# Boycott Alert: Sunlight Supply, Sun System lighting



## Tyrannabudz (Jan 17, 2010)

Friday I received an e-mail from the Inner Circle Growers Club. They send me tips about growing and developments in the hydroponic marketplace. The e-mail was about the CEO of Sunlight Supply. Craig Hargreaves is his name. If you are not aware Sunlight Supply and their wholesale distribution company National Garden Wholesale sell hydro equipment and lights to hydro stores. Which of course they in turn offer to the public. So it is obvious that without a wholesale distributor the hydro store would not be able to offer the products that they do. 

Now to the real story. It turns out that the CEO of Sunlight Supply made some phone calls to some of the hydro stores that they deal with in Washington state
urging them to boycott Advanced Nutrients products. If the store owner choses not to comply he would risk losing his account with National Garden Wholesale. They are also requiring store owners have their customers sign a waiver stating that they will not use the product for illegal purposes. The motivation behind the boycott of Advanced Nutrients is the fact that they come right out and say that the nutrients they make are specifically designed for growing Cannabis. The good ol' boys club as they are now known as (Sunlight Supply & Hydrofarm) saw to it that Advanced was prohibited from participating in an indoor gardening expo that took place in San Francisco. Truth is there is not any hydro equipment manufacturer or nutrient company that has done more for the medical cannabis community than Advaced Nutrients. Donating equipment, nutrients and their own personal expertise in setting up medical gardens for indigent Canadian cannabis patients. They have a special permit with the Bulgarian gov't allowing them to grow Cannabis for R&D of their products. No other nutrient company does this for us, only Advanced Nutrients. All Sunlight supply has done is take our money, and now they are trying to dictate what products hydro store owners can offer. Sunlight supply does not want you to know how effective Advanced Nutrients products are because they know you will never buy their tomato and cucumber nutrients again. It is time we stood up to these executives and show them where their power comes from, us the growers. They seem to be confused about who shops at the hydro stores it isn't vegetable farmers, Craig.

Even if you don't like Advanced nutrients products this call to action is for you. We shall not allow large corporate entities to decide which products we see on the store shelves. Only to ensure that they have no competition.

This is Tyrannabudz with your latest Hydroponics Politics report.


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## bca21 (Jan 18, 2010)

bump for you, Its not ecause I like advanced(i run all there hydro nutes) Its thee pure principle.. There selling us equipment for cannabis and make half there money for them haha.. So if everyone stopped using THERE equipment thed be fuckt...


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## Imaulle (Jan 18, 2010)

Good for him.

Fuck Advanced Nutrients!


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## Tyrannabudz (Jan 18, 2010)

Imaulle said:


> Good for him.
> 
> Fuck Advanced Nutrients!


 
You my friend are really going to like what your gov't has in store for you.


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## ugmjfarmer (Jan 21, 2010)

Tyrannabudz said:


> You my friend are really going to like what your gov't has in store for you.


He wont. Did you notice by chance the illuminati symbolism in sunlight supply's older logo. The pyramid with the sun at the top. The masonic working tool at the bottom colored in the spectrum colors.

There's more symbolism in that logo as well but they are using the same symbols that the illuminati use.


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## smokingrubber (Jan 21, 2010)

I was JUST looking for AN nutes in the hydro catalogs. Nada. I was wondering why they aren't carried. Now I know. Fuck Sunlight Supply! I've never used AN, but I will now just because I won't buy any more GH fruit juice. (It's works pretty good for carrot juice though )

I've seen a few videos on youtube comparing different nutes and AN always comes out on top. I don't know if it's true, but I haven't seen any other company willing to go head-to-head with the competition when comparing ganja to ganja.


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## oaksterdamn31 (Jan 22, 2010)

smokingrubber said:


> I was JUST looking for AN nutes in the hydro catalogs. Nada. I was wondering why they aren't carried. Now I know. Fuck Sunlight Supply! I've never used AN, but I will now just because I won't buy any more GH fruit juice. (It's works pretty good for carrot juice though )
> 
> I've seen a few videos on youtube comparing different nutes and AN always comes out on top. I don't know if it's true, but I haven't seen any other company willing to go head-to-head with the competition when comparing ganja to ganja.


This is why big business sucks so hard. Not only are they ripping off the little guy left and right (those banks right now and the companies who used stimulus money for fat cat bonuses make me furious), but they're making sure that people who are honestly trying to do something good for the community don't get a chance.

I saw this video too the other day and the forums just lit up...

Now, while I have to admit that the video was a little over emotional, I can see how Big Mike can get so ticked. I mean, it's not right for a company to walk into someone's store and tell them not to sell something they ordered in order to be sold.

Stores should be able to sell whatever the F they want to sell. And now that I'm hearing that AN is helping out those who can't pay for MMJ? And Sunlight wants to throw them out of stores? That is just wrong.

Just wrong.

You're right Tyrranabuzz, do people really think the cloak and dagger thing of hydro stores is really all that secret? We all know what hydro stores are selling. Not that many people are eating cucumber and tomatoes from their own gardens....LOL

Big corporations need to stay out of the way of the little guys. Let everyone have a chance and then see how the cards fall. Right now, Sunlight is just making it seem like they're afraid of a little nute company. How immature.

It's business. Compete and if their products are better, growers will talk and that's that. But shutting out certain nutes? That's never cool.

Thanks Tyrrannabudz.


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## patlpp (Jan 22, 2010)

smokingrubber said:


> I was JUST looking for AN nutes in the hydro catalogs. Nada. I was wondering why they aren't carried. Now I know. Fuck Sunlight Supply! I've never used AN, but I will now just because I won't buy any more GH fruit juice. (It's works pretty good for carrot juice though )


So is General Hydroponics GH? part of this fuck scheme?


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## smokingrubber (Jan 22, 2010)

I don't know. But "General" hydroponics insinuates that it's formulated for all plants. I would prefer to buy some "Marijuana" Hydroponics. Yes, GH works for weed, but if AN is formulated specifically for canibis growers ... well it's obvious.


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## laserbrn (Jan 22, 2010)

smokingrubber said:


> I don't know. But "General" hydroponics insinuates that it's formulated for all plants. I would prefer to buy some "Marijuana" Hydroponics. Yes, GH works for weed, but if AN is formulated specifically for canibis growers ... well it's obvious.


You are going to stir up some shit here.........someone call UB he's got some shit to talk. 

Fact is though that I rarely hear complaints about the quality if the product with AN. Certainly not from actual users of their products. I generally just see big ass buds.

I don't like hearing about this product being pushed out of stores so I will keep this boycott in mind. I'm in the market for 2 600 watt lights and I really like the Sun Systems reflectors.


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## hugetom80s (Jan 28, 2010)

Count me in on this. It's about time for me to upgrade my lights and I'll be neatly stepping past any Sunlight Supply option out there.

I like Advanced Nutrients (they make my favorite nutes) but this has nothing to do with the products at all in my mind.

When a big company drags innocent bystanders into their attempt to wage war on a smaller company, that's when I flip the bird and tell them where to take their products.


And that's pretty much what I said in my email to those bastards: Leave the shop keepers out of this. Don't put them out of business just because you don't have the balls to face Advanced Nutrients in the open.

Sissies.


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## formlessqarrior (Jan 28, 2010)

advanced butrients better kick back down to the community for as much as they charge jesus christ, i am organic man, soon to use super soil sub cool recipe tho now i use basement mix coco royalblend or something and bat poo, and my plants are turbo dank, the structure of the buds rock compared to crazy ass built up super buds made of god knows what, u all can smoke what u wanna smoke, me, for now ima smoke bat poop


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## doc111 (Jan 28, 2010)

This is why Sunlight Supply is upset at AN:



*Operation Green Merchant*






By Ray Boyd - Friday, October 14 2005 Tags: 

The DEA does a nationwide takedown





The DEA believed that _High Times_ magazine, pot seed merchants, indoor pot growers, pot journalists and hydroponics equipment manufacturers were a criminal conspiracy worthy of a nationwide takedown.
Operation Green Merchant was the DEA's comprehensive attempt to destroy pot magazines and hydroponics and indoor marijuana growing industries. To understanding the US government's bizarre attack on this legitimate, multi-faceted industry, realize that DEA ideology brands the hydroponics industry as the indoor marijuana industry, and vice versa.
There are no facts to back up the DEA's assertion that the industries are one in the same. In fact, only a very small portion of hydroponic farmers are marijuana growers. Yet Green Merchant took action against hydroponics storeowners, workers and customers by arresting them for marijuana crimes ? even when there was no evidence they were guilty of any crimes.
One of the best histories of Green Merchant is an article by Jeff Edwards in the Winter 2004 issue of Hydroponic Retailing In the USA. The author is a hydroponic store founder-owner, and also president of the Hydroponic Merchants Association (HMA), an influential trade group.
According to Edwards, in the late 1980's the DEA believed that _High Times_ magazine, pot seed merchants, indoor pot growers, pot journalists and hydroponics equipment manufacturers were a criminal conspiracy worthy of a nationwide takedown.
Using gardening equipment ads in _High Times_ as their roadmap, undercover DEA agents visited hydroponics stores and contacted hydroponics wholesalers, asking for advice and materials for marijuana cultivation.

The DEA subpoenaed United Parcel Service (UPS) delivery records associated with hydroponics stores, getting information on tens of thousands of people suspected of procuring hydro equipment for marijuana growing. Hydroponics retailers were already nervous, noting that Congress started passing laws in 1985 that criminalized otherwise legal products if they were "intended for illegal use."
Most storeowners had already adopted a hard-line policy: they instructed their employees to remove anyone from the store who asked about marijuana. If the person refused to leave, employees were to call the police and have the person arrested for trespassing.
These precautions didn't matter to President George H.W. Bush, who announced a major escalation of the drug war in a Sept. 5, 1989 speech televised from the Oval Office. Under Bush's prodding, DEA agents increasingly visited hydroponics stores, ran surveillance, and gathered information through strongarm tactics and subterfuge. They lied to store employees, posing as bikers, hippies, Vietnam veterans, and medically needy people.
One hydroponics store staffer who was a victim of Green Merchant said DEA agents were "shameless in their deceptions, wearing clandestine recording devices while trying to trick us into having incriminating discussions about marijuana. They offered us women, guns, and money if we'd show them how to grow pot and sell them gear."




*Black Thursday*
Then, on a day known in the hydroponics industry as Black Thursday, October 26, 1989, the DEA in conjunction with dozens of other law enforcement agencies raided hydroponics stores in 46 states, arresting 119 people, seizing several indoor gardening shops and thousands of cannabis plants.
Store owners and employees watched in horror as gun-toting police ransacked their shops. In most cases, no charges were ever filed, but civil asset forfeitures stole millions of dollars worth of inventory from stores and individuals. One cultivation-centered pot magazine, Sensimilla Tips, went out of business, and _High Times_ spent years recovering from the loss of its most lucrative advertisers. Sensimilla Tips publisher Tom Alexander established the magazine The Growing Edge in the aftermath of Operation Green Merchant, where nary a mention of marijuana can be found.
Green Merchant kept rolling long after Black Thursday, roping in hundreds of plants and growers, also corralling Nevil Schoenmakers, the world's first international marijuana seed retailer, whose Holland-based "seed bank" was an early precursor to Marc Emery Seed Sales and dozens of seed retail imitators.
In 1991, DEA agents began serving subpoenas on hydro storeowners, seeking customer addresses and other private information. Agents raided, questioned, and intimidated hundreds of people and organizations, including scientists and NASA's horticultural research facilities. By the end of 1991, Green Merchant had arrested 1,262 people, dismantled 977 indoor grows, and seized $17.5 million in assets. Dozens of people served 4 to 15 year prison terms, many with mandatory minimums that did not allow for sentence reduction.
The Green Merchant scheme backfired on the DEA. The general public and Libertarian politicians heard that innocent hydroponics storeowners had been convicted of marijuana charges solely based on questionable testimony from tainted informants. People found out the DEA entrapped suspects, ruined lives and businesses, and sent harmless people to prison. The DEA came off not as heroic antidrug crusaders, but as Nazis.
*Super Growth*
In 2005, nearly two decades after the horrors of Black Thursday, the hydroponics industry is vibrant and confident, but also wary of more DEA-inflicted trauma. One of the main safety tactics employed by the hydroponics industry is for hydro store owners to ruthlessly avoid any connection with marijuana growers or products designed for marijuana. The basis for such extreme avoidance is a federal law, specifically "21 U.S.C. 863," which defines drug paraphernalia as "any equipment, product, or material of any kind which is primarily intended or designed for use in manufacturing, compounding, converting, concealing, producing, processing, preparing, injecting, ingesting, inhaling, or otherwise introducing into the human body a controlled substance?"
Because the definition of paraphernalia criminalizes innocent items, the law says that "in determining whether an item constitutes drug paraphernalia, in addition to all other logically relevant factors, the following may be considered:
(1) instructions, oral or written, provided with the item concerning its use;
(2) descriptive materials accompanying the item which explain or depict its use;
(3) national and local advertising concerning its use;
(4) the manner in which the item is displayed for sale;
(5) the existence and scope of legitimate uses of the item in the community; and
(6) expert testimony concerning its use.
The government's broad interpretation of this statute formed the basis for the Justice Department's "Operation Pipe Dreams" in 2003, which snared Tommy Chong and many others. The government views inert, otherwise legal materials and objects ? such as glass ? as illegal if they are "intended" for illegal use.
According to hydroponics industry leaders, "some wacko at the DEA" could interpret this law to mean that hydroponics gear advertised in pot magazines is "illegal drug paraphernalia."
Jeff Edwards reflected this concern in his Green Merchant article with this dire warning: "Don't advertise in publications that overtly or covertly appeal to marijuana growers. Avoid at all costs products that are advertised specifically for use in growing marijuana."
Writing in a gardening magazine, another prominent member of the hydroponics industry warned his colleagues: "[You] can see why I get upset when hydroponic manufacturers or retail stores market their products in a 'wink and a nod' manner. And the fact is, you still run a big risk if you market in any way to pot growers. Now, there are those in our industry who don't believe that. They persist in targeting the underground economy, because they think that's the path to success. Others, including myself, think that our industry would be wiser and probably richer in the long run by tapping the $70 billion mainstream gardening market. Again I ask, which side are you on?"
On Internet cultivation forums, in cultivation books, and in the marijuana industry, pot growers network and discuss hydroponics, fertilizers, lighting, C02 units, and other indoor gardening supplies. Of these, cannabis fertilizer is the most plant-specific of all the types of merchandise a hydroponics store sells.
There are about eight major manufacturers and dozens of smaller companies making fertilizer products routinely used by marijuana growers. Among the major players are General Hydroponics, Technaflora, Canna, and Advanced Nutrients.
Most hydroponics manufacturers never mention marijuana in their North American marketing materials; they certainly don't advertise in marijuana magazines. At the same time, some of these same companies or their subsidiaries advertise in European marijuana magazines and at marijuana conventions.
The only major companies in the North American market that openly admit their products are used to grow marijuana are Canna and Advanced Nutrients.
When I asked legit hydroponics insiders to comment on the assertion that fertilizers and other indoor grow products could be considered illegal paraphernalia, most of them adamantly refused to talk on the record.
I contacted Advanced Nutrients at its company headquarters in British Columbia, and spoke to company president Robert Higgins. Initially, Higgins also refused to be interviewed. Later, he gave a brief statement about marijuana-specific advertising, hydroponics stores, and the industry in general.
"Advanced Nutrients are legal products," Higgins said. "Our products work well on all plants because we do solid research and constant upgrading. Medical marijuana growing is legal in Canada for Health Canada licensed patients; we created specialty products for them that work better on medical marijuana than any other products do. I believe everyone in the industry agrees with Advanced Nutrients that marijuana is a plant medicine, and that excellent medical marijuana can be grown hydroponically."
Higgins said he "totally supports" hydroponics retailers and is "just as concerned about their safety as they are.
"I understand why people in the US are afraid of their government, but carrying Advanced Nutrients products won't get them raided," he said. "Plenty of retailers in the US selling our products are having absolutely zero problems. Our industry realizes we need to work together to defend our business rights and the legitimacy of our products and retailers."
Higgins refused comment on Edwards' published advice that hydroponics storeowners should not carry products advertised in marijuana magazines, which until recently were a main venue for Advanced Nutrients' advertising.
A representative of _High Times_ anonymously responded to Edwards, saying, "Green Merchant was the government trying to destroy free speech by going after our advertisers. We're proud to teach people how to grow, use, and lobby for marijuana.
Hydro store owners make a stand for freedom by refusing to be intimidated by the drug war. There's nothing to be ashamed of for growing pot, providing help to growers, selling hydroponics equipment, or being in a weed magazine."
*Better Safe than Sorry?*
Barry is a hydroponics store owner in California. His store sells fans, fertilizers, grow lights, gardening books and other equipment. He earns enough to have a "middle class existence", and employs four other people.
He's been in business seven years; every year, sales have increased. His marijuana policy: neither the substance nor the topic is found on premises. If a customer so much as hints at being a pot grower, Barry bans them.
Barry drug tests his employees. If they test positive, or otherwise violate his marijuana policies, he fires them.
"Green Merchant is how extreme the government can get ? they'll bust you even if you have zero contact with marijuana," he complains. "As far as my store is concerned, to my knowledge nobody who buys our products uses them for marijuana. Not even legal medical marijuana. We don't have marijuana in our lives, period. However, given that they can bust you even if you aren't doing anything associated with marijuana, I often wonder what's the use of taking precautions."
Barry's store carries several types of fertilizers, among them Advanced Nutrients.
"I hesitated to carry Advanced," he confesses, "because their marketing was tied to medical marijuana. A lot of customers demanded it. It sells well. Sure, sales reps for other nute companies warn Advanced is gonna get me popped. I was concerned enough to have my lawyer contact the DEA and my Congressman. The DEA tells him it's got no intent of busting my store unless I am actively and knowingly assisting marijuana growers, which I am not. The Congressman says there's no political will or funding to do another Green Merchant, and probably never will be."
While we're speaking, a 60-something woman comes in asking what she needs to buy so she can have a small, indoor garden for orchids and other legal exotic plants.
Barry shows her a self-contained ebb and flow rack system that contains pump, reservoir, tubing, volcanic rock, fittings, an Advanced Nutrients starter kit, a frame and an adjustable height 250 watt HPS light. It was a small purchase, just under $790, and seemed 100 percent legitimate.
When I asked Barry if the lady was a "typical customer," he just smiled.
*Regulation Blues*
There are clouds on the horizon. Police and politicians in Southern Australia recently proposed a law that would investigate and register hydroponics store owners and operators, similar to the way pawn shops and alcohol stores are licensed in the United States. The proposed law requires hydroponics customers to provide identification, address information and "end user certificates" to stores, and requires stores to divulge customer information to police.
In March, Paul Nadeau, head of the RCMP's marijuana enforcement team in British Columbia, said the Mounties are drafting a new grow shop bylaw that authorities could use to regulate hydroponics stores, much like pawn shops. Customers would have to provide picture identification; stores would be required to give police access to customer purchases.
"There's absolutely no doubt in our minds that these stores cater to people who grow marijuana," Nadeau said. "The people who are growing marijuana, they're using these stores. It's not gardeners." In the US, lawmakers threatened to regulate the commercial fertilizer industry because some components can be precursors for methamphetamine or bombs. The fertilizer industry responded by offering to help police stop such materials from being used illegally in California.
Barry says his wife and family ask him to "get out of the business," but he sees it as "my duty as a citizen to stand up to the government for my right to help people grow plants."
"What's this leading to?" he wonders. "They're telling us what plants to grow, what fertilizers we can use and sell. Based on probable harm or intent? I look at their scare tactics as a business crime and a human rights crime. I won't bow to it." Other hydroponics enthusiasts have admittedly bowed to it. Like a 50-year-old veteran hydroponicist I spoke to, one of many whose life was virtually destroyed during the Green Merchant pogrom. He's thankful to have a safer job now, but says he's lost the inner fire that once made him an advocate for hydroponics and marijuana legalization.
"Now, I am like most Americans: just trying to get along until I die," he ruefully admits. "They have beaten me down and I have submitted. Until you realize they will break the law to take somebody down, you just don't understand. They are criminals with badges and will do whatever they want to do."









*Illustration from `Closet Cultivator` by Ed Rosenthal**THE IDEAL GARDEN*
This well equipped garden contains: an ebb-and-flow system including nursery pots, tray, reservoir pump and auto drain; a regulator system, tank, meter, and tubing; an air cooled reflector that holds a 1000 watt HPS lamp hanging from a light mover; two ventilation fans on opposite sides of the garden; a humidistat/thermostat regulating a squirrel fan, vents and an air conditioner to the cool room.


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## formlessqarrior (Jan 28, 2010)

money is for slaves, fuck making slave currency give bud away freely lol


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## doc111 (Jan 28, 2010)

formlessqarrior said:


> money is for slaves, fuck making slave currency give bud away freely lol


Perhaps but if you grow indoors there are operating costs to consider.


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## terrorizer805 (Jan 29, 2010)

I can care less, I don't even used AN I think it's overpriced.
I'm happy with my free nutes. And could care less about a canadian based company.


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## Wohjew (Jan 29, 2010)

canada kicks ass .... overpriced cause they are the best you get what you pay for


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## terrorizer805 (Jan 30, 2010)

that's arguable.
I would pick FF any day over AN


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## doc111 (Jan 30, 2010)

terrorizer805 said:


> I can care less, I don't even used AN I think it's overpriced.
> I'm happy with my free nutes. And could care less about a canadian based company.


How the hell do you get free nutes? I have to agree about AN. Overpriced snake oil. I'm sure people get good results but I bet if you did a side by side comparison, General Hydroponics or almost any other nute would do just as well.


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## terrorizer805 (Jan 30, 2010)

doc111 said:


> How the hell do you get free nutes? I have to agree about AN. Overpriced snake oil. I'm sure people get good results but I bet if you did a side by side comparison, General Hydroponics or almost any other nute would do just as well.


Yep I have to admit Before I started growing I wanted to go with AN just because of the fancy ads and all the hype behind it, that's how they get people. Especially the people just strating out. I agree with what you said. I think any plant that has the right amount of key elements will thrive, theres no such thing as a super potion nutrient that's just BS if people think so. 

I have my ways 
JK
I have family that works in agriculture so I get free stuff.

And also it doesn't hurt to write nutrient companies for samples. I got the whole GH GO line for free quart sized bottles just because I asked.


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## i81two (Jan 31, 2010)

Im on board


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## Bob Smith (Jan 31, 2010)

I would be on board, except that Sunlight Supply makes the best reflectors.

Gonna get at least a couple more Magnum XXXLs within the next few months, so although I think it's a shitty move on the CEOs part to "narc" out that guy, I'm not gonna "penalize" myself and buy inferior reflectors.

Also, there's no reason for Advanced to flaunt their shit like they do - everyone knows what "hydroponic nutrients" are used for, but the other companies have the common sense to pretend that they're for vegetables.

It's akin to an asian massage parlor advertising "We give the best blow jobs" - possibly true, but that flaunting of the law won't serve them very well when dealing with US authorities.


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## cowboylogic (Jan 31, 2010)

terrorizer805 said:


> that's arguable.
> I would pick FF any day over AN


 You bet. Fox Farms is the shit.


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## Cato Zen (Feb 1, 2010)

OK so the big boiz are tryin' to drag me into they're war. I really do hate everything about MicroSoft. They can't beat you, then they'll bad mouth you or just plain buy you out. Them cowbois at sun do make a good product, but like everyone else in the biz,,it'll cost you! maybe Advanced Nutes shoulda kept they're fucking mouths shut. Even with a Green Card... Legals should play a stealthy ngame.


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## KNS420 (Feb 1, 2010)

you know before long this country (USA) will be ran by big corporations like wal mart and eventually our whole governmet will be controlled by wall street!!! Its ALL about the money and how much the next person will offer. Thats it. AND IT SUXXXX! They dont care about the little ppl out here who make them who they are! Like celebs and everyone else that is incorporated into a big corporation. ITS ALL CORRUPT!!!


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## hightyde27 (Feb 1, 2010)

I can see why Sunlight Supply would take that course of action. Think about it. They're in the business of selling MJ grow hardware. If it goes fully legal here in the states their business will explode. And when you're trying to beg the fed, and any other form of American govt for that matter, to repeal a ban on something, especially an intoxicant, it doesn't help when some company in the same business goes flying the pointy green flag and rollin' blunts in their face.
Did SLS go about it the right way? Who knows. Maybe they called and asked real nice first, who cares. The end result is same, Stupidity. On the SLS's side and AN's side. The whole thing is ridiculous.
The two CEO's should go walk on the beach, smoke a joint, and hash it out like real stoners.


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## terrorizer805 (Feb 1, 2010)

Sunlight supply knows the majority of people buying their products use it to grow marijuana but they are playing their cards the safe way and turning a blind eye saying that it's not for marijuana or they don't condone it. AN on the other hand are flying flags with joints or whatever, yes it may be legal in canada but that won't help them here in america different laws. that's why sunlight supply is so delicate with them advertising their nutrients as marijuana specific. If I was sunlight supply I would do the same thing I will not risk my multi billion dollar biz on one nutrient company.

I support what sunlight supply is doing, Their not the bullies here just trying to keep the whole hydroponics business going strong without the dea interferring.

Until the day that marijuana is completly legal here in america then and only then will the nutrient companies colors really show.


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## blahblahblah123 (Feb 1, 2010)

Thats pretty funny.. i am now a lifelong sunlight hater 

Sad since I bet 90% of the people who have ever bought their lights are prolly growing weed..


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## Green Dave (Feb 1, 2010)

Im on board
Its not the fact that AN is bragging or if Sunlight is selling grow lights for marijuana
Its the point that a company will pull there product from there store if they sell someone elses. What a crock of shit
No company has the right to tell a store owner what they can sell or whos product they can sell
Why cant people just get along, sell what you want if you have a good product then you will make the sale , If your product is not selling
FIX IT OR IMPROVE IT
Dont go to the backdoor


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## hightyde27 (Feb 1, 2010)

Has anyone checked the financial records of SLS to see if they bought a nutrient company? That's the perfect motivation for bullying stores into cutting AN to make room for a new acquisition. Just a thought...


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## Desert Rat (Feb 8, 2010)

The example Big Mike discussed had to do with a hydro shop that didn't diversify with their suppliers enough. The shop shutting down didn't have other wholesalers lined up and was reliant on only one company. SunLight has been a bit over the top with their ideology, but there is more to it.

Advanced has came to the conclusion that it is time to quit dicking around and acknowledge the giant gorrilla we call the cannabis industry. They treat all users, even recreational, as medicinal users. Really, does a $150 bribe to an unqualified doctor mean anything on the personal level? They hand out promo material with buds on it, and call their products plant specific.

Sunlight makes all shops sign a contract saying they will not sell to marijuana users, even if medical. The reason being that federal law still trumps, and knowingly selling growing supplies to an individual for marijuana is considered conspiracy to manufacture. In reality, you really have to piss off the wrong people to have them shut you down for selling to a med. patient. But it is possible and Sunlight has a few hundred people that depend on their business for their careers. On the legal end, there is grounds for conflict. I think CEOs should go fist to fist and quit talking shit.

Stand by your beliefs, and don't buy Advanced if you think they suck, or don't buy Sunlight if you think they also suck. There are so many alternatives on the market, and in fact many products are identical besides the packaging and logos. The big boys on the west are Sunlight Supply, Hydrofarm, Sunleaves, Humboldt Wholesale, Tradewinds, Rose City, Custom Automated Products. While I can't speak for the wholesalers themselves, smart ones want shops to sell Advanced. Advanced is high margin and do make some excellent products (and some below par ones too). The more Advanced a shop sells, the more they buy of other supplies too. There are options: pick up the blue box or the green box if you hate Sunlight and Hydrofarm that much.


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## captiankush (Feb 8, 2010)

I respect AN for being true to their hustle. I think a MAJOR problem in cannabis is that so many of us live in the closet. We are so worried about how our parents, teachers, bosses, co workers, etc will judge us. AN flips that entire philosophy the middle finger. A guy like me respects that. I myself am open about my medicinal use. My parents know it, my kids, my friends. 

I dont use AN because they are $$$.

Fundamentally, this is about SLS acting like they run the world. Who the hell are they to tell a shop what to sell??

And as for SLS...c'mon...they cant really believe people are spending BILLIONS of dollars on fracking strawberries & heirloom tomatoes...If they honestly do, I need to contact them about this bridge I can offer them a fantastic deal on...

CK


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## smokingrubber (Feb 8, 2010)

Desert Rat said:


> Advanced has came to the conclusion that it is time to quit dicking around and acknowledge the giant gorrilla we call the cannabis industry. They treat all users, even recreational, as medicinal users. Really, does a $150 bribe to an unqualified doctor mean anything on the personal level? They hand out promo material with buds on it, and call their products plant specific.
> 
> Sunlight makes all shops sign a contract saying they will not sell to marijuana users, even if medical. The reason being that federal law still trumps, and *knowingly selling growing supplies to an individual for marijuana is considered conspiracy to manufacture*. In reality, you really have to piss off the wrong people to have them shut you down for selling to a med. patient. But it is possible and Sunlight has a few hundred people that depend on their business for their careers. On the legal end, there is grounds for conflict. I think CEOs should go fist to fist and quit talking shit.


I'm sure I would make them sign some kind of waiver too. AN has Canada to hide behind. US based businesses can't afford to follow in the footsteps of Tommy Chong. Even though they make a ton of $ off the cannabis industry, I understand that they can't afford to be labeled as a paraphernalia distributor. It's sad that the CEO purse fight has gone this far.


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## jesus of Cannabis (Feb 8, 2010)

Tyrannabudz said:


> Friday I received an e-mail from the Inner Circle Growers Club. They send me tips about growing and developments in the hydroponic marketplace. The e-mail was about the CEO of Sunlight Supply. Craig Hargreaves is his name. If you are not aware Sunlight Supply and their wholesale distribution company National Garden Wholesale sell hydro equipment and lights to hydro stores. Which of course they in turn offer to the public. So it is obvious that without a wholesale distributor the hydro store would not be able to offer the products that they do.
> 
> Now to the real story. It turns out that the CEO of Sunlight Supply made some phone calls to some of the hydro stores that they deal with in Washington state
> urging them to boycott Advanced Nutrients products. If the store owner choses not to comply he would risk losing his account with National Garden Wholesale. They are also requiring store owners have their customers sign a waiver stating that they will not use the product for illegal purposes. The motivation behind the boycott of Advanced Nutrients is the fact that they come right out and say that the nutrients they make are specifically designed for growing Cannabis. The good ol' boys club as they are now known as (Sunlight Supply & Hydrofarm) saw to it that Advanced was prohibited from participating in an indoor gardening expo that took place in San Francisco. Truth is there is not any hydro equipment manufacturer or nutrient company that has done more for the medical cannabis community than Advaced Nutrients. Donating equipment, nutrients and their own personal expertise in setting up medical gardens for indigent Canadian cannabis patients. They have a special permit with the Bulgarian gov't allowing them to grow Cannabis for R&D of their products. No other nutrient company does this for us, only Advanced Nutrients. All Sunlight supply has done is take our money, and now they are trying to dictate what products hydro store owners can offer. Sunlight supply does not want you to know how effective Advanced Nutrients products are because they know you will never buy their tomato and cucumber nutrients again. It is time we stood up to these executives and show them where their power comes from, us the growers. They seem to be confused about who shops at the hydro stores it isn't vegetable farmers, Craig.
> ...


this story has been going around for a few months now.


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## doc111 (Feb 8, 2010)

Did anybody here actually read the whole thread. Advanced is saying that they are selling "marijuana specific" products. I am all for it. Problem is this little thing that happened before some of the people on this forum were born called Operation Green Merchant. This occurred in 1989 and basically the marijuana publications, hydro shops, wholesalers, nutrient companies and other indoor grow product suppliers were raided by the DEA. The shops were closed down and products were siezed along with customer lists, receipts and other information. This led to hundreds of growers getting busted. The reason this happened was because the DEA contended that the marketing of products specifically for cultivation of marijuana amounted to a criminal conspiracy within the hydroponics and indoor growing industry. This was wrapped up in litigation for years, cost shop owners and individuals millions of dollars and nearly caused the industry to collapse. Finally the hydro shop owners prevailed but they had to dissociate themselves from marijuana growing completely. But it's legal in 14 states for medicinal purposes currently you say. Ah, but it's still illegal under federal law. Operation Green Merchant was a disaster for the govt. There probably won't ever be another type of crackdown like it again but who knows. Individual shops and owners could get into a lot of trouble if they knowingly sell to a marijuana grower. It's called conspiracy and it's a bullshit charge but a lot of people remember Operation Green Merchant. They don't want a repeat and if they just don't even acknowledge marijuana in any way then there is nothing for them to worry about. That doesn't prevent people from going into hydro shops and buying equipment and products for growing. It's worked this way for over 20 years now and some don't want to rock the boat. I totally see where Sunlight Supply is coming from. It upsets me but federal law has to change, until then we are pretty much going to have to stay underground as a community.


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## jkmovies (Feb 8, 2010)

Advanced Nutrients is ruining it for all the rest. I would distance myself from a company like that any way I could as well.


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## doc111 (Feb 8, 2010)

jkmovies said:


> Advanced Nutrients is ruining it for all the rest. I would distance myself from a company like that any way I could as well.


That's kinda how I see it as well. I am a bit torn though. On the one hand I admire Big Mike and AN for standing up and saying "We're not going to play this stupid game of acting like we are selling tomato fertilizer anymore." On the other hand most people understand how the game is played and leave well enough alone. It sucks that it has to be this way but it's one of those cases of picking your battles. This is a battle that I think Big Mike and An will probably lose (and screw shit up for the rest of us in the process). I hope I'm wrong.


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## giantart (Feb 8, 2010)

laserbrn said:


> You are going to stir up some shit here.........someone call UB he's got some shit to talk.
> 
> Fact is though that I rarely hear complaints about the quality if the product with AN. Certainly not from actual users of their products. I generally just see big ass buds.
> 
> I don't like hearing about this product being pushed out of stores so I will keep this boycott in mind. I'm in the market for 2 600 watt lights and I really like the Sun Systems reflectors.


GO with the Magnum XXXL - Very good quality and well manufactured.


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## terrorizer805 (Feb 8, 2010)

doc111 said:


> Did anybody here actually read the whole thread. Advanced is saying that they are selling "marijuana specific" products. I am all for it. Problem is this little thing that happened before some of the people on this forum were born called Operation Green Merchant. This occurred in 1989 and basically the marijuana publications, hydro shops, wholesalers, nutrient companies and other indoor grow product suppliers were raided by the DEA. The shops were closed down and products were siezed along with customer lists, receipts and other information. This led to hundreds of growers getting busted. The reason this happened was because the DEA contended that the marketing of products specifically for cultivation of marijuana amounted to a criminal conspiracy within the hydroponics and indoor growing industry. This was wrapped up in litigation for years, cost shop owners and individuals millions of dollars and nearly caused the industry to collapse. Finally the hydro shop owners prevailed but they had to dissociate themselves from marijuana growing completely. But it's legal in 14 states for medicinal purposes currently you say. Ah, but it's still illegal under federal law. Operation Green Merchant was a disaster for the govt. There probably won't ever be another type of crackdown like it again but who knows. Individual shops and owners could get into a lot of trouble if they knowingly sell to a marijuana grower. It's called conspiracy and it's a bullshit charge but a lot of people remember Operation Green Merchant. They don't want a repeat and if they just don't even acknowledge marijuana in any way then there is nothing for them to worry about. That doesn't prevent people from going into hydro shops and buying equipment and products for growing. It's worked this way for over 20 years now and some don't want to rock the boat. I totally see where Sunlight Supply is coming from. It upsets me but federal law has to change, until then we are pretty much going to have to stay underground as a community.



Great points I totally agree with what you're saying, most people don't see the big picture here and just want to judge sunlight supply as the bad guy. I'm all for what SLS is doing risking business for one nutrient company is not worth it in my book. It's unfortunate that this is happening to AN but they should have kept their mouth shut and played it safe and not boasted like they've been doing. Like you said we will just have to stay underground and play the part as tomato growers just like every other nutrient, light and hydro company is doing.


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## chickentetrazzini530 (Feb 10, 2010)

terrorizer805 said:


> that's arguable.
> I would pick FF any day over AN


Have you used Advanced Nutrients products for blooming!??!!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! Please say yes for your sake or further hurt the reputation of socal weed by pushing foxfarm. so laughable dude.


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## chickentetrazzini530 (Feb 10, 2010)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkUIkOjAq70


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## terrorizer805 (Feb 10, 2010)

chickentetrazzini530 said:


> Have you used Advanced Nutrients products for blooming!??!!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! Please say yes for your sake or further hurt the reputation of socal weed by pushing foxfarm. so laughable dude.


 
It's my opinion bro, and the only reason I would pick FF over AN is because AN is f'n expensive and it does the same job as FF if not better from what buddies have told me and from what i've seen. I'd rather spend that money on my car 

hey but to each their own right? Go ahead and spend $100's of dollas on nutrients I promise I won't mind.


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## deoss69 (Feb 10, 2010)

look i think an is standing up for what needs to be done but if they sell in the states and they do !!! keep the papper trail on your end to nill if any to keep from getting the dea raid on that ass the gov dont give a shit about an and thier small corp they will raid all the people in the states they can . An makes ton of money on the ligit maket in all the leagal states and in the foren market and thet is the main reason for the mj specific marketting to sell to the market in the outer state regions we will still need to be in the closet on this one to keep us and our familes safe srry to tell you that but its true proabition will continue for a long time to come


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## chickentetrazzini530 (Feb 11, 2010)

terrorizer805 said:


> It's my opinion bro, and the only reason I would pick FF over AN is because AN is f'n expensive and it does the same job as FF if not better from what buddies have told me and from what i've seen. I'd rather spend that money on my car
> 
> hey but to each their own right? Go ahead and spend $100's of dollas on nutrients I promise I won't mind.


You are on your first or maybe second grow and you are giving advice from what "you've heard". I hear too many of those people telling me how I should have my shit set up or have it growing like this because they saw their friend do it that way but they've never actually done it themselves. I've used and experienced these products and the buds they produce except for gh products. SO...from what I'VE SEEN and what I've been involved with AN is what I use now because my resale more than makes up for the $100 bucks I "wasted" on the nutes. lol


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## Learninglots420 (Feb 11, 2010)

/signed. I'm building my grow cab and am currently in the markey for a ballast. I was considering this brand too since it seemed like a quality "name brand", but there are plenty other merchants out there that I can take my business to.


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## terrorizer805 (Feb 11, 2010)

chickentetrazzini530 said:


> You are on your first or maybe second grow and you are giving advice from what "you've heard". I hear too many of those people telling me how I should have my shit set up or have it growing like this because they saw their friend do it that way but they've never actually done it themselves. I've used and experienced these products and the buds they produce except for gh products. SO...from what I'VE SEEN and what I've been involved with AN is what I use now because my resale more than makes up for the $100 bucks I "wasted" on the nutes. lol


My resale value is alot as well glad to hear you're making your money back


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## Tyrannabudz (Feb 12, 2010)

terrorizer805 said:


> Sunlight supply knows the majority of people buying their products use it to grow marijuana but they are playing their cards the safe way and turning a blind eye saying that it's not for marijuana or they don't condone it. AN on the other hand are flying flags with joints or whatever, yes it may be legal in canada but that won't help them here in america different laws. that's why sunlight supply is so delicate with them advertising their nutrients as marijuana specific. If I was sunlight supply I would do the same thing I will not risk my multi billion dollar biz on one nutrient company.
> 
> I support what sunlight supply is doing, Their not the bullies here just trying to keep the whole hydroponics business going strong without the dea interferring.
> 
> Until the day that marijuana is completly legal here in america then and only then will the nutrient companies colors really show.


The DEA knows damn well what and who all hydroponics growing supplies are made for. They don't mind because it gives them a job to do. See Sunlight provides the equipment, knowing what it is going to be used for but acts like they don't. Then you buy the stuff, do what you are going to do with it, get caught and go to jail. It is a win win situation for Sunlight Supply and the judicial system. But not for you. Of course you knew better and the consequences are yours to deal with. 

Our whole belief system is based on this control grid. Until we stand up as individuals who are willing to take responsibilty for ourselves and our own safety and not rely on the government and the corporate world that controls it to tell us how to live then we will never be free.

Did you know that in 1936 the Dupont textile corporation got a patent approved for nylon fiber. The following year the Marijuana Tax Stamp Act was signed. Making it illegal to cultivate any form of Cannabis whether for recreational use or for use in textile manufacturing without the express consent of the US government. The only fiber in the world that compares to the diversity of uses of nylon but is ten times stronger........ Hemp. But hemp can't be patented. So they made it illegal and there goes the competition.

Alcohol prohibition was said to be necessary because too many men were becoming alcoholics. Losing their jobs, battering their families, committing crimes due to inebriation. So the government funded womens groups to speak out and demand a change, the American family unit was at stake. So they made it illegal. of course I don't need to go into how bad that was, with organized crime that sprouted up for bootlegging and moonshining. All the illegal activity going on in speakeasies all over the nation. This was a calculated effort by the government to enable them to create a new national law emforcement syndicate, the FBI. The FBI was created with the sole intention of ridding our cities of organized crime and all their activities. It was for public safety you know. Well, organized crime is pretty much a thing of the past and alcohol is not illegal any more so why do we still need the FBI.

Back 1920 women finally got the right to vote and be seen as equal to the opposite male sex, thanks to the passage of the 19th amendment. 

See the government had a problem. They were about to embark on a new way to control the citizens. Using indoctrination in the school system ensuring children will grow up with a great sense of pride and value in the country in which they lived. So great that whatever was asked in the name of freedom and liberty would never be questioned. Well most kids in these times were taught at home by their mothers or grandmothers while the men were off at work. Girls learned how to take care of the home and boys were taught the responsibility of being a man. They needed a way to get them out of the home and into the control grid they had planned so long to deploy. The Rockefeller Family and the DeRothschild family have a great stake in the success of this control system.
They funded Susan B. Anthony and her feminist movement enabling women the rights they deserved. This was great now feeling liberated alot of women went out to seek careers and earn their own way. 

This nearly overnight doubled the tax revenue the government was taking in on a yearly basis due to all the new income taxes being collected by all the new female contributors. It also made it necessary for alot of children to enter the public school system. Where at last they can be molded to their liking.

It is this type of control that is keeping us down. That is keeping us from being truly FREE. 

" the land of the wish we were free, cause I know were all slaves"


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## chief greenleaf (Feb 16, 2010)

Tyrannabudz that^ was a great post man, preach on bruva! 
All of you on here saying that what SLS is doing is ok and theyre just trying to protect the industry must be completely out of your minds! Sunlight Supply is trying to *CONTROL *what products private businesses are selling!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Do you people not understand what that means or what??? Anyone that thinks that this ok or justified should just move to China or Cuba so you can have every aspect of your lives controlled. In a day and age where our rights and freedoms are in constant jepordy of being taken away we have a serious responibility to speak out against this kind of shit!
What SLS is doing is like you owning a record store that gets all its mainstream music from a big time distributor. Then a local band gets extremely popular so you start selling their records that you buy directly from the band. Then your mainstream distributor notices that your customers are buying the local bands records more than the mainstream ones. So they tell you that if you want to continue to carry mainstream music from them you have to stop selling the local bands records even though it would cause you to lose massive amounts of profits.
Does that still sound like a justifiable or understandable practice???
SLS and Hydrofarm have had a successful monopoly over the hydro/indoor industry for years and will stoop to any level to protect that monopoly. AN simply came out with products that were better than those promoted by SLS and its started to cut into their profits and they know it. Now SLS could spend millions on research and development for cannabis specific products but why do that when you can simply strong arm small businesses for free? Next time yall go to a grow shop check out their products, theyll either be SLS or Hydrofarm exclusive 90% of the time. Grow shops never carry both.
Simply stated what SLS is doing goes against everything that a Democracy stands for. And if you honestly think that theyre just trying to protect the industry Ive also got some ocean front property in Ohio for sale, Ill give ya a real good price too!


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## terrorizer805 (Feb 16, 2010)

chief greenleaf said:


> Tyrannabudz that^ was a great post man, preach on bruva!
> All of you on here saying that what SLS is doing is ok and theyre just trying to protect the industry must be completely out of your minds! Sunlight Supply is trying to *CONTROL *what products private businesses are selling!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Do you people not understand what that means or what??? Anyone that thinks that this ok or justified should just move to China or Cuba so you can have every aspect of your lives controlled. In a day and age where our rights and freedoms are in constant jepordy of being taken away we have a serious responibility to speak out against this kind of shit!
> What SLS is doing is like you owning a record store that gets all its mainstream music from a big time distributor. Then a local band gets extremely popular so you start selling their records that you buy directly from the band. Then your mainstream distributor notices that your customers are buying the local bands records more than the mainstream ones. So they tell you that if you want to continue to carry mainstream music from them you have to stop selling the local bands records even though it would cause you to lose massive amounts of profits.
> Does that still sound like a justifiable or understandable practice???
> ...



Unfortunately that's how it is here in america you like or not you live here, you have to look at it from a legal stand point. SLS doesn't want to be a part of something that's illegal, it's bad for business even though probably the majority of customers that buy their products use it for cultivating marijuana, but we can't be sure of that either. They are just trying to be as legit as possible, what AN did was openly announced their products are marijuana specific, well that's fine they're a canada based company ok, But here in america it's still very much illegal on a federal level do you still not understand this. There is no conspiracy here ok. How about you read what Doc111 posted. This is what is threatening hydro dealers to this day if they don't play it safe. I understand why SLS wants to get rid of AN it's a perfectly good reason to, I would to if I was SLS's CEO, I wouldn't want to risk my business due to AN




Read...


*
Operation Green Merchant*






By Ray Boyd - Friday, October 14 2005 Tags: 

The DEA does a nationwide takedown





The DEA believed that _High Times_ magazine, pot seed merchants, indoor pot growers, pot journalists and hydroponics equipment manufacturers were a criminal conspiracy worthy of a nationwide takedown.
Operation Green Merchant was the DEA's comprehensive attempt to destroy pot magazines and hydroponics and indoor marijuana growing industries. To understanding the US government's bizarre attack on this legitimate, multi-faceted industry, realize that DEA ideology brands the hydroponics industry as the indoor marijuana industry, and vice versa.
There are no facts to back up the DEA's assertion that the industries are one in the same. In fact, only a very small portion of hydroponic farmers are marijuana growers. Yet Green Merchant took action against hydroponics storeowners, workers and customers by arresting them for marijuana crimes ? even when there was no evidence they were guilty of any crimes.
One of the best histories of Green Merchant is an article by Jeff Edwards in the Winter 2004 issue of Hydroponic Retailing In the USA. The author is a hydroponic store founder-owner, and also president of the Hydroponic Merchants Association (HMA), an influential trade group.
According to Edwards, in the late 1980's the DEA believed that _High Times_ magazine, pot seed merchants, indoor pot growers, pot journalists and hydroponics equipment manufacturers were a criminal conspiracy worthy of a nationwide takedown.
Using gardening equipment ads in _High Times_ as their roadmap, undercover DEA agents visited hydroponics stores and contacted hydroponics wholesalers, asking for advice and materials for marijuana cultivation.

The DEA subpoenaed United Parcel Service (UPS) delivery records associated with hydroponics stores, getting information on tens of thousands of people suspected of procuring hydro equipment for marijuana growing. Hydroponics retailers were already nervous, noting that Congress started passing laws in 1985 that criminalized otherwise legal products if they were "intended for illegal use."
Most storeowners had already adopted a hard-line policy: they instructed their employees to remove anyone from the store who asked about marijuana. If the person refused to leave, employees were to call the police and have the person arrested for trespassing.
These precautions didn't matter to President George H.W. Bush, who announced a major escalation of the drug war in a Sept. 5, 1989 speech televised from the Oval Office. Under Bush's prodding, DEA agents increasingly visited hydroponics stores, ran surveillance, and gathered information through strongarm tactics and subterfuge. They lied to store employees, posing as bikers, hippies, Vietnam veterans, and medically needy people.
One hydroponics store staffer who was a victim of Green Merchant said DEA agents were "shameless in their deceptions, wearing clandestine recording devices while trying to trick us into having incriminating discussions about marijuana. They offered us women, guns, and money if we'd show them how to grow pot and sell them gear."




*Black Thursday*
Then, on a day known in the hydroponics industry as Black Thursday, October 26, 1989, the DEA in conjunction with dozens of other law enforcement agencies raided hydroponics stores in 46 states, arresting 119 people, seizing several indoor gardening shops and thousands of cannabis plants.
Store owners and employees watched in horror as gun-toting police ransacked their shops. In most cases, no charges were ever filed, but civil asset forfeitures stole millions of dollars worth of inventory from stores and individuals. One cultivation-centered pot magazine, Sensimilla Tips, went out of business, and _High Times_ spent years recovering from the loss of its most lucrative advertisers. Sensimilla Tips publisher Tom Alexander established the magazine The Growing Edge in the aftermath of Operation Green Merchant, where nary a mention of marijuana can be found.
Green Merchant kept rolling long after Black Thursday, roping in hundreds of plants and growers, also corralling Nevil Schoenmakers, the world's first international marijuana seed retailer, whose Holland-based "seed bank" was an early precursor to Marc Emery Seed Sales and dozens of seed retail imitators.
In 1991, DEA agents began serving subpoenas on hydro storeowners, seeking customer addresses and other private information. Agents raided, questioned, and intimidated hundreds of people and organizations, including scientists and NASA's horticultural research facilities. By the end of 1991, Green Merchant had arrested 1,262 people, dismantled 977 indoor grows, and seized $17.5 million in assets. Dozens of people served 4 to 15 year prison terms, many with mandatory minimums that did not allow for sentence reduction.
The Green Merchant scheme backfired on the DEA. The general public and Libertarian politicians heard that innocent hydroponics storeowners had been convicted of marijuana charges solely based on questionable testimony from tainted informants. People found out the DEA entrapped suspects, ruined lives and businesses, and sent harmless people to prison. The DEA came off not as heroic antidrug crusaders, but as Nazis.
*Super Growth*
In 2005, nearly two decades after the horrors of Black Thursday, the hydroponics industry is vibrant and confident, but also wary of more DEA-inflicted trauma. One of the main safety tactics employed by the hydroponics industry is for hydro store owners to ruthlessly avoid any connection with marijuana growers or products designed for marijuana. The basis for such extreme avoidance is a federal law, specifically "21 U.S.C. 863," which defines drug paraphernalia as "any equipment, product, or material of any kind which is primarily intended or designed for use in manufacturing, compounding, converting, concealing, producing, processing, preparing, injecting, ingesting, inhaling, or otherwise introducing into the human body a controlled substance?"
Because the definition of paraphernalia criminalizes innocent items, the law says that "in determining whether an item constitutes drug paraphernalia, in addition to all other logically relevant factors, the following may be considered:
(1) instructions, oral or written, provided with the item concerning its use;
(2) descriptive materials accompanying the item which explain or depict its use;
(3) national and local advertising concerning its use;
(4) the manner in which the item is displayed for sale;
(5) the existence and scope of legitimate uses of the item in the community; and
(6) expert testimony concerning its use.
The government's broad interpretation of this statute formed the basis for the Justice Department's "Operation Pipe Dreams" in 2003, which snared Tommy Chong and many others. The government views inert, otherwise legal materials and objects ? such as glass ? as illegal if they are "intended" for illegal use.
According to hydroponics industry leaders, "some wacko at the DEA" could interpret this law to mean that hydroponics gear advertised in pot magazines is "illegal drug paraphernalia."
Jeff Edwards reflected this concern in his Green Merchant article with this dire warning: "Don't advertise in publications that overtly or covertly appeal to marijuana growers. Avoid at all costs products that are advertised specifically for use in growing marijuana."
Writing in a gardening magazine, another prominent member of the hydroponics industry warned his colleagues: "[You] can see why I get upset when hydroponic manufacturers or retail stores market their products in a 'wink and a nod' manner. And the fact is, you still run a big risk if you market in any way to pot growers. Now, there are those in our industry who don't believe that. They persist in targeting the underground economy, because they think that's the path to success. Others, including myself, think that our industry would be wiser and probably richer in the long run by tapping the $70 billion mainstream gardening market. Again I ask, which side are you on?"
On Internet cultivation forums, in cultivation books, and in the marijuana industry, pot growers network and discuss hydroponics, fertilizers, lighting, C02 units, and other indoor gardening supplies. Of these, cannabis fertilizer is the most plant-specific of all the types of merchandise a hydroponics store sells.
There are about eight major manufacturers and dozens of smaller companies making fertilizer products routinely used by marijuana growers. Among the major players are General Hydroponics, Technaflora, Canna, and Advanced Nutrients.
Most hydroponics manufacturers never mention marijuana in their North American marketing materials; they certainly don't advertise in marijuana magazines. At the same time, some of these same companies or their subsidiaries advertise in European marijuana magazines and at marijuana conventions.
The only major companies in the North American market that openly admit their products are used to grow marijuana are Canna and Advanced Nutrients.
When I asked legit hydroponics insiders to comment on the assertion that fertilizers and other indoor grow products could be considered illegal paraphernalia, most of them adamantly refused to talk on the record.
I contacted Advanced Nutrients at its company headquarters in British Columbia, and spoke to company president Robert Higgins. Initially, Higgins also refused to be interviewed. Later, he gave a brief statement about marijuana-specific advertising, hydroponics stores, and the industry in general.
"Advanced Nutrients are legal products," Higgins said. "Our products work well on all plants because we do solid research and constant upgrading. Medical marijuana growing is legal in Canada for Health Canada licensed patients; we created specialty products for them that work better on medical marijuana than any other products do. I believe everyone in the industry agrees with Advanced Nutrients that marijuana is a plant medicine, and that excellent medical marijuana can be grown hydroponically."
Higgins said he "totally supports" hydroponics retailers and is "just as concerned about their safety as they are.
"I understand why people in the US are afraid of their government, but carrying Advanced Nutrients products won't get them raided," he said. "Plenty of retailers in the US selling our products are having absolutely zero problems. Our industry realizes we need to work together to defend our business rights and the legitimacy of our products and retailers."
Higgins refused comment on Edwards' published advice that hydroponics storeowners should not carry products advertised in marijuana magazines, which until recently were a main venue for Advanced Nutrients' advertising.
A representative of _High Times_ anonymously responded to Edwards, saying, "Green Merchant was the government trying to destroy free speech by going after our advertisers. We're proud to teach people how to grow, use, and lobby for marijuana.
Hydro store owners make a stand for freedom by refusing to be intimidated by the drug war. There's nothing to be ashamed of for growing pot, providing help to growers, selling hydroponics equipment, or being in a weed magazine."
*Better Safe than Sorry?*
Barry is a hydroponics store owner in California. His store sells fans, fertilizers, grow lights, gardening books and other equipment. He earns enough to have a "middle class existence", and employs four other people.
He's been in business seven years; every year, sales have increased. His marijuana policy: neither the substance nor the topic is found on premises. If a customer so much as hints at being a pot grower, Barry bans them.
Barry drug tests his employees. If they test positive, or otherwise violate his marijuana policies, he fires them.
"Green Merchant is how extreme the government can get ? they'll bust you even if you have zero contact with marijuana," he complains. "As far as my store is concerned, to my knowledge nobody who buys our products uses them for marijuana. Not even legal medical marijuana. We don't have marijuana in our lives, period. However, given that they can bust you even if you aren't doing anything associated with marijuana, I often wonder what's the use of taking precautions."
Barry's store carries several types of fertilizers, among them Advanced Nutrients.
"I hesitated to carry Advanced," he confesses, "because their marketing was tied to medical marijuana. A lot of customers demanded it. It sells well. Sure, sales reps for other nute companies warn Advanced is gonna get me popped. I was concerned enough to have my lawyer contact the DEA and my Congressman. The DEA tells him it's got no intent of busting my store unless I am actively and knowingly assisting marijuana growers, which I am not. The Congressman says there's no political will or funding to do another Green Merchant, and probably never will be."
While we're speaking, a 60-something woman comes in asking what she needs to buy so she can have a small, indoor garden for orchids and other legal exotic plants.
Barry shows her a self-contained ebb and flow rack system that contains pump, reservoir, tubing, volcanic rock, fittings, an Advanced Nutrients starter kit, a frame and an adjustable height 250 watt HPS light. It was a small purchase, just under $790, and seemed 100 percent legitimate.
When I asked Barry if the lady was a "typical customer," he just smiled.
*Regulation Blues*
There are clouds on the horizon. Police and politicians in Southern Australia recently proposed a law that would investigate and register hydroponics store owners and operators, similar to the way pawn shops and alcohol stores are licensed in the United States. The proposed law requires hydroponics customers to provide identification, address information and "end user certificates" to stores, and requires stores to divulge customer information to police.
In March, Paul Nadeau, head of the RCMP's marijuana enforcement team in British Columbia, said the Mounties are drafting a new grow shop bylaw that authorities could use to regulate hydroponics stores, much like pawn shops. Customers would have to provide picture identification; stores would be required to give police access to customer purchases.
"There's absolutely no doubt in our minds that these stores cater to people who grow marijuana," Nadeau said. "The people who are growing marijuana, they're using these stores. It's not gardeners." In the US, lawmakers threatened to regulate the commercial fertilizer industry because some components can be precursors for methamphetamine or bombs. The fertilizer industry responded by offering to help police stop such materials from being used illegally in California.
Barry says his wife and family ask him to "get out of the business," but he sees it as "my duty as a citizen to stand up to the government for my right to help people grow plants."
"What's this leading to?" he wonders. "They're telling us what plants to grow, what fertilizers we can use and sell. Based on probable harm or intent? I look at their scare tactics as a business crime and a human rights crime. I won't bow to it." Other hydroponics enthusiasts have admittedly bowed to it. Like a 50-year-old veteran hydroponicist I spoke to, one of many whose life was virtually destroyed during the Green Merchant pogrom. He's thankful to have a safer job now, but says he's lost the inner fire that once made him an advocate for hydroponics and marijuana legalization.
"Now, I am like most Americans: just trying to get along until I die," he ruefully admits. "They have beaten me down and I have submitted. Until you realize they will break the law to take somebody down, you just don't understand. They are criminals with badges and will do whatever they want to do."


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## aeroman (Feb 17, 2010)

That's just silly.

IF (and this is a big if) selling Advanced Nutrients alone were enough to get people thrown in jail they'd attack Advanced Nutrients itself.

And even if they did attack the people selling Advanced Nutrients that only hurts the shop owners. Granted, enough of that will start hurting Sunlight Supply but it won't really threaten their profits.


Ever notice that aisle in the grocery store that sells PCP, cocaine, and assault rifles? No?

Probably because if the grocery store tried to sell those things they'd get busted in a big way.


IF selling Advanced Nutrients was a crime hydro shops wouldn't sell it. Period.


Sunlight Supply doesn't need to take any action to stop Advanced Nutrients if all they're trying to do is save themselves. The only reason to do it is just to drive AN out of business, and then only because they can't find a way to make a better product for a better price.

It's just petty. It's not altruism and it's not self-preservation.

They're simply being predatory.


Personally I'll support the company who supports what I believe in. Advanced Nutrients is forward thinking enough to believe that their best interest lies with mine - legalization. They're not trying to strong arm small businesses and they're not happy to see criminalization of marijuana continue unabated.


Those other businesses need to get with the times. Sooner or later we'll win the battle. Prohibition doesn't work, and our victory will come. But I for one will remember which people stood on which side of that line, and which ones didn't take a stand at all.


For or against it, I can respect that. Being a wishy-washy profiteer... that's just spineless.


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## laserbrn (Feb 18, 2010)

aeroman said:


> That's just silly.
> 
> IF (and this is a big if) selling Advanced Nutrients alone were enough to get people thrown in jail they'd attack Advanced Nutrients itself.
> 
> ...


Well said and I can respect that perspective. I didn't really think of it from that angle, but it's interesting.

I know it's not about "self-preservation" as they state. If I own a hydro store and one of my vendors comes along like SLS and says that I can't carry AN anymore I'm dropping SLS if it comes to it. SLS makes plenty of money off of the marijuana cultivation business and while they try to keep it "hush hush" sorta speak it really is just predatory to make this kind of ultimatum. I'm not going to bother boycotting SLS, if this letter isn't an empty threat they won't be around selling lights anyway. Nothing to boycott. Stores aren't going to stop selling the #1 marketed, most soft after products on the market.


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## hugetom80s (Mar 27, 2010)

laserbrn said:


> Well said and I can respect that perspective. I didn't really think of it from that angle, but it's interesting.
> 
> I know it's not about "self-preservation" as they state. If I own a hydro store and one of my vendors comes along like SLS and says that I can't carry AN anymore I'm dropping SLS if it comes to it. SLS makes plenty of money off of the marijuana cultivation business and while they try to keep it "hush hush" sorta speak it really is just predatory to make this kind of ultimatum. I'm not going to bother boycotting SLS, if this letter isn't an empty threat they won't be around selling lights anyway. Nothing to boycott. Stores aren't going to stop selling the #1 marketed, most soft after products on the market.


I don't know, after seeing the latest video Advanced Nutrients put out on this, the one that talks about the illegal stuff going on involving the RICO Act, it seems possible at least that these big companies have got enough of a stranglehold on some hydro shops to coerce them to do pretty much whatever they say.

If your shop is how you put food on the table and someone could kill your business if you don't jump when they say frog you aren't left with a lot of options.


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## laserbrn (Mar 27, 2010)

hugetom80s said:


> I don't know, after seeing the latest video Advanced Nutrients put out on this, the one that talks about the illegal stuff going on involving the RICO Act, it seems possible at least that these big companies have got enough of a stranglehold on some hydro shops to coerce them to do pretty much whatever they say.
> 
> If your shop is how you put food on the table and someone could kill your business if you don't jump when they say frog you aren't left with a lot of options.


I know that my local hydro store has no intention of discontinuing the sale of AN. They would much rather drop SLS if it comes down to it. I think AN is being a bit irresponsible here, but with more and more states going legal for medical marijuana they have an actual legal market to appeal to.


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## doc111 (Mar 27, 2010)

hugetom80s said:


> I don't know, after seeing the latest video Advanced Nutrients put out on this, the one that talks about the illegal stuff going on involving the RICO Act, it seems possible at least that these big companies have got enough of a stranglehold on some hydro shops to coerce them to do pretty much whatever they say.
> 
> If your shop is how you put food on the table and someone could kill your business if you don't jump when they say frog you aren't left with a lot of options.


This is so true. Operation Green Merchant is still fresh in the minds of many hydro shop owners. Even if the state has legalized MMJ it's still illegal under federal law. I agree with what Big Mike is doing in principle, but he is potentially causing problems for the entire industry and growers as well. 



laserbrn said:


> I know that my local hydro store has no intention of discontinuing the sale of AN. They would much rather drop SLS if it comes down to it. I think AN is being a bit irresponsible here, but with more and more states going legal for medical marijuana they have an actual legal market to appeal to.


Again, it may be legal under state laws but it's still totally illegal under federal law. If anybody remembers Operation Green Merchant it was pretty bad. A lot of companies went out of business and a lot of growers went to jail. It nearly wiped out the entire hydroponics industry. Many of the companies that survived had all of their merchandise confiscated and had to pay tens of thousands of dollars to get their stuff back. I long for the day that we don't have to worry about prosecution at all but as long as it's illegal under federal law we are all at risk.


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## SpaceCadet007 (Sep 9, 2014)

wow...

the stupidity of humans never ends...

I manage a hydroponic retail store that deals with Bloomington, instead of Sunlight. My info isn't partial. I came across this thread and was curious; so I decided to contact the Sunlight rep that handles Oregon- I explained what I read and he began to laugh. He denied the request/threat was ever made... also stated that pretty much every single retail store (in the US) that they supply carries Advanced Nutrients and the margins and demand for the product keeps the retailers very happy. He also stated that he recommended that it would be a good choice to carry advanced to drive more traffic to the retail stores. 

that should sum it up for you guys.


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## Canna Guy (Dec 26, 2017)

Tyrannabudz said:


> Friday I received an e-mail from the Inner Circle Growers Club. They send me tips about growing and developments in the hydroponic marketplace. The e-mail was about the CEO of Sunlight Supply. Craig Hargreaves is his name. If you are not aware Sunlight Supply and their wholesale distribution company National Garden Wholesale sell hydro equipment and lights to hydro stores. Which of course they in turn offer to the public. So it is obvious that without a wholesale distributor the hydro store would not be able to offer the products that they do.
> 
> Now to the real story. It turns out that the CEO of Sunlight Supply made some phone calls to some of the hydro stores that they deal with in Washington state
> urging them to boycott Advanced Nutrients products. If the store owner choses not to comply he would risk losing his account with National Garden Wholesale. They are also requiring store owners have their customers sign a waiver stating that they will not use the product for illegal purposes. The motivation behind the boycott of Advanced Nutrients is the fact that they come right out and say that the nutrients they make are specifically designed for growing Cannabis. The good ol' boys club as they are now known as (Sunlight Supply & Hydrofarm) saw to it that Advanced was prohibited from participating in an indoor gardening expo that took place in San Francisco. Truth is there is not any hydro equipment manufacturer or nutrient company that has done more for the medical cannabis community than Advaced Nutrients. Donating equipment, nutrients and their own personal expertise in setting up medical gardens for indigent Canadian cannabis patients. They have a special permit with the Bulgarian gov't allowing them to grow Cannabis for R&D of their products. No other nutrient company does this for us, only Advanced Nutrients. All Sunlight supply has done is take our money, and now they are trying to dictate what products hydro store owners can offer. Sunlight supply does not want you to know how effective Advanced Nutrients products are because they know you will never buy their tomato and cucumber nutrients again. It is time we stood up to these executives and show them where their power comes from, us the growers. They seem to be confused about who shops at the hydro stores it isn't vegetable farmers, Craig.
> ...


Just an FYI, I have no dog in the fight here. But I am an independent rep for several large companies that utilize Sunlight supply. I also talk with Craig a couple times a year. Sunlight’s biggest pain is the Hawthorne group. GH and Biotanicare as well as Gavita are the rebel’s here.They sell direct and don’t care. Sunlight doesn’t care much about stores practices. But they are big into their own private labeling program.


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## Lucky Luke (Dec 26, 2017)

old old thread....


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