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Growing in the light of research, prohibition and legalisation, and cannabis in human history: three series of CannaTinker articles.
87,701 words · 400 min read
19 articles
Series · 01
Growing in the light of research
Eight articles that set small-grow practice next to the research in CannaTinker’s library — light, flushing, disease, genetics, climate, the nutrient solution, post-harvest and the law. With perspective: what was studied, and what it means for a 1×1 tent.
01/08 17 min readLight: intensity, daily light integral, spectrum, far-red and UVWhat cannabis lighting trials say about intensity, daily light, lamp efficiency, blue, UV and far-red, and how much of it carries over to a 1×1 m home tent.Read 02/08 15 min readFlushing: where it came from and what the trials showWhy growers finish on plain water, what the first controlled flushing trials measured, why their results may not fully transfer to a home tent, and a moderate way forward.Read 03/08 16 min readIndoor diseases: bud rot, powdery mildew, root rot and HLVdWhat the research says about the four diseases a small indoor grow is most likely to meet, how each spreads, what favours it, and why prevention beats cure.Read 04/08 16 min readWhy the THC:CBD ratio is in the genesHow one precursor and two competing enzymes set a plant's THC:CBD ratio, what light, stress and harvest timing can and cannot change, and why seed labels deserve a lab check.Read 05/08 17 min readAir: VPD, stomata, leaf temperature and CO₂What vapour pressure deficit measures, how leaves answer it, why steady air beats swinging air, how warm leaves run under LED, and why bottled CO₂ rarely suits a small tent.Read 06/08 17 min readThe nutrient solution: pH, EC and what the plant actually takes upWhy pH decides which nutrients a root can reach, what an EC reading does and does not tell you, how to sample the root zone, and what the few cannabis feeding trials found.Read 07/08 15 min readAfter the harvest: drying, curing, decarboxylation and terpenesWhat happens to water, cannabinoid acids and aroma after the cut, what a thin research base shows about slow drying and mould, and which curing habits remain untested practice.Read 08/08 15 min readUK law and GACP: a standard, not a manualWhat the Home Office factsheets say about growing cannabis, prescriptions, hemp and CBD in the UK, and what the GACP quality standard for medicinal plants is for.Read
Series · 02
Prohibition and legalisation: what the evidence shows
Five articles that judge prohibition and its alternatives against their own stated aims — use, potency, markets, criminal justice and health — across the UK, the US, Canada, Uruguay, Portugal, the Netherlands and Germany.
01/05 21 min readLegal, illegal and everything in between: how to judge cannabis policyWhy 'legal or illegal' hides the real choices in cannabis policy, how to weigh the evidence fairly, and how a century of prohibition came about.Read 02/05 22 min readProhibition on its own terms: use, potency, markets and who paid the priceJudged against its own aims, what did criminal prohibition of cannabis achieve? Use, potency, illicit markets, unequal enforcement and research, weighed fairly.Read 03/05 22 min readDecriminalise, tolerate or regulate without profit: the Netherlands, Portugal, Uruguay and GermanyFour countries that reformed cannabis policy without building a for-profit industry: what the evidence shows about use, crime and supply, and where each model fell short.Read 04/05 22 min readSelling it legally: the United States, Canada, and the UK's medical-only routeWhat commercial cannabis markets in the US and Canada changed for teenagers, adults and young children, and how the UK's medical-only reform has worked in practice.Read 05/05 22 min readHealth, harm and the design of a market: what the evidence asks of policyThe series finale: what research shows on psychosis, dependence, children and medicine, how cannabis markets can be regulated, and what the review concludes for policy.Read
Series · 03
Cannabis in human history
Six articles expanding a historical review of domestication, ritual, medicine, trade and prohibition — marking what is certain and what is still contested. Read them in order or pick a topic.
01/06 27 min readWhere cannabis comes from: botany, names and domesticationHow botanists, pollen specialists and geneticists have tried to pin down what cannabis is, where it first grew and when people began to shape it.Read 02/06 28 min readSeed, fibre and steppe: cannabis in prehistoric EurasiaFrom Jōmon Japan to the Pontic steppe, what fruits, fibres and pollen really tell us about the first ten thousand years of people and cannabis.Read 03/06 28 min readSmoke in the tomb: ritual and medicine in the ancient worldFrom Scythian felt tents to a Judahite shrine, how residue chemistry and old texts reveal the ritual and medical uses of cannabis in antiquity.Read 04/06 27 min readHashish, hemp and empire: cannabis in the medieval and early modern worldsHow cannabis moved through medieval Islamic societies, Africa and the Atlantic world, and why hemp fibre mattered to navies and empires for centuries.Read 05/06 26 min readFrom Calcutta to Geneva: medicine, inquiry and the making of prohibitionHow cannabis entered Western medicine in the 1840s, fell out of it by the 1940s, and was drawn into an international control regime shaped more by empire and diplomacy than by evidence.Read 06/06 27 min readReceptors and reform: cannabinoid science and the turn of 1996–2026How the chemistry of THC and CBD, the discovery of the endocannabinoid system and new medical evidence helped drive three decades of partial legal reform.Read