Confessions of a Pot Grower

 Weed, Bud, MJ, Ganja, Smoke.  Love it or hate it, legal marijuana is making its mark in the U.S.  As laws pertaining to the legal used of marijuana are being passed around the country, the old barriers and paradigms about this plant and its uses are breaking down and being re-invented.  Most of the advocacy behind this movement is focused on the medicinal attributes of this plant, and the wide variety of conditions it is reported to effectively treat.  As a result, I think one of the hottest new trends in gardening may well be the growing interest in Cannabis cultivation for personal medicinal use.  To-date, 23 states in the U.S. have passed laws legalizing the medical marijuana.  These laws vary widely from state to state, but many of them include the right to grow your own, some allowing up to 12 plants in cultivation!

On a recent visit to my home state of Maine, I had the opportunity to interview a certified "Care Giver," a designation which allows her to have in cultivation up to 6 mature marijuana plants per patient, with a maximum of 5 patients. In addition she is allowed to have a substantial amount of immature plant material in other various stages of growth - up to 12 immature female plants per patient, and an unlimited amount of seeds, seedlings, cuttings, stalks and roots.  As you might imagine,cultivation of this much plant material takes a not-insignificant amount of time, effort, and knowledge.

The following interview is with the Care Giver in Maine, who is happy to share her thoughts, but not so eager to share her identity.  Please know that this interview represents one person's views in regards to the legal cultivation of marijuana in one state, Maine.  This information is not intended to guide or instruct anyone, but is written purely as an informational document.  

How does the law work in Maine?

Maine passed a medical marijuana law in 1999, and has had activists all along the way lobbying to make sure Maine is serving the population that needs this, both the patient and the grower.  While it has an established 8 state dispensaries, Maine has  also allowed for private growers called Care Givers that deal directly with patients. A patient is someone with a treatable  condition and has received a prescription from a doctor specifically licensed to write certify patients for use of medical marijuana.  This certification needs to be renewed annually.  They are issued a watermarked certification printed on watermarked paper, so it is not easily counterfeited.  Once they have that certification, they can purchase from the dispensary, grow their own, or search for a care provider.  Some doctors provide business cards of growers at their offices, but they do not recommend specific growers.

Certification can be obtained for a wide number of conditions.  Specifically, the law states that a patient may receive a certification for any "debilitating medical condition." In addition to the named medical conditions one might be familiar with (Cancer, Glaucoma, HIV, etc.), this can include conditions that cause "intractable pain," muscle spasms, seizures, and nausea.  There is currently a push to have OCD added to the list of treatable conditions.

How did you get started growing?

Years ago I owned a greenhouse/nursery business, and had an employee who suffered from chronic back pain.  She was taking approved pharmaceuticals for years, but didn't like the side effects.  After medical marijuana was approved, she purchased it from a state dispensary, but was dissatisfied with the quality of the products she was able to obtain there.  A few years ago, she began to encourage me to consider becoming a Care Giver.  She knew I could produce a high quality product, and she kept after me to consider it.  I finally applied for and received a growers license in 2013, but, by then, I guess she had found another supplier, because I haven't heard from her since.

How do you determine how many plants to grow?  

Well, as a Care Giver, I may have up to 5 patients.  I pay the state $300 per patient, which allows me to have up to 6 plants mature plants in cultivation per patient at any given time. Mature plants mean plants that are coming in to bud.  I can also have a large number of immature plants per patient.  That gives allowance for loss. For example growers need remove any male plants without impacting the supply they require for each patient. It is impossible to tell male from female plants until they reach maturity, so you  must cultivate the plant at least until that stage to identify the plants that must be removed.

Some people cultivate indoors, and can grow year round.  That is more complicated and more expensive, so I choose to only cultivate outdoors, and can only do one crop per year.  

Currently, I have 3 patients.  I had 2 other patients, but one recently passed away from cancer, and the other has started growing their own.  I'd like to find 2 more patients, but need to be discreet because I don't necessarily want everyone in town to know what's growing in my back yard.

Tell me about the growing process?

Well, marijuana plants are dioecious, which means there are male and female plants.  Growers are only interested in the female plants, as it is their buds that are what is harvested.  These days, most plants are cultivated from cuttings, although you can purchase feminized seed.  I purchased some of my starts at a conference I was at this winter.

If you grow from seed, it is important to pay attention as the plants mature and weed out the males before they can pollinate the females.  Last year, I failed to do this, and ended up with a plant that not only was pollinated, but also dropped seeds.  This year, I have some volunteer plants in my garden that came from that, so I need to pay attention in the coming weeks to make sure I remove any males.  The rest of my plants are all females, and should start going into bud in the coming weeks.

Tell me about the harvesting process?

Growing the plants is relatively easy.  Marijuana plants are vigorous growers, and given proper amounts of nutrients and water, grow relatively pest-free.  Harvesting, thought, is the trickiest and most important part of the whole process.  There is a point in the budding process where the female is producing the maximum amount of hormones.  Identifying the perfect time for harvest is an art form that maximizes the effectiveness of your product.  I use a jeweler's loupe with 60x to check the buds during this stage of growth.  I am monitoring the trichomes-the tiny hairs that project from the female bud.  The trichomes begin to exude a sticky resinous substance. As the bud matures, this substance changes in appearance from clear to milky white, to, finally, amber.  Exactly when the bud is harvested during this process greatly impacts the affect the bud will have when used--from a "head high" to a "body stone," so knowing your patient and their needs plays a role in this.  I harvest in the "milky white" phase  When they are ready, I harvest only the buds--only the top 6" of the stems.  

Once the bud has been harvested, it needs to be hung to cure in a dry, shady spot.  Then comes the most tiresome work of all--trimming the bud.  Literally, all the extra plant material needs to be trimmed away, leaving just the bud.  This is very detailed work, and I can only do so much at a time before my hand hurts from holding the scissors.  But a clean bud makes for a high quality product, so I spend the time to do it right.

Tell me about the strains you are growing?

As I already mentioned, timing of harvest impacts the affect obtained when used.  That said, it is important to know that different strains have been selected over time for their ability to treat different conditions.  Some are great for pain relief, and relax the body. Others have more of a head effect, affecting your mental acuity. So I have selected a variety of plants that are specific to needs of the patients I have.  I have about 8 strains this year, including M.O.B. (Mother of Berry, a privately cultivated indica strain not widely available), Train Wreck, G13, AK-47, Blue Hell, Hash plant, and Sour Deisel, as well as some Isleboro crosses.   In the past couple of years, I have grown from purchased seeds and/or cuttings, but in the coming year, I plans to try to winter over some of my own "Train Wreck" cuttings as starts for next spring.

Marijuana has long been an illegal substance in our country the growing and/or use of which was punishable by law.   Why do you think that is changing now? Do you think there is a gap between public acceptance and legal acceptance.  What do you think the future holds for marijuana use in our country?

In part I think this was an inevitable cultural shift. Marijuana had been perfectly legal until a series of laws began to penalize its use in the 1930s..  But facts win out in the end.  I  believe, like many people, that Marijuana is neither addictive nor physically damaging in the way that alcohol abuse can be. As the older generation ages out, younger folks who didn’t grow up with that “Reefer Madness”  image experimented and found it to be not only a pleasant, mellow high but also instrumental in pain relief, seizure disorders, autoimmune conditions and a long list of other chronic complaints. I suspect that veterans returning from the Vietnam War accelerated this trend.


 It appears to me that the country is ready to accept medical marijuana and possibly to decriminalize recreational marijuana as well... in the same pattern as the civil rights movement, women’s rights and gay marriage. Change is inevitable. I expect to see resistance from the alcohol industry, the pharmaceutical industry, even the prison industry since so many are now privately owned and full of people whose only mistake was to have in their possession a “usable” amount of marijuana. Ironically, I’m not a consumer myself — I never cared for the buzz and I have no medical condition to treat. But since there are cannabinoid receptors in every cell of the human body, it would appear that God and nature conspired to give us a plant that would both delight and heal. What’s not to like about that?