Berlin, Barcelona, and Bangkok—oh my!

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Photos over 20 years old show the enigmatic artist known as Banksy at work, painting a 17-ton train car in Malaga, Spain that is now worth nearly $2 million dollars. Little did the artist know that a man who was talking to him took a photo and held on to it all these years.

Gloucester Live reports that the never-before-seen photos of Banksy that emerged show the artist painting his biggest ever artwork.

The train car was called The Turbozone Truck, it went up for auction with the starting price of £1 million ($1.27 million USD)  to £1.5m ($1.9 million USD) after it was authenticated by his studio. The photos also appear to be authentic as it is a well-known piece by the artist.

“I used to spend a lot of time in Bristol,” the unidentified photographer said. “Our friends told us about this party that was going on in Spain and we thought why not? At the time we were very aware of Banksy’s stuff when it was popping up, but he was still quite under the radar.”

The pictures were taken in the early hours of a New Year’s Day party in Malaga. At the time, they had no idea how big Banksy would eventually become after he blew up.

“Then we were at the party and saw this guy painting—the three of us just turned to each other and said it’s got to be Banksy!” he said. “Little did we know at the time he would go on to become one of the most famous artists in the world.”

The photographer then says he approached the man and asked him if he was the elusive street artist, and says the man confirmed he was Banksy. 

“It wasn’t much of a conversation–-I remember we said how we’d seen some of his work in Bristol, as far as I remember, he had been flown over from Bristol.”

The train car featuring Banksy’s artwork spent years traveling from Europe to South America as part of a tour for Turbozone’s Cinderella show. It is also featured in Banksy’s official book, Wall and Piece, which was published in 2006 and authenticated by the artist via his studio, Pest Control.

The identity of Banksy has never been revealed officially, however a number of names have been linked with Banksy in the past: Robert Del Naja, Robin Gunningham, Art Attack’s Neil Buchanan. Gunningham is probably among the best theories for Banksy’s identity, BBC reports. Banksy’s former agent Steve Lazarides claimed to show the artist at work in a separate photo, although none of the images new or old show his face. 

Banksy Loves Buddha

The enigma known only as Banksy re-entered the world of cannabis with a new permanent installation in a Toronto, Ontario-based dispensary in 2020. The unofficial king of guerrilla art—in the form of graffiti—left a breadcrumb trail of mystery throughout Europe and across the world through stark political messages and epigrams. But now, the vandal’s art can be appreciated by cannabis consumers who often share his political beliefs.

Tokyo Smoke brand announced its new cannabis retail store in Toronto, Ontario—as well as its permanent installation of an exclusive Banksy collection of art. The collection will feature “never-before-seen” works from the artist, as well as other notable pieces from other artists.

The store was armed with plexiglass dividers at the retail counter and reminders to observe social distancing. Tokyo Smoke, which is a subsidiary of Canopy Growth Corp., opened the new location on 21 Bloor St. E. and the property is wheelchair accessible. 

The artist appears to favor hash resin, a common item found in the U.K. and Europe. In 2003, for instance, the artist illegally hung his own art at the esteemed Tate Britain—formerly called the National Gallery of British Art—in an act he said was inspired by cannabis resin. His self-hung piece was entitled, “Crimewatch UK Has Ruined the Countryside For All of Us,” and was placed next to a 19th century landscape.

Like all of his public pieces, it carried a political message buried in dark humor. Each time a Banksy piece is spotted, the media loses their minds.

Banksy’s famous piece “Rage Flower Thrower” depicted a Black Bloc-looking protester throwing a bouquet of flowers instead of a Molotov cocktail. The Rage Flower Thrower, however, has been marketed as “Weed Thrower” on T-shirts and other merchandise on Ebay.

The artist is best known for “Girl With Balloon,” a stenciled graffiti painting in East London. In 2018, a “Girl With Balloon” print was auctioned off in London at Sotheby’s for £1.042 million—only to self-destruct moments later. It was one of the latest of Banksy’s antics that once again shocked the world.

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Medical cannabis is taking over Europe, as well as efforts to decriminalize cannabis in numerous countries and at local levels. In a pattern similar to what took place in the U.S., European nations are legalizing cannabis for medical or recreational purposes in a patchwork of new laws.

According to a May 16 press release from Victoria, Australia-based Biortica Agrimed, 21 out of 27 member states of the European Union (EU) legalized medical cannabis.

“The EU situation with respect to legalisation can best be described as fluid, but evolving positively,“ said Tom Varga, CEO of Biortica Agrimed. Biortica Agrimed is a vertically-integrated B2B company  preparing to list on the Australian Securities Exchange with an IPO.

The 27 EU countries are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.

Out of those, 21 countries—Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, and Spain—implemented laws to allow for the medical use of cannabis.

Out of those countries, the potential market in Germany is among the most exciting and where investors are circling the most at the current moment.

“Whilst EU law prohibits the commercial sale of cannabis, many countries are taking a more mature approach, and legalising, initially medicinal, and ultimately personal use, with Germany in the lead. 21 out of the 27 EU member states have legalised use of medicinal cannabis,” he said, “and 13 countries have either legalised or decriminalised its personal use.”

Countries like Spain have decriminalized cannabis, while Georgia, Germany, Luxembourg, and Malta have taken steps to legalize adult-use. Countries like Portugal have gone even further by decriminalizing all drugs. Dozens more cities in the EU decriminalized cannabis at the city level.

Part of the purpose of Biortica Agrimed’s report is to support the argument that it’s due time Australia takes note of the potential Down Under. Australia legalized medical marijuana in 2016. According to Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) data, the number of patient approvals for medical cannabis increased sharply. In Australia, doctors can prescribe medicinal cannabis with the approval from the TGA and the relevant State or Territory’s Health Department.

“The EU comprises world class nations, and Australia should take any learnings that we can from the EU.” he said, “We have the benefit, and indeed the privilege, to view how legislative frameworks have been built over-seas, what’s worked and working, and what the Australian industry and legislators should avoid. Australia really can do better.”

“We look forward to continuing to share our global industry research with the Australian industry, our legislators and regulators, to build an industry that we can all be proud of, an industry that puts patient care, safety and outcomes to the fore, ” said Varga.

Cannabis Prevalence in Europe

Cannabis remains the most popular substance used in Europe according to the most recent counts by European data monitors.

The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction’s (EMCDDA) report, entitled “Cannabis—the current situation in Europe (European Drug Report 2023),” describes cannabis as “by far the most commonly consumed illicit drug in Europe.”

The report cites national surveys which show that 8% of European adults (out of approximately 22.6 million people between 15 and 64 years of age) have used cannabis within the last year. An estimated 1.3% of adults (approximately 3.7 million people) are described as “daily” or “almost daily” consumers.

With the popularity of cannabis continuing to grow, the report notes that this often leads to consumer “problems.” “There remains, however, a need to understand better the kinds of problems experienced by cannabis users, as well as the referral pathways and treatment options available for those with cannabis-related problems,” the report stated.

Germany’s legislation to legalize cannabis took effect on April 1. German lawmakers gave final approval to a recreational weed legalization plan known as CanG recently, making the country the largest in Europe to take the step.

In the German capital of Berlin, cannabis smokers gathered at the iconic Brandenberg Gate to smoke weed and celebrate their new freedoms. Other events were held throughout Europe’s most populous country, including one in front of the Cologne cathedral and others in the cities of Hamburg, Regensburg, and Dortmund.

The patchwork of laws unfolding in the EU show how medical and adult-use cannabis are popular on a global scale, and what Australia could learn from European countries.

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In 2023, an artist and his patron set out on a seemingly impossible task: illustrate the vast history of cannabis in a single art piece. Inspired by the Tapisserie de Bayeux—an ancient chronological tapestry depicting a two-year invasion of England by the Normans—Stefan van Swieten commissioned his friend Mossy Giant to create a piece for his cannabis social club in Barcelona, Spain. Now stretching across the wall at La Creme Gracia, the artwork displays incredibly detailed and interconnected scenes. Starting with the Big Bang, the whole world of weed unfolds in images, illustrating an epic tale of turmoil, triumph, and THC. 

In March 2024, Mossy Giant and La Creme Gracia debuted the second iteration of their project on the opposite wall of the club, a massive artwork detailing the history of cannabis in the Netherlands. The opening coincided with Spannabis—a yearly gathering that stands as one of the largest cannabis seed marketplaces on the planet—and brought out major players from the Dutch scene. Through seed companies and coffeeshops, the Netherlands played an outsized role in the proliferation of cannabis throughout the world. Like an ancient tapestry or a scene by Hieronymus Bosch, the artwork, The Grand History of Cannabis: The Dutch, tells a story in a single expression. Naturally, viewing it while smoking weed and hash in a cannabis social club in Barcelona only enhances its depth and allure.

La Creme Gracia

Upon arriving at La Creme Gracia for the art opening, the first thing I see is a fox-like dog poking its head out of the bottom of the front door. In a city where recent raids on local cannabis social clubs would lead people to believe these spaces are dangerous, the German spitz’s fluffy face is a glowing beacon of joy. Club owner van Swieten greets me inside the hallway and later tells me his dog’s name is Leo.

“Leo is the boss,” van Swieten says in a French accent. “He’s quite famous; he’s famous in the neighborhood. People know his name.”  

Found within the Gracia neighborhood of Barcelona, a short distance away from Antoni Gaudi’s towering architectural masterpiece, La Sagrada Familia, La Creme Gracia is a local spot. 

“Basically, the club is really here for the local people, so we really try our best to offer weed that can match with the economic or the capacities of the people here,” van Swieten says, explaining that a gram of Amnesia Haze—a strain that’s so prolific in the Spanish cannabis clubs that it’s crossed the bridge from cool to cliche—goes for 6-7 euros depending on the quality of the batch. “[Amnesia Haze] has a bad reputation because it is so successful. And if we don’t have it, I feel something is missing.” 

The rest of the club’s cannabis flowers go for around 6-8 euros a gram. Flowers grown in “super soil” are priced at 9-13 euros. 

“We have a bit of American stuff, but very limited,” van Swieten says. “We never wanted to be on the cusp of fashion. I prefer to have weed that’s 10 years old, the genetics, that’s sold at a reasonable price, than to buy something new that’s going to be outrageous.”

Van Swieten and Mossy Giant were first connected through van Swieten’s work as a music producer when he commissioned Mossy’s work for album covers. Based in Paris at the time, van Swieten and Mossy—who is from the Netherlands—came together through a mutual connection with Amsterdam-based Soma’s Sacred Seeds. Van Swieten has run La Creme Gracia for the past decade. The cannabis clubs in Spain operate as decriminalized member-only spaces. 

“I love it, I love the club,” he says. “I think it’s perfect. It’s what I call the perfect third place. The first place is your job, the second, your house, and the third… this is a perfect third place. I love it. I would wish that it could continue and I would wish that this model would not be destroyed by personal ambition, which could happen.”

The club has two rooms, a dispensary and a lounge, and it is packed during the art opening on Saturday, March 16. 

Falling in line with his artistic nom de plume, Mossy Giant, Mossy is quite tall—he played college basketball in the U.S.—and is easy to spot at the opening among a crowd of admirers. After briefly meeting, Mossy brings me to the center of the room and introduces me to Derrick Bergman, a longtime cannabis-focused journalist based in the Netherlands. Bergman served as an advisor on the art project and worked with van Swieten and Mossy Giant to release a companion book that details the history of some of the players within the Dutch scene. I pass him a joint, which he asks and correctly assumes is all cannabis without tobacco. Of course, I smoke like an American, he says. With Bergman now acting as my in-person audio guide, I jump into examining the artwork. 

The Netherlands: The Land Below the Water

Bergman quickly establishes himself as an expert in Dutch cannabis culture as I ask questions about the people and things depicted in the artwork. 

“I’m 30 years writing about cannabis, and so many of these people I know, I still know,” he says. “I’d say the common thing with all these people is that they have a passion, but they walk their own path.”

Looking at the highly detailed art in person is impressive. When I ask Bergman about my primary mentor in weed journalism, High Times co-founder and cannabis cultivation expert Ed Rosenthal, he points him out at a table of influential figures that include Mila Jansen, aka Mila the Hashqueen, and Henk de Vries of the famed Bulldog Coffeeshop. At the center of that table is the first issue of High Times, which came out 50 years ago in 1974. Rosenthal is depicted twice in the work. He’s also shown with another iconic cannabis character, Sam the Skunkman, building the cannabis genetic bridge between California and Amsterdam that resulted in the first hybrid cannabis crosses in the 1970s, most notably Skunk #1. 

The elaborate work of art has many elements, but Mossy’s favorite part is the windmill puffing a joint. 

“I just thought it was really cool to use extreme Dutch iconography in the windmill,” he says. “Because I’ve never drawn this—I am a Dutch guy—I’m usually very much inspired by American culture and nature, and that’s very much in my work. But to really get, almost patriotic in a way, to go full out with these Dutch icons, the wooden shoes and the tulip, and then have all the weed stuff in it like the typical Amsterdam house…”

He says that the artwork is intended to fuel conversation.

“Through art, you can have a very easy conversation about very difficult subjects like this history of the Dutch and the way cannabis in history has been connected to mankind,” Mossy says. “Through art, you can have these conversations very easily. You can tell a story. And that’s how it should be used, as a tool.”

The Original Peach

Another cannabis industry client Mossy has worked with includes Mat Beren, the breeder behind The House of the Great Gardener. For Beren, Mossy drew a moment when Beren met the “great gardener” during a transformative psychedelic journey. 

“We saw each other at Spannabis, and he’s very good friends with Soma, and I do all the Soma branding,” Mossy says. “I get into meeting with these guys, and they have very interesting, elaborate, crazy life stories, and they share something really personal. Like this ayahuasca experience that he had when he met the great gardener in the sky. And he was ordering my prints because the guy I always draw, the hippie, looked exactly like the guy he met in that experience.”

When I catch up with Beren on the noisy showroom floor on the first day of Spannabis 2024, The House of the Great Gardener is already sold out of two of the Barbara Bud crosses it made exclusively for the three-day event, Fruit Joy x Barbara Bud and Sweet Peach x Barbara Bud. The longstanding popularity of Barbara Bud is real. I find my friend Stoney Xochi at the booth hoping to get the Sweet Peach x Barbara Bud seeds as Sweet Peach won an award at the 2024 Barcelona Dab-A-Doo, a global hash competition organized by Jansen, a Dutch cannabis icon.

While the House of the Great Gardner is a Spanish-based cannabis seed company, Beren and his business partner started with Great Gardener Farms, based in Canada on Vancouver Island. 

“I created Barbara Bud about 25 years ago, and 10 years ago, I won one of the first Dab-A-Doos as a rising club in Barcelona,” Beren says. “That essentially started a craze in Europe, Spain, and Morocco. Barbara Bud has sort of gained iconic status now. It’s the original peach. But the other side of that is it’s easy to grow, creates ridiculous amounts of trichomes, finishes in about seven or eight weeks, so…”

Two Tracks

Back at La Creme Gracia the morning after the art opening I re-animate over joints and espresso with van Swieten, Bergman, and Mossy. At the close of our conversation, I ask Mossy about the Grand History of Cannabis piece, specifically the end, where there are two train tracks.

“One goes up, that’s the green train, so you see hemp there, green medicine, oils, cannabis culture goes forward,” he explains. 

And driving the train?

“Those are my two characters that always are in my world: the hippie and the bear. The hippie is like the farmer, the wise man, the crazy guy, and the bear is creation, the happy energy. They balance each other out,” Mossy says. “Those are my iconic characters, and they drive this train forward, the green train, and the other track is the track of prohibition.”

Mossy explains that this part of the artwork is based on a poster promoting cannabis legalization in Spain.

“There was a poster for pro-legalization of cannabis here in Spain that had two train tracks on it. One leading to prohibition and one leading to a green future, and [the art] is based on that poster, that concept,” Mossy says. “Prohibition doesn’t work, and it’s been proven many times prohibition doesn’t work… So, it ends in the mouth of the monster of prohibition. It’s basically saying that [the history] is still being written, there’s still chapters to come, the track keeps going.”

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In 2023, more Americans than ever traveled to Barcelona, Spain to attend the week-long festivities surrounding Spannabis. For years now, weed enthusiasts of the world have been gathering at this international cannabis event to meet, break bread, and share techniques. As society continues to focus its gaze on cannabis, the bridges they’ve been building are starting to show up all over social media. This year, along with plates of jamón and a peek at La Sagrada Família cathedral, there was one other must-have on everyone’s lists—the hash.

The week surrounding Spannabis plays host to a dazzling array of competitions, most with multiple categories for hash. Full melt, dry sift, cold cure, fresh press, and just about every kind of resinous expression you can imagine was on display at the judges’ tables and throughout the city’s numerous social clubs where members can consume cannabis safely off of the street. The grey area laws surrounding cannabis in Spain say you can consume privately, but that clubs cannot operate for profit, meaning the things you pick up there are part of your member services. Barcelona in particular has been attracting hashmakers from all over the world and creating a buzz for the level of quality they’re pushing out. To properly talk about hash culture in Barcelona and where it’s going next, we spoke with some highly respected voices in the community.

The Heart of Hash

Doc Hazed is a well-known name that’s secured multiple awards this year for full melt, dry sift, and rosin. According to him, “the heart of the hash scene in Spain, or even Europe, is in Barcelona.” He first came to Spain in 2016 from Italy, where he taught himself how to make hash by studying message boards and forums. For him, moving to Barcelona was crucial to working with the quality and quantity of material he needed to reach a higher degree of success. Over the last few years, he said the work he’s seen, specifically with ice water hash and rosin, has been “raised to another level.”

Around five years ago, he noticed a lot of people switching to processing fresh frozen material.

“After the switch, the full melt that started coming out was better than anything else on the scene,” he said. “Some of the social clubs around the city started adding high-quality dry sift and water hash to their menus and this got a whole crowd of smokers interested in trying higher quality hash.”

As these patrons of the arts grew to understand the effort and costs involved, they were willing to pay a little more. Demand started to grow and over time these resin artists were able to increase production and stabilize costs so that more people could try some at their local club.

One of these social clubs was HQ, where David Madilyan runs not only one of Barcelona’s premiere smoking spots but also its in-house rosin brand and a competition that brings worldwide players in to compete in a single category. For Madilyan, the goal has always been to provide access to these kinds of products. Over the years HQ has become a place known for promoting, offering, and celebrating rosin. When he first opened the doors of the club he had already been a longtime fan of dabbing. Even back then, making rosin with a hair straightener, he could tell this was the wave of the future for cannabis smokers. 

To help bring rosin and full melt further into view, he’s had a string of talented hashmakers come work with the club to make sure the menu always has some for members to try out. After their most recent star finished his tenure and left to create his own brand, Madilyan thought about all the time he’d spent working alongside these artisans. He decided to launch a line of products he would press under the name Babushka Farms as a way to show the people who visit HQ what good material can do when it’s met with what he calls “a passion for hashin’.”

Masters of Rosin, the competition HQ launched six years ago, has grown to become a respected part of the European competition lineup and brings people together to compete in a rosin-only smackdown for the crown.

“People are getting used to what it’s like to take a dab,” Madilyan said. “We’ve smoked in Spain for years now but it’s traditionally been either pure flower or traditional hash. If we look over the last 20 years at how we’ve bred thousands of strains for resin production, or how popular rosin has become in the last five years it’s obvious that hash is making some major strides in a very short period of time.”

Slite23, HQ’s former hashmaker turned solo artist, believes the internet also played a pivotal role in where things are now.

“During the pandemic, everyone was either lurking on their phone or working in the lab,” he said. “Thanks to things like Instagram, we had a chance to see what people were smoking around the world.”

Having relocated to Barcelona from Italy eight years ago, Slite23 says he witnessed this sudden explosion of content create a spike in quality along with a whole new crowd of hashmakers entering the space. What’s taken longer to catch up, he says, is the supply and demand for glass, butane, torches, and all the gear to bring in new smokers.

La Sagrada Farm, another favorite of the Barcelona community, believes recent advancements in electronic rigs and vape pens are breaking down the barrier quite a bit. The team feels these devices have helped people understand how and why we smoke hash by, as they put it, “unlocking the power of fashion and industrial design.”

Known for their insanely flavorful work, which took first at Spannabis Champions Cup and second at Masters of Rosin this year, La Sagrada’s head hashmaker and collective founder Arturo went into more detail about how full melt and rosin are cresting the hill after an uphill battle with a combination of tradition and mindset.

There’s a longstanding history of Europeans mixing hashish with tobacco and, in Arturo’s opinion, Catalonians have been at it for so long that smokers there feel like they have an innate understanding of what something should look like and how much it should cost. To him, it makes their job harder but it’s this familiarity and ease with cannabis that also makes Barcelona one of the only places they could do something like this.

“Here, even a 50-year-old taxi driver has smoked more weed and seen more drugs than you,” he joked.

In Barcelona, he said, people seem to have this idea that a higher price for these newer items is in some way due more to hype than cost. Slite23 brought up how most of the people he knows have grown up smoking Moroccan hash, with a gram running you the price of a fast-food meal. Getting someone used to a jar of hash, let alone one that can cost up to eight times more than that, takes time. Along with pricing, there’s still a stigma they’ve had to overcome. Not just with cannabis but with using a torch and all the other accessories needed to take a dab.

Introducing Piattella

With it still being illegal to grow anything above personal, non-profit use, part of what makes the Spanish hash scene so special is the result of their limited cultivation space. Many find themselves producing single-source and small-batch simply by necessity. Every round has to count and there’s little room for error, so breeding and growing specifically with resin production in mind is of prime importance. Slite23 and Doc Hazed both expressed how farmers and breeders have been crucial in helping them thrive by providing reliable genetics and desirable options for the European community. This innovation and desire to keep pushing are what’s helped lead a group of them to develop something that’s begun to create a stir, bringing even more eyes to their arena—Piattella.

You’ve seen it all over the internet, this single word rattling through countless Instagram posts and memes, but what exactly is Piattella? Hassans710, a European hash brand that’s been working with the stuff since 2019 described it as the result of “cold curing full-melt [hash] to achieve a premium level of terpene retention.” Looking like a wet piece of spice cake, the growing interest in these soft bricks is something like when that awesome track you dropped four years ago suddenly goes viral on TikTok.

Speaking with Uncle’s Farm, a social club and grow operation which is accredited with its creation, Piattella (pee-ah-tell-uh) is cold cured Ice-O-Lator hash named after the Italian word piatto meaning “flat.” Adding the diminutive suffix “-ella” changes the definition to something more like “little brick,” a reference to the most popular way of presenting these concentrated hash cakes. The word has a few other meanings as well, including plate, which is why googling Piattella often brings up a list of nearby Italian restaurants. When asked if the word was spelled with one T or two, the overwhelming response was that since it’s based off of the Italian word, it should have the traditional Italian spelling. Arturo of La Sagrada Farm, which is also credited with the creation of this new form of hash, pointed out that there is also a connection to the slang term piattello, which is a clay hunting target known in English as skeet. Again, referencing that shaped appearance, which Uncle from Uncle’s Farm says is one of the steps in their cold curing process.

Each glistening loaf of Piattella is aged, full-melt hash, meaning the brick is actually made up of thousands of tiny trichomes. While it might look sticky, if you rub a dot of it between your fingers,it actually feels like wet sand. As Uncle put it, “you can dab it, drop some in a hash pipe or even roll it into a joint,” which he calls cannolos. This terpy mixture of American and European techniques has been refined over the last five years but only in the last few months has the fire been brought to a furious boil. La Sagrada referenced posts from back in 2018 and 2019 where they showed pictures of the technique in its early stages.

“We were so excited when we finally found a resin that would stay wet after curing from six star,” Arturo said. “We asked people online what they thought about curing full melt and after four months we still hadn’t seen the level of impact we thought this project could have.”

Throughout 2019 La Sagrada continued to make small batches locally as they, along with Uncle’s Farm and a few others, worked on identifying what cultivars would create the best expression of this product.

Hassans710, who apprenticed under Uncle’s Farm said that, for him, the biggest difference between this and uncured full melt is the humidity the material holds. He added how the process takes time, patience, and comprehension of resin in order to create not just a batch but also to break that down into smaller pieces. He prefers Piattella for its high level of terps and the experience of slicing into a nicely matured piece, believing that “all hash flavor, in general, translates better when it’s cured and aged properly.” When asked how he felt about the sudden explosion of interest, he asserted, “Piattella is the next big thing out there and has been for a while now. It’s about time we get to share it with the world.”

For the growing crowd of people interested in curing up a batch themselves, Uncle’s Farm summed it up like this: making Piattella is more about practice than any one specific trick or method. This was something that La Sagrada also stressed. Not all strains will make that nice, wet brick of Piattella. Arturo was clear that you have to “work with the resin on each plant to see how well the material will hold those terps and how long it can be stored before beginning to dry out.” Hashmakers who want to try this out should know that there’s a large degree of trial and error that went into compiling the list of cultivars they now know can produce the level of product that people travel to Uncle’s Farm to experience.

A Global Movement

This giant, ongoing discussion about Spain’s hash, its makers, and their techniques represents the heartbeat of a global community and shows just how highly Spain has risen in the hash scene in such a relatively short time. Not to say they weren’t already in the room with their name carved into the desk, but with over 25,000 confirmed cannabis lovers roaming the streets of Barcelona this year, many of them scarfing ham and smoking hash, the Catalan’s out of the bag. We have to stand in awe of the level of professional work that’s coming out of an area that doesn’t have the same large consumer pool we enjoy here in the states. La Sagrada said they always try to keep in mind how cannabis is a product that, in Spain, is consumed by people who don’t want to spend a lot of money on weed or dabs. In a sophisticated country that still pays on average $8 to $9 per hour, the incredible artisan products we’ve been talking about in this article might be borne from unlimited passion but they’re served to a limited crowd.

Everyone we spoke with agreed the next big push in Spain is the one toward legalization. A couple even said they’ve been standing at the gate saying “any minute now” for the last five years or more. This current system of loopholes is one that they’re happy to work with for now but there are dreams and aspirations about no longer fighting with large governing bodies about the value of what they do, or worrying about being caught delivering to the clubs. The tone seemed to be one that was hopeful but not in a rush. They’ve watched the way things have evolved elsewhere and they’re wary of losing what they’ve already built.

This current relationship between the American and Spanish hash communities has been taking root for almost a decade. Now, with people asking for a Masters of Rosin U.S. and companies offering to bring Europeans over for residencies, this connection is gaining speed like a bullet train. Slite23 said his inbox has been stuffed with new faces and requests for info about his work.

“With vaccine restrictions lifted, so many came to the city for Spannabis this year and we finally got to show all of our efforts in person after two years of waiting,” he said.

The sound of all these stories, posts, and reposts has been reverberating through the hash halls of the West and East coasts. This 4/20, Madilyan of HQ was walking down the streets of Manhattan in his Masters of Rosin hoodie and was stopped by someone who recognized the design from following NorCal hashmaker Professor Sift.

There’s history being made on the streets beneath the breathtaking La Sagrada Família cathedral, one that no doubt will be part of Europe’s advancement into the next age of cannabis. Whether it’s full melt, dry sift, rosin, or Piattella, the solventless scene around Barcelona is a lightning rod—attracting a renaissance of resin that’s inspiring and reminding us of the love and passion that brought us here in the first place. Whatever they do next, the world will be watching.

This article was originally published in the July 2023 issue of High Times Magazine.

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A riveting piece published on Wednesday by Reuters brought into focus the response from law enforcement to illicit cannabis production and trafficking in the Spanish region of Catalonia.

“Heavily-armed police officers arrived in a well-to-do Barcelona suburb before dawn to raid a two-storey house that turned out to be packed with 800 marijuana plants growing under powerful lamps,” Reuters journalists Horaci Garcia and Joan Faus wrote. “The recent raid, on which Reuters accompanied the officers as they arrested two Albanian nationals, is part of an almost daily police routine in the Spanish region of Catalonia as it cracks down on the booming illegal production of marijuana, often run by local and international drug gangs.”

Catalonia, home to the majestic city of Barcelona, has a fraught relationship with the Spanish government –– and the tension has extended to cannabis policy. 

It is “now Spain’s top producing region, with most exports channelled by road to France,” according to Reuters, which noted that the region is “attractive because producers can use properties left empty after the bursting of Spain’s property bubble in 2008, the process to evict them is lengthy, theft of electricity does not carry a jail sentence, and marijuana-related crimes carry lighter sentences than in neighbouring countries.”

In 2017, Catalonia legalized cannabis clubs, but an abrupt court ruling in 2021 overturned that law. 

The ruling put the cannabis clubs that had sprung up around Barcelona in legal limbo, but as Reuters noted in its story this week, the clubs now operate under “self-imposed rules,” under which they “grow their own marijuana, only let in adults who can buy up to 60 grams monthly and take 15 days to approve memberships to put off short-term tourists.”

“But many clubs, which are often barely recognisable from outside, do not stick to the rules because they are voluntary,” according to Reuters.

“We believe the lack of (legal) control is causing many problems,” Eric Asensio, head of the Catalan federation of cannabis clubs, told the news service. 

Cultivating cannabis is against the law in Spain. Last year, Spanish lawmakers approved a measure that would authorize medical cannabis treatment in the country.

In November, the country’s “Guardia Civil,” a law enforcement agency in Spain, took down an organization with more than 32 tons of cannabis stored in various cities throughout the country. Police said that it was a record-setting bust.

“The Civil Guard has seized the largest cache of packaged marijuana found so far. The Jardines operation has concluded with the seizure of 32,370.2 kilograms of marijuana buds, the largest seizure of this substance, not only in Spain, but also internationally. Its equivalence in complete plants would be approximately 1,100,000 copies,” Spanish police said at the time.

“The twenty detainees – nine men and eleven women between the ages of 20 and 59 – were part of an organization with offices in Toledo, Ciudad Real, Valencia and Asturias, which controlled the entire drug production and distribution process,” the police continued in the announcement, detailing the arrest. “The investigation began with an inspection by the Civil Guard of several industrial hemp plantations in Villacañas (Toledo). The main [plantation] investigated owned a company with which they acquired the seeds. A second transported and planted them. Another company was in charge of the care, maintenance, collection and drying of the specimens.” 

The police said that the detainees packaged the contraband in “different formats to send them both to places in Spanish territory and to European countries, mainly Switzerland, Holland, Germany and Belgium.”

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The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction’s (EMCDDA) report, entitled “Cannabis—the current situation in Europe (European Drug Report 2023),” describes cannabis as “by far the most commonly consumed illicit drug in Europe.”

The report cites national surveys which show that 8% of European adults (out of approximately 22.6 million people between 15 and 64 years of age) have used cannabis within the last year. An estimated 1.3% of adults (approximately 3.7 million people) are described as “daily” or “almost daily” consumers.

With the popularity of cannabis continuing to grow, the report notes that this often leads to consumer “problems.” “There remains, however, a need to understand better the kinds of problems experienced by cannabis users, as well as the referral pathways and treatment options available for those with cannabis-related problems,” the report stated.

The report adds that in data featured in the 2021 European Web Survey on Drugs, 95% of participants who use cannabis within the last 12 months, 32% chose to consume “resin,” 25% chose edibles, and 17% preferred extracts. In the European Union (EU), tested resin contained 20% THC, whereas flower was tested at 9.5% THC. 

The EMCDDA claims that 97,000 people entered drug treatment programs for “problems related to cannabis use” in 2021, with 55,000 of those people doing so for the first time.

Additionally, records of cannabis product seizures in 2021 also reached its highest point in more than 10 years. The report cites Spain as the country with the highest percent of cannabis product seizures at 66%.

Overall, the EU reportedly seized more than 202,000 cannabis resin products (equating the seizures to 816 tonnes, or 1,798,972 pounds) in 2021. Cannabis flower seizures were recorded at 256 tonnes (or 564,383 pounds). In the country of Turkey alone, 9,800 seizures for cannabis resin products yielded 33 tonnes (or 72,752 pounds) and 31 tonnes (or 68,343 pounds) of cannabis flower.

“There is an increasing diversity of cannabis products available in Europe. This is true both for the illicit drug market and for consumer markets, where products are appearing that contain low levels of THC but also other substances derived from the cannabis plant such as CBD,” the EMCDDA wrote. “On the illicit drug market, the availability of high-potency extracts and edibles is a particular concern and has been linked to acute toxicity presentations in hospital emergency departments.” 

The report also cited concerns for the synthetic cannabinoid hexahydrocannabinol that has recently become available in certain EU countries.

The EU is made up of 27 countries, some of which have enacted medical or recreational cannabis legalization to help prevent the black market from thriving.

In December 2021, Malta was the first EU country to legalize recreational cannabis. The country’s approach to regulating possession, cultivation, and sales, Malta allows for residents to possess seven grams of cannabis in public (or up to 50 grams at their personal residence), as well as up to four plants cultivated at home.

More recently, German officials have been hard at work developing a regulatory framework for cannabis legalization. In April 2023, the newest draft reflects the use of state-controlled non-profit social clubs. If passed, it would allow residents at least 18 years or older to purchase up to 25 grams of cannabis per day (or up to 50 grams per month). Those who are 18-21 years old would be limited to just 30 grams per month.

Other EU countries are also currently working on their own versions of legalization, including Luxembourg, Czech Republic, and the Netherlands. 

Switzerland on the other hand is currently allowing numerous cannabis research trial pilot programs in certain parts of the country. The SCRIPT study, which is conducted by the University of Bern, doesn’t legalize cannabis but was created to examine the “health and social effects” of regulated cannabis at local pharmacies. “Our study therefore does not aim to legalize cannabis in the free market—but to be able to address the problems caused by prohibition and the black market and to test possible harm reduction approaches, as well as a strict control of supply and distribution use demand for cannabis,” said head of SCRIPT researcher Reto Auer.

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Germany makes moves to medicalize it.

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More seeds, Zkittlez, live rosin, and dope collaborations.

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Upon exhaling a deep drag from a joint of Blueberry Cookies grown by City Farmers BCN the smoke from my hit travels upward into the rafters of a 16th century modernist palace in the heart of Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter. As the smoke rises, I contemplate the significance of the moment and celebrate the freedom of enjoying weed in a country where cannabis still exists within a gray area, decriminalized for personal use and cultivation, but illegal for commercial sales. I’m in Barcelona, Spain for an international gathering focused on cannabis genetics. More specifically, I’m within the Hash Marihuana & Hemp Museum at a party celebrating the collaborative efforts that bridged a domestic-international divide to unite two storied cannabis seed companies, Sensi Seeds and Humboldt Seed Company. Within their collaboration lies the dawning of a new chapter in the history of marijuana, one which continues the tradition of legendary fusions of Californian and European genetics that started in the 1970s when the hybridization of cannabis began.

The collaborative project is called Breeding Grounds and resulted in the release of four new feminized seeds: The Bird (OG Kush x Humboldt Dream x Larry Bird), Auto Pineapple Kush Cake (Pineapple Muffin autoflower x Banana Kush Cake autoflower), Auto Amnesia Jelly (Mint Jelly autoflower x Amnesia autoflower XXL), and one that lies within the highly popular and heavily lauded Z terp family, Purple Berry Muffinz (Purple Bud x Blueberry Muffin x Zkittlez). But arguably more significant than the lineage of the new cannabis cultivars is the symbolism of what they represent. Sensi Seeds, which inherited the genetics of the first cannabis seed bank—Nevil Schoenmakers’s The Seed Bank of Holland—brought the world classic cultivars such as the sativa-dominant Jack Herer and has been in the business of selling cannabis seeds from its home base in Holland since the 1980s. Humboldt Seed Company, founded in California’s Emerald Triangle in 2001, has built a reputation as a trusted breeder via enormous phenohunts and award-winning cannabis such as its signature strain Blueberry Muffin. The fusion of the two companies in 2023 harkens back to the beginnings of cannabis breeding in the 1970s, when people like Sam the Skunkman and Ed Rosenthal became the catalysts for uniting European and Californian cannabis genetics, an action that created the first cannabis hybrids.

“The first time I heard about The Seed Bank, which is the precursor to what is now Sensi Seeds… my uncle had a shed where he would keep all the gardening stuff and in that shed he would stash High Times magazines and I remember sneaking into his shed—because we would sometimes you know, borrow some weed from our uncle—and we’re looking at his High Times and in the back of High Times we saw an advertisement for The Seed Bank,” explains Benjamin Lind, co-founder and chief scientific officer of Humboldt Seed Company. “And it just kind of clicked like, ‘Whoa, you can actually order seeds.’”

From a young age, Lind was observing his family members making their own cannabis crosses and learning about the importance of seeds to ensure the next year’s harvest. Sensi Seeds, he says over an early morning eating lychee fruit acquired from one of Barcelona’s famed food markets, was the first cannabis seed company that ever came into his vision. And, once he met the people behind the company and toured their facility decades later, he learned that the breeding work they had been doing aligned with his own.

“A lot of our processes are very similar,” he says. “All breeders come at breeding cannabis differently and very few have similar beliefs or similar philosophies, but we mesh really well.”

This meshing of two similar minds in the cannabis breeding world was more than a coincidence, it’s the result of years of effort put in by none other than cannabis cultivation expert Ed Rosenthal, who tells me he’s done writing books and is now more interested in acquisitions and mergers. Rosenthal’s relationship with Sensi Seeds goes back years. A mutual friend who had a cannabis club and magazine introduced Rosenthal to Ben Dronkers, the founder of Sensi Seeds, back in the 1980s. Once introduced, the two began to collaborate with each other on a museum in Amsterdam dedicated to the history of the cannabis plant which first opened in 1987.

“At the same time Nevil [Schoenmakers] was indicted so he sold his business, The Seed Bank, to [Sensi Seeds] and he took off for the wilds of Australia and he was never brought to the U.S.,” Rosenthal explains. “We stayed close and then [Dronkers] hired me off and on at different times to do things and then also put in, I think, $50,000 to $100,000 into my defense.”

The defense Rosenthal is referring to was a federal trial that began in the early 2000s when he was found guilty of three felonies related to the cultivation and sale of marijuana. After the trial, the jurors—who had not been provided with the crucial information that Rosenthal had been deputized by the city of Oakland, California to grow medical marijuana—denounced their verdict and in 2003 Rosenthal was ultimately sentenced to a single day in prison, time served.

Rosenthal calls Sensi Seeds, which is now run by Dronkers’s son Ravi Dronkers, a “legacy family,” and says when he saw them interacting with Humboldt Seed Company he realized the “cultures weren’t that different.”

“I knew this was the one to go and I just did everything so that it didn’t get fucked up,” he says. “I’m really excited about this. This is going to be very big.”

The announcement for the collaboration came in mid-March at the Hash Marihuana & Hemp Museum’s second iteration in Barcelona and included flutes of cava alongside a bowl filled with the Spanish-grown Blueberry Cookies so guests could roll their own joints. Guests in attendance included Jack Herer’s son, Dan Herer, who was spotted taking a photograph of a framed picture of his father on display within one of the rooms devoted to hemp. In a country that resides within the legal gray market for cannabis, smoking and enjoying flowers and concentrates takes place within private social clubs and spaces that are cannabis-friendly. This clearly includes the cannabis-themed museum during a private event, but also includes restaurants which will pull down their rollup doors to offer discretion for diners to smoke weed at the table while the waitstaff also lights up.

Over a candid evening conversation after one of those smoky Barcelona dinners, Rosenthal gets in a discussion with Nathaniel Pennington, co-founder and CEO of Humboldt Seed Company, about cannabis breeding. The basics of cannabis breeding involve creating new expressions of the botanical by crossing, or pollinating, the female flower with pollen from a male plant. An F1, or first generation, occurs when breeders cross two landraces—cultivars that are native to specific regions and have not been bred—or when breeders cross two inbred lines. The final hybridized result that’s released by reputable seed companies comes after at least four generations of inbreeding. The reason that the lines are inbred, or bred from plants that share similar genetics, is to stabilize the seeds ensuring that, once the seeds are grown into plants, they retain similar physical characteristics. Cannabis plants have a complex set of DNA and, like two sisters from the same family, when two cultivars are brought together the results will not be genetically identical, but rather, similar but different expressions known as phenotypes. The art of creating cannabis seeds involves the painstaking work of getting to a point where the expression of all the seeds will be the same, a process that is known as stabilizing the genetics.

“With breeding it’s not true science until it’s repeatable,” Pennington explains. “[True breeding doesn’t occur] until you can perform the same experiment, which I would say is the same seed population times the same seed population and find the same phenotypic outcome. And if you can’t reproduce that experiment then you haven’t really accomplished anything except for you’ve made a clone line which can be forever propagated as a clone, but that’s a bit of a handicap if you ask me.”

In a world filled with companies making dubious claims about the stability of their seed lines some companies, like Sensi Seeds and Humboldt Seed Company, stick to the science. In doing so, these seed banks bless humanity with reliable cultivars that cross oceans and territorial boundaries to contribute to the diverse genetic expression of the world’s most favored flower.

“Both of our families have worked for generations to preserve the very best lines and bring them to the modern market,” Lind said through a press release about the Breeding Grounds project. “We both evolved on different continents, with different selective pressures. Even though we live a world apart we have a very similar philosophy based on love and respect for the plant. It was natural we would cross-pollinate the best from Amsterdam with the best of Northern California.”

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