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Skunkman Geoffrey Guy Nevil Shoenmakers Steve Hager Ed Rosenthal
(No pic Available...)
High Times-Operation Green Merchant-Cannabis Cup
By: Joe Pietri
November 24, 2010
On
March 20th 1985 David Watson was busted for growing in Santa Cruz,
California, Watson a junior member of the Sacred Seed collective. The
Sacred Seed bank collective was created in the 1940’s, most original
members long gone or well into there 70’s, a generation or more older
than I, I’m 63, and have been in Cannabis trade 50 years and I can only speak from my 50 years experience of fighting the drug war.
A
month later, Watson, now traveling as Sam Selezny arrived in Amsterdam
in the company of Ed Rosenthal. In his baggage, were the research from
the sacred seed collective, and 250,000 cannabis seeds. Ed Rosenthal
introduced Sam Selezny as David Watson to everyone who was anyone at the
time on the Dutch scene. Which was very small compared to what it is
today.
Surviving members still question how Watson managed to pull
this off? A collective member states that Watson was a junior member,
had nothing to do with creating Skunk or`haze strains attributed to
Skunk-man as he is now known. Original Skunk had the real skunk spray
smell, impossible to mask.
The first time I met Skunk-man at the
2007 cup his first comment to me was that I blew his cover due to a
chapter in my book King of Nepal The Ice Wars edition? He even put up
wanted posters for me at the cup calling me a snitch. On the scenes I
came from if was a snitch I’d be dead long ago.
By the time you
finish this article you may realize that Sam Selezny aka David Watson
aka Skunk-man started as a DEA undercover agent, whose undercover career
makes Donnie Brasco pale when compared, since he finally became a DEA
licensee and ”private contractor” with the power to make the agency move
against competitors and anybody in his way and to cut deals with
Bayer, Monsanto, and the Dutch and English Government. Ed Rosenthal’s
duped by Watson as well? Rosenthal was the cultivation expert at High
Times at that time.
Was Watson/Selezny working undercover to bring
Sacred Seed collective down? Then used Ed Rosenthal to develop his
Skunk-man cover and go deeper undercover in Amsterdam?
Did
Rosenthal make his fortune from selling our scene to the Dutch due to
Reagan drug war policy, which shut down ol skool, and any High Times
competitor upstart? At what point did Ed Rosenthal realize that
Skunk-man was DEA undercover?
Neiderweit went from shit to
shineola with the introduction of the sacred seed collective’s seed
bank, now renamed Cultivator’s Choice.
In 1987 Steven Hager was
named the new editor for High Times. Operation Green Merchant was also
created in 1987 the brainchild of DEA agent Jim Stewart. The target
being High Times, and Sensimilla Tips, as well as the blossoming Indoor
grow industry. Sensimilla Tips, the all time best grow magazine was put
out of business. In 1989, raids were conducted in 46 states on grow
shops and wholesalers. The only one to remain unscathed was High Times,
amazingly?
Operation Green Merchant worked many angles. One that
they pulled off in Hawaii was they opened a grow store in Kona, partied,
smoked and got to know some growers,. They offered growers a deal, we
will give you seeds, nutrients, what ever you need, you grow the product
and bring it here where we will ship it to your people, you collect the
money and pay us a share. Only a few went for the deal at first, that
went super smooth, all packages arrived safely, monies paid, and the
share given to grow shop. 2nd year everyone jumped on board, they busted
people from Kona to Brooklyn, You can only imagine the numbers, 100’s
of folks lost everything, many went to prison.. Nearly all busted in 46
States came from information seized from High Times and Sensimilla tips,
hell all they needed to do was read the magazine, which is how DEA Jim
Stewart came up with the idea for Green Merchant, shooting fish in a
barrel. At this point was High Times compromised? Or?
In 1987
Hager went to Amsterdam to interview Nevil of the Seed Bank, while there
he meets the Skunk-man, who relates tales to him about harvest
festivals in Santa Cruz and suggests having a Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam
as a yearly event. The Skunk-man spins his web and Hager is taken in,
from this point on everything stated by either Skunk-man or his partner
Robert C Clarke is taken as fact, Remember Rosenthal is cultivation
editor, and Clarke used to write under R. Connoisseur at High Times as
well. Hager being a newbie was enthralled by the lies coming from this
trio. At this point cannabis history starts to be rewritten by High
Times.
In 1988 the first Cannabis Cup was held and lo and behold
Cultivators Choice wins for Skunk #1. Imagine what an intelligence
bonanza the Cannabis Cup, where every grower comes to judge the best
strains and buy seeds. The database created a DEA agent’s wet dream.
Funny things started to happen around Amsterdam, seems as if a lot of
Cultivators Choice competition were being busted, and even Skunk-man’s
own warehouse grows are busted as well but he remained untouched, took
his money to Luxemburg and returned to go on, while everyone else went
to jail.
In 1990, Nevil Shoenmakers who was also targeted by Green
Merchant for his seed bank, was not extradited by Holland but was
arrested in Australia, where his lawyer in court records noted that the
police had dossier on Nevil as well as everyone who was anyone on the
Dutch scene, and that they were complied by Sam Selezny, now known as
David Watson AKA Skunk-man. This is public knowledge in Amsterdam, noted
by Dutch crime investigator Mario Lap. Lap investigated Selezny/ Watson
as well as Ed Rosenthal. Skunkman according to Hager in High Times
article sold seeds to Nevil.
You have to wonder if the Cannabis Cup an idea the Skunk-man proposed,
had been an operation of Green Merchant? How best for DEA to get
information on growers than to open a seed bank in Holland, create a
cannabis cup, and even win the 1st cup awarded?
Every top grower
in the world goes to Amsterdam for the Cannabis Cup, a bonanza of
information for DEA and law enforcement around the globe. One has to
wonder when Rosenthal and Hager realized that Skunk-man was DEA
undercover? Without a doubt Skunk-man had his claws in High Times, who
printed his every word as if gospel.
Everyone busted but High
Times, the smell of sulfur coming to my nose, certainly not true skunk.
Had a deal been struck between Government and High Times and so they
could remain in business? Since this time much of what has been written
by High Times is in fact fantasy made up by the Skunk-man to build up
his mystique as well as his cover. The Haze brothers a figment of
Skunk-mans imagination, a play created for stoners in order to hype
their products. Frankly I shouldn’t blame the Dutch so much for fraud as
Skunk-man was the one who taught the Dutch the ropes and they fear him,
as we fear DEA here. It’s beyond question that the Skunk-man has been a source of information to police agencies around the globe.
1994
David Watson/ Selezny was issued a cannabis research license for
Hortapharm R & D along with his partner Robert C. Clarke aka R.
Connisseur, above legitimate Universities and PHD’s due to the strong
endorsement of DEA, instead of extraditing him back to Santa Cruz for
that grow bust in 1985? To this day he is one of two companies allowed
to import cannabis products into US, and the only supplier licensed by
DEA to supply seeds of predictable quality for research. In a 1998
interview in UK Journal, he stated that Hortapharm only wants to produce
sterile females, to protect the genetic copyright? He has sent
botanist’s around the globe to contaminate and collect inbred landrace
strains, in order to confuse origin in order to claim intellectual
copyright. Now he claims to have the largest library of medicinal
cannabis seeds in the world. In other words he patented the munchie
effect amongst others. Wherever you go on the planet you will find skunk
gene pool, this is a war crime, to contaminate the original medical
strains so as to be able to call them your intellectual property is
obscene. Just as the making of Mother Nature’s healing plants illegal is
a war crime, so is the research Hortapharm is doing. Instead of
extraditing Watson back to Santa Cruz for his 1985 grow bust, he was
praised and supported by DEA.
In 1997 the inventor, Reinhard Delp
introduced the Ice Water Method at the 97 Cannabis cup and it was off to
the races, the most copied and ripped off formula in Cannabis history,
and who designed and created the fraud? Skunk-man with Clarke, Mel Frank
and High Times. He did this in order to confuse the origin of the
patent.
During the 97 Cup Reinhard had offers promising the world
for an exclusive license for the method patent pending by “an English
Pharmaceutical outfit”, he did a comparison test for them with a bigger
machine, where he trashed a Pollinator as to quality and quality, but
finally refused the “exclusive” and insisted on real “publishing”, for
immediate use for everybody.
At the end of the 97 Cup Hortapharm
set up a meeting with Reinhard where Clarke demanded “we can’t publish
that” and asked why, responded “the people can not handle it, it is too
strong.” Unaware of the “powers” of Hortapharm, the inventor told
Clarke that he was full of it and they had a “fall out”. Reinhard never
wanted to play monopoly with characters like Hortapharm, Bayer or
Monsanto.
The meeting happened at Bill Barth’s place, a much
liked, very outspoken fellow, equally unimpressed by Clarke at the
meeting. The inventor was later told that Bill passed away in his sleep.
1997 XTR 420 
1998 Dutch "Rip-off"
Crazed by their money and the power they had due to their DEA connection, High
Times and most European Cannabis publications in their pocket,
Hortapharm’s Watson and Clarke set out to erase the introduction of the
Xtractor 420 and the Ice-Water-Method on the 97 Cannabis Cup from
Cannabis history. One year later Mila, who just broke a license contract
with Reinhard was now the proud owner of the Hemp Hotel, received a
government grant to develop her invention and Clarke was marketing Mila
and her new invention: the Ice-O-lator. But Mila was stupid enough to
sell her “new creation” with the instructions she received with the XTR
420.
Another glitch in the scam: some journalistic conscience
managed to record the event from 1997, simply explaining the new Method
in High Times May 98 issue.
In his book Clarke spins the
Ice-Water-Method back to the old unsuccessful “Sadu Sam Secret” Recipe,
which Ed Rosenthal did not mention anymore in a 96 High-Times article
about Hash, even though he was selling the recipe on a 900 fax years
earlier. Clarke streamlined the recipe for his book, cold water
became “chilled”, Mila was introduced as the Lady Of Hash and the 1997
XTR 420 was otherwise blacked out of the Media. “No limit”- Skunkman
approaches the inventor in e-mails, boasting about 10 000 square meter
grows, claimed to have designed Mila’s and the Canadian “Bubble man’s”,
Mark Richardson’s inventions and threatens legal action, “prior
artwork” and “what have you”.
In May 2009 Reinhard’s financial
lifelines grobots.com and icecold.org got busted by the DEA, the company
and home vandalized, company inventory destroyed, all private and
company money taken. (treatingyourself.com, issue 19 “Update”) He does not stop to sue them for patent infringement. Also
taken was the Cannabis Collective’s seedbank, ten pounds high quality
Cannabis seeds from landrace strains -sounds familiar?
Skunkman
stole the method like the strains he had stolen, created GW
Pharmaceuticals on the promise of the Ice-Water-Method and hoped to
control all cannabis based medicines. In fact Sativex was created from
Thai genetics, I wonder how the Thai government feels about that since
cannabis has 8400year history as medicine in Thailand?
Watson due
to his control of information has been able to pull scam after scam as
an endorsement from High Times is all you used to need in this business.
He knows that young stoners and medical patients have no cannabis
knowledge and that he can sell anything he wants, the frauds have had a
tremendous effect on the quality of medicine produced. At the same time
he has been a mentor to the Dutch who now play from the same deck of
control of information.
I know by now you have reached the WTF moment in this article, how much more stinky is this going to get? Let’s
face it no corporation has more at stake that cannabis continues to be
illegal, so that only they can produce cannabis based medicine than GW
Pharmaceuticals, now part of Bayer. GW not only bought strains from
Hortapharm but also funds botanical research. They paid to collect
medicinal strains around the globe while contaminating them with skunk
strain to confuse origin. By doing this they legally could shut down all
medical grows for infringing on intellectual property of GW and
Hortapharm. Does the GW stand for Guy &Watson? When asked now, that
GW made it, they inform that Watson and Clarke are no longer with them.
WTF,
talk about quantum leap, from being wanted for a grow bust in Santa
Cruz, to being the CEO of Hortapharm, with 5 DEA licenses and partners
with GW and Bayer.
Dude, not only did the the DEA seedbank win the
1st cannabis cup, but last year Danny Don’t Know, the new cultivation
expert at High Times, named the DEA seed-bank Cultivators Choice as the
all time greatest seed-bank. Then went on to state that Skunk-man was
the founder of Sacred seeds, when that collective can be traced back to
shortly after prohibition in 1937. There is no foundation of truth from
Danny Don’t Know nor from High Times when it comes to Skunk-man, they
were duped, hoodwinked, bamboozled, led down a trail of tears.
From
setting up grow shops to operating seed banks in Holland is no quantum
leap in information gathering during Operation Green Harvest. Or that
some of their assets from that time, continue to provide information to
this day.
Worse thing of all is that for the past 22 years or more
everything written on cannabis is written in support of frauds these
people created. So they have you spending more for growing less. That
the quality of cannabis and cannabis seed has gone down from what ol
skool medical imports were originally is without doubt. The best
cannabis was grown during the golden age of Cannabis 1840-1940, when it
was legally farmed for medicinal use, Sacred Seeds sought to preserve
those strains.
September 2010, Danny Don’t Know states that High
Times has no connection to Skunk-man. Wow has he changed his tune, but
is it the truth? No, Robert C Clarke, partner of David Watson - Skunk-man in Hortapharm and GW Pharmaceuticals, continues to promote fraud.
In
a special issue of High Times that basically introduces new products to
consumers. Clarke brought the bubble bag fraud full circle again,
calling it a new innovative technique, basically using the same
information they used when they introduced these frauds in 1998-2000.
They have a new generation of young stoners and medical patients with no
cannabis knowledge to cheat.
Here are 3 photographs that show the fraud for what it is: