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In a world of pot pantheons, one must be exceptional to be crowned \u201cThe King of Cannabis.\u201d Arjan Roskam, founder of the Green House Brands empire holds this moniker, thanks to a heady mix of being a passionate proponent for the plant and his tenacity for growing phenomenal phenos that rise well above the norm.<\/p>\n
In an exclusive, wide-ranging conversation that covers everything from world leaders to exciting new cultivars, I catch up with the busy Roskam, who\u2019s looking fit and rested from his home in Spain.<\/p>\n
Roskam leads myriad cannabis ventures that have flourished for more than three decades and the magnitude of this magnate\u2019s influence and connections isn\u2019t to be underestimated.<\/p>\n A natural entrepreneur, his kingdom includes Green House Seed Company (GHSC), Green House Coffeeshops, Green House Feeding, Green House Kitchen, GH Medical and the revolutionary Strain Hunters <\/em>documentary series. He held the Netherland\u2019s first federal grow license for pharmacies for the Stichting Institute of Medical Marijuana. And his quest for the planet\u2019s rarest genetics has enabled scientific research into rare landrace strains\u2014potentially unlocking untold medical advancements. He\u2019s an ardent advocate for legalization and works with governments around the world to achieve that goal.<\/p>\n Born in Holland and raised in Zambia, Africa, Roskam\u2019s journey to reefer royalty began when he was 17 while Young Roskam had no idea how prophetic those words would come to be.<\/p>\n In 1992, together with his wife Rose, he opened his first coffee shop, Green House Pijp, also known as The Green House, on The Tolstraat in Amsterdam. Fittingly, the area is known as the city\u2019s Diamond District. Rose, an interior designer, created an airy, artistic space that was deliberately different from the style and vibe of Amsterdam\u2019s existing coffee shops. Today, Green House Pijp continues to be a regular stop for A-list celebrities.<\/p>\n I ask Roskam about the now legendary event that changed everything: the day in January 1993 that High Times,<\/em> the groundbreaking counter-culture journal of its day, went to Roskam\u2019s coffee shop and asked him to take part in a cannabis competition they were sponsoring.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy not?\u201d Roskam recalls saying. \u201cThe owners told me they\u2019d come with maybe 100-200 people in November during the Thanksgiving holiday, to celebrate the first cannabis competition. We had totally forgotten about it when, suddenly, November arrived and 500 people appeared at my front door.\u201d Not just customers, but international media, too.<\/p>\n That first year, Roskam won multiple awards, including the top prize in the coffee shop category. Naturally, people began asking for seeds.<\/p>\n In 1995, Roskam launched Green House Seed Company and, together with his team of master cultivators, has continued to produce cultivars with exceptional cannabinoid levels and unique terpene profiles. To date, GHSC has won dozens of worldwide accolades\u2014a testament to the legendary genetics Roskam and his team have amassed in almost four decades.<\/p>\n These accomplishments have made GHSC the crown jewel of cannabis genetics, home to rare and popular varietals including Himalayan Gold and White Widow, the most popular cultivar of the 1990s. By happenstance, White Widow was my favorite strain as a young adult living in London during that decade. I loved its hazy, euphoric buzz that helped me tap into my creative flow when I was at art school.<\/p>\n Super Lemon Haze is, arguably, Roskan\u2019s most celebrated\u2014and what he credits as being \u201cprobably the most famous strain ever.\u201d He tells me that he\u2019s a Sativa guy and that his favorite cultivar is Hawaiian Snow\u2014a Hawaiian Sativa x Laos cross with an uplifting high.<\/p>\n Our conversation then turns to the hot topic of the last couple of years.<\/p>\n In December 2020, the Dutch government introduced a strict lockdown throughout the entire country following a rapid rise in COVID cases. I ask Roskam about how it affected his businesses and he recalls the events that transpired.<\/p>\n \u201cThe prime minister went live on television at 4pm and two hours later, the whole country was shut down,\u201d he says. \u201cAcross the whole of Holland, hundreds of people were lining up outside coffee shops and street dealers were handing out pamphlets with prices of cocaine, ecstasy and God knows what to everybody waiting in the line. This was of course, very, very visible to everybody. The Justice Minister panicked and called all the mayors the next day to pull it back. We were told, \u2018You\u2019re essential, now reopen immediately.\u2019 So, we reopened for takeaway-only and that went on for a while and then we instituted the one-and-a-half-meters distance policy. We had screens in our shop and all that kind of stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n For Roskam, this period presented an opportunity to really utilize the time and reset his goals\u2014both at home and further afield.<\/p>\n Initially, he took the opportunity to remodel all five of his coffee shops for the first time in 27 years. Roksam explains that his style of coffee shop was still from an era when hash bars had to be at the back of the store \u201cbecause it wasn\u2019t allowed to be visible from the street under law.\u201d Fortunately, his team included people that were handy with tools, including a plasterer, a carpenter and a plumber. \u201cWe had everything in-house,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Then, he reframed GHSC, which Roksam claims was needed because he\u2019d been working in the Congo, Canada and was busy with other projects for the past decade. Together with Dust Lion, the head grower and breeder for GHSC, he started making new strains by crossing Old World with New World genetics. My pupils almost dilate with heady pleasure as he tells me details of the 20 to 25 new varietals in the pipeline.<\/p>\n Roskam then surprises me by revealing that in March 2022, Green House ended its partnership with Canopy Growth Corporation\u2014Canada\u2019s largest licensed producer of cannabis with globe-spanning operations\u2014that had been in place since 2017. The fact that he quietly did this speaks volumes.<\/p>\n The split from Canopy is seismic news, potentially signaling more downturns for the dominant multiple state operators (MSOs) running in Canada and in the US. Overproduction is choking demand and sending prices, stocks and confidence ever downward. MSOs have been gobbling up the majority market share in newly legal markets including Connecticut, New York and New Jersey, which is proving to be detrimental to smaller, social equity license holders.\u00a0<\/p>\n Roskam says he decided that it was time to \u201creset some programs that were running and that we also wanted to be out of the deal because we don\u2019t agree with their business model,\u201d noting, however, that it was \u201ca happy divorce.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe came out of this COVID period doing new things, basically with a new wind,\u201d he tells me with a smile and a purposeful tone.<\/p>\n Roskam\u2019s commitment to creating cannabis fit for a king extends beyond cultivation. He has spearheaded advocacy work that\u2019s led to unprecedented changes to draconian laws. He advises many governments around the world\u2014including Colombia, Macedonia and, most recently, Thailand\u2014on how to best move forward with cannabis legalization.<\/p>\n Until recently, Thailand had some of the most stringent anti-drug laws in the world, but in June 2022 it became the first country in Southeast Asia to decriminalize cannabis for medical and other purposes. The Thai government recently gave away one million cannabis plants to citizens so registered households can cultivate up to six plants to sell. Recreational use, however, remains illegal, but the government also aims to release around 4,000 cannabis prisoners.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve spent a lot of time in Thailand and we chat freely about our mutual love for the beautiful country\u2014Roskam tells me he attended the very first Full Moon Party more than a quarter century ago in Ko Pha-ngan. When I bring up Thailand\u2019s recent 180-degree turn from lock-up to liberation, Roskam became clearly animated. He pulled out his iPhone and scrolled through a shocking number of messages that he claimed to be between him and Thai government officials.<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t say too much, he tells me, clearly pleased with the role he played in shifting policy so dramatically, \u201cbut what I can say is that we\u2019re one of the forces behind this. My team went to Thailand three times and we advised the Thai government on how to take care of this.\u201d<\/p>\n With his global perspective and place in helping to change laws, I ask about his perception of the US and the country\u2019s drawn-out move toward federal legalization. What he said next made me nearly fall off my chair.<\/p>\n \u201cFor me, it was a total surprise that Donald Trump didn\u2019t pull the cards eight weeks before the election, because we were lobbying like crazy,\u201d he says casually. \u201cWe told him to pull that card because he\u2019d get re-elected, but he didn\u2019t. Through his famous daughter [Ivanka Trump] and son-in-law [Jared Kushner], we had some people there. But I don\u2019t know what went wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Is the self-proclaimed King of Cannabis saying that legalizing weed could have helped Trump win the 2020 election? Roskam came across as resolute as he has been on everything. But it stopped me in my tracks. Would legalizing cannabis have moved the needle enough to get him reelected? I understand if you need a minute to process. I\u2019ll wait\u2026<\/p>\n After taking a quiet moment to absorb the steady flow of breaking news Roskam is casually dropping, I start to wonder what\u2019s left for him to do, and in a broader context, what\u2019s the lasting legacy of Green House.<\/p>\n He tells me that the company\u2019s impact is much more than great genetics.<\/p>\n \u201cI started making cannabis movies in 2006,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019ve traveled my whole life\u2014I grew up in Africa and have been everywhere and I thought, \u2018You know what, let\u2019s show the world what\u2019s really going on, with 200 million poor people around the equator, depending on marijuana\u2019. In Africa, kids can\u2019t go to school because they have to guard the cattle, because if they don\u2019t, the cattle will eat the vegetables and the whole family will starve. I thought it was a very important thing to show. At the same time, we were going into countries to show how really ridiculous the system was. One example is Colombia where it\u2019s now legal. After we left, the Colombian president told the BBC: \u2018I\u2019m not going to put people in prison anymore for an ounce of weed\u2014it doesn\u2019t make sense anymore.\u2019 Exactly.\u201d<\/p>\n At this point, Roskam\u2019s teenage son\u2014who has just returned from boarding school\u2014comes into the room. Roskam excuses himself from our conversation while he focuses his attention on his son and the two have a brief exchange in their native tongue. Just after his son leaves the room, Roskam tells me about his children\u2019s plan to take over the family business one day\u2014his eldest daughter is currently Green House Brand\u2019s creative director\u2014adding some healthy sibling rivalry.<\/p>\n We get back onto the topic of activism and Roskam\u2019s role in changing the perception of cannabis.<\/p>\n \u201cBeing an activist and creating awareness for cannabis, together with great genetics, of course, was our main focus all the time,\u201d Roskam says. \u201cGiving seminars, doing interviews with CNN\u2014it\u2019s actually the package\u2014what we try to show people is what makes us different. Also, our dispensaries are quite different from most dispensaries. It\u2019s more of a smoke experience. We like people to sit down and enjoy themselves. The Dutch coffee shop system is the only system in the world where you\u2019d see a Chinese guy, a Black guy, a white guy and an Eskimo all at one table, smoking a joint and sharing their social life. This, of course, is a really good thing, you know, to bring all these people together. And that\u2019s one of the few places in the world where this happens.\u201d<\/p>\n For more than 15 years, Roskam had an idea brewing for a show that investigated cannabis on a global scale, enlightening viewers while removing those all-familiar, outdated stigmas associated with the plant. Launching in 2008, the show became a series of documentaries called Strain Hunters.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Together with his close friend and GHSC master cultivator, Franco Loja, Roskam would spend the better part of two decades scouring the faraway mountains and jungles of the world, searching for unique and prized landrace genetics. More often than not, they were successful.<\/p>\n Landrace cannabis is distinguished by the fact that it\u2019s unique to its geographical origin and adapts to the land and environment in which it develops. Landraces can be utilized for breeding, cross-pollination and the creation of new genotypes.<\/p>\n For the uninitiated, Strain Hunters<\/em> remains must-see TV. There are some genuinely sketchy and scary times that show the astonishing lengths Roskam, Loja and their intrepid team have gone to secure those sought-after genetics.<\/p>\n I ask about what his most prized landrace is, and he says, without a moment of hesitation, \u201cPunto Rojo.\u201d Then, he holds up his phone once again, scrolling for a moment before showing me an enormous Christmas tree-like cannabis plant. It\u2019s nothing short of amazing.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re planting 9,000 [cannabis] trees in Sudan and South Africa with our partner,\u201d Raskam says. \u201cBecause this variety comes from Colombia, which is humid, this plant has outperformed any other plant in the rainy season. When you harvest there\u2019s a lot of rain, so you need something that\u2019s adaptable. And so yeah, I\u2019d say for now that\u2019s our strongest landrace and we\u2019re crossing that with a lot of really nice plants. As a matter of fact, we\u2019re coming out with one special one very soon\u2014a Watermelon Zkittlez x Cloudwalker (Punto Rojo x Mendobreath)\u2014it\u2019s going to be awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n I was curious if Roskam had ever truly feared for his life on the expeditions over the years.<\/p>\n \u201cLook, it\u2019s very dangerous,\u201d he says seriously. \u201cThere are some things I can\u2019t speak about because they\u2019re still extremely dangerous. There are some episodes [of Strain Hunters<\/em>] that haven\u2019t been broadcast because things went out of control. Anything can go wrong. I always warn my team that guns and drunken soldiers are dangerous, but the most dangerous thing is a very little animal you cannot see. It could be bacteria, it could be Ebola, could be Dengue, could be Malaria.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2016, the Strain Hunters<\/em> crew was filming in the Democratic Republic of Congo, searching for new genetics while also learning how CBD can be used to treat cerebral malaria, a preventable condition that kills more than 405,000 people a year when the unthinkable occurred.<\/p>\n Tragically, Loja contracted malaria in the Congo and succumbed to the aggressive disease on January 2, 2017. His passing was a devastating shock to Roskam and the Green House family and the tremors were felt by the cannabis community around the world. In March 2017, VICE on HBO featured Kings of Cannabis: Congo, <\/em>which was Franco Loja\u2019s last appearance before he died.<\/p>\n \u201cHow dangerous is it?\u201d Roskam continued. \u201cWell, Franco died. There are just a lot of things that can go wrong. It\u2019s a mission. It\u2019s always scary. But it\u2019s my goal to create awareness on this planet and I put my life up for it. Franco put his life up for it, and I\u2019ll put my life for it. My kids sometimes say to me, \u2018Shut up, Papa,\u2019 but they understand. I say, \u2018Listen, maybe I don\u2019t come back (from one of the dangerous expeditions). I wrote a letter to all of my children and they\u2019ll get it if and when I don\u2019t come back. It is what it is, but we\u2014all of us\u2014are fighting for something important. And someone has to do this.\u201d<\/p>\n To honor Loja\u2019s legacy, a tribute appears on the Green House Seed Co. website: \u201cFranco\u2019s high-risk, fast-paced, full-gas career was only just taking off. He had invested all his time, money and passion into building up a future for himself and his children, while helping people in places such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. His children were everything to him, and he was an amazing father.\u201d<\/p>\n I wanted to know what Roskam thought Loja\u2019s enduring legacy should be.<\/p>\n \u201cPassion,\u201d he tells me, softly. \u201cPassion.\u201d<\/p>\n So, what\u2019s next? Roskam says he\u2019s working on more adventures and what he reveals next is another gem of information\u2014an as-yet-unnamed venture between GHSC and Cookies.<\/p>\n \u201cThe most spectacular adventure is the announcement that, with my friend Berner, we\u2019re going to take care of Cookies seeds worldwide,\u201d he says, smiling from ear to ear, referencing the red-hot brand owned by the Bay Area entrepreneur, rapper and newly minted billionaire, Berner. \u201cWe\u2019re going to make that in our facilities in the US, Colombia, Denmark\u2014everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n Oh, but there\u2019s more.<\/p>\n Roksam, Dust Lion and Joa Helms, CEO of Green House Coffeeshops, recently traveled to Jamaica to create a new brand with Damian Marley, youngest son of the legendary Rastafarian singer Bob Marley, called Hurb. Talk about the knights of the roundtable.<\/p>\n Roskam says this important new partnership \u201cwill include dispensaries and some very special strains.\u201d The end goal, he says, is to create a breeding project that incorporates strains from Jamaica as well as Cookies\u2019 genetics. Mind officially blown.<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe this is the time for a new era in cannabis,\u201d Arjan Roskam says, with a telling, mischievous smile.<\/p>\n The King of Cannabis is still clearly setting the agenda for the rest to follow. Exactly what leaders do.<\/p>\n This story was originally published in the\u00a0print edition<\/a>\u00a0of Cannabis Now.<\/em><\/p>\n The post [Exclusive] Arjan Roskam: An Audience With the King<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
In a world of pot pantheons, one must be exceptional to be crowned \u201cThe King of Cannabis.\u201d Arjan Roskam, founder of the Green House Brands empire holds this moniker, thanks to a heady mix of being a passionate proponent for the plant and his tenacity for growing phenomenal phenos thatContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":234,"featured_media":57250,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16503,3931,50,346,95,16504,1380,16505,85,16506,16507,16508,16509,16510,316,128],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57249"}],"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\/234"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57249"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57251,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57249\/revisions\/57251"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cannabisnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Greenhouse-Tolstraat.jpg\")
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backpacking through northern Thailand. There, a medicine man treating heroin addicts with cannabis gave him a handful of seeds and told him, \u201cKeep those seeds. In the future, these seeds will overthrow governments.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n
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\nRead More: [Exclusive] Arjan Roskam: An Audience With the King<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"