Interview with Arjan Roskam: “We had to work from an illegal approach. There was no other way”

Controversial, natural, outspoken… Arjan Roskam is one of the most emblematic figures in the cannabis industry. Born in Holland, raised in Africa and Asia, the self-proclaimed "King of Cannabis" has devoted his entire life to this ancient plant. In this interview, he openly tells us how it all started. A walk through the '90s memory lane, a time when everything was about to happen and the reality today seemed utopian.

When was your first experience with cannabis? What attracted you so much about the plant as to devote your whole life to it?

Well… I started smoking when I was very young. I'd say, probably, in the early '80s, maybe when I was 15 or 16. I'd go to a very famous bar which is still one of my best friend's, Marcel. At that time in Holland, you only had 10 coffee shops. We used to smoke whatever we could buy because we didn't know much, of course. We were very young.

When I was a little older, about 17 years old, on a trip around Thailand, I met a guy who was treating heroin addicts with marijuana because there was indeed a big heroin problem in Thailand.

This 78 year-old-man really intrigued me, and when after 7 days I decided to leave, he grabbed my hand, gave me some seeds and looked into my eyes while he said, 'Keep those seeds. In the future, they will overthrow governments'.

I thought he was mad.

And that's when you decided to start working with marijuana… right?

So I went back to Holland, where I already had a restaurant where I worked as a chef. Just remember… 'Any person who claims to be a good breeder and cannot cook, cannot be a good breeder'. It's all about taste. I started to grow, and everybody thought I was crazy because, together with Sensi Seeds, I was the only one. I started making plants indoors. I made them all Skunk, breeding my own Master Kush and some other sativas.

I tried to sell my sativas to the coffee shops (at the time, it was only The Bulldog and a few other ones), but people didn't seem to like them. They said my weed smelled of cat piss, that it wasn't good. So I had to take it back. But I was convinced that it was really really good. In fact, my wife said, 'Listen, if you think it's really good, let's start our first shop'.

Any person who claims to be a good breeder and cannot cook, cannot be a good breeder. It's all about taste.

Did you take her advice?

Of course. We started it in 1992, and it's still open. The first year there was nobody because there weren't marijuana coffee shops in Holland. Only hashish. Maybe a little bit of weed, like Skunk and some Nigerian or Jamaican; 5% at most. Now it's 80%.

So, the first year nobody came, everybody panicked, my partner, Marcel, stepped out, leaving me with everything, with a $100,000 debt I couldn't pay for, with a rent I couldn't pay either and for which I had to borrow lots of money.

 

Which strains did you put on sale?

When I opened the first marijuana coffee shop in 1992, there was nothing. Just a few varieties: Skunk, Red Skunk... I started growing in 1985, and I kept growing for 7 years, the first 3 years working with Skunk and, in 1988-1989, focusing more on Sativas and Master Kush.

How did you finally pull through?

Everything happened very quickly. In 1993, the Kennedy family, the owners of High Times magazine, amongst many others, came to my shop and asked whether I wanted to take part in a competition. I said, 'Why not?', and they said they'd come with maybe 100-200 people in November, during Thanksgiving holiday, to celebrate the first marijuana competition.

We'd totally forgotten about it when, suddenly, November arrived, and 500 people appeared in front of my door. Well... to make a long story short, there were 7 prizes, and I won them all. Naturally, with so many international TV channels, that was my big break.

So the business started to roll…

Yes, the change was radical, it was an overnight success. The first three years, we controlled the market because we had nobody to compete with. In 1996, we came up with White Widow, after which other successful genetics such as White Shark arrived. Later, between 1996 and 1998, we created Neville's Haze and Super Silver Haze. The rest is history.

During that time in which nobody came into your shop, and debts started to pile up, what made you keep going? Why didn't you change to hash?

Because I believed in the product, and I was already aware of the therapeutical benefits of cannabis.

When I'd just opened my shop, I got a phone call from England from some guy asking me if he could come with his MS patients, and, three days later, two buses arrived at my front door. 50 people in wheelchairs came in. They were trying to pick up the bottles, but they couldn't, they needed to be assisted. However, as soon as they smoked the first joint, within just 5 minutes, their arms calmed down, and they could eat and drink by themselves. This shocked me. So by the end of the day, they put all the marijuana in their wheelchairs, hiding it everywhere, and went back with the two buses to England. Who would suspect a group of elderly people? That's how they took their medicine home.

But that wasn't the only reason. I also really like the taste. I do like hashish too. However, my mother is passionate about gardening, she has one of the greenest fingers in the world, and I've spent lots of time with her in the garden, watching her… I've always liked to grow plants.

Which strain was the most popular when you opened your first coffee shop?

Probably Skunk.

How can a grower become "The King of Cannabis"? How did a young man come to find a place within the cannabis industry?

You have to work really really hard, be really really crazy and take a lot of risks. Those three things. I've lost partners, like Franco who died last year, but I've lost a great deal more. So, to say it very hard, being dead successful goes hand-in-hand with death. That's how hard it was. Extremely dangerous.

How did "The King of Cannabis" come about?

When I started "The King of Cannabis", everybody was laughing, but I did it for a reason. Now cannabis is being legalised all over the world, and this has been possible because guys like me in Holland were fighting really hard. We've been in prison, we've come out, and we've kept on fighting. I created "The King of Cannabis" in the early '90s because I wanted to have a voice in the media, and it really worked. Lots of American celebrities came to my shop in Holland to smoke joints with "The King of Cannabis", and they went back to their countries and spread the word. It was my way to let the world know about the cause. Woody Harrelson, for instance, was a very big advocate for us. He publicly claimed, in front of hundreds of thousands of people, that marijuana had to be legalised. He's a big vegan and a big marijuana smoker.

So "The King of Cannabis" really helped a lot. In the late '90s, the first coffee shops and dispensaries started to appear in Oakland, in California… as well as people like Steve di Angelo, Debby Goldsberry… all of them had previously come to Holland.

When you were just 30 years old, you'd already won 8 cannabis cups, and High Times put you on the front cover of their magazine. Since then, your fame has done nothing but grow, making you possibly the most visible face of the cannabis industry. How has this affected your personal life? Is the crown too heavy?

Well… My mission in the world is to regulate and legalise cannabis. That goes before everything else, even before my children and my wife. I've been put on this planet with this mission. So… did it affect my private life? No. I always take two months off a year. I try to keep my family and my work separate, but it's not always easy.

For example, when my children went to school in Holland, they were singled out as the children of a drug dealer, and this obviously affected them. However, we spoke with them and said, 'What people tell you at school is a lie'. As big a lie as what the government tells you about marijuana. It is indeed a very good product, and the same government that tells you it's not has legalised tobacco and alcohol.

The attempts to demonise marijuana don't seem to end…

Yes, you're right. The same happens with religious people, who are always against us. I come from Africa, and I can tell them that their God is a racist because in my country there are always problems: draughts, HIV, war, dictators… and nobody cares. Where is God when we need him? I'm not listening to your God. I'm "The King of Cannabis", and I'm here to regulate and legalise marijuana, to make sure that, despite all the damage 'your God' has done to the planet, people can still feel good.

Who do you think were the most remarkable breeders during the '80s and '90s?

It all started with the Haze Brothers in America and later with guys like Robert Clarke, Sam the Skunkman, Neville… Those were basically the first starters.

In 1988, Sam the Skunkman won the first Cannabis Cup held in Amsterdam with his Skunk#1, after which he curiously decided to sell all his seeds and genetics to Neville. Do you know why?

No, not really. I only know they had a big fight after that. I know them both very well, and they're both very good breeders. In fact, Neville was my partner for 4 years. Nobody really knows what happened there. Sam indeed sold some seeds to Neville, but he also kept some for himself, and he still today tries to sell some of that stuff.

My mission in the world is to regulate and legalise cannabis. That goes before everything else, even before my children and my wife.

How and when did you meet Neville?

I met him when he was doing the breeding program for Sensi Seeds with Ben Dronkers, and they had a big fight too. So he called me and asked if we could breed together. I said, 'Yes'. We worked together for about 5 years, from 1996 to 2001. He bred Super Silver Haze and Neville's Haze for me, I bought them, and I put them in my seed company.

They were his inventions, so I took the rights and started selling them around the world. The thing was that Neville had very big personal and legal issues. He was wanted by the Americans, so much so that for 20 years he had to hide in Holland in a farm. A grand jury indictment was issued against him, which means that the Americans could arrest him anywhere in the world. That would freak anyone out.

There are multiple theories as to how White Widow and Super Silver Haze were created. One could say it's a pretty controversial issue. What do you think it really happened?

White Widow was created by Ingemar. Everybody in Holland knows this. And Super Silver Haze is Neville's invention.

Why did you decide to set up your own seed bank?

In 1993 and 1994, I won 44 cannabis cups. At that time, people smoked marijuana, and they asked for seeds, but I didn't have them. Well… I had my seeds, the ones I used for breeding. So we decided to open a seed bank so we could make more money by selling the varieties.

Are Landraces on the verge of extinction?

No. Not at all.

After over 25 years strain hunting to bring landrace genetics to the masses, could you tell us why they are so important?

Landraces can be used for breeding, for mixing them with other strains and for creating new genetics. Some simply like keeping them because they're the origin, the original base of marijuana.

I don't know if you're aware, but you are going to be the first generation who's not going to become so old as your parents. Did you know this?

Not really…

Before the World War II, people would take 5 kg of sugar a year. Do you know how much sugar you take now? 75 kg. That makes 1.5 kg a week. To this, we must add processed food, which is one of the biggest problems today.

Ironically, our body doesn't read the DNA of processed food, so when you eat this food, the body stores it somewhere where it shouldn't be. That's why we have much more cancer, more diabetes, and many more diseases. This also applies to cannabis. A Landrace is the original base of this plant.

Basically, the cannabis hybrids we are creating now are kind of processed. They're good, and we love them because their effect is stronger due to their high THC levels, but are they good for us? We also like sausages, although we know that they don't do us any good. We eat them anyway, including me. It's the same with this kind of marijuana. Do you want to be so fucked up every day?

Do you really think we're so fucked up? Landraces have THC levels around 5%, some hybrids even push far past 20%... Aren't we going too far?

Some people are. It's the same with everything. It's the same with food. Do you know how many fed people are there on the planet? It's the same with marijuana. Marijuana is so strong because that's what the client wanted, and because it was illegal. And because of this illegality into which we've been forced by the government, we made everything really really strong.

The strains we are creating now are like processed food. We like them because they're much more potent, but are they good for us? How stoned do you really want to be?

If you now go to Vegas, you'll see that clients just want strains with over 20% THC. This is the same people that eat a burger at McDonald's. Why would you eat a burger at McDonald's when you can get a real burger? Because they're used to the taste of this now! This is how people are mass-indoctrinated by society. It's the same problem with politicians, who are owned by the pharmaceuticals and the food industry. Those two groups own all the politicians in Europe.

Is there anything we can do to go back to the right path?

I believe so. It's true that people are misusing the varieties, but you see a growing trend now going to the light with all this CBD wave. The light will definitely come back. People will start realising they're shortening their lives by consuming the wrong food, and some may even say to themselves, 'Maybe I smoke too much'.

You will never see me smoking before 5 o'clock in the afternoon unless I'm on holiday because I can't work and smoke at the same time. It's impossible for me.

Will legalising marijuana lead to a safer and more responsible use?

Totally. By making it illegal, politicians ruined everything, like they always do. And, even if it ends up being legal, politicians will find the way to ruin it again, exactly like with tobacco. Do you know how many people die of tobacco? And of alcohol? Politicians do nothing about it. So I repeat: our main issue in the world is our politicians.

Which is your favourite strain? What do you generally look for in a strain?

I'm a Sativa guy. My personal favourites are Hawaiian Snow and Super Lemon Haze.

Marijuana has already become legal in a bunch of countries. Where do you think the cannabis industry is heading?

In the next 10 to 20 years, it will be legal in most parts of America and Europe. And, if it goes really crazy, maybe even in Russia, China or India, but we're not there yet.

Do you think big companies are going to take over the cannabis industry?

Yes. That's why we're partners with Canopy. Like Americans say, 'If you can't beat them, join them'. They're too big.

If you could go back in time with all the things you know right now. Is there anything you'd do differently?

That's very difficult to say. I did my best, I only had a few partners, and we always worked from an illegal approach. Making seeds illegally, making marijuana illegally… There weren't many other possibilities.

Where are the opportunities for the cannabis industry right now?

In Africa and in America.