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Bubbleman Makes Dry Sift BushyOldGrower - Out of the Cave Donald Mallard from OZ ICMag 420 Cup Amsterdam 2013 Living Organic Soil Mr.Alkaline - Astral Cannabis What is Recreational Marijuana? And more inside! Cover: MMXII by Hrpuffnkush

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Credits & Contents El Presidente: Gypsy Nirvana Editor-in-Chief: Chris Payaso Contributing Editor, Cartoonist: Skip Stone Cover Photo: MMXII by Hrpuffnkush Contributors: Blue Jay Way, Bubbleman, BushyOldGrower, Cann, Donald Mallard, GaiusMarius, HundredGramOz, Hrpuffnkush, Iffy, MAIG, Mr.Alkaline, PuReKnOwLeDgE, Truecannabliss, Unclefishstick, Zeppelin Rules and MANY more!

Along The Garden Path.............5 ICMag Website Update.............9 IC420 2013 Cup Report............11 Bog’s Cave.................................24 What Is Recreational Marijuana?...........................31 Donald Mallard in OZ.............42 Cannabis Liberation News.....44 Photo of the Year Contest.......50 Dry Ice Hashish........................59 The Rise And Fall Of Astral Cannabis.............68 Grow Contest Winner..............80 Bubbleman Makes Drysift......86 Growing In Coco....................103 The Living Organic Soil.........111 Vermicomposting...................116 Making a Worm Bin...............118 Harvesting and Using       Vermincompost................122 Making Compost Tea............125 Five Soil Recipes.....................130 A Rose By Any Other Name.......................136 Food For Thought...................140

Disclaimer: This publication is for educational and entertainment purposes only. You must be of legal age to view this publication. The publisher and staff do not condone disobeying any laws. Through this publication you may be able to link to other websites which are not under the control of this publication. © May 2013 The International Cannagraphic.

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BHO made from GSC - by Truecannabliss The

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Along the garden path... by Payaso

I found this picture on a site from Slovenia. The cow seems reluctant to try it, or already heavily medicated. Thank you Konopenko for sharing this image! The plant is a male Nepalese Jam from ACE/CBG seeds. BOG stopped by to visit recently and he gifted us some amazing medicine; BOG Bubble, and samples of two distinct phenotypes, the ‘Orange’ and the ‘Purple.’ The head is the same from each, but the flavors are unique. One is reminiscent of Amsterdam’s famous Orange Bud from back in the 1990s. The Purple is more like good old GrandDaddyPurps... but stonier. BOG strains are powerful! We were playing with numbers recently and found that we have a vast acreage planted in cannabis, here at IC mag! Just count up all the members (333,350 as of March 12, 2013), and think if each one grew just ten square feet that would equal 3,333,500 square feet of plants! Divide this number by the size of an acre (4,360 sq. ft.) and you get more than 764 acres of cannabis plants waving either under the sun or lamps. Good job overgrowing the planet! This makes me wonder: how many varities of cannabis there are being grown by International Cannagraphers? The

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The garden is lying dormant for now. Spring may be arriving early this year, so it's time to get in gear and till the soil, check on those worm bins and harvest some compost. There's always something to do in the garden, no matter what time of year...especially indoors! Organics, Veganics, and living organic soil have been on my mind this winter as I gear up for another outdoor grow this summer. As spring begins here in the Northern Hemisphere, the worms are coming out of hibernation and wriggling their way around, eating and pooping happily. All the microbes and other living components of natural soil are growing and multiplying, providing basic nutrients from the soil to the plants in a form they can absorb easily. Soon the soil will reach a temperature allowing many things to grow, especially cannabis.

In Sri Lanka, Jaya Devi and husband use their worm beds to sustain their gardens naturally, without depending on chemical fertilizers.

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The supposedly ‘new’ concept of veganics is becoming increasingly popular. In this issue we explore factors relating to the ‘Living Organic Soil,’ and how to create it yourself. Organic growers will sometimes use animal excrement in their compost, whereas in ‘veganics’ all ingredients must be from plant-based compost material with pure mineral supplements. It seems like a logical extension of the philosophy of growing in harmony with nature. The goal should be to avoid buying and using store-bought ingredients and additives. Growers have been doing this for millenia, with excellent results. Bubbleman has shared a story with photographs for us to enjoy! It’s about his fascination with the ultimately pure extraction of trichomes, and how he achieves this. Using only the time on his hands with screens, no water, and no solvent, he prepares some of the tastiestlooking truly full-melt dry-sifted hash. By comparison Skip has written about the use of a cement mixer to make larger quantities of dry ice hash of commercial quality. What a contrast in styles, and results...growers may want to read these stories! One of our long-time members, Mr. Alkaline, says on his profile ‘Your Changeable Self is Constantly Becoming a Reflection of your Most Dominant Thoughts.’ Mr. Alkaline is a philosopher and explorer of ancient wisdom. He has submitted a fascinating tale of the ancient Mayans and cannabis entitled ‘The Rise and Fall of The

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Astral Cannabis in the Americas.’ Be sure to read it all the way through to the conclusion! In closing I’d like to remind you that this magazine is for growers, by growers, the members of the International Cannagraphic. You can be in the next eMagazine by writing a story, submitting a grow report, starting a thread in the forums, or documenting that field of dreams or indoor grow in still images or video. Just send me a message through the site or on my visitor page. Thanks for reading Issue #4 of the International Cannagraphic. Remember to share it with your friends!

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ICMag Website Update by Webmaster Skip

IC 420 Cannabis Cup Once again, Amsterdam was the venue for the 2013 IC420 Cannabis Cup, held annually on April 20th. This year's event was slightly different as a new online voting system was implemented. Judges were able to cast their votes using the International Cannagraphic website to record and tally the results. Online judges could add a comment on each entry. The results were available immediately after the last ballot was entered. You can view the full results here. This year everyone's votes have been made public, allowing for complete transparency! Read the story and view the pics from the event. Server upgrades We recently upgraded our webserver and tuned it for speed. This has made posting and browsing much faster. We also upgraded our database server, giving us a lot more memory to allow for more caching and even faster response times. These upgrades were enabled by the International Cannagraphic's supporters and donors. If you'd like to support International Cannagraphic, you will help keep the site running (monthly server costs are huge), please visit our subscription page. Glossary Someone requested a glossary, so we added a new The

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glossary module that italicizes technical terms on the site and pops up a definition when you hover over the italicized word. This new feature will be expanded over time as members submit new terms. You can find the complete glossary here. IC Mag's Demographics We posted a survey online to learn more about who visits IC Mag. It turns out that 80% of our members are actively growing cannabis! That's an amazing number and reflects how dedicated our members are to overgrowing the planet. The survey also reveals that 60% of our members are recreational cannabis users, while 35% are medical marijuana patients.

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IC420 2013 Amsterdam

Growers Cup - Best Indica Winner TriangleKush by Truecannablis Growers Cup - Best Sativa Winner PineHaze by HazeVentura Breeders Cup - Best Sativa Winner Sour Power by Hortilab Breeders Cup - Best Indica Winner FlowerBombKush by StrainHunterSeeds Best Hash Winner H-1 by STRANDvasker Complete voting results can be viewed here. The

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Untold days and hours were required to make up these Judge's Kits in advance of the Cup. Not only did the entries need to get to Amsterdam, but had to be divided into the little sample bags for the Judges. Then the packages were assembled with all the goodies inside. Big thanks to Gaiusmarius for donating his time to make sure the event ran smoothly!

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My Cup Trip 2013 by OldPink Being I’m a regular at the cup I was looking forward to the trip, but my son was super excited as this was his first cup and the first time he would be in Amsterdam after his 18th birthday. He was supposed to attend in 2010 but unfortunately that was the year of the volcano, his flights were cancelled 3 hours before departure. He had a big smile on his face when we touched down at Schiphol Airport. After meeting up with a few others who were over in the Dam for the cup as well, we headed back to my mate’s flat where we were staying the first night (with Bruce the Bastard Brewer). On the 17th we got up and went to the Greenhouse where quite a few members had already gathered. I was quite surprised when we got the Judges packs, I wasn’t expecting them till the 18th. But I wasn’t complaining as it gave us more time to try each sample. So we set to work and started on the entries, and it wasn’t long before we realised the quality of the entries this year was very high. I only had to look at my son’s face to see he was stoned. On the 18th, we went to Prix D’ Ami for a wake and bake before we retired to our favourite haunt in Amsterdam a Hookah Bar on Nieuwendijk called Lost in Amsterdam. It has a great atmosphere and is a very chilled place to try some more samples. Pretty soon it was apparent we were not going to do much else for the rest of the day! On the 19th, we went for a walk around town, and stopped off for a coffee and a sample every now and then. Then went to meet up with a few friends that had just arrived before continuing our walk around Amsterdam. The

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We had a relaxing evening with a couple of beers and more samples! The morning of the 20th I had 2 samples left to try before we sat down and entered our scores. Then we headed into town to meet up with the other judges at the Batavia. But first we had to stop by the Roor shop to pick up a Bong that was to be presented to Gaius. I must admit it is a bit nerve wrecking walking stoned in Amsterdam, with a valuable piece of glass, and all those bikes whizzing past! But finally we made it to the venue where we set up to allow judges that did not have access to a computer to enter their scores using my laptop, so we could get the final tally and announce the winners. There was an after party just outside Amsterdam but we decided to grab a few beers and head back to Bruce’s for our own after party. As we were there till the 22nd, we spent the last two days chilling and winding down with a little bit of R&R as this is my only real holiday in a year I have to make the most of it. So we wandered around town to find some quiet cafes, as the weather was reasonable, and there is nothing better than sitting having a smoke and a coffee while you watch the world go by. Or having a nice cold beer and a joint while chilling with your friends, that is what Amsterdam is all about for me. I for one hope they leave it the way it is and don’t strangle it with stupid laws that will only hurt their tourist trade. Hopefully next year it will be bigger and better and I’m already planning for my trip. Next year a few more of my friends have said they want to come over as well. All in all it was a great trip, my son and our friends also had a great cup and a really good time in Amsterdam. The

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A few of the many samples. Photos by OldPink.

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The IC420 2013 Awards The glassware was made by ROOR for this special occasion.

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Photos by OldPink.

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The 2013 IC420 Cup Hashish entries, photo by Randika.

Left: Entry #4 - Right Entry #5 photos by STRANDvasker.

Sample photos by Hazeo - #32 at right. The

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Photos on this page courtesy of STRANDvasker. The

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#26 Chocolorange from Dr Pentothal

#27 Amnesia Haze from Soma

#28 Grandaddy Haze from OJD

#29 titanium haze from OJD

#30 Amnesia Hydro from Bubblecrazy

#31 Amnesia Haze from Prix d'Ami

#32 Arne's Balls #33 Super Lemon Haze from Esben from Greenhouse Seeds Photos on this page courtesy of Hydroheinz. The

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#34 Green Shack from Strainhunter Seeds

#39 SuperSourSkunk from Papst Urban

#40 Agent Orange from Dr Penthotal

#41 Sour Diesel from Dr Pentothal

#42 SweetPinkGrapefruit x AgentOrange from Catnip

#43 AmnesiaHaze x AgentOrange from Catnip

#44 Crazy Jones #45 PineHaze from Haze Ventura From Haze Ventura Photos on this page courtesy of Hydroheinz. The

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H2 x Dragon from Growcodile

NYC Jones from OJD

Sour Power from Hortilab

Sour Star from Hortilab

Photos above courtesy of Hydroheinz.

A peek into a judge's kit with score sheet and samples. Photo by OldPink.

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Photos on this page courtesy of Gaiusmarius. The

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Big Thanks to: Gaiusmarius for organizing and running the event. OldPink for being there and making sure things ran smoothly. Mellofellow for custom-making 64 spoon pipes to be included in the Judge's Kits. The GreenHouse on Haarlemmerstraat for hosting Wake 'n Bake daily. OJD for his help with the Coffeeshop Crawl. The Prix d'Ami Coffeeshop for providing a space for the judging and scorekeeping. Trichomefarmer for leading yet another great Coffee Shop Bike Tour through the wilds of Amsterdam. STRANDvasker for working with ROOR to create the special glass awards and organizing the IC 420 Bong Auction, and Used Bong Auction. Mr.Haze420 for the excellent canal boat tour. The Batavia Coffeeshop for providing a space for a 4:20 Smokeout. Skip for creating the excellent voting system! Nol for inviting everyone to his 420 Festival as an After Awards Ceremony party. And last, but not least, everyone who showed up and helped out at the event. Without all your assistance this would not be possible! The

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BOG's Cave by BushyOldGrower Hello Friends :) …

Many local growers are putting in their crops about now so we want to avoid some common pitfalls. The time of year is coming for great outdoor gardens, and our plants are tall and bushy. The plants have shown their sexes, and there are many things to do now to maximize the eventual harvest. In this first picture of my BOG Seed Patch, the evidence is clear that BOG Seeds grow pretty well outside in California. :)

If you look carefully you will also see that the males are getting closer to pollination. You will want to remove any males before pollination occurs! The

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If you grew plants from all female clones, no sexing will be necessary. Hopefully you have reliable clones and no worries:)

Above: Tall Male in Center Those who grew from seed, will have larger plants due to the growth hormone found in seed plants. Many outdoor growers know this, and that is one reason they grow from seed when growing outdoors. Notice that the plants are loosely staked and tied to keep them in place. This may not be necessary depending on the type of plants you have. There are two important things you can do besides feeding your girls at this stage. The

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The first thing is preventative treatment for mold and insects. Spraying every two weeks with a product like Safers Soap or other horticultural oils can do this. Bugs are bad, but mold is worse. Outdoor plants are most susceptible in the fall and rain often causes mold. Preventative treatments will minimize losses and covering the plants to protect them from rain also helps. This will help prevent mold but large colas should, if possible, be protected from rain with the use of canopies or tarps tied up above your plants. Don’t lay the tarp directly on your plants, it will harm them.

Above: Cleaned Undergrowth The

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The second thing you should do is remove all lower fan leaves and lower branches at least one foot up from the ground to create a barrier between the soil and the plants leaves. This will help prevent mold from creeping up from the soil. Keeping your area clear of any old waste from your plants is essential. Dead leaves should be thrown away, not left to lay around your plants, this causes mold also.

This grow was prepared with good organic soil mostly blends from Gardner & Bloom, but any good garden soil works well. Don’t use potting soils unless you intend to use it indoors because potting soil is a light soil and will not retain the water necessary in your pots for good growth. Natural soils (soil from outside already) may be mixed with an amendment soil. The

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In this photo the area to be planted is protected from animals digging with chicken wire. The raised bed or the half barrels work well but remember to drill drainage holes in the barrels if you use them. Security is a concern and the best way is a fenced area with a nice big dog or two. German Shepherds make pretty good watchdogs but they get bored if no trespassers come. :) Pitbulls tend to do well, without as much attention all the time, and they can do the The

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job. Property owners have used dogs for a very long time because dogs are smart and normally won’t hurt anyone seriously.

Bogglegum Protecting your grow often becomes more difficult when natural hazards and disease hit our plants. Mites and mold can be controlled with Safers Soap applied by a sprayer. Rain, even dew is a real hazard especially to buds in later growth. A Sulphur shaker can be applied dry or mix it with water and spray it on the plants before rain hits. The

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Be optimistic because we always do better when we raise the bar. We tend to do better each year. As we learn more, we expect more and we get more. Finally remember to give your love and attention to your plants everyday. Plants need love too. :) Good Luck and remember to Respect the Law….. Nam Myoho Renge Kyo…..(honor to all Higher Laws) Overgrow the World with Love, BOG Visit with BOG online: IC Mag, BOG Seed Forum Try BOG Seeds at Seed Boutique and Seedbay

PuReKnOwLeDgE’s Giant Bogglegum. The

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What is Recreational Marijuana? by Skip

Times are really changing! Colorado and Washington State have now legalized recreational marijuana use. But what are these recreational uses that cannabis aficionados can now legally enjoy in two states? Most people already understand that cannabis has medical applications, and 19 states have legalized such use. So how do those uses differ from the medical applications of cannabis? Before we can answer that question, let’s look at the many ways cannabis affects human beings. Cannabis can affect our body, mind and spirit in various ways, depending upon which cannabinoids come into play. Marijuana's Physical Effects Cannabis contains cannabinoids which mimic our own endocannabinoids, attaching themselves to receptor sites in our brains and elsewhere in our nervous system and body. In turn, these plant derived exocannabinoids act as on/off switches for various functions in our bodies. Both THC and CBDs can turn off, or turn down the pain response in humans. THC in particular can increase our appetite, which makes it an effective anti-nausea agent for patients undergoing chemotherapy. THC is responsible for the “munchies,” which most recreational users know well. The

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There are a multitude of other medical issues that cannabis can relieve including inflammatory diseases, cancers, glaucoma, Crohn’s disease, and many more. Thus far, CBDs seem to play more of a role than THC in some medical treatments. The reverse is true when it comes to the recreational use of cannabis. THC is the cannabinoid that gets you high and makes you feel good. So which body effects of cannabis do recreational users enjoy? Good cannabis can provide a pleasurable body rush as THC saturates our nervous system. This feeling is part of the euphoria that marijuana imparts to those who imbibe. Euphoria is soon followed by relaxation as our body releases stored tension. As we relax, our minds begin to drift, and our senses are heightened. Next thing you know, you’ve got the munchies again... Caution: Smoking marijuana dehydrates you, so always have a sweet, non-alcoholic drink and water handy.

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Things Go Better With Cannabis! Your mind set, physical setting and dosage influence how you respond to cannabis. When you’re at a concert, dancing to a jam band while stoned, you don’t just hear music, you feel it and it takes you on a trip. When hiking through the woods, or just lying on a beach, cannabis adds to your enjoyment by increasing your appreciation of the beauty and awesomeness of nature.

The quality of the marijuana and quantity of the various cannabinoids consumed directly affects the user’s experience. The

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Effects vary from an energetic light buzz to a heavy sedative stupor. The complex chemistry of cannabis allows for such amazing variations in effect. It’s also a drug that allows recreational users to select their preferred genetics for desired effects, just like for medical marijuana. Marijuana and Food One of the most documented and reliable effects of marijuana is the munchies. When your body is in need of nourishment, it releases its own endocannabinoids causing you to feel hungry. Using cannabis increases

the amount of cannabinoids in your system, in a similar manner. Both have the same effect, causing those incessant hunger pangs that accompany a good stone. The increase in appetite is also a desired The

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medical effect, especially for those undergoing chemotherapy or a wasting disease. But marijuana doesn’t just make you hungry, it improves the taste of food. Perhaps it’s due to the munchie effect, but everything tastes better when you’re high on cannabis. It’s almost like you’re tasting food for the first time. You tend to eat more when stoned, and along with cannabis’ couch potato effect, weight gain is to be expected. Caution: When eating marijuana, always take a small portion of the edible at a time and wait at least an hour to gauge its effects before taking more. Marijuana and Sex Cannabis is the fuel that intensifies the desire and the enjoyment of sex. As with food, marijuana with sex makes it seem like the first time. Minds and bodies respond with increased enthusiasm and pleasure. You find more to enjoy. Things that you might not have noticed before suddenly become erotic. The two become one. Orgasms can reach new heights of pleasure and fulfillment. The

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Cannabis is simply one of the best aphrodisiacs known to man and woman. Marijuana and Creativity Many artists and musicians rely on marijuana for their inspiration and creativity. Cannabis helps people to think outside the box, to come up with new ideas and to uniquely express themselves. So it’s not surprising that professionals in other fields also use cannabis for a creative edge. Scientists and techies love marijuana for the outstanding insights it provides. Big breakthrus in science and technology have come about thanks to cannabis (along with LSD), like the Personal Computer and the Internet. Marijuana and Sleep One reason many people use marijuana is that it relieves insomnia. Marijuana helps you fall asleep much easier by stopping the internal dialogue that keeps you awake. It also allows you to sleep deeper and longer. You wake up feeling more rested, if a bit groggy due to residual cannabinoids. Many like to “wake and bake” in the morning to start the day off right. Marijuana and other Drugs Marijuana can complement other drugs, either by enhancing the effects or toning them down. Alcohol is often imbibed along with cannabis. In moderation, it can increase relaxation, especially in social situations that might otherwise make one nervous when stoned. Good wine can be savored and its effects heightened The

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with cannabis. For some, marijuana reduces or replaces alcohol dependence, yet another medical application for cannabis. Many enjoy smoking tobacco with cannabis. While the jury is out regarding the downside of mixing these two smokes, it’s certain that marijuana is safer to smoke. Both THC and CBD can reduce inflammation, unlike tobacco which has many toxic side effects. So despite marijuana having many similar toxins as tobacco, the damage it does is far less. Most other drugs tend to overwhelm the effects of cannabis, or cannabis counteracts some of their effects. Thus cannabis is not used often in conjunction with other drugs unless the objective is to “mellow out.” Caution: Marijuana can interact with other drugs, sometimes unexpectedly, by increasing or decreasing the combined effects. The Psychological Effects of Cannabis The important part of marijuana’s effects for recreational users is the way it affects their mental state and mood. With other recreational drugs like alcohol, cocaine or ecstasy, it is their ability to alter our mental processes in different ways that make them popular. Chemical intoxication, like sobriety is just another mental state we can experience at appropriate times and places. Humans have been altering their consciousness, and their subconsciousness, with recreational drugs for as long as there have been humans. Who’s to say it wasn’t some mind altering The

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drug that altered our ancestors’ brains thus creating modern humans? The marijuana experience provides not just euphoria, but a general feeling of well-being which leads to contentedness followed by happiness, even joy! Surely this is what recreational cannabis users desire, and who doesn’t want to feel good? Considering the wide range of powerful psychological effects of cannabis on humans, it’s surprising it isn’t physically addictive. A minor psychological dependency can occur during chronic use, but it’s not difficult to overcome. Other effects include alienation from society, whereby users withdraw from common social activities. While

April 20th (4/20) at Hippy Hill in San Francisco. The

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for some people, it has the opposite effect, enabling them to engage socially more often. One thing any cop can tell you, marijuana users are really not a problem like drunks. It’s a fact that people are less aggressive under the influence of marijuana than with alcohol. Also, marijuana doesn’t make one a reckless driver like alcohol does. So it’s fair to say that recreational cannabis is a safer alternative to alcohol in so many ways. Society would be much better off if alcoholics switch to cannabis. Nearly all cannabis users report experiencing paranoia. Whether this is more a function of marijuana itself, or of it being illegal, is difficult to gauge. Certainly the paranoia level increases with illegality, especially among those who grow and traffic in cannabis. Caution: Marijuana affects people in different ways physically and psychologically. If you can’t handle cannabis, don’t use it! The Spiritual Effects of Cannabis For many, consuming cannabis is a religious experience. The most potent marijuana can provide extrasensory experiences, opening minds to higher realms of thought. Aficionados of the highest quality cannabis report psychedelic experiences with certain strains. Indian sadhus are one ancient group that still practices Shiva worship with cannabis. They say it brings them closer to their god. Likewise with Rastafarians. Many people today have a similar experience with marijuana. The

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How is this possible? Most people’s lives are pretty routine. Marijuana and other drugs break the routine, allowing us to refocus our consciousness more deeply, if we choose. We disconnect from daily occupations and begin to notice the world outside ourselves, especially nature.

Sadhu smoking cannabis thru a chillum The

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It is in nature that the marijuana experience reveals its full spiritual potential. It sets free the animal within us, the being that tunes into nature and respects it as part of our own being. We transcend our ego state, and sometimes one can enter a state of bliss. Communing with the natural world on cannabis renews our essence, restores our spirit and puts our lives in a different perspective. Some enjoy mixing marijuana with meditation. Others say it distracts. Perhaps once again the effects are strain dependent or dependent upon the user’s definition of meditation. As you can see, the recreational use of cannabis is beneficial to humans in so many ways. It helps us relax, change focus, be creative, enjoy food and sex even more, find our spiritual connection to nature and each other. It heals us from the diseases of civilization, providing an escape from the pressures and stresses of everyday life. It teaches us how to change our lifestyle and live in greater harmony. It’s good medicine for the mind and body, even if you’re not sick. It is a healthier alternative to other, more harmful, yet widely accepted recreational drugs in society. And now the people of Colorado and Washington have spoken! LEGALIZE IT! Marijuana: It’s not just for hippies anymore! Read ZeppelinRules' take on how cannabis affects us in "Food for Thought." The

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Donald Mallard’s OZ

Ducksfeet and more from downunder...

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Cannabis Liberation News by Skip

Marijuana Legalization comes to Washington and Colorado Months after marijuana legalization legislation for recreational use was passed in Washington State and Colorado, both states are coming to terms with this new reality. Washington legislators are wrestling with regulating a whole new industry, deciding which applicants can become growers and sellers of cannabis. In Colorado, where the medical marijuana industry was already well established, there's a huge new market for recreational cannabis including clubs and restaurants catering to marijuana users. Cannabis business owners and growers are wondering how the Feds will respond to the new laws. New Hampshire's House has just passed two bills, one legalizing medical marijuana, and the other decriminalizes possession of small amounts of marijuana. The first bill has the support of most senators and the governor, whereas the second decriminalization bill faces opposition and is unlikely to pass. However there's more support now than there was for previous attempts. The Illinois House has passed a medical marijuana bill similar to one passed by the Illinois Senate in 2009. It sets a 2.5 ounce limit per purchase. It is uncertain whether the Governor, Pat Quinn, will sign it. The

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DEA Getting Paranoid With cannabis legalization spreading across the US, some folks are getting worried about losing their jobs. A backlash is building on the part of those who stand to lose funding if marijuana legalization continues. This includes the DEA and the United Nations' International Narcotics Control Board (INCB). Eight former heads of the DEA (drug czars) all oppose the legalization of marijuana. They are calling on the Obama Administration to enforce existing federal laws and to sue the states that legalized to prevent them from implementing their commercial marijuana production and distribution plans. “Cannabis decriminalization measures across the United States, including the medical use of marijuana in California, have been sharply criticized by the United Nations, which has warned Washington they violate the international drug conventions...... Raymond Yans, the INCB president, said that the successful ballots in Colorado and Washington to legalize the use of cannabis for recreational purposes and the fact that Massachusetts had recently become the 18th state to allow the use of cannabis for medicinal purposes violate the international drug conventions.” Read More Despite the difficulty in measuring impairment under the influence of marijuana, several states have introduced bills to make driving with marijuana in your bloodstream illegal. The issue is up for debate since THC can stay in the blood for days and there is no specific level that indicates an inability to drive. The

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Read about the Marijuana DUI Bill Media Attitude Changes It seems the US media has finally changed its attitude towards marijuana. Following the success of the fictional cable TV series, Weeds, another reality series called Weed Wars highlighted the struggle faced by those trying to supply the market legally. That series focused on the travails of Harborside Dispensary in Oakland, California, showing how the largest legal cannabis business was being endlessly harassed by the Feds. Another new series, Weed Country (also on Discovery channel), highlights the battle to grow and distribute marijuana in Northern California by showing growers and law enforcement engaging in a cat and mouse game, one with serious consequences. These new reality series appear to be relatively unbiased, letting viewers decide which side they support. Yet another series, Pot Cops, which is slanted towards the cops' point of view has now started. Government Attitude Changes On the national level, legislation has been introduced to clarify policies and stop Federal interference in states that have legalized medical marijuana. Rep. Earl Blumenauer and 13 co-sponsors say the measure would help clear up confusion that has pitted states — with legalized marijuana laws — against federal authorities. The bill, Politico reported, would keep federal agents from taking action in the 19 states where marijuana is legal and would set forth The

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guidelines for the Federal Drug Administration to legalize the drug for medicinal use. Read more Prohibitionist Attitudes Changing In an important sign that social attitudes towards marijuana are changing, the national D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) Program has removed marijuana from its curriculum. No longer will children be fed lies about the “dangers” of cannabis use. No doubt this is an attempt to restore some credibility to the ineffective program. And in Colorado, where recreational cannabis is now legal, police are having to retrain drug sniffing dogs to ignore the smell of marijuana since it's no longer illegal. The times, they are a changin'!

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Map of Cannabis Legality in European Countries International Laws Changing Uruguay has just begun a three-month national dialogue on marijuana with the aim of educating the public with the facts about cannabis so that they will support a bill in Congress to legalize the cultivation and distribution of pot. If it passes, people will be able to grow six plants at home and possess up to 17 ounces. The bill is being pushed by José Mujica, the former leftist guerrilla fighter, now president of Uruguay. The

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The Netherlands has finally dropped their mandatory “Weed Pass” requirement, which limited sales to Dutch residents. They now allow cities to decide for themselves whether to restrict the sale of cannabis at coffeeshops in the country. This means tourists visiting Amsterdam can still visit 220 or so coffeeshops and buy up to five grams of cannabis. But in the south, the city of Maastricht is requiring all buyers of marijuana to present their Dutch passport or residency papers. Most of the coffeeshops in that city are now closed as the tourist can no longer purchase cannabis there and the Dutch did not want to have to register to use Visitors can still enjoy cannabis in cannabis. Amsterdam's Coffeeshops

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The International Cannagraphic Nominations for Photo of the Year 2012 are listed below. Tonatiuh – Bubba (January) Nachilloo - Peyote Purple (February) Wamen – American Dad (March) Hrpuffnkush - Mmxii (April) Smurf - Medicine Man (May) Bubbleman – King (June) The

Lumpstatus – Gs Cookies (July) Lumpstatus – Cherry Pie (August) Mcdank8o5 – Outdoor (September) Mr·x – Unknown (Oct.) Homero - Chernobyl (November) Papsturban – Sourpower (December)

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Tonatiuh – Bubba (January)

Nachilloo - Peyote Purple (February)

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Wamen – American Dad (March)

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Hrpuffnkush - Mmxii (April)

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Smurf - Medicine Man (May)

Bubbleman – King (June)

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Lumpstatus – Gs Cookies (July)

Lumpstatus – Cherry Pie (August) The

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Mcdank8o5 – Outdoor (September)

Mr·x – Unknown (October) The

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Homero - Chernobyl (November)

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Papsturban – Sourpower (December)

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Dry Ice Extraction Using A Small Cement Mixer by Skip Stone

Hashish making dates back thousands of years and many traditional methods involve pounding or sifting the dried cannabis. These ancient methods of shaking trichomes from the plant are usually labor intensive and can introduce contaminants in the final product. Modern hashish making seeks to improve the process, allowing for more quality control and greater efficiency. The discovery that freezing marijuana allows the coveted trichomes to easily break free from the plant led to new methods of hashish making that remove most contaminants, thus increasing the quality of the hashish. Last harvest I got a chance to document using dry ice (CO2) to process a large amount of trim and leaf. What makes this process different is the use of a cement mixer, allowing for maximum results in a minimum amount of time. Why use dry ice? Dry ice is stable at −78.5°C (−109.3 °F). Which means it is super cold, far colder than ice used in water extraction methods, so the plant matter freezes quickly. In fact, the extreme cold shatters the plant matter into small pieces, freeing all the trichomes and allowing them to be easily separated. You can use fresh The

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marijuana or dried, it makes no difference. Dry ice also sterilizes the product, but not completely. Hash made with dry ice never contacts water so you don’t have to dry it out, it’s less likely to mold and can retain quality for many years. Why use a cement mixer? Besides allowing for a large volume of trim to be processed quickly, it also can handle a lot of dry ice, safely and efficiently. Of course you wouldn’t want to use just any cement mixer. You should buy one new and clean it out by running sand through it for 15 minutes to remove any particles of paint that might be loose.

This small cement mixer is ideal for extracting trichomes using dry ice. The

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What else is needed? A screen that fits over the top of the mixer. The unit used in this report had a 150 micron screen, which let thru some plant matter. But you could use a smaller screen, about 100 microns, that would filter most of the unwanted material out. The 150 micron screen will yield the maximum amount of hash. You can do different runs with different screens to see how well they do. A special steel funnel that fits over the mixer will receive the trichomes that pass thru the screen. The Mixer and Funnel in upright one shown here is the position. Extraction Contraption sold by Friendly Farms. The mixer is from Harbor Freight #91907. The Process: Once the mixer is setup and cleaned, you can fill it up with trim, leaf, buds, whatever, wet or dry! Remove large stems as they may damage the screen. And no, you don’t need to grind it up or even remove the small sticks. The dry ice will do that work for you. Next, add the dry ice, which can usually be purchased at supermarkets. It’s recommended to use 8-10 pounds at a time. The

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Take a bag of dry ice and pound it with a mallet or other similar object into small pieces, no larger than a golf ball. You don’t want large, heavy pieces in the mix.

Mixer with trim and leaf and dry ice before processing. Notice one piece of dry ice is too big! The

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Then you must seal the screen and funnel onto the mixer very carefully, making sure it is centered and fits tightly against the rim. If this is not done properly, trichomes will fall out. It does take some practice to ensure a secure fit. Next the mixer bowl is lowered from vertical into an almost horizontal position. Run the mixer, until you see it frost up, about 3 to 5 minutes (timing is everything.) Then stop the mixer, reposition the bowl so it tilts downwards ever so slightly (one notch below horizontal).

Notice the mixer level is one notch below horizontal to allow the trichomes to slide down the funnel. Resume running the mixer. At this point, the trichomes are sliding down the mixing bowl, and through the screen, into the funnel. You don’t want to make the angle too steep because the plant matter will push too hard against the screen causing it to powderize and filter into the funnel with the trichomes. This is one of the tricks to avoid getting too much plant matter in the hash. The

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The other is not to run the mixer too long. More than 10 minutes (altogether) and you will get a lower quality hash. Experiment with it to see what works for you. Then stop the mixer and move it to the upright position. Carefully remove the funnel with the screen unit still attached. Be careful! Don’t handle the funnel too long because the metal will be very cold and could cause frostbite. It’s best to just rest the funnel on a table.

Carefully remove screen to avoid trichome loss. Tap the screen to remove any trichomes that are sticking to it. Carefully remove the screen, keeping it over the funnel so that any trichomes stuck at the edge fall into it. Next, use a card to scrape the trichomes clinging to the sides of the funnel, so they all collect at the bottom. The

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Once this is done you can place the bottom of the funnel over a container and open it, allowing all the trichomes to come out. At this point you can use it as kif for smoking or infusing edibles, or you can press it into hashish. This unit also had another piece at the bottom of the funnel, that enables you to press the hash while it is still in the funnel. Kif at bottom of funnel You can then reassemble the unit and repeat the process. You can use a different screen if you want a different quality, but the first run is the best. Always do a second run, as you will get almost as much again as the first run! The

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Once you are done with that batch, you can dump out the remaining material. You might want to reuse any dry ice that is left. If you tilt the mixer just right, then run it, you can dump the lightweight plant matter and the dry ice will remain at the bottom. If you don’t, then it will all fall out, and you’ll have to sift thru it to gather the remaining dry ice to use again. You can use a 25 gal bucket with a 1/2” wire screen on top to recover the dry ice. Remember, dry ice is expensive in large quantities, so you don’t want to waste it.

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The whole process can take about half an hour for a double run. I recommend doing it outdoors, with plenty of room around the mixer for you to move about. It did seem to help to have two people working on this, especially when removing the funnel, but one person can do it. You should be able to process 8-10 pounds an hour. This run turned 14 pounds of Sour Diesel Quarter ounce of pressed trim and leaf into 300 hash. grams of kif. I found the hash from this process to be very clean tasting and smooth smoking. This, despite the 150 micron screen letting thru a bit of plant matter. The resulting polm was pressed into round quarter ounces. It’s best to weigh the polm before pressing to be sure. Tips: If pressing into hash using the attached press, don’t exceed 12 grams at a time or it will be very difficult to press by hand. Coat the inside of the press first with a little olive oil to ensure it doesn’t stick. For more info on the The Extraction Contraption funnel system go to Friendly Farms Website. You can see their video demo here. Harbor Freight Mixer can be purchased here. The

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The Rise & Fall of Astral Cannabis by Mr. Alkaline

In the 1960s and ’70s, some the the most famous and absolute highest quality healing herb modern man had ever experienced was produced in America. Not all of the grass grown there was of the same caliber as that which I would refer to as being ASTRAL in nature. This is the name I have given to very unique, hippy-era sativa bud grown at the sweet spot regions in Middle America; primarily Oaxaca, Guatemala, the Yucatan, Panama, and maybe even Colombia and Brazil. I’ll delve into the reasons why I believe it should be called Astral Cannabis in this story. Astral Sativa was most notably produced in Oaxaca and Panama. Known as Original Panama Red and Highland Oaxaca Gold. These herbs were grown in Mother Nature’s best hotspots, at elevations of at least 1500 meters above sea level, in very rich and very sacred bio-diverse areas by the indigenous culture aka: the native farmers/shamans, the Zapotecs and/or Mayans. It was not very potent, but it was World Champion. Many breeders have had this pot slip through their hands, but for some odd reason it has, for the most part, fallen away into the abyss, never to appear again. WHY? This is the question which has not left both my conscious and subconscious for ten years now! The

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These famous areas still produce great marijuana, but something is missing from the various samples and reports I have read over the last few years. And breeders just don’t seem to have the original genetics. Trust me, they don’t. I know that seeds were always inside the Astral Sativa buds, so that wasn’t the problem. And the landraces were hermaphroditic, which is a slight plus in terms of preservation, so that wasn’t the issue either. We don’t know where the sellers and farmers went. So this was half the reason it fell into apparent non-existence. And we don’t know what they did to their plants, which is the other half of the reason why it’s not here. Well, yes they did crucify their plants and dance around them like Spanish conquistadors. But that fits into this story a little down the road and isn’t the primary power agent that I believe had coaxed such an astral nature into the buds, or was it? Just who were these strange Indian farmers who seemed to have run away and fled the land never to return again? I submit that it was the Mayan human element, the sweet spot element known as T528, which is the why we don’t have these Astral meds today. You must first become aware of the following pieces of information: 1) ‘We’ used to have shaman ancestors on the Earth who pre-calibrated their farms with the time, date and galaxy before planting any seeds. And this is also why we have pyramids everywhere (and now some have been found beneath the ocean). The

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2) The Healing Herbs, and the know-how to utilize them properly, were always held to be of divine origin. The T528 Element that Makes Astral Sativa Possible What was the T528 Element, and where did it come from? What was its history? And who utilized it, and for what purposes? T528 as an element was obsidian and flint. These were the weapons and blades of Mayan sacrifice. And were also used to crucify the Astral Sativas in areas like Oaxaca, the Highlands of Guatemeala, and in Panama. The Cannabis farmers would dress in red when they did this ritual of resin enhancement, like the Spanish, and out of age old reverence for Quetzalcoatl, who they had surely mistook Cortez for centuries earlier. To answer this T528 question properly and fully, we’ll have to mentally visit the Tarahumara marathon runners of Chihuahua, Mexico, who can run for hundreds of miles barefoot, without stopping at all for food or water. Scientists have shrugged their shoulders and settled on the explanation of the Tarahumara The

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Indians just having some really ‘good’ genetics in their family lines. But from what I’ve read of the Tarahumara’s main account for their extreme distance abilities is that they’ll routinely consume T528 in their Red Corn Beer the night before their run! It is their biggest secret. They have been reported in newspapers, to be able to run so far and fast as to even tire horses. They can run like the Jaguar! T528 is in the water they use to make the Red Corn Beer. And water was considered to be the most sacred of all substances to ancient Maya, even more sacred than corn! I figure this corn beverage was T528

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fortified because this is one of the last vestiges of the old cultures. Travelers to Oaxaca said they ‘had to go to’ a special place to get the water for this beer. These travelers said that humanitarians have had to rush to the Mayan’s aid, because the well water is such a far distance from the settlement they fear for the young children who have to wait behind for their parents to return. Have you seen pictures of the crystal caves in Mexico, and those 75 foot long crystals in them? The T528 element in the crystal caves actually taints, or makes a type of ‘empowered’ multidimensional energy water the Aztecs and Maya portrayed inside their Codex manuscripts. These codices were malevolently destroyed in July of 1562 by the Spanish. All but three, perhaps even 12 still exist that we know of, but most of these records of civilization were wiped away so you couldn’t benefit from them. T528 is ultimately Astral Water from sacred Mayan wells! And this Astral water was known as ‘Cosmic Sap’ to the ancient Maya. Otherwise known as astral fluid or Holy Water in modern terminology. This has a lot to do with the old rumors of a fountain of youth in the Americas that Desoto was looking for near Hot Springs Arkansas. The

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All of these anecdotes are pretty much referencing the same substance, just different words and languages to describe the same ‘stuff’. Furthermore, the caves where this T528 tainted water is located are clearly marked with Crosses. “Astral Fluid” comes from sacred wells, called Cenotes, such as the Cenote of Sacrifice in Chichen Itza, Yucatan, called Cenote Sagrado. This well contains many artifacts placed there as the prayers of Mayans. Many Mayans were sacrificed here as offerings to the Cauac Monster, and other deities. (Cauac is pronounced kWA’k). These farmers were also instructed to use this cenote water as the only water for the sacred crops in that region. Coincidentally this is where the Red Corn Temple is also located. But before you go and try to make a sports drink of Corn Beer, or water your flowering plants on your next run or cycle, let me tell you what the Cauac Monster is and how it relates to the Cannabis Leaf image in Egypt. SesHat’s Headdress Image and the Celestial Serpent Seshat was Thoth’s mistress, who wore what looked like a cannabis leaf of 7 points over her head. Now, this isn’t actually a leaf, but is the alignment of 7 governing bodies of the Pleiades over the earth during The

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the spring and winter solstices when the Pleiades are visible. They are the gravitational waves which somehow imbued or entrained their sacred wells with this supernatural power to make this Red Corn Beer elixir, a supreme beverage containing the bonified spirits of immortality and rejuvenation. This was clearly mentioned and explained inside the Egyptian Book of the Dead. In Egypt’s rendition of the Cauac Monster metaphor, it was depicted, or translated as the Solar Spirit or Solar Orbs which broadened out at Heliopolis, when they mentioned sipping this magical Red Corn Beer there near the wells, aka “anu” heliopolis. The wells were marked by above ground pillars. These 7 points, or Orbs create the Mayan Cauac Monster, called the Celestial Dragon or Serpent. They materialize (like clockwork) beneath the pyramids, inside the caves at the well waters, through the actual stalactite terminals, and are identified as frozen snakes, needles, shafts of light or teeth. These are the Dragon or Serpents teeth, also known as T528 appendages. And these teeth contain the power of the Lightning of Creation, or Grandfather Lightning. This was the very stuff that the ancients believed cracked open the great eastern mountain where corn was first found growing, and where humans were first created on earth. The Mayans believed they were made from corn, but it was really, or more plausibly, from the elements, or platonic solids that Quetzalcoatl was associated clearly with - fire, earth, water, ether, air, etc. The

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What this illustrates is that you have a mystical, sacred dragon(s), shoot down to Earth somehow, in some way each year on March 20th and Sept 22nd, at a specific minute of the day. This dragon follows the Ley Lines of the earth. When 2 dragons meet at a juncture (like the game of pacman), they travel toward the water inside a mountain or under a pyramid (an artificial mountain), and each comes through the stalactites and/or the stalagmites, thereby imbuing the water with astral fluid or cosmic sap. These caves are called the Dragon’s Lair! And the caves are considered to contain, wind, and moisture and clouds. Try and remember that I said here that clouds figuratively come from caves! You can witness this first hand at the pyramid in Chichen Itza, which was put there because the sacred cenote was there, and was more important. But the snake actually runs down the pyramids on March 20th and Sep 22nd to mark these special moments in time when the 7 points, or Spirit Orbs visit the sacred wells. And Cenote Sagrado is the Heart Chakra of this particular cluster of sacred sites on the magnetic energy grid in northern Yucatan. Quetzalcoatal’s Metaphorical Role in Metaphysics and his Role as a Traveler from another Planet Quetzalcoatl was a Feathered Serpent deity who gave the Aztecs, along with the Mayans, agriculture, seeds The

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and their calendar. He taught them how to do everything, about the stars, the medicines and how to read, write, lay pyramids, etc. And the Pyramids laid out around the area of Chichen Itza are actually arranged just like the chakras of the human body. Furthermore, the entire Earth’s Quetzalcoatl atmosphere is in the shape of Portrait/Artifact a torus, just like the human body. I bet you weren’t aware of the Flower of Life geometrical grid around our planet, also known as the Unity, or Christ Grid. Now, Quetzalcoatl was said to have traveled from Atlantis and also Egypt to Mexico and the Yucatan. He was a human being who lived practically forever, or was believed to be immortal. He was reported to be identified with a group called the Shining Ones who were from another planet, (either the pleades or Sirius B) who had visited the lands on a regular basis, but for some reason lived inside caves in America. And according to some Highland Guatemalans, Quetzalcoatl may have even ‘been’ Thoth, Seshat’s lover! But, here’s some food for thought - the ancient Mayan civilization, along with the current crop of Mayans today (especially in Guatemala) claim to be original descendants from the sunken continent of Atlantis. The

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Left: The Serpent Diety at the Temple of Quetzalcoatl

This connects their ways and technologies with that of the first Golden Age of the World, and all of its technologies as described by Plato. How The Sacraments Power Was Lost in The Clouds Psychedelic mushrooms and cannabis have a lot in common. Both are said to come from other planets, and both are a sacrament, or sacred medicinal supplement. Maria Sabina, a very famous Oaxacan shaman, once lamented that the power of the sacrament (mushroom) was lost in the clouds of certain Oaxaca highland mountain areas. She said this at the sorrowful end of Quetzalcoatal, as portrayed in the Codex TellerianoRamensis, 16th century A.D. (aztec codex)

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her life, because she was the only person who knew this very specific, very vague secret and age old Mayan truth. Now nobody knows why the mushroom isn’t quite what it used to be during her life as a shaman there. And she isn’t making the preparations anymore. Her legacy stops here unfortunately, so do the sacraments, according to her last statements. One thing we know is that the Maya shamans believed that mountain clouds were actually diety blood which issued forth from sacred caves containing stalactite dew, or cosmic sap from the celestial, cosmic or primal ocean waters. The Sacred Identity and Function of the Mushroom and Cannabis Medicinals In nature, form usually follows function, and vice versa. And the sacred mushroom and sacred trichomes do have similar forms and function here on earth, per religious usages. It is a little known fact that we have cannabis codices, right in front of our noses, all over the world today! What you will find throughout the world in it’s sacred temples are Stupas (aka trichomes/shrooms), with orbs hanging on the ceiling above them in old eastern Temples. Especially in Asia. This is a pretty significant little clue to perhaps the metaphysical science behind Cannabis oil preparations and to the psychedelic mushrooms in general. Both The

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are in the geometrically sacred shape of the Stupa, which is widely reported the world over as an ancient time travel device! Well, after all of this, let me ask you something here.... What do you think may happen if you take the orbs away from above the stupa? It would lose the power that was imbued inside of it, down from the underworld in the mouth of the serpent. These orbs were/are the nature spirits of the underworld, the deity spirits and Mayan animal spirits, including the Jaguar, which was considered to be the most powerful in all of the animal kingdom. Do you recall the Tarahumara marathon runners who are said to run like Jaguars? I think it’s time to do a little research into the waters down in those cenotes, or sacred wells. Up to this point the research appears to be very compelling indeed, that the Mayans or Zapotec may have just been using sacred water on their sacred sacraments during the Rise of the Astral Cannabis in the Americas.

Editor's Note: Images in this story are courtesy of WikiCommons, and/or are in the public domain.

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Grow Contest Winner!

The results are in and the winner is PuReKnOwLeDgE with his thread entitled ‘30 Sour Bubble Trees...’ CONGRATULATIONS for this grow of the amazing Sour Bubble! In the next few pages we will showcase some of the tasty images PuReKnOwLeDgE posted of his grow.

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And the Runner-up...

Well the vote was really close, like amazingly close! So we want to mention the runner-up here, JackMayOffer's - 3 Weeks in with Aptus' thread... and show a few of the images that so many viewers liked. Congrats to Jack!

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How to Make Full Melt Dry Sift ~with three screens~ by Bubbleman The Bubble Ambassador

In this simple tutorial, we are going to make dry sift hash with this handy set of three screens that comes in a nice wooden boxed set. We will extract and clean some dry sift using a process that will help clean what you thought was good ‘farmer’s grade’ hash (which may be as much as 75% contaminant or higher) into full-melt dry sift that is in my opinion the Holy Grail of Hash. The

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You don’t need this exact box set to do this, just the screens. I don’t even use the box. The three screens in the box are 140μ, a 107μ, and a 70μ screen which will give us just the control we need to produce the finest dry sift.

Note: μ = microns So open the Bubblebox and get the show started. If you don’t have a Bubblebox, you can get one at Freshheadies. com, or just buy the screens inside locally. This box is built to last with Bird’s Eye Maple and double strength hinges. The screens come with a wood cover on top and a set of keys to lock the box when you are done using it. You could get these screens stretched on frames by your local silk screener or graphics supply company online. Our Bubblebox has the Bubbleman Logo burned into the wooden lid. Originally this box was for people who didn’t smoke much hash, or make any hash for that matter. I figured they would break up their cannabis over the screens and collect the resin this way. But what I really did was teach them (unwittingly) how to make great dry sift hash. The top screen on the bubble box is a 140μ The

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so the perfect size heads can fall through. Sure some strains may have larger heads, but generally a 140μ is a safe top screen size. Breaking up your nugget into powder is ideal for dry sifting and joint rolling so double bonus! This top screen will keep the majority of the ganja on the top of the screen while allowing smaller things to fall through. Because we don’t have the help of water keeping everything afloat (like with bubblebags) a lot of contaminant will fall through also. This is why we use more than one screen to get the final result. I don’t actually smoke joints, so I am going to card this herb gently over the screen, making sure to get as much of the resin to fall through as possible. Just remember when you do this, you will also get a lot of contaminant which will make for even longer cleaning process. So let’s lift the top screen (140μ) and see what’s fallen through. Remember, I just did a super quick run here so my main point isn’t to make a ton of hash! It is to The

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show you how to clean what you have extracted. You will quickly learn that the more gently you extract the initial batch, the easier it will be to clean up. The second screen is 107μ . I also put the screen sizes in LPI which stands for lines per inch.

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Lines per Inch 230 200 170 140 120 100 80

Microns 63 74 88 105 125 149 177

In the next picture you can see the material that was carded for a little under three minutes from one single screen, which to the naked eye looks great. However with the help of my macro lens I am going to lift the veil of mystery as to why most dry sift does not melt. Looking a little closer at the dry sift, you can see a lot of capitate stalks and cystolith hairs, those long white things. They are non glandular and non medicinal. This is a farmers grade dry sift that desperately needs to be cleaned over some second and third screens. We can place this 140μ screened hash on top of our secondary 100μ screen and gently card the material through. I used my ski pass card, but any rigid card will do. You must be gentle while doing this. So now I will place the first screened dry sift on top of my secondary screen. 107μ is the screen size. What The

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we do now is gently card the resin back and forth. This screen may allow everything through, which is fine. What it’s doing is breaking up the powder to ready it for further cleaning. So this is basically what you want to do with your single screened dry sift. Place it on top of the 107μ screen and gently card back and forth. Don’t be surprised if it all goes through. This is okay. The next screen will clean out the unwanted material. The

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In this picture you can see what remains after the material was carded for about five minutes. This is what was under my second screen, sitting on top of my third 107μ screen. Almost everything came through, but is now smoother and more broken down, which will make the next steps easier. The next step took 10 minutes using the third 107μ screen. Gently card back and forth pushing all the non-glandular material through the screen, leaving us with much cleaner material. I will clean for an additional 5 minutes each The

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time to show you how clean it’s getting. This is patient work, cleaning your dry sift. Next up, a close up shot.

After 10 minutes of carding to the trained eye it’s cleaner. However, it’s not clean enough for me. Easily more than 50% contaminant at this point in the process. Let’s get back to work! Did I mention this is an art-form and to get a pure product takes PATIENCE? The process is completely counter intuitive to what you THINK you will need to do. Which is extract hard and heavy (get tons of contaminant) and then clean too much at once (which never works). The

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Well it’s just now starting to look better to me at 15 minutes of carding over the 70u screen. Still plenty of contaminants but much less than when we started. I would say we are around 35% non glandular material in this dry sift, clearly we are not done yet. Back to the Bubblebox.

Here we have the same material, now carded for 20 minutes and you can see it is getting cleaner. We are seeing less and less capitate stalks and cystolith hairs, and more of a concentration of glandular trichome heads. After 25 minutes of patient carding, the dry sift is starting to get towards a 80% plus pure gland heads. This should now melt in a bowl. The

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Lets see if it melts in a bowl... loading up with my Skillettool. Pre-melt shot.

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Pre-melt macro shot, at right.

Well, it is melting, but no where near full-melting. So we have more work to do. (Gotta admit it tasted amazing!)

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After carding for 30 minutes, the hash is closer to a 90% purity than 80%. Still lots of contaminant, but I am sure there will be more melting this time around.

After 30 minutes of working on that dry sift we seem to be a little bit closer to purity now. Let’s smoke a hit of this again to see. You can see it has definitely still got some plant matter and contaminant in it, but the melt factor is higher and the taste was much more concentrated. Here is a naked eye perspective of the 30 minute carded dry sift. You can see there are bits of things that don’t belong in here, so I guess we’re still not done. The

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Now here’s what I get after 35 minutes of carding gently. So this is really what we have all been waiting for - the 95% plus pure heads. Getting them cleaner and cleaner, and although I can’t make a kilo at a time yet, I can definitely get those heads into a near 99% purity in small amounts. The

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Another shot of a small rock of glandular trichome heads.

Here is some dry sift poured out onto my Bubblebox, there is still a little contaminant in there but damn if its not mostly headies! The

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How about a PURE HEADS shot. This is what we all want to see -100% pure glandular trichome heads. I also wanted to add to this what we cleaned out of all those headies and why dry sift is such a small return. The 70u screen we used will still let gland heads fall through, but they are smaller than 70u and generally not the best of the best. I know people who enjoy their 45u bubble but I personally smoke mostly the 120µ-73µ bubble and thats where my enjoyment lies. So there will still be some dry sift under your final screen on the catch plate, but that will be best in my opinion for making edibles. Here you see the high percentage of capitate stalks and cystolith hairs with some smaller heads mixed in, this is why most people’s dry sift DOES NOT MELT. Picture of the bottom catch plate. As you can see, with The

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multi screen dry sifting, you do not get the BEST at the bottom of the catch plate. That is reserved for the top of our last screen 70µ. And so as to not leave you with a nasty shot like that for the end of an informative story, I will post one more shot of the bowl I am about to consume.

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If you would like to see how effective I was in getting this non melty dry sift to melt, please feel free to watch this short YouTube video. The title is a mistake, it wasn’t 40 minutes of carding it was 35!! You can also check out this VIDEO and you will know why Bubbleman does not smoke joints, only full-melt.

Editor’s Note: You may remember Bubbleman from the International Cannagraphic way back in 2004 when he showed Gypsy Nirvana and a film crew how to make hash with bubble bags and ice in the Jamaican jungle. The

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Growing in Coco

story and photos by HundredGramOZ Looking for explosive growth and massive yields leads one to try many different growing systems and techniques over the years. In this story I would like to share some of the things that I’ve learned about growing in coco with a drip system that drains to waste (DTW). The majority of my growing life was spent growing in organic soil, using commercial nutrients along with compost teas, and it was great! My plants seemed happy to grow in 12 liter pots, watered every two days, using wet-dry cycles. I was also happy growing like that!

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Then I started to grow in coco with drippers, and I was hooked instantly. Everything was showing explosive growth rates, thick white root masses, and the ultimate yield went up 20-25%. Here is photographic evidence of what I saw:

4 Weeks Root Growth 5 Days Growth Comparison Pictures Coco is not soil and it should not be treated like soil. Coco is a hydroponic medium. Some like to call it ‘semi-hydroponic’ because it is more forgiving than full hydro. Ultimately it is a soil-less growing medium. The trick to the coco is that you could water coco like you water soil, letting it dry out completely between waterings every other day or so - and you will get soillike results. But, if you water coco a few times per day you will really reap the rewards of hydroponic results in this more stable medium. The

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When dialing the watering schedule it’s important to take into consideration the size of pot that your using and the size of your root mass. For example if you put some freshly rooted clones into 6.5 liter pots, and start watering them three times per day you will run into some problems. You can over-water your plants in coco if you don’t have a well developed root system. It is easy to build your root system from the beginning. When I pot up a freshly rooted cut I let it have wet-dry cycles for a few days, then I slowly up my watering.

Chem D - Day 31 Flowering, the ultimate yield was 9.25 ounces, grown in a 6.5 liter pot. The

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At the end of week one I’m watering once per day. I aim to be watering three times per day by the end of week two. Once the root system is developed, it is very very hard to over water. They will take all you can throw at ‘em and ask for more. I also think it’s important to mention that coco doesn’t require the same size of a pot compared to soil. I have grown plants yielding 9.25 ounces in a 6.5 liter pot. Less is more! Unless you are looking for giant trees, don’t go over 6.5 liters. If you are aiming for 1 gram per watt, then work out how much you need from each plant and pick your pot size accordingly. For example, if you're growing 6 plants with 600w, you will want an average of 3.5 oz per plant. Bear in mind that the above Chem D yielded nearly 10oz grown in a 6.5 ltr. pot. You really don’t need or want a big pot when using this method. I like to add hydroton at the base of my pots, this assists in drainage. I also add layer of hydroton at the top of the coco to help slow down evaporation. I’d highly advise you to do those 2 things for an extra ‘kick’. Once you water three times per day, your plants will start to grow super fast, with FAT stalks, branching and growing like crazy. It really is fun seeing the explosive growth rate. I feed three times per day, right up to when flower stretch is over. Then I bang up the waterings to five times per day, right into the swellage mode and the plants respond greatly to this. The

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When you feed a plant you aren’t just giving it fresh nutrients, you are also giving fresh oxygen to the roots. The nutrient solution saturates the medium and pushes out the stale O2. As the solution works its way down the medium it draws in fresh oxygen from the top. This is one of the reasons why I think multi feeds works so well with coco. You are giving your plants access to more fresh oxygen. Another huge advantage to growing with coco DTW, is the fact that when watering, you get a little runoff each time, which goes to a waste tray or reservoir. That little bit of runoff ensures that each and every time you water your plants (three to five times per day) you are also washing away excess salts., Salt buildup can be a problem in coco and you have to flush it out to get rid of the excess salts. Once you get that little bit of waste run-off from each watering you are effectively flushing it out every time you water. This means that you don’t have to do a manual flush until the end of flower when you do your ‘final flush’. If you don’t already use it, then I can highly recommend a product from House & Garden called, Drip Clean. I’ll not go into the science behind it because all that information is easily accessed on the Internet, but this product will ensure that excess salts are washed away. Drip Clean attracts salts and other build up, it helps to purge them from your medium, and it also does a great job keeping your drippers clear. Another thing that I’ve noticed about growing in Coco DTW with multi feeds per day, is that it’s much better The

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to feed ‘little but often’. Just like how a bodybuilder or an athlete breaks their daily caloric intake into 6-8 meals a day to keep their metabolism in peak working order. From my experience, I see the same applies to plants grown in coco. Instead of watering your plants at a high EC/ppm once every few days, break it up into 3-5 smaller strength feedings each day and watch how your plants react. Remember, plants need a developed root system before you use the multi-feeding method. Once I start the multi-feeding I like to keep the EC at 1.3/650ppm, I let the run-off tell me if the plants require more or less feed. If the waste EC rises by a point or two, then I know they are getting too much. So I adjust my EC accordingly and vice versa. If you have been growing in soil, and want to experience something new, and IMHO better, then give Coco DTW a whirl! Everyone that I’ve helped convert has never looked back. Technical notes: I build my own drip system with 16mm feed pipe going from the pump to a manifold with 4mm feed nipples.

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KarmaTrain - 8 Weeks Harvest Grown in 6.5 liter pots

Tent Shot - 54 Days Flower The

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My pump is a MaxiJet 1000, it’s flow rate is 1000 liters/ hour, with 24 drip heads. pH: I like to keep my pH at 5.8-6.0 right up to the end of flower stretch. Once the plants have stopped stretching and start to put their energy into bud production, I keep my pH at 6.0-6.2. There are variables that make the exception. For example if I think they look a little bit Nitrogen toxic (during veg or flower,) I’ll keep the pH at 6.2 because at this pH less nitrogen is available. Nitrogen is more freely available the closer you get to 5.8. For the timer I use an Intelligent Watering System Minute/Second Timer, it really is a nice bit of kit. For drip stakes I use the little blue fast flow ones. I find them good but they can get clogged every once in a while. The drip clean helps take care of that though. If you can’t get them, then get the basket stakes, they are great. In Closing... I’d like to give a big thank you to Bush Dr. - he has been like a teacher to me, and is an excellent grower with a lot of experience. Without him, I’d most likely still be growing in soil. Thank you Bush Dr! Peace HGO

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Living Organic Soil

by Payaso with Gascanastan, ClackamasCootz, Microbeman, Vonforne, and other contributors in the Organic Soil Forums. Part One:

Building Your Own Soil

Cannabis grows really well in just about anything that you can support the plant with ~ as long as there are sufficient nutrients, warmth, light, moisture and air. These days growers use everything from rockwool cubes to hygroton to coco fiber, instead of just plain old dirt. Whatever you call it, soil, earth, Terra Firma - it is one of the most basic building blocks of life on our planet, the loose material in which plants grow which is comprised of many things, usually a blend of sand, clay, silt and organic matter. In its natural state, healthy soil is alive. Alive and wriggling with up to a billion bacteria, miles of fungal growth, and 1,000-100,000 protozoa in every teaspoon. You may have some in your backyard, if you’re either lucky, or you have been taking great care of your soil. It is far more likely you live in an urban area and will be growing indoors or a greenhouse in pots, and you have to get your soil somewhere, so why not make, or build, your own? The many life forms within the soil is what makes plant biology work. The life in the soil transitions to life in the plant via photosynthesis by enabling The

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the plant to absorb nutrients and more from the soil. Growing cannabis through many cycles can be achieved without having to buy and add expensive chemical additives.

Fungus under the earth. Photograph by JayKush.

Bacteria in the soil feed on exudates from the plant’s roots, sugars, carbohydrates and various carbon compounds. These bacteria provide food for the protozoa in the soil, which they excrete as more food for the plant. The miles of fungal growth (hyphae1) move nutrients through the soil to roots, as well as strengthen and protect the plant from harmful microbes and pathogens. Working together, the bacteria and fungus in the soil decompose organic matter and make more food The

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available for the plant from the soil itself. Without all these factors working together in harmony, growing plants becomes problematic, and uninformed growers run to the store and buy chemicals or products to solve these issues. Best advice, don’t believe the marketing hype, get recommendations from actual users of any product you may want to use. The hazard of using chemicals on food and medicine grown in soil is well documented, but that’s not the point here. Your lowest-cost, easiest alternative to chemical fertilizers and pesticides is to use compost, mulch, worm castings, and compost tea as a replacement for potting soil bought commercially. This can be accomplished with little or no dependency on bottled nutrients and fertilizers. And pH worries may become a thing of the past depending upon your water source. Organic living soil naturally promotes a healthy balanced pH environment. A note from Gascanastan: “Another method utilizing living soil is the ‘No-till” method. Where pots are not dumped after a cycle... a new clone is directly transplanted into that pot. Advocates of this method claim easier gardening all-together. Plants in notill pots have very few health issues due to colonies of bacteria and fungi that are already well established in the pot. Not disturbing these colonies makes for faster transplant transitioning and faster growth through the vegetative cycle.” The

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Above: Sri Lankan farmers showing their vermicompost pits. Using these traditional methods of growing their own living soil allows them to farm without buying expensive fertilizers and pesticides. Photo courtesy The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT).

1 - hyphae - Any of the threadlike filaments forming the mycelium of a fungus. From the Free Dictionary. The

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Vermicompost

A definition from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "Vermicompost is the product or process of composting using various worms, usually red wigglers, white worms, and other earthworms to create a heterogeneous mixture of decomposing vegetable or food waste, bedding materials, and vermicast. Vermicast, also called worm castings, worm humus or worm manure, is the end-product of the breakdown of organic matter by an earthworm. These castings have been shown to contain reduced levels of contaminants and a higher saturation of nutrients than do organic materials before vermicomposting. Containing water-soluble nutrients, vermicompost is an excellent, nutrient-rich organic fertilizer and soil conditioner. This process of producing vermicompost is called vermicomposting."

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Vermicomposting

An essential ingredient to any organic garden is compost and/or earthworm castings. Use it by mixing it directly into your plant soil, top dressing it around plants, and making compost tea. To create a sustainable organic garden without buying topsoil and/or compost commercially, build your own! One of the most common methods to create your own composted soil at home is called vermicomposting, the results of which can be used in any mixed soil for superior growing results. The benefits of worms in your soil include healthier and stronger plants from the way they make nutrients available more readily to the plants, and more. As the worms wriggle around through the soil they eat plant debris in the soil and create tunnels which are filled with their casts. As they digest, the organic and mineral nutrients in the soil are concentrated in the castings, which are highly nutritious for your plants. The calcium, nitrogen and phosphorus in the casts is in a readily available form, and when the worms die they decompose rapidly and create further nitrogen in the process. These tunnels also aerate and breakup hardened soil naturally. The tunneling of earthworms loosens and aerates the soil and improves soil drainage. Earthworm-rich soils will drain up to 10 times faster, and yet paradoxically hold much more water than cultivated soils. The tunnels also act as passageways for lime and other additives to enter the soil from the surface. The

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Research from New Zealand also brings up some other interesting information about worms. Over time, they verified that worms introduced into wormfree environments increased crop production and reduced the need for expensive chemical fertilizers and some pesticides. They also report a direct correlation between the number of worms per hectare and pasture productivity, with a complete absence of worms indicating barren, lifeless soil. In good soil they found up to 7 million worms per hectare with an estimated worm weight of 2.4 tons! Keeping your worms healthy and happy seems like a good idea! Earthworms prefer a balanced environment, with pH in a neutral range of 6 to 8, and neither too wet or too dry. Worms flourish in soil temperatures ranging from 55 F to 80 F, with an optimum temperature of 72-74 degrees F. Over or under these temps, and the worms get sleepy and unproductive. Using bedding above and below your worms insulates them, and if in the ground they can burrow deeper to escape the heat near the surface. If using bins, be careful not to place them in direct sunlight. Be sure to check them for moisture during the cold winter months! Even then they could dry out and die if you ignore your worm bins.

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Make Your Own Worm Bin

Justalilrowdy is a medical grower who swears by worm castings and compost tea. She has posted much information here on ICMag.com for the readers, and she says “worm compost can suppress plant disease.” In her own research Justalilrowdy found this from Cornell University’s website: “Eric Carr, a master’s student in Nelson’s lab, is focusing on the suppressive qualities of vermicompost on a different stage of the life cycle of Pythium aphanidermatum, a pathogen whose mobile spores infect seedlings, causing them to “damp off,” or wither, shortly after germination. The research, he said, helps contribute to opportunities to turn waste products like manure into important diseasesuppressive soil amendments.” Cornell University has begun a project on vermicompost’s organic fertilizing capability. Using a $203,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture they are studying how organic growers can incorporate vermicompost in potting mixes.

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Justalilrowdy shared this experience with me about how she discovered the many benefits of worms. She said Cannagraphic

that during the last year her plants began to look really bad, “looking like 700 kinds of hell.” Her initial response was to pour “highdollar chemical cures” on her plants out of desperation. The issues persisted, forcing her to admit “what a waste of money!” Within a day or two of applying a healthy dose of worm castings the plants were cheering right up. Rowdy says “Don’t panic! Go organic!” Rowdy says she just woke up one day and decided to try a worm bin or two. Finding red wigglers was a fairly easy task and she now has three small bins going, Photos on this page by Blue Jay Way with a fourth on the The

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way some time soon. She says they are “cheap little critters to keep, and they save you a ton in grief and $$. They eat most table scraps, and black and white newspaper so they are easy keepers and the benefits are huge!” Since using worm castings she has not had a bug problem, “I never see a crawler or anything flying anymore. The garden never looked so good. Harmony with the soil. Organic is the only way!”

Photo by Blue Jay Way And, worms will eat your garbage. How to make a worm bin Buy a plastic bin with a lid. Get out your electric drill and go crazy putting holes in the top and sides of the bin for air. Tear up strips of clean, used cardboard to fill the bin at least halfway with ‘bedding,’ and wet it well. Get yourself a pound or two of red wigglers, and add them to the bin along with whatever table scraps or garden trimmings you have at hand. Put an other layer of wet paper over the worms and organic material. Place your bin in the garage, under the front porch, wherever it is convenient to check on and add table scraps on a daily basis. You don’t want to leave this in the hot sun, or where it can freeze in winter. The

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Keep it organic! Don’t put anything in the bin tainted with chemicals. Certain food scraps are not compatible either, or will cause odor problems. No meat or meat scraps. No oil, citrus, or hot peppers. If you avoid these problem ingredients your worm bin will be odor free. Check you bins every day to make sure they are moist enough, and to add more food. This little miracle box will fill up with compost and worm castings within four to six months and using this compost in your garden will bring beneficial results rapidly. Having more than one bin is most efficient, giving you fresh composting material year round. The longer you give the process in the bin, the more it looks like finished soil ready for gardening. It will also have far more plant-ready nutrients as a result of a lengthy process rather than using the compost too soon. Making compost tea from this material will make a super-strong liquid nutrient juice that will amaze you with it’s properties.

Photo by Blue Jay Way

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Harvesting Your Vermicompost You want to separate the worms from the compost before you use it, as the worms are reusable, renewable and sustainable. There is no need to buy new worms. You can quickly grow enough worms to populate your own commercial worm composting operation or just another bin for your own garden. Dump And Sort – Quickest Method? Use the power of light to make the worms hide, remove the mulch and save the worms for reuse. Dump the bin contents onto a sheet of plastic in a brightly lit place. Put any clumps of uncomposted bedding back into the bin for the next round. Make a bunch of small piles of the remaining compost on the plastic sheet. Watch as the worms move down to the bottoms of the piles, away from the light. Remove the compost above the worms and put into a separate bin. This is what you will use on your plants. Keep doing this until you have removed almost all the compost and you have lots of worms to go back into the worm bin. Worms Sort Themselves – Slowest Method? A simple method. Push all the material in the bin to one side. Fill the empty space with new bedding, and after a month or so the worms will have moved to the fresh new side of the bin. Then you can remove the older composted material and use it.

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Divide and Dump – Easiest Method? Simply remove two-thirds of the contents of the bin and use it in your garden. Leave one-third in the bin and feed them with some more bedding material and scraps. They will rejuvenate themselves in a few months time and produce another bin full of vermicompost. This is great for outdoor gardening in the soil, or raised-bed planters – anywhere you want the worms to populate and create more living soil. Keep the cycle of life going! Sri Lankan farmers using a rotating seive to harvest the

worm castings and save the worms for further use. Photo courtesy of The Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU).

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Using Your Vermicompost Here are some suggestions for using what your worms have created. • Fill plant pots with a 50/50 mix of organic soil with vermicompost and watch the plants grow FAST. • In your garden, when creating a hole for a seedling, place a scoop of vermicompost in the hole when planting. • Top dress all your plants with vermicompost at any stage of growth and you will notice a difference. Using it as a mulch is HIGHLY advisable for getting nutrients and beneficial organisms into the soil. • Make compost tea and pour it on the plants for a super boost!

Photo at right: Gascanastan’s Blue Orca x NL#5/Neville’s Haze. Grown in Recyled Organic Living Soil. This plant was grown with water only, except for a few applications of Coot’s barley seed enzyme teas and a couple of doses of Aerated Compost Tea (ACT). The

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Australian farmers making large scale batches of ACT. Courtesy of abc.au.net~

Making Compost Tea Now that you’ve got a worm bin going, you may want to think about how you are going to use this miraculous substance! Apart from using your home-made vermicompost directly in the soil as an amendment, making and using ‘tea’ brewed from this is an excellent way to super-boost your plant’s vitality and resistance to disease. The California Department of Recycling has lots of information about compost tea. The site says that “Soil needs the right biology to grow and sustain healthy plants. If your soil, potting mix, hydroponics medium, The

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or compost lacks healthy organisms or soil Biology, establish the right organisms with compost tea.” Traditionally compost tea was made using a burlap or rough cloth sack filled with manure or compost that was then ‘steeped’ in buckets of water for seven to ten days, sort of like making a cup of Earl Grey. Now compost tea is best made at home with a bucket bubbler method. This is called Aerated Compost Tea (AACT or ACT). There is a wealth of information about AACT on ICMag.com with many recipes and more advice. There is a short tutorial thread on ICMag.com titled ‘10 min $10 DIY aerated compost tea ACT brewer’ that will show you a cheap way to make small batches of tea at home, easily! You will need an air pump, at least a 5-gallon bucket, some tubing and air bubbler. The more air the better the results, so sometimes growers will use several pumps and multiple air hoses to really get that mix bubbling, especially needed if making a larger bin. Microbeman from ICMag tells us “place the [vermi]compost into the water in free suspension and filter afterwards if necessary. Filtering is best done by stretching mesh of about 800 to 1000 microns (window screen size) over a pail and pour the ‘tea’ through, keeping the screen free of debris build up. Alternatively you can place a sump pump into a similarly sized mesh bag and pump directly from the tea machine. If you wish to use a mesh bag to put your The

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HeadyBlunts from ICMag brews ACT with a home-made brewer like the one at right. [vermi]compost into for brewing/extracting then 400 microns is the ideal size. A paint strainer bag from the hardware store will suffice.” Recipe for five gallon bucket of compost tea: This recipe was submitted by Microbeman, and according to the many growers who use ACT this creates great tea. Microbeman's 5 Gallon Compost Tea Recipe Percentages by volume of water, can be used for up to 300 gallons. - 2.38% compost and/or vermicompost = 2 cups - 0.5% black strap molasses = 95 ml = 6 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon - 0.063% fish hydrolysate = 2.5 teaspoons The

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An ACT with a full range of microbe groups is obtainable by using quality compost or vermicompost and black strap molasses alone. Always be sure that the black strap molasses does not have added sulfur. Humic acid in any amount is not recommended as it appears to inhibit all microbial growth in a liquid. Save it to use separately on your soil. •Humic Acid: Any of various organic acids obtained from humus. •Fulvic Acid: A yellow to yellow-brown humic substance that is soluble in water under all pH conditions. OPTIONAL INGREDIENTS - 0.25% maximum kelpmeal = 3.2 or 3 tablespoons (this is using regular livestock grade kelpmeal; be aware that kelpmeal can delay microbial division so it can lengthen the time period for brewing.) - 0.063% soft rock phosphate = 2.5 teaspoons (this can be turned to a fine powder with a coffee grinder; it is a judgment call whether to use soft rock phosphate, due to the possibility of polonium 210 content; the only reason to use it is that there appears to be a group of bacteria promoted by it.) - 0.25% maximum alfalfameal = 3 tablespoons – can usually be purchased at the livestock feed store; will promote the growth of protozoa (flagellates) and fungi. - A few tablespoons of Canadian Sphagnum peatmoss will promote bacteria, protozoa and fungi to varying degrees dependent on where it was harvested. Premier The

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Brand (promoss) and Alaska Peat harvested in Alberta are both excellent choices. A good air pump for a 5 gallon compost tea maker is the Eco Commercial Air 1. They are long lasting and inexpensive. It is better to not use the brass nipple provided as this reduces air flow drastically. Cut some grooves with a hack saw into the stubby nipple and clamp a larger size air tubing tightly over this. The grooves give the tubing something to grip to. For optimum results, you should brew this tea for a minimum of 18 to 24 hours to get the bacteria growing. Fungal growth comes after a bit more brewing, 30 to 36 hours. Using a microscope will show you active bacteria and colonies of fungus. Tim Miller of ‘Microbe Organics’ says that when “brewed for 30 to 36 hours ... there will be flagellates and amoebae (& some ciliates) as well, providing a functioning microbial consortia which is better for nutrient cycling in the soil/root interface.” For more research you may want to visit the Living organic soil from the start through recycling thread started by Gascanastan. The bottom line is this “The compost tea brewing technique, an aerobic process, extracts and grows populations of beneficial microorganisms. This is especially important if soil has been subjected to chemical-based pesticides, fumigants, herbicides, and some synthetic fertilizers that kill a wide range of beneficial microorganisms that encourage plant The

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growth. Compost tea improves life in the soil and on plant surfaces.” (From the California Department of Recycling Website.)

Five Soil Recipes

Here are four detailed recipes for making your own organic living soil, from site members Gascanastan, Vonforne, Scrappy, ClackamasCootz and Cann. Gascanastan says that these are all excellent soil recipes that can be used and recycled forever. Compost is superior over ANY commercial brand of soil. Creating your own compost not only gives you a superior end result, you also pick up the local diversity of insects, bacterium, and fungi that are so important to any plant, let alone cannabis. BurnOne, a moderator at ICMag tells us he likes a “grow medium rich in humates and hungry bacteria. Usually supplied by peat and worm castings.” He goes on to say that “drainage is crucial to this plant. I use perlite but also some use rice hulls.” His big reminder is that soil should have a “proper balance of N-P-K supplied by organic nutrients. Some of the best are Alfalfa meal for nitrogen and Kelp meal for potassium. Guano and bone meal for phosphorous, calcium and magnesium. These are crucial for our plants as well. I like powdered dolomite lime but others use oyster shells and other natural sources. It must be quick release though. And the most important thing... patience."

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Gascanastan’s Recipe 3 to 4 gallons regular peat moss (with no additives) NOTE: if the topsoil,compost, Earth Worm Castings (EWC) being used in your batch look too wet or muddy use 4 gallons) 1 gallon high-quality earthworm castings 1 gallon local high-quality topsoil screened for this potting mix 2 or more gallons small and/or medium sized pumice, perlite, or lava rock 1 gallon vermiculite 2 gallons coco husk fiber, rinsed well and fully hydrated 1 gallon leaf litter or forest duff screened for this potting mix 1 gallon high-quality compost 1/2 gallon screened clay or bentonite 1/2 cup Three-Part lime mix: 1 part powdered dolomite lime 1 part agricultural gypsum 2 parts powdered oyster shell Optional amendments: 2 cups crab shell meal 4 cups Acadian kelp meal 4 cups fish meal or bat guano 4 cups fish bone meal 1 cup sul-po-mag aka langbeinite 2 cups neem seed meal or karanja seed meal 1 cup alfalfa Mix all ingredients together, then fill your pots with mix. The

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Now make enough Aerated Compost Tea to saturate the mix in each pot until it is thoroughly moist. Let this sit undisturbed for at least 3 to 4 weeks before planting. This is important in order to break down the un-composted amendments for use by the plants. Longer periods of rest are even better, make sure you keep the soil moist, but not wet. Vonforne's Recipe My base mix is in 50 gallon lots Peat, either Premier from Home Depot or Pro mix from Menard´s Perlite Pumice (Natures footprint) and Napa 8822 20% EWC (mine) 10% Compost (on the first mix I used Composted Steer Manure from my buddies farm) Bio-char (Royal Oak or Cowboy brand) Lime mix - Gypsum, Crushed Oyster shell (from feed store used as scratch), Coral calcium and Dolomite lime. Also added were Glacial rock dust and Azomite. Later when I cycled the soil I added Rock Phosphate. Dried amendments-when I finish a cycle I re-amend with various mixes The

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of these based on what I think the soil needs. Usually just by using handfuls. :) Alfalfa (from feed store) Kelp meal (from feed store) N guano, fish meal, neem meal and Alfalfa P guano, fish bone meal When I used the larger containers I would add handfuls of worms from the bin and place a lid with holes on it. Set it off to the side and let them do their work adding ACT every so often making sure the soil was kept moist. I would also add shrimp and crab meal during this time. Scrappy4's Recipe Here is the mix that I’m currently using. I continue to use the same mix and using ‘no till’ recycle I have added comfrey leaves, neem meal, crab meal in small amounts. I feed with mostly botanical based teas, or FPE’s of comfrey, alfalfa meal, nettles, dandelion, borage, mullein, neem meal, kelp meal, and yarrow. Like Gascanastan said it just keeps getting better. 1 3 cf bag of premier mix ($9 at home depot, it is pro mix without any additives) The

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1 cf of used pro mix soil 2 cf of homemade thermo compost .5 cf of perlite 2 -.5 cf bags of lava rock 6 cups of espoma's bio tone starter 3 cups alfalfa meal 3 cups kelp meal 3 cups crab meal 2 cups of a 50/50 mix of neem cake and karanja cake For minerals I mix 1 cup of soft rock phosphate, 1 cup of oyster shell, 1 cup gypsum, 3/4 cup of sul po mag, 1 cup of Azomite ClackamasCootz's Recipe Equal parts of Sphagnum peat moss, some aeration deal (pumice, rice hulls, lava rock - whatever is sitting in the garage) and finally some mix of humus - my compost, worm castings, and some black leaf mold I bought from the local ‘worm guy.’ To each 1 cubic foot of this mix I add the following: 1/2 cup organic Neem meal 1/2 cup organic Kelp meal 1/2 cup Crab meal (or Crustacean meal when available - it has Shrimp meal with the Crab meal. It’s a local product from the fisheries on the Oregon & Washington Coasts) 4 cups of some minerals - rock dust After the plant is in the final container I top-dress with my worm castings at 2” or so and then I hit it with The

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Aloe Vera juice and Comfrey extract. Or Borage. Or Stinging Nettle. Or Horsetail ferns. Whatever is ready. That’s it. To recycle I’ve just been letting the root ball breakdown and I remove it. I dump the potting soil into an extra large SmartPot container (50 gallons) and add some new potting soil mix as above. I water it down with Kelp meal and Comfrey tea and let it sit until I need it. Ain’t rocket science......CC Cann's Method Roughly following Cootz method combine: 25% Earthworm Castings (EWC) or compost 25% pumice/rice hulls 50% sphagnum (hydrated) Additives per cu.ft. of base mix: 5 cups rock dust mix (4x glacial, 1x basalt, 1x bentonite, 1x oyster shell) 1/2 cup gypsum 1/2 cup neem/karanja meal 1/2 cup crab shell meal 1/2 cup kelp meal 1 cup biochar Mix and use! The

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A rose by any other name... Story and Photos by Iffy

Weed. A word we use every day in our hobby to describe this plant we love to grow. However, to me the word weed conjures up a nuisance plant that springs up between the cracks of my patio. Dig it, spray it, nuke it - it keeps coming back! In stark comparison, compare how we pamper our ‘WEED’. The investment in time & money alone can quickly get beyond reason, quite apart from the emotional investment and the grey hairs we collect along the way. So you’ve decided to build a growroom and join in the fun? Then expect to give up; • Time with the wife & children. •Any other hobby/pastime. Expect to spend: Many hours of planning, drawing & research. $$$/£££’s worth of building supplies, including; boarding, timber, thermal materials, plumbing, wiring, ducting, sealant, reflective sheeting, screws, hooks & brackets etc etc. Hours of building, cutting, screwing, cursing, unscrewing & starting again (after cleaning up the blood). The

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And now for the equipment! Choose from the dizzying array of shiny and colourful items on offer online, Ebay et-al, as it’s time to dig deep and buy the basic hydroponic kit. Growing tables, containers, pipework, plant pots, specialised growing media & exotic soil mixes. High Intensity Discharge lights and associated ballasts, Metal Halide/Compact Fluorescent/LED, or indeed a mix of all these! Air cooled reflectors and associated fans & ducting. Exhaust fans & charcoal filters, input fans & oscillating fans. Timers & control equipment for the same. Water chiller, Air Con unit. Water pumps & air pumps, thermometers, hygrometers, EC Wand, PH Tester & associated calibrating fluids. Measuring jugs, syringes & pipettes. Protective clothing & cleaning equipment, the list is literally endless and we haven’t got to the real ‘money spinner’ yet; Nutrients. You’re going to want to capitalise on your substantial investment thus far and purchase the best food for your plants! Again the list is endless and mindboggling! Organic or Non-organic? One part, two part or three part nutrients? What additives will I need? - now you’re about to open Pandora’s Box! The

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Additives. You can treat your precious plants to a myriad of differing additives from; carbohydrates to fungus, silica to bacteria, acid to alkali, seaweed to aspirin and so on... and on. Pest & Disease control. Another plethora of treatments & additives are offered for anything from Botrytis (root rot) to Brown Slime. Mites, aphids, fungus gnats and all manner of creepy crawlies are attracted to your plants to either munch on the lush leaves, or to bury their progeny in your roots. You may eschew a chemical solution and choose a different route, to invest in even more creepy crawlies for your garden. You can choose from a whole range of ‘off the shelf’ predator insects. Specialised, targeted and purposely bred species of insects that you introduce to your garden so that they can do what they do - feed on your infestation. What about your next grow? You’re going to need a tent for your mother if you plan to grow clones. And associated fans, filters & ducting. You will also need a heated propagator to bring on your cuttings - oh and some lighting, a fan... you get the picture?! We dont grow weed. We grow a highly specialised plant, bred specifically for certain properties & medicinal benefits. An ancient plant that has undergone recent decades of selection & cross breeding. More selection, back crossing and The

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then even more selection. The list of strains & hybrids on offer from seed banks around the world now are dazzling to say the least. Millions are spent annually on research & devlopment in equipment, nutrients & additives for this hallowed, even revered plant. We grow it in sealed, often sterile rooms that look more like laboratories than gardening sheds. Our blessed plants reside on cozy, custom made beds, relaxing in fine company. Breathing an exotic mixture of gasses and slurping on the very finest liquid food a plant has ever experienced, oh and at just the right temperature! Bathed in a glorious spectrum of warm light, cossetted, pruned, washed and simply lavished with love. I think its time we stopped referring to Marijuana as a weed and called it something else. Something that reflects her global adoration and cultivation. A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet. I’ll leave it to others to come up with that name, maybe she’ll always be called - weed, I hope not as somehow it just doesn’t do her justice.

Gorilla Glue from Unclefishstick The

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Food for thought... by ZeppelinRules

It’s always been a dream of mine to have an article grace the pages of a bonafide and respectable publication such as The International Cannagraphic. I’ve been writing for various web sites since I was 15 years old. Now, as I look back, most of that was little more than preaching to the choir. Over the past few days, however, I’ve been racking my brain for a topic worthy of almost everyone’s favorite psychedelic refuge. I want to write something that’s not a typical attempt to dispel the myths about marijuana and it’s side effects. It’s no feeble task, but one topic stands out in my mind.

Ducksfoot from Donald Mallard. The

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My introduction to marijuana was most likely the same as yours. It concerned a classroom, a lecture from a friendly neighborhood police officer, and a very plainspoken pamphlet disseminating the evils of the plant. Needless to say there were no facts and no sources, quite simply you became a lethargic and reclusive looser. Back then it was on our shoulders to weigh the pros and cons. Strangely enough, they never told us about the pros. Even to this day the spin on the argument is that it’s a stack of cons versus simply ‘fitting in’. The problem is that those who oppose it simply cannot grasp the wide array of things that this plant has to offer; they’ve never learned to appreciate such things. Yet before we go and accuse these people of ‘missing the point’ we also have to acknowledge that many people who partake in this hobby, even regularly, are equally as guilty. This past summer I found myself working at a wilderness camp for children. For the most part it taught the sorts of skills that one would expect from such a place: canoeing, kayaking, hiking etc. There was also an emphasis on personal development, especially in relation to the surrounding wilderness. That’s where I come in. For the second half of the summer I was the ‘spiritual guru’ of the camp. I was given free reign of an old chapel left from when the camp was still a Catholic endeavor, and also the responsibility of delivering a sort of sermon to the whole camp every night. The amazing thing, however, is that I found myself teaching these kids many of the same things that I had learned directly from marijuana. The

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NL5 Haze by Payaso The realizations that I had come to in many of my past experiences with the drug had found their way into my nightly speeches. It not only added insight, it also made it interesting. Furthermore, it forced me sit down and seriously consider how much marijuana has given me in the ways of insight and practical wisdom. I quickly realized that I owe a quite a bit of who I am and how I’ve turned out to this much antagonized flower. Occasionally people will joke about the acute positive effects of marijuana, but little credit is given to the drug for the positive things that people have been able to do with the realizations and insights gained. The late Carl Sagan, the world famous astronomer and exobiologist, claimed that he owed much to marijuana for its role in giving him some of his best ideas: The

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“I can remember one occasion, taking a shower with my wife while high, in which I had an idea on the origins and invalidities of racism in terms of Gaussian distribution curves. It was a point obvious in a way, but rarely talked about. I drew curves in soap on the shower wall, and went to write the idea down. One idea led to another, and at the end of about an hour of extremely hard work I found I had written eleven short essays on a wide range of social, political, philosophical, and human biological topics.... I have used them in university commencement addresses, public lectures, and in my books.” If marijuana is no more than a deleterious drug then humanity will have to simply ignore both of the Voyager Satellites, The Viking Lander Probes, the knowledge that Jupiter’s moon Europa is covered with oceans, much of the current information regarding seasonal changes on Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn’s moon Titan, and the movie ‘Contact’. We can never know exactly which ideas to attribute to his highs but he made very clear that marijuana aided him with some of his best. From this one person alone it can be argued that cannabis has done a great deal for humankind. Yet, one doesn’t need to work for NASA to be able to share the benefits of the drug with the world. Anecdotal evidence from any responsible individual user can sometimes be enough to justify the hobby and outweigh the cons. About a month ago I was approached at random by a customer at work. She explained that she was from out of town and discretely asked if I could help her find some marijuana. I quietly offered to smoke with The

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her if she came back when my shift was over. I then promptly resumed working and started thinking about how stereotypical my appearance must be for that to have just happened. What started as a bizarre introduction quickly turned into one of the most fruitful friendships I’ve yet had. At the time I was struggling with some very existential questions concerning life, meaning, direction and so on. That very first night we shared a joint and conversed for hours. The insights we shared, the conversation we had, and the high itself brought to me a very interesting take on my whole ordeal. I am now starting to look at the high as somewhat of a model or microcosm of life in general. Unarguably a high is a sensory experience, sometimes a very intense one at that. It enables you to experience and further enjoy the seemingly mundane things that we so often take for granted. It makes us fall in love with things as simple as the feeling of the shirt on ones back and the feeling of the air in ones lungs. Looking at the bigger picture however - life, the five senses, and how everything ties together through consciousness - it can be argued that life itself is generally a sensory experience. One can in turn postulate that the meaning of life is simply to experience. Some may scoff at such an explanation as too simple, or even nihilistic, but I argue that it’s not. The task, then, is to refuse to take anything for granted. This includes even the simplest of patterns on the snow, the faintest smell in the air, even the very The

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rhythm of our footsteps. All can be experienced and appreciated, yet are usually overlooked and ignored. Marijuana helps enormously with this type of thinking. Granted, it’s most obvious during a high, but even when not under the influence I find myself admiring beauty where there once was none. I was once completely incapable of appreciating visual art. I even thought something was wrong with me because of it. I’ve since learned to fully appreciate and understand it, again with the help of cannabis. I have never, in all my years of smoking, tried any drug other than cannabis and I really have no desire to at the moment. While it is a nice shot at the Gateway theory, I found that it left me with some questions about how marijuana compares to other psychedelics. Why do so many people continue to ‘come home’ to cannabis? A close friend of mine once explained it to me like this: “While other drugs may be stronger and you may gain more insight in a single high, nothing compares to the collective wisdom gained from regular marijuana use.” Nothing. Now regardless of how abstract and perhaps even silly the above ideas would seem to some people, they still hold a monumental amount of meaning for me. At my young age I feel as if I’ve found the meaning of life to a certain extent, or more aptly how to add meaning to my life. I now realize what I want to get out of it. It’s always been a desire of mine to ‘see the world’ but now I realize that ‘seeing the world’ has more to do with opening your eyes than anything. I’ll certainly The

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be moving in a more positive direction thanks to such wisdom, and I owe it largely to cannabis. Now there will always be people who will vehemently oppose everything I’ve written here, especially the basic idea that marijuana can be a positive thing at all. I’m also sure there are some people who would just as well dismiss it all as the rambling of a crazed lunatic with a joint in his mouth. To be honest I’m not too worried about such inevitable opinions because crazy or not, it works.

Sour Bubble by PureKnowledge. The

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