Shantibaba: News From Switzerland And More

After two years I was lucky enough to visit Lugano, Switzerland, where one of the most famous cannabis breeders Scott Blakey aka Shantibaba, father of legendary strains like White Widow, Critical Mass or Super Silver Haze, has been living for over twenty years. A long chat over a glass of wine and some hash samples led to a two-part interview about positive developments in German-speaking countries and news from the world of growing and breeding.

What have you been up to lately in Switzerland regarding the new laws here on the pilot projects?

There is a lot of stuff happening in Switzerland at the moment, especially medical and the pilot projects and CBD growing. I am now going back after 20 years to the same farm I was working on before in Ticino. We’ve put down our first 6000 plants, and I’m controlling the growth, so I’m touching plants again every day, which is wonderful.

What kind of farm is it?

It’s actually a flower farm. We’ve adapted it with a darkening system and supplementary light. We’ve taken over two or three of the greenhouses out of eight at the moment. The Bergbluten Company that I’m working with now has its fingers in many pies.

One of them will eventually be a medical grow. I have already been exporting to Australia—medical cannabis, medical flowers, medical oil, medical pills, and everything like that. But now I’m centralizing everything back in Switzerland because the laws are much better and more consistent now.

And you’ll be participating in one of those projects popping up around the country?

Yes, we’re participating in three or four of them already. One in Brigg, one in Glarus, and hopefully Ticino. We’ve got applications in for all of those.

And you’re supplying the final flowers for them?

Yes, we’re supplying the final flowers for the customers or the participants in the studies. The hardest thing to get was medical. Once we have medical, we can supply everyone underneath that—recreation for the pilot projects and medical. We’ve got a good team. Everyone knows their responsibilities, so I’m really happy. I’m in a good spot, doing a lot of stuff. Maybe not so much seed work as before—that’s mainly in Spain now. I’ve closed that up and moved to Austria.

Your clone production and seed production?

Clone and seeds are all there.

So you had to move your genetics?

Yes, that’s something I’ve been doing all my life—moving them around. My girls follow me. 

So in Spain, you don’t have anything anymore?

No, I still have some lingering things. We’re phasing it down. I haven’t closed it all off yet.

And why is that happening? Because the laws aren’t great?

For me, Spanish laws have gone nowhere in 18 years. They’ve allowed certain things, but even the clubs don’t know where they stand at the moment. You get a different political party come in, and everything’s on shifting standards. I thought it would change, be a lot better. A couple of medical companies I know down there are fine. But not everyone can do the two or three years of paperwork to get all the administrative stuff.

What strains will you be choosing for pilot projects?

I already chose them. It’s not a secret: Super Silver Haze, Amnesia Haze. These are all selections from myself. We’ve got the original Skunk #1, which I call “Shit” from Mr. Nice. Then we have Critical Mass.

I’m asking about the genetics because everyone talks about the highest amount of THC, blah blah. So what is your focus on, and why do you choose what you choose?

Obviously, the market dictates what we can do. I’ve sat down with a few guys, and we’ve made a spread of genetics. We have a few of the new American selections that we’ve got. We have a few old school ones, obviously. I’ll be introducing some of the hazes once we get into better production.

The reason we’re doing Skunk #1, Critical Mass, and a few others like Pink Lemonade is that we’ve been working with them for many years. Now we put in Amnesia, Super Silver Haze, Master Kush, Skunk… So I’ve picked a few that are really 50-50 or mainly indica. The next rush will be some old school sativas—Early Queen, Afghan Haze, Master Kush Skunk, Afghan Haze, Neville’s Haze, Mango Haze. And then a few new ones, like Holy Grail and Holy Smoke. So we’ve got plenty up our sleeve.

That’s a lot of strains…

But we don’t have the space to do everything into production. We need to make certain amounts. Under the new guidelines from Swiss Medic, we have to dictate how many plants we’re going to grow for what amount we think we’ll grow. Everything is a lot more structured than it has been before. If you grow surplus, it’s okay as long as they’re registered and they know where it’s stored once it’s done.

So then you can extract it or something?

We can either use it for extract or register that we made extra and then still sell it.

And for the Swiss pilot projects, it’s only flower at the moment and hashish or something?

Yes, we intend very much to produce our own hash for the projects. In fact, I’ve already bought screens. They’re huge—two and a half meters long by one and a half meters wide. I would like to be producing our own hashish here. That’s one of my passions. I love it. It’s like winemaking for some, hashish making for others. And I’m in that others group. It’s something I’d really like to do. But you need a large volume of THC and different varieties to go through and collect certain amounts of powder. You might get 8 to 12% on weight back when you’re doing it on a vibrating screen, but when you’re just cleaning over a screen, you’re getting much less—1 or 2%. But you’re getting the premium qualities. So eventually, you’ll get it.

(…)

The second part of this interview will be published soon.