Do you know what a strain hunter is? As the translation suggests, he is a “strain hunter,” someone who is responsible for finding and preserving marijuana strains that would otherwise be lost. Franco Casalone is one of the very few great strain hunters, as well as obviously a famous grower and activist with an edge. In this article we will discover something more about him and his life, which is worth telling. Here's what we'll see:
- A life dedicated to cannabis
- Travels in India
- Arrests and the fight for medical cannabis
A life dedicated to cannabis
Franco Casalone grew up in the 1960s, watching his grandfather calmly grow cannabis.
Around the age of fifteen he tried it and realized that marijuana made him feel good , made him less nervous, helped him relieve muscle pain after swimming training, opened his mind and stimulated his already innate creativity.
One fine day, when he was seventeen, he was smoking a joint, just one, with a group of friends... and here came his first arrest for cannabis. The boys are tried as criminals and are forced to admit that they have any pathology due to taking marijuana .
Franco Casalone does not understand why there is so much fuss about such a harmless and beneficial substance being illegal, while it is legal to purchase alcohol without limits , despite the disastrous consequences it can cause in the very short and even long term.
He tries to oppose it, like other young activists of his time and at the same time begins his research on the beneficial properties of the cannabis plant.
In 1985 he read Jack Herer , an activist famous in the United States for having attempted to decriminalize marijuana.
He thinks he can write something too, he has collected a lot of material. In addition to having an in-depth knowledge of the therapeutic properties of almost every type of ganja , he realized that the use of industrial hemp could bring great benefits to the economy on a global scale.
He thinks of writing books on the subject but in Italy prohibitionism takes over, so he decides to move to Holland where he is asked to publish two books on the subject.
Since then he has published a lot, among the best known are "Canapa" , in which he analyzes the beneficial and therapeutic potential of cannabis as well as its economic potential in terms of business as opposed to prohibitionist theses.
“Il Canapaio ” a manual on cannabis cultivation, essential for anyone who wants to start and finally “Indoor Hemp Farming” a specific and essential guide for indoor growers.
Franco Casalone subsequently retreated to a cave in the Himalayas which soon became just a base for his continuous and long journeys in India.
Travels in India
For ten years, Franco Casalone shuttled between the peaks of the Himalayas and India and it is precisely here that his experience as a Strain Hunter began and perfected.
As many will know, in years and years of variety hybridization, the risk is that of losing the original variety and this is where the strain hunter comes into play, who finds, preserves and replants the lost varieties to preserve them.
In India, Casalone came into contact with rare and valuable varieties. He learned the most refined indoor and outdoor cultivation techniques , studied the best types of smoke and was fortunate enough to meet the greatest creators of charas , who introduced him to the ancient techniques for making it.
The years in India confirmed the exceptional potential of marijuana and made him one of the greatest cannabis experts, more: the hemp guru in Italy.
Arrests and the fight for medical cannabis
Around 2000, the guru returned to Italy, precisely to Monferrato where he was born, with the precise idea of making hemp legal in Italy and using it for therapeutic purposes.
He collaborates with Assocanapa , which was responsible for bringing industrial hemp back to Italian fields at the end of the 1990s.
He later became vice president of the Tara Association , a social promotion association that deals with guaranteeing the right to treatment even by contemplating alternative choices.
Particular choices such as cannabis with a high THC content or, if you want to avoid the psychoactive effect, light cannabis with a high CBD or CBG content, totally free of psychoactive effects but with great beneficial effects such as muscle and nerve relaxation.
With the association they achieve several successes, including a medical center in Turin that offers treatments based on therapeutic cannabis and tries to dispel some prejudices that are still too deep-rooted.
Despite a lifetime of certified collaborations with medical teams, recognized associations and entities linked to the production of industrial hemp and light cannabis, for Franco Casalone, the hemp guru in Italy, who has always committed himself to creating culture and information, in June a cannabis arrest warrant was issued this year.
In his cannabis plantation, seedlings under ten centimeters in height and over 120 grams of already shredded ganja were found.
A few days later he is sent home with the obligation to stay, as there is no evidence of charges for drug trafficking and personal use for therapeutic purposes has been certified, as can be read in this article .
Furthermore, the hemp guru in Italy has repeatedly argued that the legalization of marijuana would deal a major blow to crime. He is not the only one to support this and we can only agree with him.
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