Quite often when you are around people who are as equally obsessed with Cannabis as you are, our conversations to an outsider might sound odd to say the least. Here is an example of two friends who just happen to love Cannabis and growing it.

Mary: Hey dude, how did the last harvest end up?

Jane: It was straight gas! Alaskan Thunderfuck vegged for 10 weeks, mainlined and topped to get 8 colas spread under a SCROG to max out the bud sites. It got flipped to 12/12 until the trichs were milky white with not too much amber before I harvested. I dry trimmed and cured for a min of 6 weeks with 58% humidity packs. I washed the popcorn and got some terpy full melt. Luckily had no PM issues, the liquid silica and copper soap worked like a charm.

Our language, abbreviations and cultivar names form part of our Cannabis culture, born out of a need to stay in the shadows because of societal stigma and the risk of running into the law.  Whilst Cannabis is being adapted and diluted to fit in with mass market consumerism, it is important to maintain a balance between protecting our culture whilst making it accessible to people who may have reservations about Cannabis. The reservations are often born out of stigma, as well as beliefs based on incorrect “War on Drugs” type of information. The lack of understanding of Cannabis from a botanical, growing, consumption and cultural perspective has inspired us to create a new section in our updated Full-Spectrum Manifesto for Policy Reform.

We are calling this section Cannabis 101 where we break down:

• What does the Cannabis plant look like?
• What are the various growth cycles of a Cannabis plant?
• How is Cannabis flower ingested?
• What are Cannabis concentrates/extracts?

Cannabis 101 is a fundamental stepping stone for any government department to understand, before making laws about this plant. The recently proposed draft Cannabis for Private Purposes Bill was littered with misunderstandings about the plant, from growing it to consuming it and everything in between. The root cause failures of this Bill is due to a lack of factual Cannabis knowledge that is easily accessible and our updated manifesto should be the first learning resource lawmakers should use.