Most people under 60 aren't aware of this, but up until '67, almost no one in the US smoked pot.
Gang members, beatniks and musicians, that was about it.
Then Bob Dylan and the San Francisco bands (Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, many others) came out and said they smoked pot.
I grew up around Hollywood. My first encounter with marijuana was in late '65. I knew some proto-hippies and stopped by their house one evening.
There was about 6 of them sitting around, the 3 guys I knew and 3 I didn't (1 of them was Booker T, who had several hits in the early 60's).
Anyway as I sat down (on the floor; they had no furnature) I smelled something terrible.
"Hey what's that smell?" I asked.
"We don't smell nothing"
"I said I think something's on fire"
"No, nothings on fire."
Anyway, I was made to feel unwelcome and left a few minutes later.
In '67 this all changed. The Beatles came out and said they smoked pot.
Hey that was good enough for me. A friend in a motorcycle gang and I went looking for some one night and scored (after about 3 hours of looking, driving from place to place).
The very first time I got high was that night, and I knew I had found a lifelong friend.
For the first 6--9 months, all the weed we smoked was Acapulco Gold, still one of my top 3 strains of all time. Then as popularity skyrocketed what we got was what is now called mid's.
Up until then, cultivation of marijuana in the US (talking about pot here, NOT hemp) was also virtually unknown. A few beatnik's prob. grew a little in their backyard, and some gang members grew some along the railroad tracks (almost no one even knew what pot looked like).
When I operned my first bag I was like "Wow--seeds! Now I can grow my own!"
The next morning I planted my first seeds.
So hippie's started growing but most of the pot for sale in the US came from Mexico--I'd say like 95%.
In the 70's we started seeing pot from S. America--the legendary Columbian Gold, also in my top 3. I also saw weed from Jamaica and Africa.
But still, most weed came from Mexico.
Then along came tricky **** nixon, and interdiction, creation of the dea, and paraquat (a herbicide that was sprayed on the fields of pot in Mexico). There was suddenly less weed, and some growers would harvest their plants as soon as they were sprayed (before paraquat likked them) and people were getting seriously sick from smoking paraquat-sprayed weed. The direct result of these actions was people started leaning about how to grow their own.
Guerilla growing in the U.S. increased.
Indoor growing was possible under fluorescents back in those days, but it took the advent of HID's to really make it take off.
Indoor growing became an art form up around Washington and BC--because of the few sunny days (al least around Seattle, averaging 45 days on sunshine/year).
I don't know what pct. of the weed smoked in the U.S. is domestic nowadays. According to the dea, in '04 $1.5 BILLION (retail) worth of weed was grown in my neck of the woods (The Emerald Triangle in N. Calif).
I also know that tons of weed (schwag mainly) is coming in from Mexico and is plentiful in border states.
I opine that a slight majority of pot consumed in the US is grown in the US.
Gang members, beatniks and musicians, that was about it.
Then Bob Dylan and the San Francisco bands (Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, many others) came out and said they smoked pot.
I grew up around Hollywood. My first encounter with marijuana was in late '65. I knew some proto-hippies and stopped by their house one evening.
There was about 6 of them sitting around, the 3 guys I knew and 3 I didn't (1 of them was Booker T, who had several hits in the early 60's).
Anyway as I sat down (on the floor; they had no furnature) I smelled something terrible.
"Hey what's that smell?" I asked.
"We don't smell nothing"
"I said I think something's on fire"
"No, nothings on fire."
Anyway, I was made to feel unwelcome and left a few minutes later.
In '67 this all changed. The Beatles came out and said they smoked pot.
Hey that was good enough for me. A friend in a motorcycle gang and I went looking for some one night and scored (after about 3 hours of looking, driving from place to place).
The very first time I got high was that night, and I knew I had found a lifelong friend.
For the first 6--9 months, all the weed we smoked was Acapulco Gold, still one of my top 3 strains of all time. Then as popularity skyrocketed what we got was what is now called mid's.
Up until then, cultivation of marijuana in the US (talking about pot here, NOT hemp) was also virtually unknown. A few beatnik's prob. grew a little in their backyard, and some gang members grew some along the railroad tracks (almost no one even knew what pot looked like).
When I operned my first bag I was like "Wow--seeds! Now I can grow my own!"
The next morning I planted my first seeds.
So hippie's started growing but most of the pot for sale in the US came from Mexico--I'd say like 95%.
In the 70's we started seeing pot from S. America--the legendary Columbian Gold, also in my top 3. I also saw weed from Jamaica and Africa.
But still, most weed came from Mexico.
Then along came tricky **** nixon, and interdiction, creation of the dea, and paraquat (a herbicide that was sprayed on the fields of pot in Mexico). There was suddenly less weed, and some growers would harvest their plants as soon as they were sprayed (before paraquat likked them) and people were getting seriously sick from smoking paraquat-sprayed weed. The direct result of these actions was people started leaning about how to grow their own.
Guerilla growing in the U.S. increased.
Indoor growing was possible under fluorescents back in those days, but it took the advent of HID's to really make it take off.
Indoor growing became an art form up around Washington and BC--because of the few sunny days (al least around Seattle, averaging 45 days on sunshine/year).
I don't know what pct. of the weed smoked in the U.S. is domestic nowadays. According to the dea, in '04 $1.5 BILLION (retail) worth of weed was grown in my neck of the woods (The Emerald Triangle in N. Calif).
I also know that tons of weed (schwag mainly) is coming in from Mexico and is plentiful in border states.
I opine that a slight majority of pot consumed in the US is grown in the US.
