THE CANNABIBLE 2

Introduction & Afterward

BY JASON KING
INTRODUCTION:

Late September 2002. I'm in California, chasing the harvest, as usual. My daze are spent cruising up and down the west coast, finding the true connoisseurs in the area, and somehow talking them into letting me take pictures of their most private crop. According the the local growers, this is the best season California has had in 20 years. It hasn't rained in nearly a year, and the intense California sun is coaxing the local ganja crop to unbelievable sizes. Admittedly, the passage of Prop. 215, which legalized medical marijuana in California, is making my job much easier than before. Some daze I drive over 300 miles and photograph three or more gardens.

Throughout the summer, I am repeatedly told of a legendary garden in Upper Lake, affectionately known as Eddy's Medicinal Garden. I am told there are hundreds of humongous ganja plants, over 80 different strains, some of the plants towering at well over 15' tall. The plants, each large enough to harvest 5 pounds of herb, are supposedly being grown in full sunlight, within sight of a highway!
 

     
  I also hear through the ganja-vine of the ballsy Vietnam Vet responsible for all these plants, a man by the name of Eddy Lepp. Having heard several descriptions of his bold and defiant character, I felt I knew and loved him before I even met him. This strange feeling was validated while at the Seattle Hemp Fest, when I heard a man in the background boasting about his garden being the best in the world, while proudly handing a person a giant "business card" with a picture of him and his wife in front of the monstrous plants. I walked up and introduced myself and said "You MUST be Eddy Lepp." "I sure am," he proudly replied.

We became friends instantly, and after signing one of his aforementioned cards to me, we agreed that I should extensively photograph his garden throughout the harvest season. Within daze I made the journey to his land, about an hour and a half NorthEast of the Bay. As I approached from the freeway, my eyes spotted a giant mass of thriving green forest in the distance. "That couldn't be it," I assured myself. But as I drew nearer, I was blown away when I realized and accepted the fact that this was in fact a giant ganja forest!...............
     

AFTERWARD:

As I sit here, just daze before Cannabible II goes to the publishers, I reflect on all that's happened in the last year since the first Cannabible came out. I've met so many incredible beings who have inspired me and become lifelong friends. All the wonderful people I meet in my travels are the best part about my job. (The herb is pretty fantastic too!) Prop 215 and all the other medical marijuana initiatives have greatly helped my quest, yet the list of strains that I have not photographed still rapidly grows. People have contacted me from all over the world, inviting me to photograph the local delicacies in their locales. For Cannabible III, my preliminary plan is to visit Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania, Alaska, Greenland, Africa including Lesotho, Swaziland, South Africa and Malawi and of course more of the USA and Hawaii. I also plan on doing a seed breeders edition, featuring only strains that can be purchased from seed companies. A landrace edition will soon follow. A very respectable chunk of what California has to offer was covered in this Volume, but there is still so much more. To be honest, it's almost intimidating. After obliging my body with a nice ganja fast, it's back to work! Lots of people think they have the best job in the world, but I know that I do. Thank you so much for helping me to truly make this dream a reality!