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This Marijuana Banner Flew Over the Maximum Yield expo
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Maximum Yield Just Says NO to this Sugary Marijuana Bud
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 Maximum Yield Indoor Gardening Expo: You Get Booted Out for Mentioning Marijuana 

As medical marijuana growers, we need to feel safe with hydroponics retailers, hydroponics manufacturers, and hydroponics media because even though what we do is legal according to state laws, people can still mess with you if you grow marijuana. So trust is everything. You gotta know that people are 100% totally chill with you growing marijuana, that they are not dissing marijuana growers, that they are not ashamed to be part of the marijuana community.

So when Maximum Yield magazine brought its indoor gardening expo to San Francisco in July, 2011, it ignited an important debate about trust and honesty in the hydroponics community.

Maximum Yield hydroponics expos could be a time of celebration and coming together for the entire hydroponics industry, except for the way that Maximum Yield handles the issue of medical marijuana cultivation, which everyone acknowledges is the backbone of the hydroponics industry.

Here's what sparks debate: Maximum Yield and their allies such as General Hydroponics, Hydrofarm, Botanicare and Sunlight Supply only exist because they make tons of money off of marijuana growers and companies that manufacture products for hydroponics marijuana growers.

But yet…Maximum Yield treats the marijuana community like shit. In fact, you are banned from Maximum Yield indoor gardening events if you openly make or use hydroponics products that maximize marijuana's yield. You aren't allowed to even mention medical marijuana at these expos.  

I found out the hard way when I went to a Maximum Yield Indoor Gardening Expo and asked Maximum Yield publisher Jim Jesson and his lovely wife Linda why Maximum Yield only has articles about growing lettuce and tomatoes, rather than medical marijuana. 

Linda got so red in the face that I thought she would explode. Jim clenched his fists and squinted his eyes like he was preparing to stomp me, and then had his ugly goon security people throw me out on my ass.

Before I had gotten thrown out, I wandered around the boring expo and put a simple question to employees of General Hydroponics, Botanicare, Fox Farm, Technaflora, Hydrofarm, Sunlight Supply and other companies that make huge $$$$$ off of our marijuana growing community.

I asked a simple, straightforward, crucial question: Are you on the side of medical marijuana growers?

Their answers were rude but revealing: “Marijuana is illegal. Don’t ask me that. Who the fuck are you? You’re at the wrong Expo. We don’t cater to criminals. You are some kind of idiot. I am sorry, I can’t talk about cannabis. ”

Behind closed doors these people admit marijuana growers are what keeps the hydroponics industry going. But they’re soooo afraid of marijuana. They claim they’re frightened about a repeat of a one-time federal raid of a few hydroponics retail stores in 1989, called Operation Green Merchant.

It's nearly a quarter century since Green Merchant, and many of us find it bizarre that people still claim they're worried about hydroponics stores getting raided for selling legal hydroponics gardening products to legal medical marijuana growers.

After all, it's 2011, and we all see massive societal acceptance of marijuana growing (most of it hydroponics gourmet medical marijuana) as a legitimate enterprise that helps the economy and improves people's health and quality of life too.

Sure we're troubled that the US federal government actively opposes medical marijuana in states where voters or legislators have approved it. But let's get real: there's absolutely no evidence the feds are going to bust a hydroponics store owner, Maximum Yield magazine, or an indoor gardening expo if medical marijuana growers are treated with respect and transparency in those venues.

High Times proudly brought its marijuana-friendly Medical Cannabis Cup to San Francisco just a few weeks before the 2011 Maximum Yield San Fran indoor gardening expo. Everybody at the High Times event had a great time. Hydroponics companies, growers, and marijuana users networked and partied and there were no problems from the police or anyone else.

Jim Jesson and his allies could join the celebration of hard-won marijuana freedom that's been achieved only through the steady activism of marijuana growers, hydroponics entrepreneurs and marijuana patients.  Instead, Maximum Yield's cowardly policies block some of the best and brightest hydroponics entrepreneurs and pioneers who want to participate in the Maximum Yield Indoor Gardening Expo. More and more members of our hydroponics community are balking at having to submit to a medical marijuana "code of silence" if they want access to the indoor gardening expo's benefits.

And we sadly realize that Maximum Yield's enforced silence is a victory for the drug warriors. It's easy to see that a hydroponics event where the topic of marijuana is forbidden is plagued by hypocrisy and discrimination towards all of us who love and grow the healing medical herb.

“What I noticed talking to Maximum Yield is that they use the exact same language as drug warriors,” a frustrated hydroponics businessman told me. “They say things like ‘zero tolerance,’ and ‘we’ll have plainclothes people in the expo to make sure you’re not talking about marijuana.’ They won’t let me hand out my brochures, because my brochures talk about growing marijuana, which is what this whole damn industry is about!”

At least one major hydroponics company- Advanced Nutrients- is doing something about the anti-marijuana policies of Maximum Yield. On mid-day Saturday during this year's Maximum Yield San Francisco indoor gardening expo, Advanced Nutrients flew an aerial banner above the Maximum Yield expo for several hours.

The banner said: “Want Big, Sugary Buds?” Advanced Nutrients flew the same banner over the Maximum Yield San Fran expo two years ago, according to Advanced Nutrients co-founder Michael Straumietis.

“The hydroponics community is tired of the Maximum Yield censorship and hypocrisy,” Straumietis says, explaining his high-flying protest. “We’re seeing more marijuana-specific hydroponics indoor expos, and that trend will grow until Maximum Yield is totally irrelevant for the high value hydroponics community. Our hydroponics community is no longer willing to be told what it can and can't say.”