How to: Tell when a plant is ready to harvest

Apart from referring to the given flowering times, one of the best indicators of a female cannabis plant’s ripeness is the colour of the hairs covering its flowers.

These hairs start out white, darkening to orange or red as the plant matures. A plant is generally at its ripest when about 75% of the hairs on its flowers have changed colour.

Observed with a high-powered magnifying glass, the resin glands on a ripening flower will undergo the same colour change, darkening from clear to opaque then usually to yellow, amber or orange. As this happens, THC is turning into the more soporific of cannabis’ active ingredients, CBD.

Some growers choose to harvest their marijuana plants when about 50% or fewer of the hairs have turned orange, reasoning that while the overall amount of resin produced will be less, a higher proportion of it will be THC.

The municipality of Maastricht on the Dutch drug policy

The municipality of Maastricht (city in the south of the Netherlands) have posted a very good article about the Dutch drug policy on their website. Click here to read the whole article.

The Netherlands’ policy is good for public health because it results in relatively few cannabis users and only a small percentage who switch to hard drugs. It is bad for society as a whole because production and distribution are in the hands of organised crime.

We can combat that by controlling not only the sale and consumption of cannabis, but also its cultivation and distribution, subject to strict conditions.

Costa vs Polak

This particular video features ENCOD´s Frederick Polak, trying in vain to get a very relevant question answered by UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa.

Apparently Costa is only open to a debate if you don’t ask him any difficult questions..