Jorge Cervantes
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Jorge Cervantes is a self proclaimed world-renowned expert on indoor, outdoor, and greenhouse cannabis cultivation. With more than thirty years of cannabis growing knowledge and hands-on experience, his books, articles, photographs and instructional DVDs have been sold worldwide to apply simple, effective horticultural techniques to high-yield closet, basement, backyard, and guerrilla gardens.
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[edit] Background
Jorge Cervantes developed his lifelong fascination with cannabis as a university student in Mexico. After graduation, he moved to California in the 1970s where he became a guerrilla grower of “sinsemilla” (Spanish for without seeds) marijuana, the “new” high-quality cannabis that Mexicans reserved for domestic consumption. In the early 1980s, Cervantes started growing indoors, but a lack of credible information about indoor cultivation led him to author Indoor Marijuana Horticulture in 1983. The book became an instant best-seller, and successful indoor growers dubbed it the “Indoor Grower’s Bible.” Today growers simply call it “The Bible.” Now 52, Cervantes is a world-renowned expert on indoor, outdoor, and greenhouse cannabis cultivation. Cervantes moved back to Spain where he lives near the Mediterranean Sea. He continues to photograph and write about cannabis as well as travel the world to research this fascinating medicinal plant.
[edit] The Bible
Jorge Cervantes first published the book Indoor Marijuana Horticulture in 1983. That first edition was 96 pages, bound by staples, and printed in black and white. Now in its fifth edition, with over 500 full-color pages and over 1100 full-color photographs and illustrations, Marijuana Horticulture: The Indoor/Outdoor Medical Grower’s Bible is the most complete cultivation book available. Marijuana Horticulture sold 50,000 copies last year and over 500,000 copies of The Bible are in print in Dutch, English, French and German. Marijuana Horticulture has just been released in Spanish and will also soon be available in Italian, Japanese and Russian.
The book’s credits list more than three hundred contributors and reads like a “Who’s Who?” in the world of cannabis cultivation. Any grower, casual or serious, will find hours of instruction and assistance within the Bible’s pages. Although some growers believe his book to contain some problems and incorrect information.
[edit] History and politics
With the arguable exception of the Inuit people in Alaska, all human cultures throughout history have used psychoactive plants to produce some desired change in consciousness (No psychoactive plants were able to grow in Alaska's harsh climate. But as soon as white European settlers introduced them to fermented grain alcohol, they took right to it). Scientists, historians, psychologists and theologians continue to explore why the need to alter consciousness has remained so seemingly strong and universal among all human societies, but what is clear is that when in the proper context many psychoactive plants do indeed provide many demonstrable advantages on the people that consume them. The relief of physical pain is one such use.
In Marijuana Horticulture, Jorge Cervantes reveals that a vast body of scientific research and evidence points to the incredible value of marijuana as a medicinal drug, not just a social phenomenon. Ninety-seven percent of Multiple Sclerosis (MS) patients who have tried marijuana, for instance, report great relief from the spasms and tremors associated with the disease.
The second-leading cause of blindness in the United States is Glaucoma, and approximately ninety percent of the sufferers using marijuana as medicine report that while standard medicines do not help them, smoking cannabis quickly restores their vision. Many long-term glaucoma patients have successfully maintained their sight using cannabis for twenty or twenty-five years and have avoided the gradual, painful deterioration to blindness that is otherwise inevitable.
Using Cervantes’ Bible, medical patients can safely grow their own organic medicine at home instead of buying bad weed on the street from a disreputable dealer in a potentially dangerous situation. The Bible offers medical patients not only the safety of growing in private, but the ability to grow organic, clean medicine from quality genetics.
Domestic use of marijuana was federally prohibited in 1937. By 2005, more than eighty-three million Americans admit to having tried it. Cervantes states that domestic cannabis production has skyrocketed in many of the countries that used to import it.
“There appears to be a correlation between the number of arrests for cannabis possession and cultivation and the huge growth in domestic production in America.”
Domestic cannabis production has grown every year in North America, Western Europe, and Australia since President Richard Nixon ignored the 1972 Shafer Report, which advocated its decriminalization.
In 1969, 4% of the US population had admitted to trying marijuana, according to Gallup polls. By 1972, 11% had tried it, and by 1999,34%. CNN reported in an October 2002 poll that 47% of Americans had smoked pot at least once.
Cervantes asserts that statistics show little difference in usage levels between liberal city dwellers and conservative rural residents, with 38% of city folks smoking, and 34% of rural people. Fascinatingly enough, Republicans smoke more pot than Democrats (33% vs. 31%). Usage amongst teens has dropped from a dramatic high of 38% in 1981 to just 20% in 1999. But this may be rising again with a more tolerant outlook sweeping the nation.
Cervantes also reminds us that Americans spent roughly $64 billion on illegal drugs in 2000. That’s over three times as much as the government spends fighting drugs. “The United States has been fighting a war against drugs since the late 1800s, to be accurate. The war started long before President George Bush held up a bag of crack on TV and declared it a war.” Since then, the country has spent billions fighting this invisible enemy. The number of lives lost is incalculable, and the number of people in prison for drugs in America is shockingly high. The U.S. spent over $19 billion dollars in 2003 on the War on Drugs, at about $600 per second, and in the same year, over 1.6 million people were arrested, with over 600,000 of them for simple marijuana possession.
[edit] Other publications
In his monthly question-and-answer column, Jorge's Rx, the flagship of High Times magazine's cultivation section, Cervantes provides his solutions to growers problems. He also pens a regular column in Soft Secrets magazine. High Times and Soft Secrets boast the highest circulation in North America and Europe. Multilingual Cervantes also speaks at eight international cannabis fairs in Europe every year and yet still finds time to contribute feature cultivation articles to High Times, Burst High (Japanese), and a dozen European cannabis magazines.
Cervantes writes regular columns and feature articles in some 20 cannabis magazines written in six languages.
The English language Jorge Cervantes' Ultimate Grow DVD I (2006) and Jorge Cervantes' Ultimate Grow DVD II (2007) are currently being translated into Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Vietnamese. Both DVDs will be available in all of the above languages in the Fall of 2007. The combined links to Jorge's DVDs get 85,000 downloads a month.
Cervantes also attends and participates in several cannabis trade fairs including: www.highlife.nl[1], www.cannabiscup.com[2], www.hightimes.com[3] and www.cannatrade.com[4].
