Pretty sure that is David Potter from GW Pharma.
‘Skunk’ Comes out of the Closet | O’Shaughnessy’s (beyondthc.com)
Why Does GW Pharmaceuticals Grow Skunk If It Isn’t Medicinal? – UKCSC
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I never went near wonderland because some of the first videos Kevin put up on you tube showing off mother plants were also showing off a healthy spider mite nightmare…
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I keep hearing these rumors walts head is frozen somewhere and I’m starting to believe it 
That is the most likely to be true out of all of those claims
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I would not trust Todd McFraud with a frog fart. He is the only one that I have known to devoutly support Watson. Everyone else I know that have met or known Watson has told me that he is a complete self-centered jerk and/or a fraud. Including some good friends of Rob Clarke’s. Todd also used to write for High Times, so that should tell you something as well. Todd came out with a ‘Nevil tribute’ Haze bean sale right after Nevil passed for a ransom per seed to make a fast buck off of his passing. Todd claimed that he got them from Dave or Nevil (I forget which) back in the day. In response to that, Scott Blakey (AKA Shantibaba) released a Nevil Haze tribute line that he can actually trace back to Nevil with certainty when Nevil was at Mr Nice with Scott and Howard Marks. And Scott’s price was about 1/4 of what Todd wanted, for the real deal, not some story line.
Say what you want about them, I do not trust or believe anything that Todd or Dave claim. Everything that I read posted by Dave and all the conversations/debates that I had with him some years ago now scream to me that he was not in tune with what was happening in the underground around the SF and Monterey Bay areas at the time. Its all 180 degrees from what I experienced there. Dave touts that he smoked nothing but Haze year round from 1969 on. He claims that it sold for $400 a lid back around 1970 when lids went for $20, tops. No weed sold for that much then. Weed gets tiring after a while as well, even good weed. None of us just smoked one strain year after year. There was too much good weed to be had. Dave also has stated that Big Sur Holy weed was trash. I can attest that it was not trash. Also no one had weed year round then. There were always dry spells typically in late summer before the SW Mexican fall crop came in. Also weed that good that far back was unheard of, and if it was around, EVERYONE would know about it. Any time I had good weed people would knock on my door months later and say that they were friends of friends of friends that heard I had this stuff of legend… and so, anyone with something like “Haze” locally grown for over a decade would never have an endless supply, it would never be kept a secret, and it never sold for $400 a lid. Sorry.
As posted by others above, I am not the only one with this opinion. As for facts, what I go by is what I lived through in that exact same location that Dave was at in the exact same time frame in California from 1966 to 1986. I am not quoting stuff from some weed rag or posts on forums or hearsay, save for what Nevil has told me in my conversations with him or that he has posted online -which I agree with 100%, even from a junkie- and what Dave has told me in conversations or posted and claimed -which contradicts my (and others’) experiences 100%-.
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As for “Selgnij’s” HT breeding info, that is all from Rob Clarke. Clarke published several books on the subject fairly early on.There were some other books published early on by several underground presses in SF and Berkeley. Like Mary Jane Superweed and the MJ Potency/Chemistry books by Starks. It was what it was for its time and not that advanced really.
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I could counter that he could have as easily been a narc and flipped (as many have claimed) or been a narc in Santa Cruz before he went to Amsterdam. In which case any and all arrest records would have been expunged by the Sheriff, the CHP/CAMP or the DEA. If he was not a narc and was busted at Sacred Seeds as claimed by some rather tall tales posted, his record would not have been expunged until more recently when pot was made legal in California. But those are pure conjectures. What we do know is that the DEA would have had access to his background and arrest record when he got the DEA approved permit for them (he and Rob Clarke) in Amsterdam. What I found was that there was no record of any arrest for him in Santa Cruz County, and that there was no record of any company named Sacred Seeds ever existing there either. Nor did I ever hear of either when I lived there. Or for that matter I never heard of any weed named Haze until Nevil had it listed in his later catalogs.
Also I know from experience that with the exception of Haze, these strains were all available in the SF and Monterey Bay area starting in the mid 1970s. Skunk was fairly common, Cali-O was rare but you could find it (along with RedBud), so called Original Haze was likely just a Colombian; very common and cheap and seedy as all fuk, and Durban was available as a rare import or as a cut in Berkeley after Mel Frank had worked the A and B lines from Ed’s seeds. I have seeds of all of them from that era and location except the infamous Haze line. Odd that. The missing strain in my collection. Except as I believe, it is just a Colombian landrace or F1 Colombian hybrid in which case I likely have it, as I got a few dozen different Colombian strains from a friend that moved back to New York in 1980. He gifted me a coffee can of all kinds of Colombian seeds that he had saved over the previous 5 years. He lived in Freedom in south Santa Cruz Co., next to that supposed famous greenhouse birthplace of Haze called… Corrolitos.
Its not that I hate the guy. I just do not believe much of anything that he says or has said. None of it adds up. He seems to have a large following of worshipers though. Mostly people who were not there and not even around then. The story of Haze is like the story if Romulan. Romulan was a landrace strain from South Korea brought into the states through Ft Ord (the home of the 7th Division at that time) and later latched onto by the East Bay bikers who named it and grew it… !!!Oh nooooooo!!! The mythical story line is that it was originally bred by VietNam vet Mendocino Joe who… oh sorry, we must interrupt this interrupted tale… this just in… now the story line for Romulan is that it was originally bred in British Columbia, Canada (or was it Alberta?) in the 1950s! I read it online, so it must be true! ROTFL!
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I wish I grew up in Cali and had been able to research these claims as you have. All I’m trying to do is come up with the Skunk strain like we grew back in the 70’s. The seeds came from Kabul Afghanistan, and the plant was real skunky smellin ! Back then secrecy was everything. The less people knew the better. You’d think that SOMEONE in Cali would have preserved this strain. In the midwest we were knuckleheads, and thought the Skunk would be around forever . MISTAKE !!!
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Todd knows Rob Clarke as well as Dave. He specifically told me in his email that the Jingles article was authored by Dave. Rob’s book didn’t come out until 1981.
Coool story! 
Your story sounds very authentic.
Thanks for sharing, I love the old school stories like yours.
It seem to line up with what I believe is truth.
I do not have hate for Sam, but I feel the need to point out when someone is lying to a crowd.
He has done so on more than one occasion.
Thanks again for the history lesson brother! 
Peace
Shag
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Let’s instead discuss an interesting anomaly that requires exploration.
Madjag posted a pack of Skunk #1 from Sacred Seeds that he bought directly from Sam in 1979. He planted 3000 of these in Arizona and was ahead of the times enough to keep documentation of it all.
He described the aroma as such,
"Virtually all of the plants smelled like RKS, especially after harvesting, drying, and manicuring.
Two week-old dried buds, when crushed up for consumption, would truly fill a room with the aroma. It stuck in people’s hair after smoking and you could tell who was baked and who was not."
On the seed packs, the following was printed:
"Fresh and germination tested 100% Pureblood Skunk #1 strain, Cannabis Indica Hashish Seeds indigenous to the High-Northern Hindu Kush mountain range. Grown with love in (1980) for the (1981) growing season.
Far from the north, high in the Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Kashmiri Hindu Kush mountain ranges where proud farmers have been collecting, cultivating, and smoking Cannabis Indica Hashish plants for hundreds of years. “Sacred Seeds” has selected for only the finest of exotic “Extra Early” hashish strains for your enjoyment.
Finder, importer, cultivator, breeder, and researcher of said selected, exotic, true variety, pedigreed cannabis seed. “Sacred Seeds” offers only organic, unhybridized, old fashioned, pure seed lines that grow naturally good cannabis. We use no F1 or other hybrid crosses that cannot reproduce themselves.
Produced 100% organically from imported seeds, carefully grown in isolation to ensure absolute racial purity"
He was so far ahead of the times that he not only documented the whole thing, but he had the presence of mind to keep seed matter that he was able to submit to Phylos.
Now, what did Phylos find? They found that the sample Madjag submitted was a pure landrace variety with no relationship to anything else in their galaxy. That includes having no relationship to the Skunk #1 that Sam submitted, which would be the Skunk #1 hybrid that he brought with him to Holland. Two seperate lines.
Curious.
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Ah, madjag I remember him.
A very interesting cat that one.
Very humble but super knowledgeable and had it going on the last I saw.
Wow, another cool bit of history!
Thank you @B.o.o.Radley for sharing that.
Sounds like Madjag may be the best source for the skunk.
Is he still around?
As his inbox gets spammed to death…LOL
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I believe I’ve seen that same package in relation to jade nectar’s grandpappy skunk. Very interesting!
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Madjag is a cool dude for sure 
he referred to the skunk he grew as very sweet though…
From madjag
"[…] As Sam S said, he bred the original Skunk #1 for sweetness, probably leaning toward the Sativa (NLD) side. […]
Skunk #1 had that same overwhelming potent scentability but was a top note, the zone where sweetness resides.
A sweet Skunk smell would be fragrant like musk, like patchouli, more than a skunk spray. The skunk spray scents that came later or were present already in strains like Afghani #1 were just a different zone. Sam and Rob could have called it Sweet Musk #1, but would anyone understand?"
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I grew up in Arkansas, and I never heard of Arkansas Skunk. There are probably a LOT of heirlooms and IBLs that people there have been working for decades, including descendants of the original Skunk, no doubt.
dang that sounds so dank
I was going through some old notes, looking for old science stuff and I found this.
It is not really conclusive and I don’t know the name on top but I thought I would share it with the class anyway.
@Mithridate
I found this too.
Might this be of use to you?
A bit above my pay grade, but for some reason, I found it significant enough to save.
My memory is not what it used to be… 
You see, low industrial hemp produces GW’s miracle drug, CBD as a by
product!
There is primariy one gene that tells a plant to be either a primary CBD
producer or a primary THC producer!
The Bd gene produces the enzyme that converts cannabigerol into CBD, and the gene Bt gene produces enzyme that converts cannabigerl into THC.
If a plant inherits a Bt gene from each parent it will only produce low
cannabigerol of CBD, and visa versa if it gets a Bd gene from each parent.
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Around 1985, some cannabis breeders from the United States fled for a country with more amenable drug policies– the Netherlands. At the time, indoor cultivation of cannabis was just starting to take off in the Netherlands, and the fusion of American breeding stock and Dutch agricultural practice sparked a revolution in cannabis breeding and production.
Today, Dutch ‘seed banks’ sell the product of this breeding over the Internet, in competition with a growing number of rivals, notably those based in Canada.
One of these U.S. breeders was David Selezny, now traveling as David Watson, AKA “Sam the Skunkman”. Another important US entity that joined Watson/Selezny, at least in part, was Robert Connell Clarke – a renowned cannabisbotany researcher and author.
Here’s where things get interesting!
According to Joe Pietri, author of King of Nepal The Ice Wars edition, Watson/Selezny had been busted for growing in Santa Cruz California in March of 1985 and resurfaced in Amsterdam. In his baggage was the research from the
Sacred Seed Collective, a seed bank originally started in the 1940’s, and 250,000 cannabis seeds. Ed Rosenthal, who was the cultivation editor for High Times at that time, introduced Sam Selezny as David Watson to everyone who was anyone at the time on the Dutch scene. Shortly thereafter Watson/Selezny started Cultivators Choice, one of Amsterdam’s early seedbanks.
Surviving members of the Sacred Seed Collective still question how Watson
managed to pull this off? Pietri puts it more directly, “Was Watson/Selezny working undercover to bring Sacred Seed collective down?”
Either way, after Watson’s arrival in Amsterdam strange things began occurring – not the least of which was
Neiderweit went from crap to chronic with the introduction of the Sacred Seed Collective’s genetics. THC levels vastly increased within a short timeframe after Watson/Selezny introduced Skunk #1 - a 75% sativa (Acapulco Gold + Columbian Gold) + 25% indica (Afghani) hybrid with the potency of sativa and the growing vigor and early finishing times of an indica.
So profound was Skunk #1’s effect on the market that today “Skunk” has become a generic term in the UK and Europe for describing super potent pot. Breeders today regard Skunk #1 as the benchmark of reliable performance and as a rock-solid genotype that has influenced a hundred modern hybrids. Growth and flowering are mostlyIndica in appearance (dark green, short and squat with dense heavy flower clusters), with Skunk #1 gaining a little more height than a pure Indica when blooming.
Keep in mind that these were also the years in which the indoor growing culture was on the rise. A super potent, mostly sativa strain with a high THC to low CBD ratio, which was perfect for indoor growing shouldn’t be underestimated. The perfect strain for indoor growing was now widely available to growers around the globe.
Skunk was about to go meteoric! And frankly, its legacy would become insane (pardon the pun!).
The next interesting thing that occurred was Watson’s/Selezny’s influence in creating the Cannabis Cup.
In an article written by High Times editor Steven Hager in 2004, he recounts:
“I first visited the Netherlands in 1987 to write an article on the founder of Holland’s first cannabis seed company.
Titled “The King of Cannabis,” the article described how an Australian named Nevil (Schoenmaker) established a mail order company in Holland. He lived in a mansion filled with grow rooms that I dubbed “Cannabis Castle.” While working on the article, I met the founders of Cultivators Choice, an almost defunct American cannabis-seed
company. They told me about the spectacular California harvest festivals of the ‘70s. That’s where I got the idea of holding a cannabis harvest festival in Amsterdam.”
According to Pietri what actually happened was Hager had been appointed as editor of High Times in 1987. In the same year Hager went to Amsterdam to interview Neville Shoenmaker of the Seed Bank. While there he meets Watson/Selezny who relates stories to him about harvest festivals in Santa Cruz and suggests having a Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam as a yearly event. As Watson/Selezny expands on the concept Hager is taken in.” From this point on everything stated by either Watson/Selezny or his partner Robert Connell 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 wet behind the ears was enthralled. Coincidently, Operation Green Merchant was conceived of in the same year. This allowed the DEA to infiltrate the
ascending cannabis scene – both locally and abroad. Obviously, one of their key targets outside of the U.S. was Holland due to its liberal cannabis laws and its source as a port of origin for illegal shipments of seeds across U.S.
boarders.
In 1988 the first Cannabis Cup was held and surprise, surprise, Watson/ Selezny takes first prize for Skunk #1. In the following year Neville Schoenmaker’s Early Pearl/Skunk #1 x Northern Lights #5/Haze from Seed Bank took first prize and the year after that Schoenmaker’s Northern Lights #5 took first prize.
The impact of the breeding, marketing and distribution efforts of Neville Schoenmaker on the cannabis world
cannot be stressed enough; he wasn’t labeled the original ‘King of Cannabis’ without justification. During the 1980’s, Neville Shoenmaker, a dual Australian and Dutch citizen, allegedly traveled to the Netherlands to obtain treatment for a drug addiction, because at the time, the Dutch were renowned for their addiction treatment
facilities. While there, he slowly started the first Dutch marijuana mail order seed bank, and over the course of time became very successful, ultimately becoming a legend in the marijuana breeding community for his efforts to introduce, market, breed and distribute some of the most high profile varieties of cannabis of our time.
His home, dubbed the ‘Cannabis Castle’ was a breeder’s laboratory where Neville worked on lines of cannabis for years while filling mail order requests from cultivators all over the world.
Enter Green Merchant -the DEA’s ill-fated, albeit, comprehensive attempt to destroy pot magazines and hydroponics and indoor marijuana growing industries.
Hager later writes of Schoenmaker, “Unfortunately, a few weeks later the DEA launched an operation designed to shut down the Seed Bank and High Times."
Peter Gorman, a former High Times journalist writes, “the main targets of ‘Operation Green Merchant’ according to his Justice Department sources were Neville of ‘The Seed Bank’, High Times magazine and Sensimilla Tips, a now
defunct cannabis culture magazine due to ‘Operation Green Merchant.’
Steven Hager later wrote of Schoenmaker that, “The Dutch government refused to extradite Neville, who was forced into hiding to prevent a DEA kidnapping” and that he was “eventually nabbed while visiting his family in Australia…”
Schoenmaker, was arrested in Australia in July of 1990, several weeks after winning his second cannabis cup.
Extradition proceedings were launched to transport Schoenmaker to Federal court in New Orleans, where he would face charges of violating the Controlled Substances Act. The 44-count indictment alleged that Schoenmaker, “in concert with at least five other persons,” knowingly distributed, through the US Postal Service, a total of 1,921 seeds to DEA agents and marijuana growers in the New Orleans area from 1985 to 1990. The indictment also alleged that Schoenmaker “did knowingly…manufacture (grow) more than 1,000 marijuana plants, a Schedule 1
drug controlled substance.”
Shoenmaker’s lawyer noted on his court records that the police had dossier on Schoenmaker as well as everyone who was anyone on the Dutch scene, and that they were compiled by an undercover operative working in the Dutch scene.
That undercover, according to Joe Pietri, was David Watson/Sam Selezny.
Bummer for the US Feds, the Australians dropped the ball and Shoenmaker was never extradited from Australia to the U.S. He held both a Dutch and Australian passport and after making bail fled Australia on his Dutch passport, leaving authorities red-faced and angry. Shoenmaker than went into hiding, albeit allegedly operating behind the scenes as a partner and breeder for Sensi Seeds, a company responsible for many famous genetics and winner of numerous cannabis cup awards. He later publically surfaced in the early 21st century and now works with
ShantiBaba (a fellow Australian compatriot who appeared on the Dutch scene in the early nineties) and Howard Marks – the legendary drug runner - at Mr Nice Seeds.
The next interesting thing then happens. Watson/Selezny creates HortaPharm B.V with Robert C Clarke in 1994 and in 1997 they are issued a cannabis research license ahead of legitimate Universities and PhD’s due to the strong endorsement by the DEA, instead of extraditing him back to Santa Cruz for a grow bust in 1985?
To this day HortaPharm B.V is one of two companies allowed to import cannabis product into the US, and the only supplier licensed by the DEA to supply seeds of predictable quality for research.
I mean, it’s all starting to sound somewhat like a conspiracy theory right? Could this be? The DEA starting a seed company in Amsterdam, placing a deep undercover into the Dutch scene, creating a cannabis cup which would bring all the leading cannabis cultivators and breeders from around the world straight to them on a yearly basis.
Take this one step further. Were the DEA directly responsible for changing the THC/CBD profile of cannabis on a global scale? Did law enforcement inadvertently increase the potency of marijuana or were they far more directly
involved?
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Who’s got the Uncle Bob…Now that is stinky shit
“Under DEA regulations, marijuana can be imported, provided that the researcher is registered with the DEA, has
approval for marijuana research (21 CFR 1312.11, .12, and .13), and has a DEA-approved permit for importation
(21 CFR 1312.11, .12, and .13) and that the exporter in the foreign country has appropriate authorization by the
country of exportation. Importation would enable U.S. researchers to conduct research from grown by Hortapharm.
However, no U.S. researcher has imported Hortapharm’s marijuana because Dutch authorities have refused to
issue an export permit, despite the insurance of an import permit by the DEA (D.Pate, Hortapharm, personal
communication, 1998).”
[End Quote]
While, M. David Marks et al (2009) note:
[Quote]
“Seeds from the marijuana cultivar Skunk no. 1 were provided by HortaPharm BV (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
and imported under a US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) permit to a registered controlled substance
research facility. “
[End Quote]
Let’s face it, how did Watson/Selezny get DEA approval and endorsement when he should have been on the DEA’s
most wanted list? One could argue, for instance, that his crimes committed in the U.S. in 1985 had outrun the
statute of limitations. However, there are special circumstances where the statute of limitations will be extended by
the court after petition by the US Attorney. One of these being that the offense took place in a foreign country, or
Marijuana and Mental Illness - Manic Botanix
http://www.manicbotanix.com/news/marijuana-and-mental-illness.html[1/4/2015 9:05:07 PM]
evidence is located in foreign territory. Given Watson/Selezny was selling/posting seeds into the U.S. illegally for
many years before receiving “official” DEA “endorsement” how was it that so many others in his trade were
targeted and/or arrested while he seemed immune to prosecution? Other than this, the statute of limitations does
not apply to those who flee to avoid prosecution and regardless of the offense/s, a person who is a fugitive from
justice is not protected by any statute of limitations for that offense. Odd?!
Back to HortaPharm B.V.
Details have been disclosed of the collaboration between GW Pharmaceuticals - the British Company licensed by
the Home Office to conduct research into the medicinal uses of cannabis - and Dutch medicinal cannabis plant breeding company HortaPharm B.V. Since 2001, the HortaPharm programme has continued at GW Pharmaceuticals
in the UK.
Speaking at the International Cannabinoid Research Society (ICRS) conference in Montpellier, Dr Geoffrey W Guy, Chairman of GW Pharmaceuticals, said that HortaPharm will provide GW with exclusive access to its entire range
of cannabis varieties for the development of medicines. The worldwide rights acquired by GW for an undisclosed sum cover varieties grown to date with certain exceptions and all varieties to be bred in future. Plant registrations arising from the Dutch breeding programme will be owned by GW. Under the agreement GW will be responsible for the development of specific drug delivery technologies to administer the pharmaceutical grade medicinal cannabis.
This work will include a vaporiser for which HortaPharm has a patent pending. In addition GW will fund HortaPharm’s botanical research and HortaPharm scientists will assist in the UK Glasshouse propagation, cloning and cultivation programme.
An article published in the Independent on Sunday 27 September 1998 by Vannessa Thorpe reads:
“It looks like dope, but really it’s hope,” explains the proprietor, American entrepreneur David Watson. What he
means is that many of these plants have been specifically bred not to produce an intoxicating resin or hashish.
Indeed, HortaPharm hopes to thwart the aims of the average recreational user.
The team are already close to finding their own commercial Holy Grail - seeds that will produce a one-off, female, seedless crop of plants with no psychotropic effects (or THC highs, to the layman) for the consumer. Why, you might ask, would they want to do that?
The answer is that Mr Watson and his Amsterdam-based scientists are working to create a stable, plant-based medical product. They want to isolate the beneficial effects of cannabis’ various properties and then reproduce them, ad infinitum, from specialized parent plants.
HortaPharm is only interested in developing female plants that are sterile, but this is not just to protect their genetic copyright. “If a plant is not kept busy producing seeds, all its energy can go into resin production,” says Mr de Miejer.”
Hmmm? Sounds strangely like GMO seeds! It’s not a leap and a bound to consider that once Watson/DEA has this technology it could just as easily be applied to male plants, pollen spread world wide and viola – a monopoly and sterile seeds. Let’s face it, stranger things have happened (Paraquat anyone?
This was found in the comments of the page I took this from.
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#1 Joe Pietri 2012-12-21 02:02
The damage that Watson and Clarke have done to original medical strains, they collected cultivars ahead of crop eradication teams in Thailand and Laos and around the globe, so in the end they are the only ones to have the original mother natures cultivars, or in areas where no eradication possible they corrupted the
local strains with skunk #1. He even came out with a graph showing all strains lead to Skunk #, from this article I see at last that my message to stoners arounds the globe about this meglo-maniac DEA operative calling himself Skunkj-man is getting out, thank you internet. Ain’t if funny that High Times named the DEA seed-bank Cultivators Choice the all time seed bank, and that they even awarded cups to DEA strains like Skunk #1, all the strains he claims came from the University of Mississippi where Watson was taught gas chromatography. He is a protoge of Carlton Turner. Joe Pietri
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