McCarthy - Marijuana growers handbook : practical advice from an expert

MARIJUANA
GROWERS
HANDBOOK

Practical Advice from an Expert

Tommy McCarthy

Skyhorse Publishing

Copyright 2011, 2014 by Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Print ISBN: 978-1-62873-819-3

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-62914-022-3

Printed in the United States of America

This book is dedicated to my late nephew Shannon, who lived life to the fullest, partied harder than was wise, and died far too young; he was the Celtic warrior he always wanted to be.

Contents

Since Vietnam, Americans by and large have failed to exhibit the blind faith in their elected officials that was commonplace during WWII. Such distrust is only exemplified when it comes to marijuana today. At the time of this writing, the state of Illinois is issuing Medical Marijuana cardsfor a stiff annual processing feeand the states legislature seems bent on trading the privilege of growing marijuana for the privilege of owning a firearm.

Marijuana legalization in other states seems to be following the same trend of bartering away some freedoms for the privilege of smoking a joint without being locked in a cage. In Michigan, where political officials vaunt their forward thinking status on medical marijuana usage, real life reflects that police take note of who owns a marijuana Care Giver (or User) card, and those persons are much more likely to be stopped for perceived traffic violations than an average citizen; the prosecutor of one Upper Peninsula Michigan county has gone so far as to say that anyone caught possessing marijuana on his streets is going to jail, card or no card. And in at least some counties, if youre convicted for what authorities consider illegal possession of pot, say goodbye to your drivers license and firearms.

At the time of this writing, smokers cafs like this one are still uncommon in the United States, but times are changing.

Smoked by people on either (or any) side of the political aisle, marijuana has become an icon of resistance to governmental control of American life.

Distressingly, it appears that certain municipalities are willing to disregard laws handed down from their own state capitols. Just as a womans rights become a moot point when shes confronting a rapist in a dark alley, marijuana reform laws are meaningless to cops or court systems who refuse to abide by them.

At the time this is being written, the battle being waged isnt to legalize smoking pot, but to decriminalize marijuana across the board, globally. With the single exception of Uruguay, nowhere in the world is marijuana actually legal to possess or to smoke. Even in the Netherlands, home of the famous Amsterdam, marijuana isnt completely legalized, and you can be ticketed for smoking it outside of a sanctioned retail shopbut at least you wont be thrown into a cell, where you might lose your job, car, home, and maybe your marriage.

Notably, Amsterdam, bowing to mostly American political pressure, recently imposed a ban on the consumption of marijuana-based products by non-residents. Almost predictably, that ban was short-lived. The Huffington Post reported the Amsterdams mayor, Eberhard van der Laan, decided that the loss of revenue from an annual 1.5 million tourists to the citys 220 licensed coffee shops, where marijuana and hashish are legally sold and consumed, would seriously damage the local economy.

At the price of good marijuana on todays marketand with assistance from relaxed laws governing itgrowing your own medicinal or recreational cannabis can be as financially sound as it is relaxing and satisfying.

Van der Laan told the Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant that he had made the decision after considering the unintended consequences that would arise from a ban, including a revival of black-market trade. The mayor further stated that the ban would cause foreign visitors to swarm all over the city looking for drugs. This would lead to more robberies, quarrels about fake drugs, and no control of the quality of drugs on the marketeverything we have worked towards would be lost to misery, he added.

Thats in the most cannabis-progressive country in the world today! (Excluding Uruguay, of course.) No, across-the-board legalization, with the same lack of restrictions accorded to alcohol, while starting to break ground in some locations, is still a long time coming. And some might say that whether its made legal or not is a moot point, anywaythat the government of a free country has no authority to say what its citizens put or do not put into their bodies for recreational or medical purposes.