The Skunk phenomenon (1/4)
the skunk phenomenon The number of skunk smokers in the UK is growing even faster than their artificially-enhanced plants, and British home-grown skunk has begun to match the quality of European strains. But where does skunk originate? Why is it more harmful than 'traditional' grass? And why does it make you hallucinate? Here are the answers to the mysteries of skunk
Skunk used to be just a small, furry animal with a smelly arse. Not any more. A red-eyed, green-fingered generation of Brits are raising acres of grass that will never see a Flymo. Thousands of skunk plants are budding across the land, from underground bunkers in the Home Counties to disused warehouses in central Manchester, from lofts in Hampstead to disused war shelters in north Wales. In 1996 alone, 116,119 cannabis plants were seized, many with levels of THC (tetrahydrocannabinols, the things that make you go boom) that would literally fry your brain. On average, police seize around ten per cent of all illegal drugs, so there are possibly a million skunk plants in Britain right now, thousands of them cultivated at home by some of Britain's estimated two million tokers. The days when British home-grown weed was the weak, sickly kid of Europe - seizure levels in the mid-80s were below 10,000 plants a year - are long gone. It's a jungle out there.
Connoisseurs are even beginning to talk about British-grown versions of legendary smokes, like Northern Lights, Durban Poison and Purple Haze, as serious rivals to the Dutch originals. Though such is the accelerating desire for ever-higher THC levels that some older smokers are taking sanctuary in the relative sanity of hash. "We're getting stuff which is just totally knocking people out," says Free Rob Cannabis of the Cannabis Hemp Information Club. Bizarrely, we owe it all to the good ol' US of A. Skunk has become a generic term for any bud-like grass with THC levels of ten to14 per cent as opposed to the two to four per cent in traditional grass. Skunk Number 1, believed to have been originated by a Californian, Skunk Sam, about 20 years ago, was the first wobbly step. This blend of the most powerful sativa, Haze, Afghani Indica and Thai/Mexican weed was perfectly suited to the rigours of home growing and was unusually potent. It laid the foundations for the hectic cross fertilisation, home growing and cow-punching strengths common today.
All skunks are essentially sinsemillia (meaning 'no seeds') - the unfertilised seed pods of the female plant. Which will be news to trustafarians who have spent the last decade smoking 'sensi' that looks like budgie feed. Meanwhile, the early 90s hash drought - the result of American aid packages to Morocco being tied in with massive anti-drug clampdowns there - provided skunk with a window of opportunity. Tired of the rigmarole of trying to score poor quality hash, cut with everything from barbiturates to shoe polish, people got out their trowels and dug in.