666/666/666/666/666/666/666/666/666/666/666/666/666/666/666/666 666 * 666 666 "The Modern Moroccan" * 666 666 (Reprint from High Times July '88) * 666 666 * 666 666 Typed up: The Omen (Really?) ***** 666 666 * 666 666/666/666/666/666/666/666/666/666/666/666/666/666/666/666/666 For more than 100 years the Moroccan government has allowed (Ignored) kif cultivation near the pine-covered crest of the otherwise barren Rif Mountains, in a limited area closely surrounding the village of Ketama. However, the industry has grown in the past 10 years and farms now nearly cover all the upper mountain ranges and much lowland as far as 75 miles from the once quiet Ketama. Fifteen years ago less than 500 sqaure miles were under hashish cultivation. Before hashish cultivation, kif cultivation used only approximatly 500 sqware miles. Now, cultivation covers 10,000 square miles and nearly every terraced field with a source of water is filled with kif plants from spring to late summer. Hashish is the only major product of the region and it is one of the only crops that will grow here. If the incredible tonnage of hashish produced and its comparatively high wholesale market value are used as indicators, it appears that hashish must be Morocco's number one export. Most of the kif is harvested in late July and early August when the weather turns hottest and driest. The plants change from medium green to golden yellow as they begin to wilt and die in the baking sun. Some plants in well irrigated fields remain green longer and are left until mid-September. Moroccan farmers don't wait for the resin to build up on the flowers like sinsemilla farmers do. All of these plants are completely seeded. Rather, the Moroccan farmer decided to harvest when the plants run out of water and begin to die. The longer the water holds out, the longer the plants have to mature, and the more potent the resins become and the taller the plants. Unfortunatly, chemical fertilizers are now commonly and extensivly used to increase yield on exhausted land and absolutly every farmer agrees that chemical fertilizers produce inferior taste, smell and high, and are not as sticky either. Now that farmers are only growing for resin and are not growing the whole plant for kif, the genetics are rapidly declining. Now, unselected seeds from inferior plants are what everone uses for planting. Old time kif farmers had a close personal relationship with thier crops when they were growing for flowers and not just for resin. The single stalks from one to eight feet in lenght are bundled for transport to the home compund where they are laid on hot tin roofs to dry in the sun for about 5 days. After they are fairly crisp the bundles are stacked in collected for hashish production. Dry weight yield for plants is approximatly 10 grams per square foot, 100 grams per sqaure meter. Resin collection is very simply performed by stretching a single layer of nylon scarf material across the mouth of a large plastic wash tub. The entire plants are covered with a sheet of plastic and flailed with a stick over the tub. The large stems are thrown away and the crushed plant material is rubbed back and forth across the cloth sieve. The coarse plant debris stays behind while the resin glands, powdered plant material, dust and dirt falls through the seieve and is collected in the wash tub. The harder and longer the plant material is rubbed on the screen, the more plant material goes through with the resin, This process is repeated over and over up to a dozen times until nothing but powdered green leaf is coming through the sieve. The first and second extractions are mostly resin while the subsequent batches are mostly debris. The Moroccans can market almost any quality of hashish and no resin is wasted as you shall see. The first two or three sievings are combined to produce the best commercial grade of Moroccan hashish known as "Zero-Zero." the yield from 100 kilos of dried kif plants is approximatly 2 to 3 kilos (or 2,000 to 3,000 grams) of "Zero-Zero" quality hashish. This quality is rarely available on the export market ans is usually the BEST quality you will be offered in Morocco. Although, with diligent hunting in the farming area it is possible to find higher quality (70 to 1000 grams from 100 kilos dry plants), but only in small quantities of less than 100 grams. Most exported comercial quality is 5 to 10 kilos hashish from 100 kilos of dried plant. We wouldnt smoke it. However, the vast majority of hashish exported from Morocco and found across Europe is manufactured from the lower grades of green leafy resin powder. Binders are used to make the low grade powder sticky so it can be pressed together to look like real nice dark hashish. These sorts of practices are also carried out in the Afghan-Pakistani border region, another major supplier of hashish to Europe. Binders include butter, bananas, pine tar, plant gums, sweetened condensed milk, henna, motor oil, and worst of all, paraffin wax. Up to 10% of the weight of commercial hashish can be accounted for by binders such as wax. Wax helps poor quality resins stick together like good resin would, and when a match is put to it, will keep a flame like superior hashish would. Who knows what smoking petrolum wax does to your lungs, but it can't be good for you! The idea behind making hashish is to get a stronger, cleaner smoke so you consume less impurities, and smoke less in total, than by using crude Marijuana. Adding adulterants defeats the purpose, decieves the public, and endangers health. A fairly high grade of hashish can be produced from seedy Morrocan kif, but only by rigorusly performing the proper techniques as first taught to the Moroccans by Mustafa the Algerian. First selected superior plants must be cleaned of all leaf to remove any potential impurities. The leaves dont have any resin on them anyways and are covered with dust. Then while working over the sieve the flowering tops are carefully stripped then the stems are crushed without reducing the to powder. The resin heads are shaken through the cloth by slapping the sides of the plastic tub, but the cloth is never touched nor the flowers rubbed across it. After shaking, the crushed flowers are dumped to the side not brushed off by hand which pushed debris through the screen. These crushed flowers are saved for later comercial extraction and another portion of flowers is gingerly crushed over the sieve. Only the resin glands and fine dust flass through the cloth and is collected from the bottom of the tub. This already potent can be further cleaned by lightly rubbing it across the top of a double layer or slightly finer scarf material. This allows most of the fine dirt and dust to fall though but few of the coarser resin heads. The resin remaining on top of the sieve is nearly pure cannabis resin free of most of the dirt and plant debris. Pure hashish as it was originally intended to be prepared, is easily hard pressed into what the Moroccans call chewing gum. Before resin glands can be smoked the must be pressed into a piece of hashish. The Moroccans use hydraulic jacks to press 250 grams comercial pieces. "Zero-Zero" powder is simply poured into a cellophane bag and lightly squeezed with the press, since it is naturally sticky enough to stay together. This produces a yellowish blonde slab. The very best pieces can be hand pressed with difficulty. The resins are very dry from baking in the sun so they are not as easily to press as higher grade shade-dried resins. Lower grade powders are mixed with adulterants and binders, heated, and hammer beaten to blend the ingredients thoroughly before they are squeezed into molds under high pressure. A dark reddish to deep brown slab of Modern Morrocan is the result, ready for export. Most smokers assume what they are smoking is clean hashish free from impurities. In fact most of it is tainted. The hashish manufactures are crafty and it is difficult for the average smoker to detect adulterants in hashish. Kif mixed with tobacco is smoked one hit at a time in a long wooden -stemmed sibsi pipe with a small red clay bowl. Hashish is smoked in the sam fashion. However, we rolled thumb diameter joints with three to five grams of the best (Personally made "Zero-Zero-Zero-Zero") on a cardboard filter. This allowed much faster consumption and provided the rushes we traveled thousands of miles to enjoy. While commerical techniques yield more than 3,00 grams of mediocre hashish per 100 kilos of kif, traditional hashish techniques yeild only 100 to 200 grams of super clean and pure hashish. Because it is twice as good as their best, we call it "Zero-Zero-Zero-Zero." as an experiment we had 100 kilos of whole, dried Moroccan plants completely maicured and cleaned to various components. The breakdown was: 15 kilos leaf 20 kilos stem 50 kilos seed 15 kilos flower In morocco, 100 kilos dried plants is really only 15 kilos flowers and farmers extract up to 5 to 10 kilos of so-called resin. No wonder the resin needs help to stick together! American improved varieties such as Skunk #1 can yield up to 70 kilos of pure flowers from 100 kilos of dried plant. There is much more resin and the resins can be sinsemilla resins with little dirt or dust. That's five to ten times the weight in resin! The older farmers remember how to make fine hashish but they cannot get a high enough price for it to make it worthwhile to produce. It just isnt worth the twenty to thirty times the price to enough connoisseur smokers. The moroccans make much more money by selling lesser quality product. The only answer to this dilemma is to make your own hashish. Most smokers can't take the time to travel to the third world in search of inexpensive marijuana as a source for thier own pieces of hashish. However, along with the burgeoning marijuana cultivating industry comes a ready supply of high -grade domestically grown cannabis with resin suitble for making hashish. Outdoor plants, greenhousr plants, and artifical light plants can all be utilized to make high grade hashish. Ending Note: Place silscreen under your work area while you manicure, package, and roll doobies. A piece of black plexiglass or a mirror under the screen makes collecting the separated resins easy with a credit card. Correct screen size is 43 threads to the centimeter, 100-120 to the inch, for most domestically grown resin heads. Moroccan because of smaller resin heads requires 60-80 to the centimeter, 150-200 to the inch. Also, Zero-Zero orginally got its name from the hole size of the silk fabric that was the finest, "00." ================================================================= If you actually get a hold of some fine hash, why dont you give these systems a ring, Its a trip... 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