Legends: Tom Alexander

The Curator of Cultivation Education

In the 80s, there was one and only one magazine devoted to cannabis cultivation: Sinsemilla Tips, curated by Tom Alexander.


Tom Alexander started growing outdoors in 1975 outdoors in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and quickly learned that longer flowering varieties would not finish in such Northern climates.

Realizing that winter was no friend to the cannabis cultivator, in 1976, Tom moved west to Oregon and settled onto a 200-acre “farm” that was owned by a ganja grower from Hawaii.

The owner cut a deal with Tom to live on and run the farm. The next year, Tom learned about how much deer loved cannabis when he lost most of his garden to the wandering wild animals and moved to another property. 

In 1979, Tom had 1,324 plants in full bloom when the farm was raided by the local police. He and his friends spent a long day and night in jail, released on their own recognizance by the judge.

And in a throwback to how it used to be, when Tom and his friends were released by the judge on a Friday afternoon, the police released to them their friend’s .357 Magnum, which was recovered at the “scene of the crime,” but Tom was told that he could not conceal the gun when he walked home. 

Hungry, Tom and his friends walked to the nearest vegetarian restaurant, only to be met with his face on the front page of the newspaper and a cacophony of cheers congratulating him on such a large grow. Tom told me that it was the only time he ate at a vegetarian restaurant with a loaded .357 on the table. 

Fortunately, the case of marijuana cultivation was dropped after Tom found a technical error in the search warrant and, in a strange twist of fate, the local police were arrested by the state police for stealing the evidence.

Tom says that he went to the sentencing of the police officers who stole his harvest and was livid that they only received three years of probation, while he was facing twenty years in prison for growing it. Not seeing his future in growing, Tom did see the opportunity in supplying the industry with both information and tools of the trade. 

Sinsemilla Tips started publishing quarterly on April 1, 1980, and filled a void for quality information about cannabis cultivation. Less than a year later, in January, 1981, Tom opened Full Moon Farm Products in Corvallis, Oregon, and carried everything needed for growing quality ganja. 

“Tips” as it was called by readers, went on to grow in popularity against the escalating War on Drugs and was filled with the most cutting-edge information on cannabis cultivation available at the time, it included articles from the likes of both Robert C. Clarke and Skunkman Sam, while Sam wrote under his pen name "Sam Selgnij". 

Tips reached a breakthrough when Tom was invited on the very popular, The Phil Donahue Show. Shortly after Tom’s appearance on national TV, the NY Times published an article on December 26, 1985, titled, “Magazine for Ambitious Marijuana Growers.” 

One of my favorite quotes from Tom in the article is him bashing the government:

“The government is not losing the war against marijuana—they lost it long ago. The government is like the advertising arm of the marijuana industry. Their eradication efforts give people the idea to grow it themselves.” 

After the very positive coverage in the NY Times, circulation for Tips bumped up to 25,000 issues printed bimonthly for the next five years. High Times magazine made multiple offers to buy Tips from Tom, but to Tom, they seemed more interested in burying the magazine because they saw it as competition, so he declined.

Unfortunately, the story does not end on a high note. The War on Drugs escalated in November, 1989, with the launch of Operation Green Merchant and came down hard on Sinsemilla Tips and Tom’s garden supply store, Full Moon Farm Products. While Tom was not charged with any crime, the DEA came in and seized all of the products in his retail store and put a chill on further publication of Tips. 

Seeing the oppression of cannabis only getting worse by the powers that be, Tom started another publication to continue to put the information about indoor and greenhouse horticulture into the hands of interested growers and started Growing Edge magazine, which was published bimonthly and reached a peak of 42,000 issues through its 21 years span between 1988 and 2009. 

With more than 30 years of publishing quality information about various methods of growing, Tom was truly one of the pioneers of cannabis cultivation education and paved the way for publications like this to come along. 

 

 

As published in:
Grow Magazine, Vol.5 Issue 6
January 2021