[cerebralsativa]

yum yumz

[Ganja_Devotee]

Im looking for some old greek hashish cultivars or descendants of.. i read alot of the hashish production in greece moved to lebanon in the 1930s when greece made hashish illegal...
Is their any chance this lebanese strain has greek ancestory.?.
Does any one know of any greek lines still around?

This post has been edited by Ganja_Devotee: 23 March 2009 - 11:04 AM

[Arnold Layne]

Ganja Devotte - I spent a while amongst the Turkish growers on Northern Cyprus. They had several very distinct strains that came round seaon after season. I've often wondered where the genetics originated and if they were using Greek strains. I know the Greek side of the island had an inferior, flat/dull weed I smoked a bit of. But the Turkish side had two strains in particular that were truly electric/trippy, very very strong stuff indeed. Loved the whole Turksih stoner culture thing
I'd love to get hold of those two strains, so very different from each other and so very wildly trippy like a tab of acid in a Rizla.

This post has been edited by Arnold Layne: 23 March 2009 - 11:50 AM

[Ganja_Devotee]

My wife grew up in Greece and it is the reason we are looking for greek strains as it is her MS medicine and we believe in macrobiotics, so greek weed would be more beneficent medicinal to a greek person, i know not everyone would agree with that but its beside the point..

Arnold my wife says the electric trippy style weed you mention reminds her of a strain that was grown in Kalamata in the Pellopenese, which was a traditional greek line and known as Kalamata and considered the very best . Very happy very social but kick arse strong.

we have tried so hard to find any beans from there, but to no avail it seems either that line is no more or it is kept very secret and guarded.
One place that is keeping Greek lines pure for sure is Crete, a certain region is autonomous and they grow serious herb and guard their lines fiercely.
A friend of my wife is related to a grower from there and he couldn't even source us any beans,they wouldn't let any go, and you certainly couldnt just turn up in that area un announced unless you feel like getting shot. The greek police tried to exert their authority in the region last year and the locals didnt think twice about shooting at them. Some of them Cretans are crazy.

In my years of searching it always seems to be just over the horizon, someone will promise some and they will never arrive or someone will be talking to someone and hear of some but never happens. so i just grabbed some of these Lebanese as they are a mediteranean strain and may be close to greek lines. My fond memories of leb hash of course helped in the decision.

This post has been edited by Ganja_Devotee: 23 March 2009 - 01:15 PM

[morganna]

Here are 7 lebanese about 4 weeks old.....

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[morganna]

Another shot ...

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[namkha]

looking lovely mate ---

really excited to see these Lebanese being run

all best

[morganna]

Some closeups of the best lebanese.....

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[namkha]

niiiiiice

[weedineed]

another superb strain from real seed co.

[namkha]

Hey Gert,

Interesting info, many thanks

I'm surprised you think that the Greeks never really had a proper hashish strain...

The whole Eastern Med cannabis culture is a new area for me

But given the massive role Greece and Turkey played in supplying Egypts n million hashish smokers you would have thought that they would have had some cultivars very well suited to sieving

According to Sir Thomas Russell Pasha, Syria and Lebanon only became major hashish exporters after Greek prohibition in 1932

in 1944 Allied forces destroyed seven million square metres of crop in the Levant; in 1945 the Lebanese authorities claim to have destroyed 22 million square metres

it seems fair to assume that similarly large scale cultivation was going on in Greece and Turkey and that they would have had some pretty nifty cultivars to do the job

there seems to be bugger all info on Turkish strains --- maybe something with a Central Asian heritage? and appearance?

This post has been edited by namkha: 30 May 2009 - 06:17 PM

[leroy]

Hey Namkha
Here's my Lebanese next to a litre of PM for comparison, i only cracked 2 seeds and 1 was a female so i've taken cuttings from lower down and thrown her in to flower smallish as i'm limited with headroom inside and so this one is a tester.
5-6 weeks veg and she's been in flower a week today, she was 16.5" when she went to 12/12 and now a week later she's only 20", lovely tight nodes, she looks like she's gonna be like 1 big cola

[Ganja_Devotee]

Gert Lush, on May 30 2009, 09:30 PM, said:

namkha, on May 30 2009, 07:45 PM, said:

Interesting info, many thanks

I'm surprised you think that the Greeks never really had a proper hashish strain...

Hi Namkha,

Yeah, it's not just me, that's the accepted view and backed somewhat by documentation. I'll try and find the Ministerial Directive for you and translate.
Basically, before 1821 what is modern Greece was part of the Ottoman Empire. As it is, Greeks were never really a big-time ganja nation, perhaps a few old-timers in the villages. In the more Northern parts of Greece, where there were far larger cross-cultural influences, with Greeks, Turks, Bulgarians, Pomaks, Gypsies, Sephardic Jews and Wallachians sharing the space before the ethnic purges of the Balkan wars, things were a little different, and I imagine far more hash was present. This ties in somewhat with popular lore. In fact this area did not gain independence and join up with Greece until 1912! Up to then it was pretty much a Levantine scene, with many Sufi influences and hash would have been a pretty unremarkable phenomenon. Since Turkey already had well established hashish growing areas, especially the renown product from the Bursa region, there may have been little incentive to cultivate on the difficult, rocky Greek soil. Further, trasport was not really an issue as it was a stone's throw from say Salonica to Bursa, and all this was in the domain of the Sultan.

The interesting period lies shortly after Greek independence stretching to the eventual outlawing of cannabis at the turn of the century.
With independence many Levantine Greeks came back, bringing their gardening knowledge with them. Meantime, Egypt had outlawed hash and there was a gaping demand to be filled in the market. This was due in part to the neurotic nature of Napoleon and his aftermath, and partly due to the discomfort that Egyptian middle and ruling classes had with the "lower orders". They felt that it was a threat to society as it made the common man laugh at them. I believe this is on record. Oh, the impertinence!

Anyway, almost ALL of Greece's then legal hash crop, which had only appeared and started systematically around, say, 1850, was being run into Egypt illegally and for handsome profits by smugglers. Some also made its way into Europe and some even into the States, where Greek refugees had recently made their appearance. Their use of HASHISH (not Mexi-brick, hehe) is also documented, and I believe one of the few clandestine hash houses in New York was owned by a Greek.

The main agricultural area of hash production in Greece, I believe was in the NW Peloponese, while perhaps a few thousand acres in total were under canna, before Prohibition struck. However, as I said, this hash was not indigenous/traditional, it was a new-fangled earner of the day. OTOH, no-one has really studied the history of the "sativa" landrace stock, which is lost in the mists of time. I have some ideas on the subject (the key being the origin of the Cretan stock) but without proper DNA analysis to solve the mystery, they are merely speculation.

Great info...

Would love to get a look at that directive in its original Greek.