I've decided to post the following message to various cannabis discussion groups because it's time to "come out of the closet", so to speak. I've used cannabis for 50 years now and I'm sick of being treated like a criminal. The following journal entry is a TL;DR/Cliffnotes version of this website so you can see what I've done, why I did it, and how I've done it:
This is my first/last/only post to this forum. Moderators, I think I’ve cleaned this info up enough so it will not violate your TOS but if you have any issues with the content of this post, please do not edit it, just delete it. I have no desire to be moderated but I do realize I am your guest here, so I'll act accordingly.
My nym (anonymous name) is Charles U. Farley. I was born in the same state as Owsley Stanley, went to the same junior high and high school as Hunter S. Thompson, and I'm a Fugitive From Injustice. I sprouted my first seeds in 1970 after reading A Child's Garden of Grass but didn't really get plants to flowering until the next year when I bought A Connoisseurs Handbook of Marijuana.
Moved to a part of Miami known as Sunny Isles; from Haulover Cut north to Golden Beach, it was like Las Vegas without legal gambling, right on the Atlantic Ocean. Affordable motels with names like The Castaways, The Thunderbird, The Beachcomber and The Marco Polo attracted tourists from all over the east coast, especially NY and NJ. It was known as Motel Row.
Visiting teenagers were attracted to a local club on the beach called Thee Image. Bands like Led Zeppelin, Cream, The Grateful Dead, Steppenwolf, Iron Butterfly, etc. played there. A mile or two north in Golden Beach is 461 Ocean Blvd, where Clapton stayed and played in the 70’s. About 10 minutes away from Sunny Isles was a recording studio called Criteria Studios, where groups like The Allman Brothers, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Eric Clapton, The Eagles, and Fleetwood Mac recorded their award winning albums.
It was quite a large market for cannabis.
Many of the motels were controlled or strongly influenced by organized crime and that’s a fact. All of these motels employed bellhops, bartenders, and pool boys to keep the tourists happy. Many supplemented their income by providing tourists with a type of cannabis that was not available Up North. It was a variety from Jamaica that smelled very different from what they were used to. It was expensive, didn't have seeds, and you didn’t get much but it was really, really good. The tourists didn’t mind paying for it, after all, they were on vacation. It came from Jamaica into Haulover Cut on small sail and power boats, passed by Beer Can Island on the way to Maule Lake Marina to be offloaded. I was a pool boy, so I knew a lot of those involved who were bringing it in. They became my friends.
Went to college and became a Registered Respiratory Therapist. Absolutely loved the hospital environment, especially the ER. Met a very special group of people who studied hard, worked hard, and played hard. It was a loving and caring environment, where I witnessed some of the most horrific things that can happen to a human body. Cannabis eased the pain of witnessing the carnage, it helped me feel better when I felt like Hell, because I witnessed it as patients bled out.
Then came oil embargos, cocaine cowboys, race riots, Ronald Reagan elected and John Lennon dead, so I decide to bail out of Miami and head to the mountains of the southeast U.S.
I grew outdoors in the early 80’s until a divorce and the War on Drugs forced me back inside. I acquired a 1000 watt metal halide light, closed off a 10 square foot closet and ventilated it with a 450 CFM exhaust fan. Good thing I had a lot of seeds because I made a lot of mistakes. Outdoor bred Jamaican and Columbian cannabis takes a lot of taming and training to make the transition indoors but contrary to popular belief, it can be done. What I needed was a Type II/Indica to shorten the size and increase the yield.
In the mid 90’s Owsley Stanley, who produced more LSD than any other human, participated in the Usenet newsgroup alt.drugs, as did Bob Wallace, Microsoft's ninth employee and Sasha Shuglin of PIHKAL fame, among others. Other subgroups like alt.drugs.psychedelics and alt.drugs.chemistry were formed, going through the standard Usenet RFD (request for discussion) process. Then a new group appeared called alt.drugs.pot.cultivation and it didn't go through the normal RFD process. The word "pot" didn't mean a thing to anyone outside the U.S. and Usenet was very much an international forum, so the name sucked but it ended up being a very, very active newsgroup. Respect to Edith, Ratchet and AKA for keeping it real for newbs. Also, gratitude to ph and NPKaye who did their best. I didn't grow like they grew (hydro/ScrOG) but I did appreciate how they presented their reasoning. Funny thing, I always learn more from those who I disagree with than those who always agree with me.
The alt.drugs.pot.cultivation (adpc) newsgroup became an international forum for sharing info, uniting people in BC with those in the NL, with those in GB, with those in OZ, with those in the US. For the first time in history, people from all over the world were sharing their knowledge of growing and developing cannabis via a INTERconnected NETwork. That's not all they were sharing. A participant by the nym of Jock lived in Amsterdam and was willing to send seeds to the U.S., something no NL based seed bank was willing to do. Quality seeds were available in BC, thanks to Marc Emery, but everyone knew the best seeds came from the NL.
Another invaluable resource in the late 90's was the Web based forum of the British Columbia Growers Association (BCGA). Someone by the nym of Vic High established the site to bring together local people who were interested in growing, cultivating and developing cannabis. It didn't stay local for long. Soon people found out about it via adpc and fantastic information, as well as seeds, were doing the cross border shuffle. This of course drew the attention of law enforcement organizations (LEO) and soon they were sniffing around trying to identify who was doing what and where they were doing it. Lots of BC busts starting filtering down to the U.S. about the time Overgrow, Cannabisworld and other sites began gaining momentum. I wonder what happened to Aeric77? Can’t find any info now on how his bust was resolved. Even though his forum was moderated, Vic did it in the most excellent way possible. Face it, people become unbelievably brave when they're behind a keyboard and easily transform into jerks. Objectively dealing with opinionated jerks is difficult, Vic did it with grace and dignity.
In 1999, I take a cruise to Alaska via Vancouver. I had heard about a place called the Blunt Brothers from the BCGA forum, so I made plans to visit. I walked into the store, lurked around for a while then went up to the counter and asked if he'd seen Vic High around. He gave me a wft look but someone else asked how I knew Vic. I told them via the BCGA site and I was hoping he could hook me up with some BC bud I'd heard so much about. The guy gave me a real skeptical look, so I said, "Look, I didn't want to be the first dumbass American to get caught smuggling buds _into_ BC, so I didn't bring any of my own." He started laughing and told me where to go.
A couple of streets down, I go into a basement area of a building, ask "What do you have for sale?" and the guy uncovers a display area with different kinds of buds and hash. Holy f***ing moly! I'll take some Skunk, a couple of grams of hash and what was my second choice from Jock, Northern Lights. After we get onboard, my wife and I completely agree, the Skunk smells better but the Northern Lights _is_ better. In fact, it’s even better than the hash.
After we got back to the States, I began to research everything I could find about Northern Lights. Now in 1999, that wasn't real easy. The only thing I trusted about High Times was the photography, so the BCGA forum, adpc and Sunny and Greenman’s seedbank review sites supplied the info I required. I discovered Sensi was the best seed bank for Northern Lights and when I found out Nevil sold his interest to Ben when he had to bail, I knew what I was going to do.
I was going to get Northern Lights seeds from Sensi Seeds.
The Seed Bank section of overgrow.com was kind of moderated by someone with the nym Gypsy Nirvana in 2000. He also sold seeds. Long story short, he would ship to the US and wasn't in BC or the NL but the UK, so no extra scrutiny from US Customs. He also guaranteed an unopened package of Sensi Northern Lights. A transaction was safely and successfully completed. Paid $120 USD for 10 seeds. They all sprouted, thrived and produced 6 females and four males. They were everything I was hoping they would be. Many thanks to Gypsy Nirvana for having the… ah fortitude… to mail completely sealed, expertly camouflaged cannabis seeds to the U.S. when almost no one else would!
I decided not to participate in overgrow, cannabisworld, etc. because of security concerns after the passage of the Patriot Act (have to bite my tongue and not say anything else on that one). I had fought the good fight long enough in adpc and besides, there was no way to do what was necessary to post
<wtmkf> or <plonk> in the blinky, emoticon saturated environments of Web based fora. <vbseg>
For many, many years, up to the F4 gen, the Northern Lights plants were rock solid stable. They were essentially all the same, a vigorous Type IV/Hybrid Christmas tree pheno that made Northern Lights such a legendary developmental strain. I thought things might get weird at F5 and they did. Started getting a few Type II/Indica phenos that were poplar shaped, shorter and with much darker green leaves. They had a more intense smell with a heavy, mellow effect, a nice variation from the normal Northern Lights. After a couple grows, I learned to identify the pheno early in its development, so I could enjoy a bit of variety in the desired mental effect when they appeared.
At F6, the first Type I/Sativa plant appeared. I was sure this plant was just an over-achieving male because it was just so height dominant over all the others. The pre-flowers caused me to question my assumption and flowering proved me wrong. I was expecting so much after harvest and curing, given the rep of Thai sticks with my generation, but was a bit underwhelmed. Low yield, almost no smell with a nice, clear mental effect, quite familiar from my time in Miami. I guess I was expecting the Thai portion of Northern Lights to really be different from the high quality Jamaican and Columbian I knew so well. It wasn't. On this last F6 grow, all three phenos appeared simultaneously.
That's when I realized I had reverse engineered Northern Lights.
I want to say again that I have much, _much_ respect for the creator of Northern Lights, NL Seattle Greg. I have read everything I can find that he has posted online and I totally understand why Northern Lights is the legend it is. A Viet Nam vet who developed it for over ten years before Nevil even heard of it. He worked it because he _needed_ it for PTSD. Without even being aware of NL Seattle Greg's existence, I have followed a similar path.
Much respect to Nevil Schoenmaker for taking the work of NL Seattle Greg and further developing it to refine and standardize it into a monumental, foundational developmental stock of cannabis. Respect to Ben Dronkers for further refining and sustaining Northern Lights and keeping the genotype intact until I could purchase it in 2000.
I always remembered Vic High's trials and tribulations with Blueberry from his posts on the BCGA web forum in the late 90's. He got seeds directly from Marc Emery, who got them directly from Sag, who had just started to market them for DJ.
Vic didn't know if they were treated with colchicine or just inbred to death but his first grow with them sucked. Half the seeds didn't survive and those that did had variegated leaves, were sickly, scrawny and weren't very potent. To me it was ludicrous to develop this strain when the only thing it really had going for it was it smelled like a blueberry. Now in subsequent grows, I know it got much better for him. I know Vic liked working with it but I couldn't see how I would do well cultivating this type of cannabis. Sensitive to variations in light and fertilizer with a propensity to go hermie just didn't sound like foundational, developmental cannabis stock to me. I respected Vic but disagreed with him on this subject.
I wanted the exact opposite for the cannabis I was cultivating.
That's why I purchased Sensi's Northern Lights. In 1998 I had managed to get 10 Sensi Jack Herrer seeds sent to me via Jock and was not all that impressed after the first grow, even though it was a High Times Cup winner. I should have known, after all it was sponsored by High Times. It wasn't that much better than the Jamaican and Columbian plants I'd been working with for over 20 years, though the bud density was much better, as was the amount of visible resin. That’s why I needed a Type II/Indica dominant plant.
When I received the mail from Gypsy Nirvana containing the unopened, pristinely packaged Sensi Northern Lights seeds in 2000, I had been cultivating cannabis indoors for almost 15 years and outdoors for almost 30. You think you’ve seen everything after that period of time so you’re not ready when something extraordinary occurs. This happened last fall when I realized not only had I had reverse engineered Sensi's Northern Lights but I had developed a new variation of cannabis as well. Standing there looking at the three phenotypes of cannabis that came together to form Northern Lights made me wonder, how many other people had worked with just one type of cannabis for almost 20 years? Then I realized SouthEast Lights is a fundamentally different cannabis from Northern Lights, not only in flowering time but in many other ways as well.
A word about security, in all of my time cultivating cannabis, the only ones who have ever known I cultivate have been my wife and my dogs, period... end of story. I have lived by these simple rules:
1. Don't tell.
2. Don't show.
3. Don't sell.
I'm now breaking numbers one and two because I want to document what I've done and how I've lived my life with cannabis for our kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids. After I’m gone, they need to understand I’m not a criminal. I will never break number three because it's not morally right for me.
I’ve developed a completely non-commercial website (no ads, no links, no endorsements, absolutely no bull***t) that documents what I’ve done, how I’ve done it and why I’ve done it. It’s located at southeastlights dot org. I use the old Usenet method, afoaf, to make this website possible and to maintain my anonymity. I write and photograph everything, send it by good old snail mail to a friend in another state from my Usenet days who puts it into website form and then sends it to one of their friends who doesn't really know me except by reputation, who gets it uploaded to the web server.
The readers of this forum may find some of the information contained there useful to them, most probably will not. After all, I’m an old geezer now. What do I know, I don't even use the New, Super Improved Blueberry Bloomer Bud Booster. I have not participated in any type of online forum since 9/11 and as you can probably tell, I’m not going to start back up now. However, I do occasionally visit them so I can stay up to date, so feel free to post any comments or criticisms you may have. As I’ve said, I learn more from those who disagree with me than from those who agree with me.
I just won’t respond here, as I don’t do well in moderated environments.
Even though the U.S. government has always made me feel like one, I'm not a criminal. I've done nothing wrong. I've grown a plant that has never harmed or killed anyone and used it as a way to stay centered and focused in happiness, rather than being trapped in the reality of the death and despair I have witnessed. There's nothing wrong with using cannabis after you realize you've come home with brains on your shoes from a long night in the ER.
I'm considered a criminal because I grow a plant that has never harmed or killed anyone. I live in fear of going to jail for growing my own plants because I refuse to fund organized crime. I've never sold cannabis to anyone yet I can be put in prison for years. Somehow, it makes sense for the U.S. government to allow alcohol and tobacco that are known, proven killers to be legal but I can go to prison for cultivating cannabis? That is utter insanity and a complete injustice.
I remain, a Fugitive From Injustice,
Charles U. Farley
