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authentic real durban poison?

StickyBandit

Well-known member
As if it was not bad enough all ready, it is now gone to protecting false marketing. I was close to pulling the trigger on those, so thankful I found your post.
What did I miss :p
Not sure whether to rush and plant mine or not....
They're from khalifa. I want the skinny leaf variety
 
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StickyBandit

Well-known member
Why you in a hurry bandit lol. Not sure you missed anything really as you would have seen the picture from khalifas. I wouldn’t worry, they look like a repro of Transkei with a bs marketing story is all.
I was looking at doing a little repro soon but wanted to make sure it would be the skinny leaf one. If it's true to the pics I will be happy. I can't afford the luxury of the politics I'm afraid. I'm limited to outlets that ship to NZ and take BTC as payment :)
 

Chuck Jägerschnitzel

Active member
I have 20 durban poison seeds from Alaska Cannabis Cache. The guy had a motorcycle accident and passed so they are out of business. The line is still maintained from a sourced 79 cut (RIU user in classified area) with a seed run occurring every once in awhile.

85-90 day flower time.

Back story. https://en.seedfinder.eu/strain-info/Durban_Poison/Alaska_Cannabis_Cache/

Thats sad news, but thanks for keeping us informed, first I've heard of his passing. I enjoyed his episode of The Pot Cast last November while I was trimming some of my harvest, there was some good wisdom in there.
 

Rastafarout

Well-known member
I like this document when it comes to the topic of Durban and other SA regional varieties
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/145055644.pdf
Has a lot of interesting things to say and a big bibliography too, tends to wander off topic some, probably due to the authors smoking habits, which suggests that he was probably at least somewhat well informed about the topic
Yeah has a lot of info , exactly what I was saying but got deleted… hope roms reads this lol
Especially pgs 78 - 88
 

Legalcdn

Well-known member
Interesting read. Thanks for the link @Chuck Jägerschnitzel

From the pdf:
The most well-known southern African cannabis initially exported from South Africa was ‘Durban Poison’, and it was the fame of this cannabis that gave South Africa a firm reputation as a producer of high-quality cannabis. The trade in Durban Poison is a very interesting element of the southern African trade, as it incorrectly placed Natal at the centre of the region’s cannabis trade in the minds of consumers. In 1998, however, the area of Natal under cannabis cultivation was estimated at about 2,500 hectares, compared to 80,000 in the Eastern Cape. To this day, much of the cannabis sold in Natal is referred to as ‘Durban Poison’, despite the fact that Natal gets much of its supply from other areas such as Swaziland and the former Transkei (of the several suppliers I met on the coast in Natal, none sold cannabis from the area, all sold either Transkei cannabis or Swazi cannabis or both).
 

Legalcdn

Well-known member
More from pdf:

Durban Poison had a reputation as a potent strain of cannabis from the mid-1970s. However, according to two cannabis traders interviewed, this was not the case a decade earlier. The traders both referred to ‘DP’ as a form of packaging of cannabis, not as a unique cannabis plant. One trader kept referring to ‘Durban Pencils’. Another said: “they were pencils. They were wrapped in pencils…and we called them pencils because they were pretty much the same size and thickness of a pencil.” This same trader only began selling after his connections extended to Swaziland, because with Durban Poison “you didn’t see what you were getting ‘cause it was all wrapped in brown paper, in sticks.” Over the course of the early-1970s, these ‘pencils’ gradually got shorter and thinner, until your average ‘pencil’ was about a third of the length and a third of the thickness of an actual pencil (the price of a ‘pencil’, however, apparently remained constant). And it was around this time, 1974 or 1975, that ‘DP’ – ‘Durban Pencils’ – became ‘Durban Poison’.
 

Rastafarout

Well-known member
This is what we were disagreeing on .. but here it is …

“It is very difficult to speculate on the chain of events that led to the emergence of Durban Poison. Whatever the reasons for its fame, it is certain that it does not exist as a specific kind of cannabis in southern Africa. Furthermore, it is certain that Natal does not produce a large amount of cannabis relative to its surrounding regions. However, one trader mentioned that, for a time, Natalian cannabis was very distinctive and of a high quality. This trader claimed that this cannabis, grown in Zululand, was eliminated by South African Narcotics Bureau
70
It is interesting that many ‘seed banks’ in the Netherlands sell seeds under the name
stronger Dutch strains.
operations there during the period in which it was led by Basie Smit. mentioned that he had purchased cannabis grown in Zululand in the mid-1980s “

“ ‘Pete’, Interview with Author, 12 July 2008, corroborated by R.Asta. Bensusan mentions massive seizures in Zululand (in the region of 300 tons, compared to 15 tons in the Transkei) in 1971”

“A development, sparked by the beginning of mass exports out of southern Africa, was the compression of cannabis. By compressing one or two kilograms of cannabis into a rigid block, the problem of smuggling such a bulky product is minimised. Traders in the regional market tend to prefer ‘loose’ cannabis, sold in ‘garbage bag’ or ‘plastic packet’ denominations. The vast majority of compressed cannabis is exported, while the vast majority of loose cannabis is traded on the regional market. However, there are small amounts of loose cannabis smuggled to the UK, and there are also quantities of compressed cannabis available in southern Africa. The compressing of cannabis seems to be more popular in Swaziland than in either the former Transkei or Lesotho. It is possible that this is predominantly due to the fact that Lesotho and the former Transkei mainly supply South African markets. Since many farmers in Swaziland have gone as far as to purchase compression machines”
 

Rastafarout

Well-known member
“It is known that, while Durban Poison was the first southern African cannabis to arrive in Europe, Swazi cannabis was carried through for sale in Dutch ‘coffee shops’ by the
1990s of 1 or 2 kilograms of compressed cannabis, became more widely available in Europe and became popular in the Dutch ‘coffee shops’. It is also possible that Lesotho benefited from the cannabis boom of the late-1980s and early-1990s. Laniel writes that Lesotho experienced a massive upsurge in production during this stage," and it is known that cannabis under the name 'Durban Poison' was being sold in the Netherlands at the same time, It seems likely that this massive growth in production was partly a result of the European cannabis explosion “
 

Legalcdn

Well-known member
“It is known that, while Durban Poison was the first southern African cannabis to arrive in Europe, Swazi cannabis was carried through for sale in Dutch ‘coffee shops’ by the
1990s of 1 or 2 kilograms of compressed cannabis, became more widely available in Europe and became popular in the Dutch ‘coffee shops’. It is also possible that Lesotho benefited from the cannabis boom of the late-1980s and early-1990s. Laniel writes that Lesotho experienced a massive upsurge in production during this stage," and it is known that cannabis under the name 'Durban Poison' was being sold in the Netherlands at the same time, It seems likely that this massive growth in production was partly a result of the European cannabis explosion “
Far out,

The Lesotho and transkei strains you have:

with stray pollen going everywhere, can you be sure the strains were not contaminated?

With the skunk making its way to S.A., it must be hard to keep them pure.

I appreciate the work you have done searching for good seeds.

Are there any pictures of grows with these strains?
 

Rastafarout

Well-known member
Far out,

The Lesotho and transkei strains you have:

with stray pollen going everywhere, can you be sure the strains were not contaminated?

With the skunk making its way to S.A., it must be hard to keep them pure.

I appreciate the work you have done searching for good seeds.

Are there any pictures of grows with these strains?
Yes that’s true that’s why I went and had a look at a few places in extreme isolation especially before the green rush was happening ,
as I saw this problem already happen on the Transkei coast (90’s) with tourists giving seeds ( skunk ect)

I’ve met growers there that welcomed ghs visits (2005 /9 not sure).. now they wish they never .. where they would get a few seeds , now they got hundreds so only grew that
You know Ghs modus operandi ? Take the pure , leave the hybrid , put pure in vault no more pure

but rot is huge problem now never encountered by traditional growers plus more pests problems , plus they have to water them now ,
Anyway these Transkei are from way out in the bush far from anywhere , I got them 2015-2017
I knew when that when legalisation came they wouldn’t be able to sell their crops anymore as people wanted Dutch ( skunky)

Just google and you will see their problem now , no buyers everyone’s growing their own or a mate is and they (Tribal Growers) have also been left out of the legal loop no licences to grow and sell (expensive)
So still have to break law , nothing new but markets flooded these days

so thats made TG try growing hybrids even more to be relevant , further ruining landrace
I mean you going to grow whatever brings the top dollar, but it comes with the problem mentioned above, no resistances some will find out the hard way
Theres still a few traditional healer growers but very scarce, and if pollen doesn’t get them , no demand will

these are my own experiences.. and welcome other views …
 

Ipotato

Active member
Yes that’s true that’s why I went and had a look at a few places in extreme isolation especially before the green rush was happening ,
as I saw this problem already happen on the Transkei coast (90’s) with tourists giving seeds ( skunk ect)

I’ve met growers there that welcomed ghs visits (2005 /9 not sure).. now they wish they never .. where they would get a few seeds , now they got hundreds so only grew that
You know Ghs modus operandi ? Take the pure , leave the hybrid , put pure in vault no more pure

but rot is huge problem now never encountered by traditional growers plus more pests problems , plus they have to water them now ,
Anyway these Transkei are from way out in the bush far from anywhere , I got them 2015-2017
I knew when that when legalisation came they wouldn’t be able to sell their crops anymore as people wanted Dutch ( skunky)

Just google and you will see their problem now , no buyers everyone’s growing their own or a mate is and they (Tribal Growers) have also been left out of the legal loop no licences to grow and sell (expensive)
So still have to break law , nothing new but markets flooded these days

so thats made TG try growing hybrids even more to be relevant , further ruining landrace
I mean you going to grow whatever brings the top dollar, but it comes with the problem mentioned above, no resistances some will find out the hard way
Theres still a few traditional healer growers but very scarce, and if pollen doesn’t get them , no demand will

these are my own experiences.. and welcome other views …
Transkei weed was absolute garbage before too it was what you smoked when absolutely nothing else was available... paranoia trip. talking end of 1980ies here
 

Rastafarout

Well-known member
Transkei weed was absolute garbage before too it was what you smoked when absolutely nothing else was available... paranoia trip. talking end of 1980ies here
Where did you stay in those days , the best got sent overseas .. read that paper chuck put up … that’s one of many saying the best was exported , I don’t think there would be a big demand if it was garbage
but each to their own
 

Ipotato

Active member
Where did you stay in those days , the best got sent overseas .. read that paper chuck put up … that’s one of many saying the best was exported , I don’t think there would be a big demand if it was garbage
but each to their own
Port Saint Johns smack in the middle of it
 
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