“Marijuana is self-management”
Bilbao Old Town. The waitress at the bar where we conducted the interview is eager to plant. “Later; at the beginning of May,” advises Merino. Kalamundua (Somera, 23) is a hustle and bustle. The university of this universal plant teaches everywhere and the student body is growing steadily. Another teacher from Bilbao says at the foot of a hydroponic: “Cannabis consumption does not create addiction; its cultivation does”. It’s about self-management.
KALAMUNDUA, was the first Growshop that opened in the Basque Country, in BILBAO and one of the first in Spain, in 1998. Its owner and founder was David Merino, who a few years later in 2003 opened the distributor ORTUE and later founded the seed bank GENEHTIK SEEDS.
KALAMUNDUA was a meeting point for the few growers that existed at that time, where they shared growing experiences and also, the few genetics selected by these few pioneer growers, that until then there were in Bilbao and surroundings, such as the famous WHITE WIDOW (ZURI WIDOW or WIDOW BILBO), the SUPER SILVER HAZE (SUPER SILVER BILBO).
With the opening of KALAMUNDUA, a world of cannabis knowledge opened up and accessibility to precious Dutch seeds, pipes and other paraphernalia, previously only available abroad, became available to cannabis enthusiasts in the region. This facilitated access to the culture of self-cultivation and fostered the growth of the local cannabis community.
The GrowShop Kalamundua was one of the first, if not the only one to distribute the famous Critical Bilbo elite clone at that stage.
DAVID MERINO: “At the beginning I didn’t know what consequences opening a store would bring us because we weren’t sure if everything we had was within the law or not”.
UK Zenbakia nº 50 de 2003
Softsecrets Interview – num. 6 (2012)
Hugo Madera: When will you open a grow shop?
David Merino: Before the store I worked as a waiter, then when I had to go to prison for insubordination, I thought: “instead of going back to the same job I’m going to start this business”. I saw that in Germany the legal situation was worse, but there was a whole cannabis industry, here there was almost nothing with a better legal situation. So I decided to give it a try.
Hugo Madera: Tell us about the beginnings of the store
David Merino: We started with the first 400 watt lamps and fluorescents. Before every fair was a revolution, in each one you saw new articles and everything improved, the light, the extractors, the silent boxes, the substrates and the fertilizers. At that time when I opened the store, there were already people who began to grow with lamps in the Dutch way, following the advice of John who had learned in Amsterdam and was the one who introduced in the north the indoor cultivation well done. He is the one who gives the cultivation guidelines and introduces the culture of cuttings, which is a breakthrough.
Besides cultivation, there was the hemp, paraphernalia and smoker culture. As the store is on a busy street, it was immediately known. People liked it, it was something new and alternative, transgressive, they came to buy things with the marijuana leaf.
Excerpt from Interview in Kalagorria , 2003
Netherlands still in the Netherlands?
Perhaps where the issue is best at the moment is in Switzerland. Private consumption is legal; it is sold in grow shops, for therapeutic purposes. Production is also legal. And it is not consumed in the streets or in bars. The Netherlands is more tourism and entertainment.
There are a lot of apartments where excellent marijuana is grown, a lot of couples pass by the store who have just taken an apartment, “This room, for the marijuana”. They stop buying hashish, they are self-managed.
Is it said that one of the best marijuana in the world is grown today?
Yes, you travel around and you don’t try anything you don’t have at home. Here we open up a lot, growers share their knowledge. We are at a very high level.
