Fine sinsemilla requires expert care, including the pruning of
secondary and tertiary nodal leaves from each plant to force growth to the branch tips, where the flower buds grow. Farmers are equally careful to water the plants in the right way and even to provide different types of fertilizer at different stages of the plant's growth. In a word, what used to be casually dismissed as "homegrown" marijuana is now the result of highly scientific farming; the plants, it must be remembered, are virtually worth their weight in gold.Finally, there is the need for another kind of vigilance. There is always the threat of discovery by the authorities, especially in those areas that have gained some notoriety. But a threat even greater than the police is what worries most growers, as one of them explains:
It's all a matter of timing. You have to assume that there are always people watching your plants, waiting for the chance to steal them when you're not around. Often they get them the day before you were going to harvest them. After all, you're both watching the same plants, and you both want to be careful: you don't want the other guy to get it, but you also don't want to pick it too early, before the peak of maturation. That's why more and more of us are hiring armed guards.
Sinsemilla's high price has led some to debate about whether it
represents a good purchase for the consumer. Its adherents argue that the
farmers deserve to be fairly paid for their hard work and risk. In addition,
because sinsemilla, by definition, contains no seeds, it represents a better
than usual purchase; in most Colombian and Mexican varieties, as much as 50
percent of the weight of the marijuana may be seeds, which are useless to the
smoker. Sinsemilla has no waste materials; in addition, it is often so potent
that very little is required for the user to get high.
Other smokers, especially on the East Coast, suspect that
sinsemilla is significantly overrated. "It's very beautiful to look
at," concedes a veteran New York smoker, "and it
does have a wonderful fragrance and a wonderful taste. It even gets you high.
But in a head-to-head standoff with fine Colombian, it just doesn't measure
up." Lenny is more outspoken:
Sinsemilla
is a natural outgrowth of California culture. Remember, this
is the place that gave us Hollywood. On the West Coast,
everything is appearances: look at the clothes they wear, and the cars they
drive. It makes sense that they would produce a kind of dope that looks great
and smells great and tastes great, but isn't all that potent. It's showy dope;
if we could grow good stuff in Boston, I'm sure it would be
described as solid, traditional, and intellectual.
But what really get me are the stories they tell about how it has
more resin. Has anybody measured the stuff? People believe what they want to
believe. Hell, for fifty years they thought there were canals on Mars.[15]