{"id":36805,"date":"2019-07-15T05:00:07","date_gmt":"2019-07-15T13:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2019\/07\/15\/the-flowering-of-the-u-k-underground\/"},"modified":"2019-07-15T12:40:16","modified_gmt":"2019-07-15T20:40:16","slug":"the-flowering-of-the-u-k-underground","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2019\/07\/15\/the-flowering-of-the-u-k-underground\/","title":{"rendered":"The Flowering of the U.K. Underground"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Try to imagine a world in which cannabis as North
\nAmericans know it \u2014 green trees, sticky flowers, colas caked with trichomes \u2014 did
\nnot exist. Not in a store (this is before legalization) and not from the
\nconnection in your phone, or in anyone else\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Now try to imagine attempting to get high there.<\/p>\n

Picture this dystopia and then picture as your lone cannabis option \u2014 eighths of \u201csoapbar hash,\u201d blocks broken off of \u201cnine bars\u201d (just what it sounds like: a nine-ounce bar) \u201cwith bits of plastic and all sorts of other nasty extras mixed in,\u201d as @merlins.beard_<\/a> on Instagram, recalled \u2014 and you have an idea of an average cannabis user\u2019s life in the United Kingdom through the 1990s and well into the 2000s.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is all the common man could get back in the day until actual flower appeared,\u201d the man behind Merlin\u2019s Beard, a London-based photographer who is tightly plugged into the scene and who did not wish to reveal his real name, told Cannabis Now recently.<\/p>\n

To say times have changed, dramatically, is an
\nunderstatement. With the right connections, a head in London can now access
\nflower that, according to the photographer, is better than the tourist-level
\nofferings in Amsterdam and even Barcelona. And, in a comment that is sure to
\nrankle growers running lights a world away, he even deemed it \u201cas good as
\nanything from Cali.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Flow of Flower<\/h4>\n

U.K. cannabis consumers can also access cannabis that is absolutely as good as anything from California<\/a> \u2014 because it is from California. According to Instagram entrepreneurs as well as authorities, there is a steady flow of cannabis to the U.K. from legal American states on the West Coast. If this sounds at all morally questionable, consider: According to police, as well as a lengthy investigation in the Guardian<\/a>, \u201cmost\u201d illicit cannabis sold on the street in the U.K. is grown by organizations that traffic humans into the country from overseas, who are then forced to live lives of imprisonment and isolation, tending to growhouses.<\/p>\n

Having an alternative to all that, then, is important.
\nFor that to happen, more important than the flow of flower is the flow of seeds
\nand clones. These move in the usual ways: A few seeds from Amsterdam popped, a
\ncut cloned and mothered, cut again and shared with friends or traded with the
\nlike-minded.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"
MAC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

In this way, British cultivators and aficionados have
\nbuilt up a strain library on par with their counterparts in more permissive
\ncountries. These days, \u201cthe genetics we are open to is unreal,\u201d Merlin\u2019s Beard said.
\n\u201cThe U.K. is creating some flowers up there with the best cultivators in the
\nworld.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you know a grower in the U.K. or [have] access to
\nsomeone who knows a good grower, then you are going to be smoking weed as good
\nas Cali,\u201d he promised. \u201cObviously, we can\u2019t do what you Americans are doing\u2026
\nbut we can take the cut and cultivate professionally to the highest standards.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instagram-Era Smugglers<\/h4>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s literally gone from people being terrified and growing in a wardrobe to people setting up warehouse grows and five-bedroom houses and then selling their amazing work on social media apps,\u201d one cultivator, active on Instagram at @StickyIckyPharms<\/a>, said.<\/p>\n

This bright spot of progress, courtesy of risk-seeking
\nseed fanatics, international Instagram-era cannabis smugglers, bold underground
\ngrowers and enough citizen smokers willing to flout the law and join a growing
\nnumber of \u201csocial clubs,\u201d was a long time coming.<\/p>\n

And all of it is an exception to what\u2019s been a fairly
\nconstant prohibitionist rule.<\/p>\n

Even after significant advances in medical-cannabis policy reform in the past year \u2014 and despite a U.K.-based drug-maker, GW Pharmaceuticals<\/a>, marketing cannabis-based medicines worldwide and operating a massive cannabis farm in the southeast of London in order to produce them \u2014 the United Kingdom remains one of the more restrictive and punitive countries in Western Europe for cannabis.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"
A SFV OG x TK cross<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

And though cannabis remains exceedingly popular and
\nusers more confident and open, the U.K. also offers one of the only recent
\nexamples on record where authorities decided loosened marijuana restrictions
\nwere too much and rolled them back. Because, you see, reducing criminal
\npenalties on the world\u2019s most popular illicit drug simply \u201csent the wrong
\nmessage,\u201d as former Labour Party prime minister Tony Blair explained in 2005.<\/p>\n

The improvement on scrap-laden brick hash highlights
\njust how much further the country has to go to catch up to the United States
\nand Canada. The top-shelf flower enjoyed by the well-connected or the wealthy
\nheads is simply not affordable or available at all to most British cannabis
\nusers. This includes patients, who have been dealt arguably the cruelest hand.<\/p>\n

Want a Prescription? Don\u2019t Bother<\/h4>\n

As of Nov. 1,
\nlegal medical cannabis has been available to anyone in the United Kingdom with
\na prescription from an \u201cexpert doctor.\u201d <\/p>\n

Sajid David, the U.K.\u2019s Home Secretary and
\nhead of the national-level ministry that regulates law-enforcement and drug
\npolicy in the country, granted this concession after a successful shame
\ncampaign, triggered when customs officials seized an epileptic boy\u2019s
\nnon-intoxicating cannabis oil last June. <\/p>\n

Eventually, the U.K. could <\/em>see national-level legalization like Canada\u2019s \u2014 at least, that\u2019s the promise of a subsequent \u201creview\u201d of cannabis scheduling, in accord with the latest and best science that is currently underway.<\/p>\n

All of this is significant progress, and light-years beyond the hopes of most activists. In early 2018, medical marijuana advocates were still staging protests outside of Parliament. Now, they\u2019re taking meetings with ministers and MPs. And yet none of this is good enough, as patients and activists will tell you.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"
Mochi<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

For starters, they say there are very few \u201cspecialist\u201d doctors willing to write prescriptions. Those who will charge hundreds of pounds for the paperwork \u2014 \u00a0or \u201cmore than [the cost of] an ounce on the black market,\u201d said Greg de Hoedt, a prominent activist and chairman of United Kingdom Cannabis Social Clubs<\/a>, a loose network of underground sharing and smoking societies. <\/p>\n

De Hoedt suffers from Crohn\u2019s disease<\/a>, a debilitating condition that would qualify nearly anyone in the United States (where medical cannabis is available, at least) to access the drug. According to de Hoedt, he went to see his Crohn\u2019s specialist in December for a prescription and was denied.<\/p>\n

This is a common story, and it gets worse. Pain
\nspecialists in the National Health Service, the U.K.\u2019s vaunted (and, from an
\nAmerican perspective, fully preferable to exclusively market-based healthcare)
\npublic healthcare system, have gone as far as to post signs in offices
\ninstructing patients to not bother asking for a cannabis prescription.<\/p>\n

In sum, \u201cnothing has changed for patients,\u201d said Sarah
\nAlegra, a Londoner in her 20s who uses cannabis for a variety of ailments,
\nincluding pain relief. \u201cI don\u2019t even feel less criminalized for what I do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those without a connection to a grower or a club also take on
\nsignificant risk by cultivating cannabis for themselves. With few exceptions,
\npolice are eager to bust a cultivation operation, no matter how small.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust one plant is a risk,\u201d StickyIckyPharms wrote in an email. \u201cThe
\nscale that we are doing it on is a MASSIVE RISK.\u201d<\/p>\n

What About the Children?<\/h4>\n

Police forces often openly encourage citizens to report cannabis
\nsmells emanating from a neighbor\u2019s flat, activists say, and news of the latest
\nbust is a regular feature in U.K. print media \u2014 which itself is openly and
\nshamelessly encouraging reefer madness.<\/p>\n

A recent front-page story in the Daily Mail claimed a \u201cshocking toll\u201d of \u201cchildren
\nas young as 9\u201d among the 3,400 British citizens under 19 admitted to hospitals
\nwith marijuana-\u201ctriggered\u201d health concerns last year. And a prominent columnist
\nfor the same paper recently used his pulpit to declare, without data, that the \u201creal cause\u201d of
\nthe spate of knife violence in the U.K. is \u2014 what else? \u2014 cannabis. <\/p>\n

\n
\"\"
Gelato 33<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

The tenacity and zeal with which prohibition is clinging to British
\nsociety will be familiar to Americans who catch themselves waxing nostalgic for
\nany \u201cgood old days\u201d of outlaw cannabis culture \u2014 and will hopefully disabuse
\nthem of it.<\/p>\n

At the same time, criminal penalties for cannabis cultivation, possession and even sales are far less strident in the U.K. than in the U.S., where a Mississippi jury recently slapped an Oregon man driving through the state with his own supply (and no evidence of sales) with an eight-year prison term<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Compare that to the 12-year term handed down by a U.K. court for a crew that
\nsmuggled in an estimated 20 metric tonnes, the penalty for the biggest-ever
\nimport of cannabis into the country.<\/p>\n

Legality vs. Morality <\/h4>\n

So why grow at all? The answer is obvious even to the cynic and the
\nskeptic: This is what has always been done everywhere cannabis is illegal. For
\nStickyIcky and others like him, the answer is moral.<\/p>\n

The underground London cultivator makes available CBD-rich edibles,
\nTHC tinctures, and full-spectrum plant oil \u2014 in other words, exactly the kind
\nof offerings extremely sick patients the world over need in order to find
\nrelief from a spectrum of ailments: Cancer, pain, Crohn\u2019s. The works.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we all already know,\u201d he told us, \u201ccannabis heals.\u201d<\/p>\n

TELL US<\/strong>, which country\u2019s cannabis culture are you curious about? <\/p>\n

Originally published in Issue 37 of Cannabis Now. LEARN MORE<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

The post The Flowering of the U.K. Underground<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n


\n
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Try to imagine a world in which cannabis as North Americans know it \u2014 green trees, sticky flowers, colas caked with trichomes \u2014 did not exist. Not in a store (this is before legalization) and not from the connection in your phone, or in anyone else\u2019s. Now try to imagineContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":36806,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,3157,690,85,1186,10190,90,415,1572],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36805"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36805"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36807,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36805\/revisions\/36807"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}