I get this question a lot and the first answer is that you are purchasing directly from the grower when you are getting your seeds from me. The only seeds I've ever sold have been grown by either myself or Mel Frank. If Mel Frank decides to grow more seeds, they will be available once again.
The reason we are able to offer a lower price as is because there is no middleman.
Unlike seed banks who purchase questionable seeds from questionable growers with questionable genetics, at Authentic Genetics you're getting the highest quality hand selected seeds that were all grown organically with love by somebody who has had decades of experience growing cannabis.
As someone who grew up dealing with childhood cancer, I started smoking cannabis when I was only nine years old with my mom while I was going through radiation and chemotherapy treatment. I sincerely feel that cannabis saved my life and simultaneously made my life so much easier by increasing my appetite, decreasing my pain and helping me feel just a little bit better about what I was going through.
The healing experience from cannabis was profound and caused me to start cultivating cannabis at the age of 13 back in January of 1984. The simple interaction with nature, and growing my own medicine also caused me to passionately study cannabis and eventually become an activist fighting for its legalization. Once I started growing cannabis I never really stopped, except for when I was incarcerated for cultivating cannabis.
You can read about my journey through the cannabis world and my effort to push legalization here:
My Activism Through the Years…
Back in 1997, I was arrested for growing 4,116 plants at my home in Los Angeles. I was severely punished by the federal government because not only did I dare to grow the forbidden flower, I would not cooperate with the prosecution and because of that, I was forced to self surrender to a five year prison sentence. It was extremely hard to go through, but I will say that five years in prison was worth a lifetime of freedom. I often wonder how many of the police, prosecutors, judges, and jailers, who have ever locked me up for growing cannabis, and there were many of them, are now medically using cannabis themselves. If you are one of them and reading this now, please know that I hold no grudge and I'm glad that you have transitioned to the the side of truth and no longer believe the government propaganda against nature.
This Los Angeles Times article about my 1997 bust captures the moment quite clearly:
LA TIMES: Cancer Patient Ran ‘Pot Palace’
I had the idea of launching Authentic Genetics in 1996 while living and growing in Amsterdam. I saw that the European seed market was growing rapidly and that there needed to be somebody in California who was saving and preserving the classic heirloom genetics from extinction.
Upon returning home from living and growing in Amsterdam for over a year, It was my goal to make seeds available in the American market, but unfortunately I got a bit distracted after getting busted and dealing with prosecution and imprisonment.
Patience pays off and in 2018 the Hemp Farm Bill passed and seeds became legal along with all parts of the plant with less than 0.3% THC. Seeds contain zero cannabinoids and are once again legal everywhere.
As a side-note, I find it highly questionable that the government has the right to prohibit a seed when it is not refined, distilled, or manufactured in anyway whatsoever. In the years to come it will be looked back upon as insanity that we tried to prohibit nature. In the same way that we look back on alcohol prohibition as being stupid, we will look back on cannabis prohibition as being extremely stupid.
In 2018 I was finally able to launch Authentic Genetics. Increasing accessibility of high quality seeds and lowering the prices of the seeds has been my goal since I first imagined starting my own seed company while growing seeds in Amsterdam long long ago.
I grew up in a very low income family and it sickens me to see the high seed prices that other seed companies are charging in the face of legalization. Over the years, I've seen all too many seed companies pushing questionable genetics at ridiculous prices, which is something I will never do.
The corporate cannabis companies that are actively working to hoard public domain genetics while trying to get prohibition era profits in a legal market are part of the problem with legalization in my opinion. What legalization should really be about is the right to home-grow your own cannabis so that you don't have to pay the ridiculous profit margins that these companies imagine for themselves.
Cannabis flowers literally grow on trees and there is no way to justify retail prices of over $50 per 3.5 grams, which translates into over $6,400 a pound for a plant in a legal market. Imagine paying $6,400 a pound for organic broccoli? It is absolutely ridiculous.
The solution is to grow your own, as it's amazing what you can do with an LED light, a bag of Roots Organic LUSH (or any other all-mix) soil and some water.
While I have always supported legalization, I do not want to see the community reliant upon cannabis companies that hold all of the classic genetics and will not sell seeds and will not share cuttings. What we see as public domain genetics that have been floating around the community for 50+ years (the Original Haze was first bred in 1969), they see as potential IP.
Authentic Genetics is my effort to disempower the corporations ability to lay claim to public domain genetics, while working to empower the community with the highest quality seeds available.
I realized long ago that the only way to get the best example of any variety is to go through the highest amount of plants that you can afford and I'm trying to make “pheno-hunting”, or simply “selection” as I call it, more affordable for everybody.
This genetic preservation project has also been my effort to skip over all of the haphazard breeding that has taken place since these exact genetics were first provided to The Holland Seed Bank in 1985.
Unfortunately because of prohibition, much of the breeding being done in the 80s, 90s and up till now, has been focused on heavy yield and fast flowering time, often sacrificing scent, taste and effect. Which is exactly why so much of the cannabis on the legal market is so similar and does not smell like you remember cannabis buds smelling like 30 years ago.
Cannabis has a lot of diversity, but because of the growers preference for speed and yield, it has been bottlenecked by production.
Knowing that the only people who would really know what they handed The Holland Seed Bank in 1985 were the guys who provided the seeds to them, I went back to the original sources.
Authentic Genetics is the only seed bank since 1985 to have received the original sweet Skunk #1 and acrid Skunk #2, Original Haze, Durban Poison, Purest Indica (which never went to Holland), Northern Lights #2 & Northern Lights #5 and more, all directly from Mel Frank, Skunkman Sam and Seattle Greg and we are incredibly grateful for their generosity and support over the years and decades.
I urge everybody to breed with the genetics you are getting from us in order to improve upon the modern varieties and to reimagine new hybrids that are based on the highest quality instead of the quickest flowering time and heaviest yield.
I call some of the varieties that we offer “The Primary Colors of Cannabis”, because just like music has only 12 notes which make up all of the music you've ever heard, there's also a limited amount of varieties of cannabis that are responsible for all of the modern varieties that you've ever smoked.
Back in 1985 The Holland Seed Bank received some extremely famous and well worked varieties from seasoned breeders. Skunk #1, Skunk #2, Durban Poison, Afghan #1, California Orange, Hindu Kush and later two Original Haze males, were provided by Skunkman Sam.
You can read about the origin of Skunk in cannabis in another article I wrote:
Northern Lights hybrids #1 through #11 were provided by Seattle Greg. These genetics would become the backbone of all of the breeding that was done in the late 80s. The history of Northern Lights is extremely fascinating, and you can read about it and another article that I wrote:
The History of Northern Nights
These two groups of plants became much like the 12 notes in music because they were already well developed varieties by the time they made it to The Holland Seed Bank in the mid 80s. The secondary and tertiary colors that were created from these primary colors of cannabis became legendary, crosses, such as Northern Lights #5 x Haze, Skunk #1 x Northern Lights (Big Bud) really I could go on and on. The evolution of the genetics by the Holland seed merchants in the 80’s and 90’s is a fascinating story that I will write in another article.
When you get seeds from Authentic Genetics, you're getting small batch, high quality seeds that were grown with the upmost care for their perfection.
Our seeds go through two different human sorters that look for any imperfections. If you ever have an issue with any of the seeds you get from us not 100% germinating, reach out and we will hook you up with replacements.
We do ask you to please check out our recommendations on seed germinating because it might help you out a lot.
Click here to see how we germinate seeds at Authentic Genetics
Thank you for taking the time to read this and for taking cannabis seriously.
For a long time, I have felt like I work for Cannabis, both promoting it and helping people to better understand the role it plays in their life. Now, with the scientific understanding of the EndoCannabinoid System or ECS, even doctors and scientists are having to face the fact that cannabis is indeed a medicine and that the government has been lying to us throughout the 20th century.
For decades, I felt like I was only able to plant the seed of knowledge about cannabis into the minds of many, but now I can actually put the seeds of cannabis into your hands so that you can experience it yourself.
Please read our Q&A before emailing us because it might answer your questions:
Peace, love and well-being,
Todd