Western Washington has long been a hotbed of cannabis consciousness, and since the late seventies has been developing a pervasive hidden culture of indoor cannabis cultivators, breeders, connoisseurs and consumers.
    Average quality steadily increased throughout the eighties, in some cases to the point of disbelief. Large indoor commercial farms thrived, exporting Washington grown buds all over the country, much as is now happening in Vancouver.
America's war on drugs had been chugging along the whole time, gaining steam for ten years and imprisoning a lot of people, yet it had not really put a dent in the supply of any kind of mind expanding substances. Law enforcement agencies were under obvious political pressure to get results, or at least headlines, and so in 1989 they undertook "Operation Green Merchant."
    This nationwide police action resulted in dozens of garden supply stores and hundreds of growers across the country being busted, all in one day. Many local growers managed to slip by undetected, but were cut off from familiar sources of grow supplies, or else scared into early retirement. By the beginning of 1990 commercial supplies had dried up, and the overall scene became quite bleak. Washington's cannabis consumers had become accustomed to a very high standard of commercial product, and suddenly were left to fend for themselves.
    During the early 90's, a whole generation of hempsters empowered themselves with knowledge and truth, and for the first time began heeding the call to action of pioneers like Jack Herer. A small group of us had already decided that the only way to get back our favorite plant and pastime would have to be by doing it ourselves. We managed to get our hands on some good clones and formed a loose partnership to produce the much needed herb.

Hard Lessons & a Good Idea

   Things went well for us for about a year, until one founding member had to learn some hard lessons about prohibition. Within three months thieves struck at two different locations, and both burglaries resulted in police busts.
    By luck, and probably to some extent because of the way that the cops stumbled onto both situations, the two cases went to State Court. Unlike the US Federal Court, there are no mandatory minimums in State Court, and Washington state has some of the most lenient pot laws in the country. With the help of a good lawyer one case was dropped in exchange for a guilty plea in the other.
The final sentence was twenty-six days in the local clink, a year's worth of urine tests and about $2500 fines and fees. A walk in the park compared to the mandatory 10-15 years the cultivator would have faced in federal court. Yet twenty-six days is twenty-six days, and it was during this time that the idea for a growers' co-op and virtual cannabis preserve was conceived. It was named the Snohomish County Cannabis Creators (SCCC), with a nod to the now defunct Super Sativa Seed Club.
    The founding purpose of the SCCC was to create as much of the highest quality cannabis as is physically possible. This time, everyone was invited to help.
    The SCCC has grown side by side with the explosion of hemp consciousness, more than doubling every year in both members and production. The SCCC actively supports the hemp movement by teaching and spreading hemp information, and by donating herb free of charge directly to people with a doctor's recommendation. The SCCC has also been a primary sponsor of the awesome Seattle Hempfest since 1993.

World Class DNA

    The SCCC has been actively searching out Washington's finest clones for six years now, and currently maintains a very dynamic line-up of world class cannabis DNA. To make it into the SCCC, a potential contender plant must compete with the existing strains in potency, smell, flavour, flowering period, and yield. If it cannot compete in most of these areas it must have some extremely unusual characteristic that gives it redeeming value.
    All of our strains were obtained as clones except "The Pez" (Northern lights), which was the made-in-the-stars result of one thoughtful individual saving a single seed from a bag of supreme quality near-sensimilla.
    Classic pure sativas are conspicuously absent from our high-potency line up. We certainly recognize that some sativas can be superior in many ways, and it is a main priority to grow the highest quality buds possible, yet in the real world, especially these days, it also makes sense that more bud is better, and will bring more healing and more enlightenment. Since indoor space is limited, the vast majority of what we grow are pure indicas and mostly indicas, simply because they yield more buds in less time. In a prohibition state, this is a matter of simplification for the cultivator, many of whom are amateurs.
    So the idea of a cannabis creators' co-op and virtual cannabis preserve five years ago has resulted in established standards of quality which span an unknowable geography. SCCC members routinely smoke herb grown by someone they've never met at someplace they've never seen, that is very consistent with the quality standards that they are familiar with and have come to expect.
By giving clone strains individual names, they are personified and earn a reputation. The SCCC's rule for sharing clones is "free to a good home", so all regular consumers of SCCC product know that they have access to the all-important high quality genetics, if they should ever decide that they want them. In this way, career smokers who aren't growers soon develop a desire to grow, as they begin to associate the finished product traveling down the chain from the more experienced members with something they could actually grow for themselves.

The Home Cannabis Creator

    One founding member recently published a short but inclusive grow guide which outlines the standard SCCC cultivation techniques in laymen's terms. When a new member has obtained a space, a light, and the other basic necessities, the desired clones are dropped off with a copy of "The Home Cannabis Creator", which further reduces the need for direct contact between individuals in an admittedly sketchy situation.
    The SCCC is adamantly opposed to greed in all forms, but especially in the form of improperly dried cannabis flowers. True members do not consider making money their top priority, it is just a by-product of doing a great service to the community. True members make sure that their crops are dried properly. They know that by keeping the quality standards up they are encouraging even more people to join in their efforts, and become part of the phenomenon that is cracking the foundations of the corrupt establishment as we know it.
    During last summer, SCCC members finally started to figure out some successful techniques for outdoor cultivation, a difficult task in Washington's cold and rainy short season environment, and several cannabis creators demonstrated the most success we have ever seen outdoors. More on that next issue. Until then, good luck and a happy high.