Interview with Jorge Cervantes
Author of Indoor Marijuana Horticulture.
Interviewer: Skip Stone
Interviewed during the 2002 Cannabis Cup, in Amsterdam.

Skip: Do you get stoned when you write?

Jorge: Yeah I get stoned sometimes, but not always. If you have 10 people to call for an article and you need to check facts and cross reference stuff, it's hard as hell to stay stoned or be stoned. If you're just writing and you don't have any outside influences, you can get stoned. Not super stoned. I like to do that because I have more insights sometimes. My thoughts are more precise, more focused at times. It also depends how you feel. A lot of times I'll write for hours sometimes without even thinking about getting stoned.

Skip: You get into it and get focused and don't want to be distracted when you're on a roll. I work about half speed when I'm stoned. It's not very productive. It may be insightful, you make connections between things you might not ordinarily make. But on the other hand you're working a lot slower, so sometimes it's better to just stay straight when you're working.

Skip: Of the growers you visited, what percentage would you say are trying to grow organically or even concerned about the organic nature of the cannabis being grown?

Jorge: Organic and non-organic growing is usually dominated by geography and sometimes age. Here in Holland for example, organic growing isn't really a big thing because there's so many greenhouses and they have so many wonderful fertilizers and what not.

So it's a smaller thing here. But if you go to Northern California, Vermont, Central California, places in Colorado and Wisconsin, usually University towns or towns with high concentrations of organic-livers or free-spirits whatever you'd like to call them, organics is a lot bigger. It's usually a function of geography and politics.

Skip: So you're saying Americans are more concerned about smoking organic pot, while Europeans are less concerned about growing it and smoking it?

Jorge: No. I used examples in America cause I think a lot of people reading this would know those areas. Spain has a huge organic movement. France does too and so does Germany. It's not so big here in the Netherlands because it's never been. Britain also has a pretty big movement.

Skip: So that would explain why in the Dutch coffeeshops there isn't so much organic pot being sold, because it's not being grown here. It seems like the smaller growers are the ones supplying what little organic weed comes to market here. So if you're growing organically it would be by definition a smaller operation?

Jorge: In general they're going to be smaller, but not necessarily.

Skip: So what would be the main difference between someone growing organic and someone growing non-organically?

Jorge: That's a good question. It depends on who's defining organic. Here in Holland they call it Bio, or Biological (biologisch), or not biological. To some people here that means you don't put any insecticide on it. So that's one definition of organic, no organophosphate or chemical pesticides. There's lots of pesticides and lots of fungicides. Non-Organic usually means it's just been heated or processed. Organic technically means it contains a carbon molecule that hasn't been altered. But that doesn't leave a space for rock powders for example. Rock powders don't have a carbon molecule so technically it's not organic. So people confuse this organic and non-organic and tend to label things according to their needs. Just like people who read the bible have it fit their needs first and foremost.

To me organic is all natural products, nothing has been heated or combined to alter the structure of the molecule.

Skip: So you're talking about soil, fertilizer and pesticides...

Jorge: I haven't touched on the soil, or growing medium much. The growing medium is supposed to be inert. That just means it doesn't react with other chemicals. At the same time you have expanded clay which is considered a hydroponic medium. So is cocopeat is considered a hydroponic medium because it doesn't react with other chemicals, but still it's full of carbon molecules. So it is a little confusing. The main thing to look for is non-reaction and the inert quality of the growing medium.

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