Who Is Jorge Cervantes?

📷 Zamnesia

Jorge Cervantes is the alias of George Van Patten, a certified Cannabis god. He’s an American horticulturist, publisher and writer specialising in indoor, outdoor, and greenhouse cultivation of medicinal cannabis which he uses for his lower back.

All of his works which include books, articles, photographs and instructional DVDs demonstrate methods for high-yield closet, basement, backyard, and guerrilla gardens. He truly entered the cannabis hall of gods when Cannabis Universities in the USA started using his book, Marijuana Horticulture (the cannabis encyclopaedia), as the main textbook and his videos are also used as instructional aids. He wrote an inquisitive and informative Q & A column (Jorge's Rx) for 10 years which helped out unfathomable growers of this magical plant. He still continues to write feature articles for High Times magazine and pops up a cannabis festivals, such as Spannabis yearly.

George Van Patten was born in 1953 to Dr. Cecil Robert and Ester Van Patten. He was raised in Ontario, Oregon where he began work as a young boy delivering the local newspaper. Later he worked in the press room and not log after became the photographer for the local newspaper, The Argus Observer, from 1969 through to 1973. This was where Van Patten learned about printing, photography, news and publicity that would go on to help him so much in his pursuits down the line.

Van Patten was able to save money from his job at the newspaper which allowed him to pay for his university studies abroad and in the U.S., first at the University of Valencia in Valencia, Spain, and later at the University of the Américas in Puebla, Mexico. It was here where he developed his lifelong passion for the cannabis plant. In 1976 Van Patten moved to Portland, Oregon, to be close to his parents after his father fell ill. He graduated from Portland State University in 1977.

After graduation, Van Patten moved to Santa Barbara, California where he and a Chilean partner started a landscape garden business which allowed him There he grew "sinsemilla" in Los Padres National Forest near Santa Barbara. Sinsemilla was the fresh new high-quality cannabis that Mexicans had kept to themselves to enjoy. In 1979 Van Patten and his partner sold the landscape garden business and embarked on a year-long travel excursion with their girlfriends through the heart of Mexico, Central America, and South America.

He established a landscape garden business in Portland and cultivated cannabis indoors when he returned from his travels. A yearning for credible information about indoor cannabis cultivation led him to analyse, research, and write Indoor Marijuana Horticulture in 1983. Little did he know how popular it would go on to be. The book became a best-seller printed and was christened the "Indoor Grower's Bible" by indoor growers of the time. The book was then translated into 5 languages: Russian, German, French, Dutch and Spanish; allowing a whole generation of growers to get in on its secrets. Van Patten developed his own High Intensity Discharge Light Systems which really brought the growers scene to a whole new level. The lights were for marijuana growing and they were sold via retail and mail order through his then Jorge Cervantes' Indoor Garden Store.

The DEA's Operation Green Merchant (1989) closed down his store and more than 40 others in the U.S.A. After the nationwide investigation, Van Patten reworked Indoor Marijuana Horticulture and republished it as Gardening Indoors with Soil & Hydroponics in 1995 to jump through the loopholes. . Now Jorge had become famous in the movement for his doggish stand and refusal to back down which only brought his work a greater audience.

What really comes through about George is his love of the plant and his love for giving out knowledge. At this point he has been an outspoken ganja activist for 30 years and we can all thank him for the work he did. Since 2006, indoor marijuana horticulture has been on amazons top 100 and his last book the cannabis encyclopaedia is recognised worldwide as the authority on cannabis.

For your services to the cannabis movement, we salute you.