Sex in the Garden

Did you know that there’s a small piece of your brain in your nose? That’s right, the olfactory cells in your nose are not like the other sensory cells in your body – they are actually brain cells. These extend down from the olfactory bulb of the brain stem – a very primitive cerebral structure that has changed little in the past few million years, and which we share with lizards and other ancient creatures. This is why smells can be so evocative of non-verbal feelings and memories. A smell can bring back an entire experience from the distant past, or just the feeling of a certain time of your life. Cosmetics companies spend millions every year trying to find smells that work to trigger a new experience for the lucky customer.
Perhaps this is why the sense of smell is so closely related to sex. Think of the richest, deepest smells you know: musk, jasmine, coffee, tobacco leaf, chocolate…. They are all sexy in some indescribable way. What would you add to this list? If you’re like most people I know, you’d probably add hashish, marijuana, and an ex-lover or two. Now, we know why the ex-lovers smelled sexy (presumably because they were!), but why do hashish and marijuana smell so good? The answer to that question is all about sex. A warning: if you like marijuana, but don’t like sex, skip the rest of this article. If you continue reading, you’ll never be able to separate the two in your mind again.
The first thing to understand about marijuana is that it is a very unusual plant. Archaeologists have concluded that cannabis was probably the first plant to be cultivated by human beings, some 10.000 years ago. But despite this long history of cultivation, the plant has not lost its ability to return to a wild state at any time. Like a cat, it can live with us or without us. Another unusual aspect of marijuana is that it is so unlike any other plant that for many years it was considered to be a monotypic genus. But perhaps the most interesting thing about the marijuana plant is its sex life.
When you read the title of this article, you probably thought you’d be reading about how people have used marijuana to enhance their sexual experience, didn’t you? Marijuana as an aphrodisiac. That was a fair assumption, in that like anything that concentrates the mind, marijuana can be used to increase sexual pleasure. But what you are really going to be reading about is not how marijuana affects people’s sexuality, but how people manipulate the sexuality of marijuana! That’s right, every serious cultivator of ganga is interfering in the sex-lives of his/her plants as insistently as a mother-in-law sleeping on the sofa!
Here’s how it works. The most important psychoactive chemical in cannabis is tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). There are other psychoactive molecules as well, but to keep things simple, let’s focus on THC – which is by far the most important of them. There are small amounts of THC in the leaves of the plant, and virtually none in the stems and roots. The highest concentration of THC is found in the resin of the female flowers. All three species of Cannabis are dioecious – which means that, unlike most plants, the males and females are distinct. Think about it, a rose is a rose is a rose. There are no male roses and female roses! You don’t go to the garden center to buy a male or female plant, as if you were choosing a puppy. But with marijuana, sex is very important.
When someone begins growing, distinguishing the premature males from the females is the first challenge. It’s a challenge because you have to figure out the sexual identity of the plants before they actually begin to develop their sexual characteristics. This can be as difficult as telling a male baby from a female baby. The reason we have to make this distinction is that the boys have to be removed from the garden before they become sexually mature. There can be no sex in this garden!
Remember, the highest concentration of THC is in the resin of the female plants. This resin is sticky, like honey. The reason it is so sticky is so that when the pollen of the male plant comes floating through the air and lands on the female flower, it will not blow away. Pollen is analogous to sperm. It contains the genetic information of the male plant, and has no psychoactive chemicals at all. Calling high-quality hashish pollen really makes no sense, since if it were actually pollen, it would be very low-quality! In any case, this resin is what makes good marijuana good. It is the source of most of the THC, as well as the source of that rich, sexy smell.
So the question is, how can we get more resin in our plants? The answer is: sexual frustration. As the female plants mature, they prepare to be fertilized by catching some pollen. Once fertilized, they make seeds and begin to die (preparing for winter). But if they don’t get fertilized because all the males have been removed, they produce more resin and more flowers. As time goes by and they are not getting fertilized, the flowers accumulate (forming buds, or colas), and resin continues to ooze into these flowers.
In addition to this sexual frustration, some growers claim that their female plants are somewhat masochistic as well. When the flowers are forming, they bend the branches to the point of almost breaking – but not quite. They say that this torture increases the flow of resin to the flowers. I don’t know, because I feel badly enough not letting my girls play with the boys. I can’t bear to hurt them as well.
So next time you’re in a marijuana garden, remember that in some respects, you may as well be in a women’s prison! Those plants that smell so good are desperate for some loving and wondering where all the boys are! And next time you light up, maybe say a silent word of thanks to the sexy female whose unsatisfied hunger leads directly to your pleasure.