number seems high, it is supported by intelligence and seizures of marijuana in plant and bulk forms, and in fact RCMP investigators believe this to be a conservative number.

And as we all know, police only scratched the surface in busting cross border shipments, resulting in low estimates...



In 1997, the RCMP reported that since marijuana was being produced in an increasingly sophisticated manner, resulting in much higher potency levels, hash oil production in Canada increased throughout the 1990s.

Smuggling of Canadian marijuana to the United States increased significantly throughout the late 1990s. For example, in June and July 1997, nearly $2 million in cash from marijuana transactions was seized from vehicles returning from the United States. Organized Criminal Organizations were providing their counterparts in the States with Canadian marijuana, often exchanging large amounts of marijuana for smaller amounts of cocaine.



Overall, the cannabis product situation in Canada is flourishing. In the past four years alone the seizure of marijuana plants has doubled. Over one million marijuana plants were seized in 2001. Furthermore, while hash and liquid hashish activity has gone up and down over the past twenty years, in the past four years both types of drugs remain in steady availability. The RCMP continue to try to address the cannabis situation in Canada by targeting growth operations and the upper echelon traffickers rather than targeting people with cannabis products on the streets.

Gquebed said:

A Canadian Parlimentary report on drug trends from 1980-2001

http://www.parl.gc.ca/Content/SEN/Committee/371/ille/library/DrugTrends-e.htm

The bit below is relevant to weed. What it depicts is the timeline of indoor growing. Show me official government/police data about grow-ops that pre-dates what is below....

If you follow the numbers, you'll see that in the mid-90s grow op busts in Wash St, were still minimal in comparison but started to rise. Same with Oregon in the late 90s and Northern Cal. Colorado follows that. They're late comers to the indoor grow party, but they moved the fastest.



C. Cannabis

1. Trends between 1980-1985
In 1985, the RCMP reported that Canada was supplying about 10% of the marijuana on the Canadian market especially since as many as three crops can be harvested in the indoor and hydroponic growing stations rather than simply one harvest from areas abroad due to weather changes. Authorities throughout Canada reported increases in users cultivating marijuana for personal consumption in both rural and urban areas.

The modest importation of marijuana that authorities did observe in 1985 was occurring primarily by land transportation rather than sea or air transportation. This may have been due to trafficking organizations closer to Canada, such as Jamaica, Mexico and the United States, trying to take over Colombia's share of the Canadian cannabis market, since Colombia was being bombarded with enforcement programmes to prevent cannabis and coca cultivation.




2. Trends between 1986-1990



The number of persons charged with cultivation offences in Canada in the late 1980s continued to rise. The RCMP reported in the latter half of the 1980s that there were huge increases in seizures of domestically grown cannabis. By 1987 domestic cultivation was estimated to hold 20% of the total Canadian market, a substantial increase from the previous 10% share. Hydroponic and indoor cultivation became the popular method to produce domestic varieties of marijuana since three to four crops per year could be produced and plants were less detectable than marijuana grown outdoors. In 1986 and 1987 large numbers of indoor and hydroponic cultivation sites were dismantled in British Columbia.



Overall, while source countries remained prominent in the Canadian cannabis market, domestically grown cannabis products were on the rise during the latter part of the 1980s. Canadian hydroponic and indoor cultivators developed increasingly sophisticated techniques that assisted in providing higher potencies of marijuana that could compete with foreign grown marijuana. In addition, more liquid hashish production sites were discovered. Canadian cannabis providers were gaining much more control of the cannabis market in Canada, and thus little disruption in availability to the Canadian market was being experienced when the supply from traditional source countries was disrupted.

3. Trends Between 1991-2000


As indicated by the high numbers of persons charged with marijuana cultivation offences, in the 1990s marijuana production become increasingly sophisticated, and much more abundant. In 1991 alone over 100 indoor growing operations were dismantled in Canada, mostly located in British Columbia. Not all of these were simply operations for personal use; some were actually 500 plant operations showing an income of $35,000 every two months. In 1991, the RCMP began to see that some of these large grow operations were producing marijuana not only for the Canadian market but for the U.S. as well.

Additionally, in 1992 the RCMP discovered that some marijuana plant operations were financed and owned by certain individuals, but worked and managed by others. Other types of specialization were also noticed in 1992 when several seizures were made of operations solely cloning plants and selling the seedlings to other growers.

By 1993, more than 30% of Canada's marijuana supply was grown in Canada (an increase from 20% in the late 1980s), with more than 1,200 marijuana cultivation operations uncovered during this year alone. While in 1991 the RCMP only had indications that organized crime groups were involved in the cultivation and importation of marijuana, by 1993 the RCMP reported evidence that organized criminal groups were indeed involved in both the cultivation and the importation of cannabis products even at the kilogram level. "Outlaw motorcycle gang members or associates were linked to many marijuana cultivation operations uncovered during the year." The RCMP also suggested that cooperation between organized crime groups was essential in order for the large quantities of cannabis to be imported by mothership or by shipping containers.

The RCMP Drug Intelligence Estimates through the mid-1990s indicate that the Canadian marijuana user population was increasingly controlling the Canadian marijuana market and trying to expand it further. In 1994 the RCMP reported further evidence that Canadian grown marijuana was increasingly exported to the United States where one pound could be sold for $6,000 Canadian rather than the regular $3,000 Canadian that could be received in British Columbia.

Indoor cultivation facilities were also reported by the RCMP in 1996 to have become increasingly sophisticated and had reached unprecedented levels. A single seizure of a warehouse in Montreal found 11,000 plants in full bloom. The RCMP traced this facility to the Rockers, an outlaw motorcycle gang aligned with the Hells Angels.

RCMP increasingly discovered the high-scale involvement of organized criminal groups in the production of marijuana in the mid-1990s. However in 1997 the RCMP reported that they were not the only groups running cultivation of marijuana in Canada. Rather, police in Quebec uncovered marijuana "sweat shops" where labourers were brought to secret locations to package marijuana buds and hash oil for market, and to prepare the marijuana residue for processing into hash oil.

As reflected in the number of marijuana cultivation charges, which steeply increased in 1997 and reached unprecedented levels by 1999, Canada's own share of the marijuana market had increased to 50% by 1998. The RCMP reported in the late 1990s that drug intelligence sources were regularly discovering indoor cultivation sites that could grow more than 3,000 plants. However it was difficult to attack the source managing the operation as the practice of using "crop sitters," which had initially been seen in the early 1990s, was quite common by 1999.

Thus, in each of its reports between 1998-2000 the RCMP estimated around 800 tonnes of marijuana was being produced per year, representing a harvest of 4.7 million plants per year, given that a mature plant yields on average 170 grams of marketable substance (flowering tops). While the RCMP admit this number seems high, it is supported by intelligence and seizures of marijuana in plant and bulk forms, and in fact RCMP investigators believe this to be a conservative number.

And as we all know, police only scratched the surface in busting cross border shipments, resulting in low estimates...



In 1997, the RCMP reported that since marijuana was being produced in an increasingly sophisticated manner, resulting in much higher potency levels, hash oil production in Canada increased throughout the 1990s.

Smuggling of Canadian marijuana to the United States increased significantly throughout the late 1990s. For example, in June and July 1997, nearly $2 million in cash from marijuana transactions was seized from vehicles returning from the United States. Organized Criminal Organizations were providing their counterparts in the States with Canadian marijuana, often exchanging large amounts of marijuana for smaller amounts of cocaine.



Overall, the cannabis product situation in Canada is flourishing. In the past four years alone the seizure of marijuana plants has doubled. Over one million marijuana plants were seized in 2001. Furthermore, while hash and liquid hashish activity has gone up and down over the past twenty years, in the past four years both types of drugs remain in steady availability. The RCMP continue to try to address the cannabis situation in Canada by targeting growth operations and the upper echelon traffickers rather than targeting people with cannabis products on the streets.

Click to expand...

You expect me to buy what the RCMP is selling? they could not even get the facts straight in the Med case we are all waiting on now. Also you just said the exact opp of what the BC guys said on IC, they said hay main the reason you do not see the good bud here is because we send it all south.
Anyways I am not saying that Canada does not go hard, but come on man the USA was doing this weed shit way before us. Heck all the hippies on Van island came up from the states back in the day and brought weed with them.

For years and years General Hydroponics was the leader in nutes, they are Cali based, All you have got to do is pick up an old high times and you can see when indoor took over and how the guys in the states were on it way back then, Like I stated before, what we had been sending to the states was a blip compared to the what they had with out us. Who you do you think was buying all of emerys seeds? it was Americans that is why the DEA wanted him.

they really need to set the plant free.....and see where the chips fall....
I predict...2016 and onward.....there is very little importation of cannabis...into Canada...and a healthy export market....
to countries....where its about to become legal...
So is 100 percent attainable....probably close to it...

Sorry to burst your bubble....

Anecdotal evidence from the early 1970s suggests that Hawaiian pot growers were the first to recognize the benefits of soil-less farming, perhaps inspired by the porous lava rocks native to the islands. The volcanic airy texture of these Hawaiian rocks impressed growers so much that the heat-expanded clay pellets used in modern hydroponics seek to imitate lava rocks in both water retention and available oxygen for roots. Soon Californians took notice of these “herban legends” and hydroponic cannabis began to win converts in the marijuana mainstream.


A combination of factors including Nixon’s 1969 crackdown on the Mexican border, Carter’s paraquat spraying, and the advent of powerful HID (High Intensity Discharge) indoor grow lighting made hydroponic marijuana growing increasingly intriguing, attractive and possible. Soon, companies sprang up to service the needs of those growing with the increasingly more complicated hydro systems.


In the 70’s, the largest supplier of specialized chemical nutrients, General Hydroponics, was born in California. Their iconic pink, green, and brown three-part liquid plant food quickly became the standard for hydroponic growers and their meteoric success spawned many imitators. Speaking of meteoric success, NASA joined forces with GH and sent plants and nutrients to the International Space Station to study plant growth outside the earth’s atmosphere and how best to supply food and oxygen for future colonization missions in space. The labs of General Hydroponics continue to make improvements in all aspects of plant science.


By the 1980’s, new sources of knowledge on hydro arrived: At the Volcani Institute in Ein Gedi, Dr. Hillel Soffer, an Israeli scientist, developed the aero-hydroponic method, helping to transform the desert into an oasis of bounty. The Epcot Center at Disneyworld introduced Living With the Land, a futuristic ride through hydroponic “gardens of tomorrow”. And HIGH TIMES magazine began to detail simple hydroponic systems, introducing thousands to a whole new way to grow buds. Info traveled in a pre-internet black market of ideas: seeds, clones, and growing information were bartered at informal trading posts on Grateful Dead tour and assorted festivals. Hydroponics proved to be increasingly appealing to urban pot growers concerned with disposal of spent soil, and equally excited both “green thumbs” and those more technologically minded.

No mention of Canada buddy sorry.

gb123 said:

uglier than ugly, an ugly duckling of sorts
good things come in small packages though

looks like the blue cheese sorta..
the cheese is a UK Skunk Cross! It just doesnt smell like a skunk...it just reeks..

Click to expand...

That's her...

torontomeds said:

Sorry to burst your bubble....

Anecdotal evidence from the early 1970s suggests that Hawaiian pot growers were the first to recognize the benefits of soil-less farming, perhaps inspired by the porous lava rocks native to the islands. The volcanic airy texture of these Hawaiian rocks impressed growers so much that the heat-expanded clay pellets used in modern hydroponics seek to imitate lava rocks in both water retention and available oxygen for roots. Soon Californians took notice of these “herban legends” and hydroponic cannabis began to win converts in the marijuana mainstream.


A combination of factors including Nixon’s 1969 crackdown on the Mexican border, Carter’s paraquat spraying, and the advent of powerful HID (High Intensity Discharge) indoor grow lighting made hydroponic marijuana growing increasingly intriguing, attractive and possible. Soon, companies sprang up to service the needs of those growing with the increasingly more complicated hydro systems.


In the 70’s, the largest supplier of specialized chemical nutrients, General Hydroponics, was born in California. Their iconic pink, green, and brown three-part liquid plant food quickly became the standard for hydroponic growers and their meteoric success spawned many imitators. Speaking of meteoric success, NASA joined forces with GH and sent plants and nutrients to the International Space Station to study plant growth outside the earth’s atmosphere and how best to supply food and oxygen for future colonization missions in space. The labs of General Hydroponics continue to make improvements in all aspects of plant science.


By the 1980’s, new sources of knowledge on hydro arrived: At the Volcani Institute in Ein Gedi, Dr. Hillel Soffer, an Israeli scientist, developed the aero-hydroponic method, helping to transform the desert into an oasis of bounty. The Epcot Center at Disneyworld introduced Living With the Land, a futuristic ride through hydroponic “gardens of tomorrow”. And HIGH TIMES magazine began to detail simple hydroponic systems, introducing thousands to a whole new way to grow buds. Info traveled in a pre-internet black market of ideas: seeds, clones, and growing information were bartered at informal trading posts on Grateful Dead tour and assorted festivals. Hydroponics proved to be increasingly appealing to urban pot growers concerned with disposal of spent soil, and equally excited both “green thumbs” and those more technologically minded.

No mention of Canada buddy sorry.

Click to expand...

WTF?? I didn't say BC invented hydro....

I said BC pioneered it on a mass scale on this continent. Hardly the same thing. I don't where your confusion is on that. And the reason that BC was the province to pioneer hydro is because BC had, and still has, the most lax weed laws on this continent (legal states notwithstanding, as weed is still illegal in BC). That is why Marc Emery moved from Ont to BC in the early 90s (which I mentioned before in another post), as did many other people, including the brother of one of my best friends in high school. He moved there with a bunch of other Albertans to grow because the laws here were draconian. They weren't the only ones. People moved there for the same reason from Manitoba, Wash St., Oregon and even California.

In fact, BC grows were so widespread in the 90s that there was time that the courts got so backed up with them that they simply dropped the charges on over 2500 grow cases. They could not get them through court quick enough to meet federal "due process" laws and had to just let them go. After that, the police would not even charge people with grows under a certain size because they knew they were wasting resources better spent going after organized crime grows. Such is mentioned in the doc I posted, but I remember this simply because my friend's brother got off on charges this way a COUPLE of times - once on due process and a second time the police raided, tossed his shit and left without charging him because he was under 300 plants and was therefore "unlikely"to have had any OC connections. He still grows there to this day..

But this isn't a matter of opinion to debate. It is a matter of fact, backed by an endless amount of press in magazines, newspapers and television, as well as government reports, police statistics and etcetera.

And I created this thread not to argue about it, but to get in touch with those pioneers, including those down the west coast of the US. So unless you've got some facts (docs or links) to prove me wrong or some info to help me, please feel free to disagree and move along.

Thanks.

torontomeds said:

Sorry to burst your bubble....

Anecdotal evidence from the early 1970s suggests that Hawaiian pot growers were the first to recognize the benefits of soil-less farming, perhaps inspired by the porous lava rocks native to the islands. The volcanic airy texture of these Hawaiian rocks impressed growers so much that the heat-expanded clay pellets used in modern hydroponics seek to imitate lava rocks in both water retention and available oxygen for roots. Soon Californians took notice of these “herban legends” and hydroponic cannabis began to win converts in the marijuana mainstream.


A combination of factors including Nixon’s 1969 crackdown on the Mexican border, Carter’s paraquat spraying, and the advent of powerful HID (High Intensity Discharge) indoor grow lighting made hydroponic marijuana growing increasingly intriguing, attractive and possible. Soon, companies sprang up to service the needs of those growing with the increasingly more complicated hydro systems.


In the 70’s, the largest supplier of specialized chemical nutrients, General Hydroponics, was born in California. Their iconic pink, green, and brown three-part liquid plant food quickly became the standard for hydroponic growers and their meteoric success spawned many imitators. Speaking of meteoric success, NASA joined forces with GH and sent plants and nutrients to the International Space Station to study plant growth outside the earth’s atmosphere and how best to supply food and oxygen for future colonization missions in space. The labs of General Hydroponics continue to make improvements in all aspects of plant science.


By the 1980’s, new sources of knowledge on hydro arrived: At the Volcani Institute in Ein Gedi, Dr. Hillel Soffer, an Israeli scientist, developed the aero-hydroponic method, helping to transform the desert into an oasis of bounty. The Epcot Center at Disneyworld introduced Living With the Land, a futuristic ride through hydroponic “gardens of tomorrow”. And HIGH TIMES magazine began to detail simple hydroponic systems, introducing thousands to a whole new way to grow buds. Info traveled in a pre-internet black market of ideas: seeds, clones, and growing information were bartered at informal trading posts on Grateful Dead tour and assorted festivals. Hydroponics proved to be increasingly appealing to urban pot growers concerned with disposal of spent soil, and equally excited both “green thumbs” and those more technologically minded.

No mention of Canada buddy sorry.

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they were too high and forgot

As someone mentioned earlier....US draft dodgers were entering Canada en mass until the end of the Vietnam war (1975), and prolly brought their genetics and knowledge with them. BC was a popular destination for American's avoiding the war.

An excerpt from Wiki....

American draft dodgers and military deserters who sought refuge in Canada during the Vietnam War would ignite controversy among those seeking to immigrate to Canada, some of it provoked by the Canadian government's initial refusal to admit those who could not prove that they had been discharged from [American] military service.

This changed in 1968.[8] On May 22, 1969, Ottawa announced that immigration officials would not and could not ask about immigration applicants' military status if they showed up at the border seeking permanent residence in Canada.[9]According to Valerie Knowles, draft dodgers were usually college-educated sons of the middle class who could no longer defer induction into the Selective Service System.
Deserters, on the other hand, were predominantly sons of the lower-income and working classes who had been inducted into the armed services directly from high school or who had volunteered, hoping to obtain a skill and broaden their limited horizons.[8]

Starting in 1965, Canada became a choice haven for American draft dodgers and deserters. Because they were not formally classified as refugees but were admitted as immigrants, there is no official estimate of how many draft dodgers and deserters were admitted to Canada during the Vietnam War.

One informed estimate puts their number between 30,000 and 40,000.[8] Whether or not this estimate is accurate, the fact remains that emigration from the United States was high as long as America was involved militarily in the war and maintained compulsory military service; in 1971 and 1972 Canada received more immigrants from the United States than from any other country.[8]

Draft dodgersEdit

Mark Satin (left) counseling American Vietnam War evaders at the Anti-Draft Programme office in Toronto, 1967.

Estimates vary greatly as to how many Americans settled in Canada for the specific reason of dodging the draft or "evading conscription," as opposed to desertion, or other reasons. Canadian immigration statistics show that 20,000 to 30,000 draft-eligible American men came to Canada as immigrants during the Vietnam era.

The BBC stated that "as many as 60,000 young American men dodged the draft."[10] Estimates of the total number of American citizens who moved to Canada due to their opposition to the war range from 50,000 to 125,000[11]

This exodus was "the largest politically motivated migration from the United States since the United Empire Loyalists moved north to oppose the American Revolution."[12] Major communities of war resisters formed in Montreal, the Slocan Valley, British Columbia, and on Baldwin Street in Toronto, Ontario.
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Just to add my two cents, back in the early 90s, there was a group of Toronto Rosdale and Moore Park boys who grew Hydro in a house near London Ontario, while they were at Western University. This shit was revolutionary for us, the Hydro was sea of green ebb and flow. 187 plant on 4x6 table, 1000 watt on a home made light rail. They would sometimes get three pounds per table of Nl5 x Haze.

Around 96, this group of entrepreneurs packed up and moved to Whisler and started a construction company, they also grew Hydro in their basement. ( I ran their data base).

In 1994 I set up a little 4x6 in a closet using their method , it lasted until around 96. A Polaroid copy of my set up was on the THC web site for years. Shiva by Vader. I did not grow again until I got my MMAR for a spinal cord desease.

I still run the seeds I made back then, and a lot of local growers were gifted the seeds.
Nl5 x haze x shiva, shiva skunk, nk5 x haze x skunk 1., shiva skunk x skunk 1.

Every year I plant 10 seeds of SS X SK1 looking for the elusive road kill I had in the 90s. 5 years of looking and nothing yet, some great meds, but no hello officer skunk.

Pendragon said:

Just to add my two cents, back in the early 90s, there was a group of Toronto Rosdale and Moore Park boys who grew Hydro in a house near London Ontario, while they were at Western University. This shit was revolutionary for us, the Hydro was sea of green ebb and flow. 187 plant on 4x6 table, 1000 watt on a home made light rail. They would sometimes get three pounds per table of Nl5 x Haze.

Around 96, this group of entrepreneurs packed up and moved to Whisler and started a construction company, they also grew Hydro in their basement. ( I ran their data base).

In 1994 I set up a little 4x6 in a closet using their method , it lasted until around 96. A Polaroid copy of my set up was on the THC web site for years. Shiva by Vader. I did not grow again until I got my MMAR for a spinal cord desease.

I still run the seeds I made back then, and a lot of local growers were gifted the seeds.
Nl5 x haze x shiva, shiva skunk, nk5 x haze x skunk 1., shiva skunk x skunk 1.

Every year I plant 10 seeds of SS X SK1 looking for the elusive road kill I had in the 90s. 5 years of looking and nothing yet, some great meds, but no hello officer skunk.

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That was me that mentioned the draft dodgers bringing up genetics... and know how as well...

where did 4x8 flood tables and dwc originate?

Your just chasing your own tail man. how can we have pioneered something, when it was pioneered in Hawaii and socal? Like I said if you trace the histor of Cannabis and Hydro it does not lead back to Canada. how can we have been pioneering something that was already booming in the early 70's in the states? you talk about the 90's ?

"In fact, BC grows were so widespread in the 90s that there was time that the courts got so backed up with them that they simply dropped the charges on over 2500 grow cases."

Dude your talking 90's states had been doing Hydro way before, also the HA did not even come to Canada until the 80's and they were crucial in getting the people to do micro grows so they could buy it all up. Like I stated yea Canada has some bad ass grows, big ass grows, but we did not invent the wheel.
Sometimes I think you BC guys are just trying to re write the history of Cannabis to make you guys look like some kind of Cannabis gods.
I am sorry but you have no proof of what you are saying, and HighTimes does not back up your claims

Heck the oldest Hydroponic store in Canada is only 30 years old. that places it in the early 80's.

Heck until Marc emery, you could not even get grow knowledge in Canada, no grow books no high times.

considering the hid bulbs didn't come along until the 80s, what would a hydro store sell in the 70s lol?

c ray said:

considering the hid bulbs didn't come along until the 80s, what would a hydro store sell in the 70s lol?

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Well considering people were doing Hydro in the early 70's in the states I would say a lot. your talking one product HPS, GH was already established by 1970.

where did dwc and 4x8 flood tables originate?