Master in Disguise
In a career spanning half a century, author Jorge Cervantes has published some of the most influential grow guides of all time — establishing him as one of the world’s most renowned Cannabis experts. Which is why, despite being forced to hide his true identity for decades, High Times considers him “the most trusted name in marijuana cultivation.”
Weed & Wanderlust
The man known as Jorge Cervantes was actually born George Van Patten on October 10, 1953, in Ontario, Oregon. A gardener from the get-go, he began growing radishes at just five years of age. In his youth, he worked as a paperboy before being promoted to the press room, where he acquired valuable knowledge about writing, photography and printing techniques.
It was in 1971, while in high school, that George and his friends got stoned for the first time — scoring a “three-finger lid” (about an ounce) of Mexican dirt weed, stuffing one of his father’s pipes full of it, and puffing away until it was all gone.
“It took forever to get high, but once I was high, it was great,” he told Oregon Cannabis Stories last September. “It was surreal, like I was in a movie. I loved it.”
After high school, Van Patten used the money he’d saved to fund a trip to Spain, where he studied at the University of Valencia (1973-74). A year later, he continued his education down in Cholula, Mexico, where he truly fell in love with “mariguana.”
“I’ve been fascinated with Cannabis since I took my first hit when I was 17 years old,” Van Patten told softscrets.com last year. “A few years later, at the University of the Americas in Puebla, Mexico, I started consuming daily. All I could think about by the time I graduated university was growing more and better Cannabis.”
In 1976, he moved back to Oregon, where he graduated from Portland State University and grew his first crop of Cannabis. The following year, he moved to Santa Barbara, where he partnered with a Chilean buddy named Roberto to open a landscaping business called Green Thumb Gardening. On the side, he ran a guerilla grow in the Santa Ynez Mountains and became the top pot plug in the area. But soon, that travel bug was biting once again, so, in 1979, George sold the business and drove back down to Mexico, then onward through Central and South America on a year-long adventure before returning to Portland.
Indoor Marijuana Horticulture
Once back in Oregon, Van Patten moved his operation indoors — transforming his basement into a grow room to avoid detection. But despite the explosion of indoor growing, there wasn’t much information available about how to do it right.
“I started asking questions at the new hydroponic/HID stores that were appearing at the time, and I found that many of the owners and employees really did not know what the hell they were talking about,” he recalled in an interview with Wildflower magazine. “That’s when I started to write.”
Granted, there had already been a few grow guides published — most notably, “The Cultivator’s Handbook of Marijuana” (Bill Drake, 1970) and “The Marijuana Grower’s Guide” (Ed Rosenthal and Mel Frank, 1981) — but they were focused almost entirely on outdoor cultivation. So Van Patten began recording and analyzing his methods in the garden, then compiling his findings and recommendations into an indoor grow manual. In addition to writing the book, Cervantes also took the photos and drew the diagrams himself.
Of course, he couldn’t release a Cannabis cultivation book under his real name without drawing heat on himself. And so, using the Spanish translation of his first name and the maiden name of his wife, he adopted the nom de plume Jorge Cervantes. To further hide his identity, he devised a disguise for his new persona: a black dreadlock wig, black goatee, black beret and sunglasses — a get-up he would later refer to as his “Che Guevara/Bob Marley look.”
After shopping his manuscript to a dozen different publishers without success, he drew upon his past experience at the newspaper to publish it himself. The result was a 96-page black and white manuscript first released in 1983 entitled “Indoor Marijuana Horticulture.” He then hit the road throughout Western Washington and Oregon on a mission to sell it to every headshop and garden store willing to carry it.
“Most hydroponic stores wouldn’t sell my book because it linked them to Cannabis cultivation,” Cervantes explains. “If their store were connected to Cannabis cultivation, their store, bank accounts and all assets could be confiscated.”
Those stores that did carry it kept it hidden behind the counter… but despite its lack of visibility, IMH was a huge hit — selling 6,000 copies in its first year and landing distribution deals with Seattle’s Homestead Books and San Francisco’s Last Gasp. It was so popular and comprehensive, in fact, that its adherents began referring to it as the “Indoor Grow Bible.”
High Times & Holland
Over the next few years, big things started to happen for Jorge — primarily thanks to the pot publication of record, High Times: In February 1984, his book was first advertised in its pages (as part of Rosenthal’s Quick Trading ad); that December, he made his first editorial contribution to the magazine (“Sex and Cloning”); and in early 1985, he first saw the ad for the Seed Bank of Holland, through which he was able to connect with Dutch Cannabis breeder Nevil Schoenmakers. Later that year, he traveled to the Netherlands and paid the first of many visits to Nevil at his infamous “Cannabis Castle.” During these visits, Schoenmakers introduced him to breeding and growing techniques (e.g., Rockwool) and shared with him lots of weed and seeds, including one renowned cultivar that became his all-time favorite to grow and smoke.
“That Nevil’s Haze he got from [Skunkman] Sam … I couldn’t get enough of that!” he gushes.
Green Merchants
Besides High Times, there was really only one other notable Cannabis magazine at the time — Sinsemilla Tips (see our Nov 2021 issue), run out of the Full Moon Farm Products shop in Corvallis, Oregon. Being just an hour and a half south of Portland, Cervantes occasionally drove down there for equipment. It was there, in 1981, that he met the shop’s owner (and ST’s publisher) Tom Alexander, who later enlisted Cervantes as a regular contributor to the magazine, carried his book, and became a lifelong friend.
Another cultivation shop owner/author turned lifelong friend was Steve Murphy (aka Murphy Stevens) — owner of the Indoor Sun Shop in Seattle, whose book “How to Grow the Finest Marijuana Indoors Under Lights” reportedly inspired the second edition of Jorge’s book. Released in 1985, this re-written, expanded and professionally printed version of “IMH” featured a full-color cover and improved illustrations.
In addition to his new edition, Cervantes also designed a proprietary high-intensity discharge (HID) lighting system and even opened a grow shop of his own to sell them: Jorge Cervantes’ Indoor Garden Store. Unfortunately for him and Alexander, their stores would all be forced out of business a few years later courtesy of Uncle Sam.
On October 27, 1989, DEA agents raided dozens of grow shops as part of a multi-state sting dubbed Operation Green Merchant. Though nothing these shops sold was technically illegal, undercover narcs had persuaded employees and customers to discuss Cannabis cultivation, then used that testimony to bust them. Luckily, Cervantes dodged that bullet; since he’d never advertised in High Times, and none of his customers would implicate him, his shop was not raided, and he was never charged. Nevertheless, authorities were harassing him, and the heightened scrutiny by police had him especially spooked because Green Merchant had also targeted Schoenmakers — who, Cervantes confesses, he’d been illegally moving seeds to on occasion. Afraid of ending up in prison like many of his comrades, he decided to close his shop and lay low.
Out of the Shadows
During the 1990s, Cervantes moved every couple of years: first to Washington, then British Columbia, then Amsterdam, before ultimately expatriating to Barcelona in 1998. Throughout that time, he continued to build upon his past successes. In 1990, he founded his own company, Van Patten Publishing. Next, in 1993, he released a third edition of his book, retitled “Marijuana Horticulture: The Indoor/Outdoor Medical Grower’s Bible,” featuring new chapters by fellow cultivation experts Ed Rosenthal and Robert Connell Clarke. After the passage of Prop 215 in 1996, this edition became the textbook of choice for new educational programs that emerged to train medical Cannabis cultivators in California. In 2000, when Rosenthal ended his long-running HT column “Ask Ed” over legal issues with the magazine, Cervantes took over the slot, renaming the advice column “Jorge’s RX” and writing it monthly for the next decade. In 2006, he partnered with HT to release the how-to video series “Jorge Cervantes’ Ultimate Grow DVD.” And, of course, he remained a fixture at the annual Cannabis Cups, hosting seminars and signing books — always as his incognito alter ego.
It wasn’t until after the Obama administration had announced its hands-off policy toward medical marijuana that he felt confident enough to come out of the grow closet. On February 8, 2010, in an interview on National Public Radio’s “Tell Me More,” Cervantes finally came clean about his secret identity. His real-life American debut followed that June at the first-ever High Times Medical Cannabis Cup in San Francisco, where he hosted a medical cultivation seminar without his disguise for the first time.
The Odyssey Continues
Over his half-century-long career, Jorge Cervantes has published more than 50 books in 11 languages. To date, IMH alone has sold over a million copies. He’s maintained lifelong friendships with some of the biggest icons of Cannabis cultivation and publishing. He’s been honored with a Gold Benjamin Franklin Award by the Independent Book Publishers Association in 2015, the prestigious Lester Grinspoon Lifetime Achievement Award by High Times in 2013, and a 420 Icon award from World of Cannabis/Cannabis Business Awards in 2020. And earlier this year, Toronto’s Grow Up conference inducted him into their Hall of Fame. But perhaps most meaningfully, he’s taught countless pot smokers around the world how to grow their own Cannabis.
“The Cannabis community has been my life,” he once professed. “Standing here today, reflecting upon the path traversed, I am filled with an overwhelming sense of pride … this journey has been nothing short of magical — a green odyssey that has touched lives across continents, breaking barriers and cultivating friendships that span languages and borders.”
Muchas gracias, Señor Cervantes.
