After Nevil's pasing, Sam weighs in

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Previously produced along the Andean coffee axis in the western cordillera, and in the area around the United Fruit Company plantations on the southeastern foothills of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombian marijuana crops were not intended for export.17 Historian Eduardo Sáenz Rovner has found that since the 1950s, sailors and other mobile workers had been exporting Colombian marijuana to the U.S. and other neighboring countries in small quantities, therefore the steady growth of marijuana cultivation during the 1950s and 1960s did not respond to the export business, however, but to the expansion of the local consumption markets. By the mid-1960s, when the Peace Corps program began –and the Colombian chapter was the first one launched in South America– young Americans came to Colombian rural areas with dreams of political change, eager to escape home, and carrying new habits of consumption, marijuana consumption and production were well-established as parts of Colombia’s internal market.18 According to one environmental activist who has lived in the Sierra Nevada since the late 1960s following some years studying in universities of the U.S. West Coast, young Americans and young Colombians shared values and counter-cultural life-styles, which provided the ideal space for these first illegal transactions:
At the time [mid to late 1960s] we didn’t have any marijuana. There was marijuana in Colombia, but the marijuana export business did not exist yet... Out of the blue a lot of small ships from the U.S. started to arrive. Those people brought LSD to exchange for marijuana. But we did not have marijuana crops. Red Point was cultivated in the Andean region [coffee axis] and Colombian Gold did not exist yet.
So they traveled to the Andean region to buy it, and then brought it to the coast in order to export it from here. It was the easiest way. Some of them arrived in sailing boats, and some in small airplanes. All of them looked like hippies. They were not businessmen, they were not looking for big quantities, but they were many, and many more... Then it was a boom.19
By the late 1960s variegated clandestine networks for production in the Andean region established routes through the natural ports of the Caribbean Guajira peninsula.20 These represented short-term, ad-hoc alliances between Americans and Colombians to transport it from the coffee axis in the Andean interior in order to export it from the coast. It was then introduced to the U.S territory in sailing boats and small aircraft operated by veterans of the Cold War in Southeast Asia.21 K. “Hawkeye” Gross, one of those young American pilots with experience in counter-insurgency, explains why his generation was so quick to get involved in the business:
It hit me like a smack in the mouth: smuggling was what I’d been trained to do. The jet training, the survival schools teaching me crash survival and torture resistance, the battle experience in Vietnam, the flying in and out of dirt roads in Cambodia, the ragtag charter flying for Exec Air. Shit, I hadn’t been training to be an airline pilot, I had been training to be in the smuggling business.22
The first period of marijuana traffic in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and the Guajira peninsula, which took place from the late 1960s until around 1972, operated along the same lines as marijuana/hashish trafficking within Europe,and from Europe to the U.S.,which INTERPOL signaled as a growing tendency: “large increase in LSD traffic, closely tied to cannabis traffic.”23 This spontaneous traffic resulting from the growing demands of North Atlantic consumers, and from the initiative of marijuana consumers who became dealers in order to support their habits and make a small profit, increased so rapidly that international drug control organisms, such as the U.N. Commission of Narcotics Drugs considered the region, during the 24th session of 1971, as one of “two additional areas of particular concern because of the potential for increased trafficking.”24 In its Plan for Concerted Action Against Drug Abuse, the U.N. Fund for Drug Abuse Control, FDAC, noted that these amateur traffickers were “not, initially, professional criminals. Some of them are trying to supply themselves or their friends. Large proportion are young people, some of them ‘hippies’ or others in a state of protest against society, others more conventional tourists.”25
 
....”
By 1972, the potential of the Caribbean Colombian to supply U.S. markets was exploited much more thoroughly and systematically. Although marijuana crops existed in the southeastern foothill of the Sierra Nevada since the 1930s, because of their quality they were rarely exported. Financed and technically assisted by U.S and Colombian investors alike, the first local crops produced exclusively for export appeared in the arid soil of the Guajira side of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta on the western and northeastern foothills.26 While investors and cultivators came from outside the region –the later were peasants from the Andean region expelled by the so-called “la violencia” of the mid-twentieth century– the intermediaries were locals, mostly men from the Guajira peninsula used to smuggling, since contraband was the centuries-old mainstay of the Guajira’s economy.27
The planting and harvesting of the first local crops represented the beginning of what I call the marijuana boom’s second stage, characterized by a qualitative leap in the transformation of production and distribution, as the commodity was technically upgraded and distribution networks were expanded.28 The creation of Colombian Golden or Santa Marta Gold, an improved- seed strain characterized by its delicate flavor and soft effect,not only introduced a new,fashionable variety of marijuana into the U.S. countercultural markets, but supported the consolidation of a new regional economy in the northernmost part of the Colombian Caribbean. According to Rodrigo Echeverri, a forestry engineer who coordinated a multidisciplinary research group that produced an unpublished monograph on the marijuana boom, these local crops “made viable an unviable agricultural economy” because they not only helped to open the agricultural frontier, but provided guaranteed markets to its production.29 “Marijuana became the source of a job and income for everybody here,” a former marijuana transporter from a Guajira southern town explained.30 “The state did not go after it, and there was no marijuana consumer culture, either.”31 Growing and selling marijuana was considered a legitimate agricultural pursuit, little different from growing and selling food or other cash crops, except for the extent to which it minimized risk for direct producers.32”
 
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These qualitative innovations converted the Colombian Caribbean from one region among many into the largest supplier of marijuana in the world at the time and linked the Guajira and the Florida peninsulas in a single, highly profitable circuit that peaked between 1972 and
1978.33 The worldwide tendency identified in 1971 by the U.N. Commission of Narcotics Drugs –namely, that “large bulk shipments of drugs include concealment in transshipped vehicles and renegade pilots who fly drugs in small aircraft”– developed as the standard pattern for exports once local marijuana fields began to produce at full capacity.34 The spontaneous transactions among consumers, or novices and small-time entrepreneurs that characterized the cycle of origins had ended. According to a former Guajiro marijuana intermediary, whose trajectory made him a stereotypical case of marijuana boom’s nouveau riche, once there were local crops, importers started not only to proliferate but to arrive in larger aircraft and ships. Thus by the second half of the 1970s, “the lowest weight you could have in order to make a marijuana shipment profitable [was] around 300 quintales [near 135,000 kilos or 297,000 pounds].”35 Each load employed nearly forty people in transport and loading alone, and required the work of weeks on the part of at least two marijuana intermediaries –popularly known as “marimberos”– in order to buy the harvests from cultivators.36
Although these networks operated without serious interference from law enforcement until late 1978, once the “Two Peninsulas” campaign was launched, the third and final phase –decline– began. The boom’s peak in the mid-1970s forced Colombian national authorities to admit its political relevance. The hectic mercantile activity in the Caribbean region and the exorbitant profits absorbed by the national banking system, as reflected in the balance of payments, forced Colombian political elites to take a public secret, known to all, and turn it into a public debate. The narcotics trade as a topic of public discussion –beyond the narrow realm of experts and technocrats– appeared for the first time during Alfonso López Michelsen’s presidency (1974- 1978). After his inauguration in August 1974, López was pushed by the United States to commit his government in the fight against the drug trade together with the U.S. government. As Richard Nixon’s Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, suggested in a telegram to the American Embassy in Bogota in 1974: “the rapid growing importance of Colombia in the traffic signals the need for fast and effective reaction on the part of USG [U.S. Government]”.37 The Embassy in Bogota answered that the country “is not Canada, Germany or France and unless we successfully ‘upgrade the GOC [Government of Colombia] narcotics interdiction effort’ we have no base on which to rest our coordination efforts.”Therefore, the primary goal of the U.S. government at the end of the Nixon years was to improve the operational capacity of the Colombian government.38”
 
..........”The most convincing interpretation of the Colombian Caribbean marijuana boom of the 1970s lies somewhere in between Samper’s and Neff ’s accounts. The Colombian Caribbean marijuana boom thrived on the basis of the decades-long illegal production, trade, and consumption, and traditions of smuggling inherited from the colonial era. It took place in three phases I have defined as origins (from late 1960s to 1972 approximately), peak or pinnacle (1972-1978), and decline (1978 to around 1985). It started as an illegal commerce of Andean marijuana crops through the peripheral northernmost part of the Caribbean coast, the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and its neighboring Guajira peninsula, thanks to the initiative of U.S. consumers looking for new sources of supply –since Mexican cannabis was being fumigated at the time– , and small-time Colombian contraband entrepreneurs.70 With the creation of the first local strain for exportation in the early 1970s (Colombia Golden or Santa Marta Gold), the size of export loads and profits increased enormously, as the boom peaked. The growth of investment went hand in hand with the growth of demand and the technical improvement of the quality of Colombian strains, turning Colombia into the world’s main supplier of marijuana. Potential geo-strategic threats, along with Cold War national security concerns and foreign policy considerations on the Colombian side led the two governments to work together in repressing the marijuana trade. Operating as a de facto state of siege, this bilateral campaign succeeded in making marijuana production and transport a risky, expensive activity, which contributed to the sharp decline of the trade in the mid-1980s.”
 
I've spent a lot of time analyzing and researching his role in the haze story, and everything I've seen leads me to conclude that haze originated with the Brothers of Eternal Love, and that David Watson was BOEL through and through.


"At the time [mid to late 1960s] we didn’t have any marijuana. There was marijuana in Colombia, but the marijuana export business did not exist yet... Out of the blue a lot of small ships from the U.S. started to arrive. Those people brought LSD to exchange for marijuana. But we did not have marijuana crops. Red Point was cultivated in the Andean region [coffee axis] and Colombian Gold did not exist yet.
So they traveled to the Andean region to buy it, and then brought it to the coast in order to export it from here. It was the easiest way. Some of them arrived in sailing boats, and some in small airplanes. All of them looked like hippies. They were not businessmen, they were not looking for big quantities, but they were many, and many more... Then it was a boom."
 
Columbian indica seems like a contradiction in terms for the time frame.
Indica means from India, nowadays a reference to the bld varieties from Afghanistan and Pakistan, although they also occur in the Indian and Nepalese Himalayas.
Sailors brought the seeds in their weed they were smoking back to Colombia where it all started in the 1920s.
 
Having smoked a LOT of Columbian back in the day I can say with confidence that there was very little BLD influence if any in either the smoke or the progeny I grew out. The lines may have originated in India yes, but what MOST refer to as indica (BLD) didn't seem to be present from my experience... or anyone else I knew back then. When BLD showed up it was incredibly different and obvious.
 
According to a 1979 article in High Times about Colombia is that they started to grow in the 1920s at the both sides of the coast, later in the early 1970s seeds from Mexico were shipped to the Guajira peninsula where it were inbred with the Colombia indica.

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I would not believe anything in an old High Times rag. This HT article is pure fiction. In the 50s and 60s there was not much Colombian weed around (if any). In the late 1960s and very early 1970s, there was some Panama Red showing up. That is similar (and likely related) to the later narcotic northern lowland Colombian Red that was bricked and dominated the Colombian weed supply though the early 1980s. In the mid 1970s the Colombian started hitting the scene. I bought my first pound of Colombian in 1974. Before that I had bought mostly SW Mexican weed in bulk. Also some Cambodian Red and Thai, and hash when it was available.

In my days of smoking cheap imported seedy bricked weed, Colombian sand Mexican weed were nothing alike. Nor were either like SE Asian or India weed. And from my 40 years of experience growing landrace bag weed from seed is that Colombian and Mexican strains are a WORLD apart. Also there was ZERO indica in any landrace Colombian weed in the 1970s. Period. And they would not naturally hybridize with Mexican lines with their different bloom times. And there would be evidence of that hybridization in the bag weed seeds from Colombia if there was any. There is none that I have seen in my entire collection of 1970s landrace Colombian beans. They all bloom late and long. Colombians are all very similar to SE Asian strains, and there is evidence in the genetics that Colombian strains likely originated from SE Asia at some point far earlier point than the 1970s. Far more likely the 1920s, or earlier. They were all sativas. From more recent genetic testing, Mexican weed was most likely sourced from India though Philippines. They are also all sativas.

So from my experience growing landrace strains from Mexico, Colombia and SE Asia for the past 40 some odd years, this article is pure bullshit. With the one exception of the timeline for growing in Colombia. When the SE Asian strains were first introduced into Colombia is not well known. Though from what I have read on the Spanish language weed sites, Colombian growing goes way back at least 150 years. But it is not nearly as old as growing psychotropic weed in Mexico, which goes back 500 years now. Proof of that exists in old texts in Spain. So bottom line? There is no evidence of Maxican-Colombian hybrid weed. No indica (as we know it now) or indica hybrid weed was grown in Colombia (until after 1980). I have seen old texts describing Santa Marta weed being grown there since at least the 1920s. Bloom time and phenos as well as genetics put 1970s Colombian weed as originally sourced from SE Asia. As to when this happened? Not in the 1970s. More likely the 1920s. The later 1970s Colombian weed explosion far more likely used the small scale local beans from local grown plants. Its VERY easy to ramp up production from small grows. One plant can produce tens of thousands of seeds. One plant... BOOM!
 
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No indica (as we know it now) or indica hybrid weed was grown in Colombia (until after 1980). I have seen old texts describing Santa Marta weed being grown there since at least the 1920s. Bloom time and phenos as well as genetics put 1970s Colombian weed as originally sourced from SE Asia. As to when this happened? Not in the 1970s. More likely the 1920s.
Parke Davis has been mentioned importing weed from Borneo to grow in Colombia. I can’t find much online about it.
 
I've heard about Parke Davis growing MJ in Colombia in the 1920s/1930s, but I have never seen any hard evidence of such.

Regarding the importation of Thai weed into Colombia, I think that's where Colombian gold came from. And I think it probably happened in the 1970s or maybe even 1960s. Imported Thai seeds in the 1970s are refernced in a Time magazine article from 1977 I think.
 
Santa Marta gold is nothing like any SE Asian strains, other than bloom times. Look on Galaxy and while I am not a Phylos fan for their bait and switch game, there is nothing old school on there closely related to Colombian Gold. Out of a half dozen submitted CG samples and hundreds of other landrace samples from around the globe. If it was a 1970 import to Colombia, it would be very closely related to other SE Asian, Thai or Indonesian lines. Just ain't so. Some Colombian gold submitted there is more distantly related to South Indian lines, others are distant relatives of Malawi African lines and Japan hemp lines, and some CG samples (which I believe are the most accurate from David Crosby's 1980 & 1981 strains) are related to old Panama lines (and later Haze lines).

Genetics do not lie. Submissions there are dependent on what people claim they are. But with a large array of samples from the 1970s, there are no exact matches to any CG samples submitted. So the strain is older and more unique than you guys think.
 
"the strain is older and more unique than you guys think"

I agree wholeheartedly that Columbian Gold was unlike any Asian weed or Mexican weed I smoked. Also about Panama Red being on the narcotic side: until the whole Indica revolution and subsequent indoor movement it was the most "stoned" stuff out there versus the CG (and good Mexican) "High". Even though I would get more excited about Thai or other Asian weed because of its rarity, Columbian Gold was The Best in my book.

EDIT: I did smoke some incredibly narcotic Asian weed we obtained from "Mr. Plow", a Vietnam vet who drove a snowplow for the City of Saint Paul and was unemployed/on vacation all summer, every summer. It was probably some kind of indica before I even knew there was such a thing.
 
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Best weed connect that I have ever had. The U.S. military moved a lot of drugs for us heads. LOL

Indeed. I got great hash and SE Asian weed from Ft Ord. Used to be an open base during the VN War. Ft Ord was the home of the 7th Division and a basic training base. Go to the gate, ask for Supply Sgt SoAndSo. Go to a numbered barracks on base, ask a guy outside if Sgt SoAndSo was around. They would say, "you can park here," and lead me to the back of the barracks. And there he was. It was all pretty open. Hand him cash, he would hand me weed, or Thai sticks or hash. Then we would shoot the shit for a half hour and tell jokes. They did not care if I was a long hair hippie. I had a lot of GI friends, commonly called 'doggies' there. They were the same age or only a few years older than me. It was similar but lower key on the Presidio in Monterey. Open base, we civilians could come and go. No longer. Ft Ord is long since closed and The Presidio is locked tight after 911. The most memorable part were the anti-Viet Kong posters hanging on the walls of the barracks. The general message was: fuck them before they fuck you.

I also had friends stationed in VietNam that shipped stuff direct to us in the 'mail'. The most memorable was from a friend that sent a box to his wife. It was a carved teak box with compartments filled with 12 different types of weed, temple balls and Thai sticks. I remember the Cambo Red in that lot. THAT was potent shit. Customs rarely intercepted much from there.
 
That's very interesting about morada line. A colombian landrace known as pati morada considered a p1 from one of earliest old timer haze crosses. Originating from cauca its anthocyanins were most prominent of colombian landrace. I've found limited info on from ig on her. I wonder if your new hybrid has the pati as an ancestor
Where did you read that about the pati morada.
 
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