The Cannabible
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PUBLISHER’S NOTE
We take great care to ensure that the information included in this book is accurate and
presented in good faith, but no warranty is provided nor results guaranteed. This material
is intended for educational and entertainment purposes only. It is advisable to seek the
advice of a licensed, professional health-care provider for any condition that may require
medical attention.
Copyright © 2001 by Jason King
Photographs copyright © 2000 by Jason King
For more information, please visit Jason King’s website at www.thecannabible.com.
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of the
Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
www.tenspeed.com
Ten Speed Press and the Ten Speed Press colophon are registered trademarks of Random
House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
King, Jason, 1971–
The cannabible / Jason King; introduction by Robert Connell Clarke.
p. cm.
1. Cannabis. 2. Marijuana. I. Title.
SB295.C35 K56 2001
633.5’3—dc21 2001004451
eISBN: 978-1-60774-202-9
Cover design by Jeff Puda and Toni Tajima
v3.1
Author’s Note
Information included on the following pages regarding the lineage
of Cannabis strains is reported with as much certainty as is possible
in this elusive field of marijuana genealogy. Even the simple
question, Where does a strain come from? is tricky since its answer
totally depends on how far you wish to look back. When you really
get down to it, all marijuana is descendant from the one original
strain that God blessed us with, believed to have originated many
millennia ago somewhere in Central Asia or India. But through
thousands of years of natural selection and human intervention,
Cannabis has evolved into a truly infinite number of varieties. The
question is similar to asking a person where they are from. What is
really being asked here? Where were they born? Where is the last
place they lived for a long time? Where do they live now? Where
are their ancestors from? For example, Blueberry consists of strains
from Thailand and Afghanistan but it is now generally associated
with the Pacific Northwest, where it was bred; more and more,
Blueberry is also being associated with Amsterdam, where seeds are
sold by Dutch Passion Seed Company. In general, it is safe to assume
that if you are looking at an indica, it comes from Afghanistan, or
close to it. As far as sativas go, they can be from literally anywhere
else. Mostly what’s seen today are hybrids containing genes from
both the indica and sativa gene pools. So, unless otherwise stated,
information regarding where a strain is “from” indicates the area
that the strain is generally associated with now.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to: Creator, Jerry Garcia, Triple J Packin, Alan Dronkers &
Sensi Seeds, DJ Short, Blue Bird coffee shop, Ed Silver, Rob Clarke,
Meghan Keeffe and Annie Nelson—The C*Team, Phil Wood,
Greenhouse coffee shop, Cannabis Culture, Woody Harrelson, “K” at
Trichome Technologies, Mila, Todd McCormick, Jack Herer, Dave
Frankel, Ras Noah, Janegel, Ross, Mel Frank, Willow—my mentor,
Eddy I & Nicki, D&O, and all the others who couldn’t be named for
obvious reasons—you know who you are! Mahalo!
Table of Contents
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
Preface
Introduction: Sinsemilla Heritage—What’s in a Name?
BY ROBERT CONNELL CLARKE
Gallery
Index
Afterword
About the Author
Preface
IT’S 6 A.M. and the sound of roosters awakens me from my restful
sleep. The pakalolo—Hawaiian for “crazy weed”—we smoked last
night was so strong that I still feel stoned. After a breakfast of fresh
coconuts and mangoes, I roll up a fatty of Swahili—a pure sativa
from Africa—to complete my wake-and-bake ceremony. (Swahili is
my favorite morning bud, for it provides a soaring and energetic
high that never burns out.) I’m in the Puna District of Hawaii, and
today I will be climbing to the top of fifty-foot-tall rainforest trees,
strapped with forty pounds of fragile camera equipment, to
photograph the legendary Puna Blueberry. After hearing of my
project, the kind and trusting grower has agreed to take me to the
trees to photograph his magnificent crop. After about a mile of
hiking through mosquito-infested jungle, we finally reach the
location. I am asked to look up and try to spot the plants. A careful
scan of the rainforest canopy from below reveals nothing. “Exactly
my point,” says the grower, as he removes his sandals for the climb
up. I feel the tree; it’s wet and very slippery, even for a rainforest.
“Seems kind of dangerous, wouldn’t you say?” I ask. No answer. My
guide, loaded with four gallons of water, scurries up the wet tree
like a cat being chased. I make one last check of my gear, grab a wet
branch, and start climbing.
After twenty feet or so, my heart is pounding so hard that I can
hear it as I grab yet another branch. The tree is extremely slippery,
but through sheer determination to live, not damage my gear, and
most importantly, smoke some Blueberry, I make it to the top.
Helicopters can be heard in three different directions, so we stay
hidden in the canopy for a few minutes. I can already smell the
sweet blue fragrance of the fabled Blueberry, one of my favorite
strains for many years now. When the coast is clear, we pop our
heads up into the canopy to be greeted by ten beautiful “ladies”
soaking up the hot, tropical sunlight. One squeeze reveals that this
is the real Blueberry strain, a creation of breeder DJ Short.
Many factors influenced my decision to write this book. First and
foremost, I realized that for almost every other plant on earth, there
are books documenting the numerous varieties with color
photographs and descriptions. Why, I wondered, isn’t there a book
like this for our favorite plant? I was more disturbed when I
considered the diversity of the species in question. Cannabis grows
in every imaginable shade of color, with infinite shapes, flavors,
aromas, and effects. I have tasted more flavors in marijuana than in
food. This amazing plant needed to be seen in all its glory. And
urgently, because many of today’s Cannabis strains may soon be
extinct. Thus I decided to dedicate my life to properly documenting
(and sampling) the world’s finest Cannabis strains.
I packed my stuff and left the lovely island paradise of Kauai,
Hawaii, that I called home at the time. In California, I collected all
the necessary equipment for the job—a Canon EOS camera with a
ringlight, several professional-quality lenses, a high-powered
trinocular microscope, a 150-watt fiber-optic illuminator—and set
on my way. I wanted to learn photomicrography (microscope
photography). This was a serious challenge, as there was no school
within 1,000 miles. So, I bought my first microscope and learned the
hard way. Cannabis is extremely difficult to photograph under the
microscope because of its three-dimensionality. The depth of field
with a microscope is incredibly short, a fact that usually goes
unnoticed because most microscope specimens are sliced thin on a
slide, thus being virtually two-dimensional. This simply wouldn’t
work with Cannabis; squished onto a slide, the resin glands explode,
and it’s not very pretty. Eventually I had special optics designed for
my microscope to increase the depth of field. Five hundred rolls of
film and nearly five years later, I am on my fifth microscope and
this one works beautifully.
In the five years since I began this project, it seems to have
snowballed into an entire career. Phone calls, letters, and e-mails
started coming from magazines and galleries around the world,
requesting articles, art, and photography—all on the subject of
Cannabis. I was more than happy to oblige, and began writing and
taking photographs for several cannabis magazines including
Cannabis Culture. I designed two cannabis-related clothing lines and
created an “Exotic Marijuana” poster. These were all blessings that
helped me get by while I traveled the globe, hunting down every
type of marijuana to be found.
In the first two years, I photographed well over a thousand
marijuana strains from all around the world. The problem was that
less than two hundred were identifiable and believable in their
reported lineage. Where a strain is from, where a particular sample
is grown, and where the sample was obtained are often completely
different factors. After four years, my list approached 1,500 strains
with reputable information on approximately 250. These strains
were consistently recognizable, meaning identifiable no matter
where or by whom they were grown. The Cannabible focuses on
these 250 varieties. I found them in North America, including
Hawaii and Canada, and Europe—with a major emphasis on
Amsterdam—the epicenters for the finest cannabis in the world.
Due to the illegality of marijuana, it was often very difficult, if not
impossible, to ascertain complete information about all of the
strains documented within the pages of this book. For example, let’s
say I came across a sample called Asian Fantasy. After questioning
the dealer, I found out that this is the name he assigned to it for
selling purposes. The guy he gets it from, the grower, calls it Triple
A. Further questioning reveals that this grower’s source, a man who
has had the strain for over twenty years, calls it Cambodian #8. One
can only guess what the natives in Cambodia call this strain.
I photographed marijuana everywhere from Amsterdam coffee
shops to school buses, from Cannabis Buyers Clubs to the inside of a
volcanic crater. These are the strains whose information I believe is
accurate or that were just so beautiful I wanted to share them. I
have worked diligently to get correct and current information,
consulting breeders, growers, seed companies, smokers, and anyone
else who seemed credible. And yet I often received conflicting
stories about the different varieties, even from the most
knowledgeable experts on the subject. I have sifted through this
information and hereby present what I believe to be the most
accurate strain descriptions anywhere. If you have more complete
information on any of these plants, please e-mail me at
cannabible@hotmail.com so I can include it in the next edition of
The Cannabible. Also, despite massive efforts, I was not able to
include scratch and sniffs in the book. Maybe next year. Happy
drooling!
SINSEMILLA HERITAGE: What’s in a
Name?
by Robert Connell Clarke
Introduction
Marijuana use has become commonplace across North America and
Europe. During the last two decades, domestic marijuana varietal
names such as Haze, Northern Lights, and Skunk have become
household words, while traditional imported products such as
Acapulco Gold, Colombian Wacky Weed, Panama Red, and Thai
Sticks have vanished. The diversity and quality of imported
marijuana and hashish have declined markedly. What happened to
these once-famous imports, and where did the new varieties come
from? The effects of exuberant law enforcement on limiting the
quality and variety of imported marijuana have been exceeded only
by greed on the part of producers and smugglers. A marijuana
trader makes a larger profit from selling a lot of lousy marijuana
than from a little, good stash. These conditions have led to the
widespread proliferation of the homegrown marijuana movement.
Fortunately, since 1980, Dutch marijuana seed companies have
made seeds of hybrid Cannabis drug varieties readily available to
growers everywhere. This has provided a great opportunity for
myriad growers to acquire high-potency varieties that were
previously unavailable. What follows is an encapsulation of the
mere twenty years of modern marijuana breeding history,
combining centuries of selections by indigenous farmers into
varieties for years to come.
What Is Marijuana Breeding?
Marijuana breeders are growers who breed new cultivars (cultivated
varieties) of marijuana. Only a very few marijuana growers create
new seeds, consciously selecting and breeding their best plants in an
effort to improve their varieties. The vast majority of marijuana
growers practice no selection at all, and grow seeds produced from
vegetative cuttings from selected female plants or even grow seeds
produced accidentally.
The life cycle of Cannabis presents several obstacles to
improvement by selective breeding. Male and female Cannabis
flowers usually occur on separate plants, and thus Cannabis plants
are generally incapable of self-pollinating. Self-pollinating is the
most effective means of fixing desirable traits, since the selected
genes are more likely to be represented in both the male pollen and
the female ovule if they are born on the same plant. In marijuana
breeding, the female genes controlling a selected trait must be
present in two separate individual plants, one male pollen parent
and one female seed parent. Both marijuana and hashish come from
strictly female plants. This makes it very difficult to recognize
potentially favorable traits hidden in male parents. All marijuana
varieties are wind-pollinated and intercross freely, so prospective
seed parents must be isolated to avoid stray pollinations until they
are to be pollinated with a selected male.
Due to the illegality and high visibility of marijuana cultivation,
growers prefer to limit the size of their gardens and the frequency of
their visits to observe the crops. This lowers the total number of
plants the breeder will have to choose from and limits the amount
of time that can be spent selecting prospective parents for breeding.
It is very difficult to breed marijuana successfully without a secure
and stable place to develop generation after generation of offspring.
When breeders lose their genetic base of seeds or cuttings, progress
stops dead. All said and done, North America is a rough playing
field for marijuana breeding.
History of Marijuana Breeding in North America
Varieties of marijuana originating in India have been grown
throughout the Caribbean and bordering coastal nations from
Mexico to Brazil since 1834, when the British brought indentured
Indian servants to their Caribbean colonies. Marijuana use did not
become illegal in America until 1937, and large-scale commercial
importation of hashish and marijuana into Europe and North
America did not commence until the early 1960s.
Marijuana growing began in North America during the 1960s. At
first, seeds cleaned from illicit shipments of marijuana were casually
planted by curious smokers. Sinsemilla (Spanish for “seedless”)
marijuana was almost unheard of. Nearly all domestically produced
marijuana that lacked seeds was immature, and mature marijuana
was fully seeded. Tropical varieties from Colombia and Thailand
grown in North America rarely matured before frosts killed them.
However, some of the tropical varieties regularly survived until
maturity in coastal Florida, Southern California, and Hawaii, where
the climate is warm and the growing season is long. Alternately,
subtropical Mexican and Jamaican varieties often matured outdoors
across the southern two-thirds of the United States. All of these
early introductions were called “sativas,” a common name derived
from the botanical name Cannabis sativa.
In the early 1970s, a handful of growers began to produce
sinsemilla. Seedless plants are created by removing male plants from
the fields, leaving only the unfertilized female plants to mature.
Instead of setting seeds in the first receptive flowers, the female
plants continue to produce copious additional flowers, covered by
hundreds of thousands of resin glands. By the mid 1970s, sinsemilla
was becoming the primary style of domestic marijuana production.
In 1976, a coffee-table book called Sinsemilla Marijuana Flowers by
Jim Richardson and Arik Woods revolutionized marijuana growing
in North America. Not only did the authors accurately and
sensitively portray the sinsemilla technique with their excellent text
and lavish color photographs, they made the first attempt to
describe the proper stages of floral maturity for an optimally potent
and tasty harvest. Most importantly, this publication, just twenty-
five years ago, suggested to growers that if marijuana can be grown
without seeds, it follows that select female flowers can also be
intentionally fertilized with select pollen to produce a few seeds of
